RateBeer announced the winners of their annual RateBeer Best awards last night. The popular beer rating website has been giving out annual craft beer wards for 17 years, using the millions of reviews that users submit to their site to pick the 50 best breweries in the world. To reach the conclusions for this year’s RateBeer Best awards, they considered 10 million individual reviews of beers that came from almost 31,000 breweries spread across six different continents (sadly, no beers from Antarctica were reviewed this year). Even with that vast geographic spread, all of the breweries in the top 10 this year are from the US. RateBeer founder Joe Tucker and Portland-based beer guru Ezra Johnson-Greenough announced the winners last night from River Pig Saloon in Portland in a Facebook live event.
This year, Hill Farmstead Brewery took the top spot, which probably isn’t much of a shocker if you’re paying attention. The Vermont-based brewery is best known for their series of beers named after founder Shaun Hill’s ancestors, like the imperial pale ale Abner, and the stout Earl. Hill Farmstead has been a favorite of beer aficionados for years, and they have a shocking number of beers with a score of 100 on RateBeer. The brewery seems to be equally as adept in making saisons and stouts as they are in making hoppy pales and IPAs. If you really want to geek out on what’s happening at Hill Farmstead, check out our interview with its founder, where he names his favorite non-Hill Farmstead brew.
Here’s a quick look at the top 10 breweries in the world according to RateBeer. And you can see a full list of the winners here.
1) Hill Farmstead Brewery, Greensboro, Vermont
2) Russian River Brewing, Santa Rosa, California
3) Trillium Brewing Company, Boston, Massachusetts
4) Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, Florida
5) Tree House Brewing, Charlton, Massachusetts
6) AleSmith Brewing Company, San Diego, California
7) Toppling Goliath Brewing Company, Decorah, Iowa
8) Three Floyds Brewing Company, Munster, Indiana
9) New Glarus Brewing Company, New Glarus, Wisconsin
10) Side Project Brewing, Maplewood, Missouri