A trend that has been around in journalism for a long time, but which really took off with the advance of the internet is the list article – or “listicle” as they are sometimes called.
We writers almost all have done them. I certainly have, although I don’t necessarily love the format in most cases. But people seem to like to read them, and they are usually pretty easy to digest.
Of course the end of any year sees scads of these types of pieces, largely ones that list the “best” (whatever) of the year – be it albums, films or, of course, beers.
I recently came across a few of these and would like to address the flaws of two of them – which basically will point up why I try to never write “best of” listicles myself. They’re obviously totally subjective and also a ripe opportunity for becoming a target of some head-shaking scold like me.
One list I saw was VinePair’s “Top 10 beers of 2020 according to UnTappd.” This one had red flags all over it to start with. UnTappd is a site where random people “check in” with whatever beer they’re currently drinking at any given moment. There is nothing wrong with that as a fun pastime for beer drinkers. But it’s hardly a database for making any kind of list that means anything.
It’s basically an unscientific aggregation of data about scattershot drinking trends by whoever happens to decide to upload their information. This is why the Top 10 beers were these:
1. Guinness Draught — Guinness
2. Punk IPA — BrewDog
3. Corona Extra — Grupo Modelo
4. IPA – Lagunitas Brewing Company
5. Heineken — Heineken
6. Elvis Juice — BrewDog
7. Tripel Karmeliet — Brouwerij Bosteels
8. Miller Lite — Miller Brewing Co.
9. Stella Artois — Stella Artois
10. Hazy Little Thing — Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
The list reads like a snowball fight between craft beer aficionados and drinkers of big industrial brands. (“Guinness? Are you kidding? Just for that, I’m listing Punk IPA from the fanatics at BrewDog!” “Oh, yeah, well try this Corona on for size, Mr. Beer Snob!”)
But I guess if you want to go by the metric of the top brews listed randomly by random folks on UnTappd, have at it. I’ll pass.
The other list that stuck in my craw was pretentiously titled, “The 25 Most Important IPAs Right Now, Ranked.”
First, I’m not sure how one determines what makes an IPA “important,” and second, these are supposedly important “right now,” yet the list contains a bunch of beers that certainly played a part in the current dominance of the IPA category along the way, but I’m not sure they are as “important” (again, whatever that means) right now.
For example, Tree House Brewing’s Julius is a selection that few would argue with. And although it’s certainly not new, it’s a lot newer than, say, Lagunitas IPA, which has been around since 1993. (Julius was first released in 2012, if memory serves.)
So while Lagunitas is a fine IPA and certainly can be included on this list, there are others on this list that seem a little less deserving. And a few of them are absolutely less deserving than Stone IPA, which was and still is a great IPA and one that remains hugely popular. I can see maybe leaving it off a list if you’re only mentioning newer beers, but it is certainly as “important” as half the beers on this list.
Stone IPA gets a score of 94 on Beer Advocate, which calls it, “one of the most well respected and best-selling IPAs in the country.” I’d say that’s pretty important, no matter how you define the word.
Maybe someday I’ll do a column on “Top 10 Worst Beer Lists.”
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January 03, 2021 at 05:15PM
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Beer Nut: “Best beer’ lists can drive you to drink - MassLive.com
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