It may surprise you (or not) that the largest beverage company in the world isn’t Coca-Cola or Pepsi, it’s AB-InBev. It may surprise you that 27 of the top 100 beverage companies are beer companies. Or that a lot of the microbreweries we love like Dogfish Head are actually among the top 100 largest beverage companies in the world.

I thought it would be interesting to pull the beer ones out of the list and show you how the beer companies rank among the Top 100 beverage companies for 2010. The list below shows the company name, their rank on the list, their location, their 2010 revenues and their top beer.

Beer Company Rankings for 2010

* Estimated 2010 Sales

Dissecting the list, I find some interesting things:

• Craft breweries are still small businesses. You’ve got a very tight cluster of craft breweries in the $20 to $30 million revenue range (though most of those are estimated). Only about 7 or 8 companies that we’d consider “craft beer” make more than that $30 million mark.
• Distribution is king. The difference in the $20 to $30 million companies and the $100 million+ companies? It’s not quality of the product. It’s distribution. Most of the companies at the bottom of the list are still regional players. Granted many of them are expanding but very few are available in all regions. Why? A mix of factors. Total volume they can produce. Wanting to stay small. Not having the distribution infrastructure. Not having the capital to mass produce. Making beers that are near impossible to mass produce. Wanting to keep it fun by not focusing only on revenue. Lots of reasons, but at the end of the day the biggest beverage companies are the ones that own the distribution channel.
• The companies are really spread out. It’s great to see that no single region really dominates the list. From the West Coast to the Midwest to the South to the East Coast and all the way to Alaska we’ve got great craft breweries pretty much anywhere you are (or within a few hundred miles of you).
• It’s a great time to be into good beer. About 1/6 of the top beverage companies in the world are craft beer companies, many of which didn’t exist a decade ago. If you like drinking craft beer there’s no better time than now for variety and style. If you like making craft beer now is a great time to do that. Craft beer continue to grow and it’s still only about 5% of the total beer sold. It should only continue to increase. If you’re passionate about making beer you can succeed – the names on the list are the proof in the pudding.

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the last of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. This is the last episode we’ll be posting.

The Best of the British

Plot: Jackson visits the granddaddy of all beer festivals, the Great British Beer Festival in England. Along the way he stops by the legendary Bateman’s brewery for some background and great beer, and details their struggle for survival that almost wasn’t successful.

The Best of the British Part 1:

The Best of the British Part 2:

The Best of the British Part 3:

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the fifth of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. We’ll be posting the last episode later this week.

California Pilgrimage

Plot: Here you’ll accompany Jackson on a tour of the Anchor Brewing facility in San Francisco and explore the history of the company and lots of commentary from Anchor’s founder Fritz Maytag. A trip to the barley fields is included to see where beer comes from, and there are (naturally) a few brewery pit stops along the way.

California Pilgrimage Part 1:

California Pilgrimage Part 2:

California Pilgrimage Part 3:

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the fourth of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. We’ll be posting new episodes twice weekly for the rest of July.

Our Daily Beer

Plot: In the home country of Heineken, Jackson focuses on the smaller, traditional Trappist brewers and the upstart small brewers. Here we get an interesting glimpse into traditional monastic life and brewing.

Our Daily Beer Part 1:

Our Daily Beer Part 2:

Our Daily Beer Part 3:

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the third of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. We’ll be posting new episodes twice weekly for the rest of July.

The Bohemian Connection

Plot: Jackson visits another of the world’s classic brewing countries, the Czech Republic, for a tour of the brewery where the original Pilsner, Urquell, is brewed. Other stops include U Fleku, the ancient Czech Brewpub famous for its spicy dark lager, and Budweiser Budvar.

The Bohemian Connection Part 1:

The Bohemian Connection Part 2:

The Bohemian Connection Part 3:

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the second of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. We’ll be posting new episodes twice weekly for the rest of July.

The Fifth Element

Plot: A trip to Bavaria gives us a background on wheat beers and the Reinheitsgebot, or German beer purity law of 1516. A visit to the famed Kaltenberg brewery of Prince Luitpold of Bavaria is also in order, and the process behind brewing the delightful local specialties Rauchbier (smoked beer) and Steinbier (stone beer) are also on tap. Jackson is also on hand for the tapping of the first ceremonial keg that commences Oktoberfest in Munich.

The Fifth Element Part 1:

The Fifth Element Part 2:

The Fifth Element Part 3:

All the videos are on YouTube, but I found it hard to scavenge around finding the bits and pieces, as each episode is broken up into 3 parts. So what I’ve done is assemble the parts together by episode, so you can watch an episode all on one page. Credit for finding the YouTube videos goes to our beer pal Scott over at The Brew Club and credit for the episode titles and plot summaries goes to OVGuide.

