American Macro Week: Beer wrap-up

American Macro WeekOkay, 15 beers later and I’ve done all that I can for American Macro Week. I know I’ve missed a bunch more macros; off the top of my head I can think of the Bud Dry and Ice line, Milwaukee’s Best, Natural Light/Ice, Keystone Ice, Busch Light, and a bunch of the various "old" brands Pabst produces. So perhaps I’ll do an American Macro Week II at some point.

(Not even getting into Canadian/European "macros"… Maybe I’ll also do a "Foreign Macro Week.")

So, looking back over my notes for all 15 beers, here’s about how I’d rate them, from best to worst:

  • (tie) Coors Original and Pabst Blue Ribbon
  • Olympia
  • (tie) Icehouse and Miller Genuine Draft
  • Hamm’s
  • Miller High Life
  • Rainier
  • Budweiser Select
  • Budweiser
  • Miller Lite
  • (tie) Bud Light and Keystone Light
  • (tie) Coors Light and Busch

Out of curiosity, I also compared this to how they fared on BeerAdvocate and RateBeer.

BeerAdvocate (best to worst; going by their letter grades, not overall numerical score):

  • Pabst Blue Ribbon
  • Miller High Life
  • Hamm’s
  • Olympia
  • Coors
  • Rainier
  • Miller Genuine Draft
  • Budweiser
  • Icehouse
  • Miller Lite
  • Budweiser Select
  • Busch
  • Coors Light
  • Keystone Light
  • Bud Light

RateBeer (best to worst):

  • Rainier
  • Pabst Blue Ribbon
  • Hamm’s
  • Olympia
  • Coors
  • Miller High Life
  • Miller Genuine Draft
  • Icehouse
  • Miller Lite
  • Budweiser
  • Budweiser Select
  • Coors Light
  • Keystone Light
  • Busch
  • Bud Light

Looking over both of these lists, the big winners among the brewers (except for all the "Light" beers; they’re all at the bottom of the list) are Pabst and Miller (with Coors Original being the exception). A-B ranks generally last.

See also: my Beer Hacker article from almost two years ago.

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