Here is the first of the six episodes. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. We’ll be posting new episodes twice weekly for the rest of July.

The Burgundies of Belgium

Plot: The first episode in the series takes us to Belgium for an examination of the wonderful and idiosyncratic beer styles indigenous to that country. We’ll see just how the spontaneously fermented lambic is made, and attend a beer dinner consisting of dishes like filet of cod in a sabayon of Brugse Tripel beer and served with hop shoots and accompanied by Duvel ale. Sound appetizing? Save room for the wild rabbit simmered in Liefman’s Goudenband brown ale with a glass of Rodenbach Grand Cru.

The Burgundies of Belgium Part 1:

The Burgundies of Belgium Part 2:

The Burgundies of Belgium Part 3:

Top Craft Beer Brands 2010:

1. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (unchanged from 2009)
2. Sam Adams Seasonal (up from #3 in 2009)
3. Sam Adams Boston Lager (down from #2 in 2009)
4. New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale (unchanged from 2009)
5. Shiner Bock (unchanged from 2009)
6. Sam Adams Variety Pack (up from #7 in 2009)
7. Widmer Hefeweizen (down from #6 in 2009)
8. Sierra Nevada Seasonal (up from #9 in 2009)
9. Sam Adams Light (down from #8 in 2009)
10. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA (not listed in 2009)

The BeerFathers Notes on Top Craft Beer Brands:

• Craft beer, as a whole, continues a healthy growth pattern. Craft beer category sales were up 14.6% for the year, eclipsing last year’s 12% category growth. Compare that to beer as a whole, which had only a 0.6% increase over 2009. We’re getting there folks.
• Widmer Hefeweizen and Sam Adams Light were the only two beers on the list that had a decrease in dollar sales from last year.
• Number 10 on the list, Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, had sales growth of 141.2% for the year. Wow. I think IPAs are hitting Americans right in their sweet bitter spot.
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, number one on the list, accounts for about 8% of the total craft beer market sales. Again, wow.
• The lumping of seasonals together, though understandable, really clutters the list. It goes to show though that taken as a whole, the seasonals thing really works for both Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada. You get the benefits of mass market scarcity to stimulate demand, which is kind of a cool thing. Some of our favorite sessionable beers are the seasonals.
• It’s so good to see Shiner Bock holding strong at #5. I was in Austin, TX recently and had a bucket o’ Shiners and man they sure hit the spot.

Top Imported Beer Brands 2010:

1. Corona Extra (unchanged from 2009)
2. Heineken (unchanged from 2009)
3. Modelo Especial (unchanged from 2009)
4. Corona Light (up from #5 in 2009)
5. Tecate (down from #4 in 2009)
6. Labatt Blue (up from #7 in 2009)
7. Labatt Blue Light (not listed in 2009)
8. Dos Equis XX Lager Especial (unchanged from 2009)
9. Stella Artois Lager (unchanged from 2009)
10. Heineken Premium Light Lager (down from #6 in 2009)

TheBeerFathers Notes on Top Imported Beer Brands:

• Newcastle fell off the list from last year at #10, and they were #7 in 2007. That explains their ramp up in advertising lately – their Newcastle commercials are actually quite great. It’s tough to see them drop off because they were by far the highest rated beer from RateBeer.com on the list with an overall 47 out of 100. Hopefully they can make a strong comeback.
• It’s still surprising to me that Guinness Draught is not on the list. They fell off last year after a #8 ranking in 2007. Shock!
• Heineken. Still a case study in marketing.
• Dos Equis continues to hold strong at #8, riding the strength of their still brilliant commercials featuring The Most Interesting Man in the World.
• The highest rated beer on this list at RateBeer.com is Stella Artois, with an 18 overall. It is a 92 by style though (Euro Trash Lager Pale Lager).

Top Beers by Brand 2010:

1. Bud Light (unchanged from 2009) – 28.5% market share
2. Budweiser (unchanged from 2009) – 11.4% market share
3. Coors Light (unchanged from 2009) – 10.2% market share
4. Miller Lite (unchanged from 2009) – 9.1% market share
5. Natural Light (unchanged from 2009) – 6.0% market share
6. Busch Light (up from #7 in 2009) – 4.0% market share
7. Busch (up from #8 in 2009) – 3.6% market share
8. Miller High Life (up from #10 in 2009) – 2.7% market share
9. Keystone Light (not listed in 2009) – 2.6% market share
10. Natural Ice (not listed in 2009) – 1.9% market share

The BeerFathers Notes on Top Beers by Brand:

• Last year, Corona and Heineken were incorrectly listed as domestics, which messed with the integrity of the list. The mistake is corrected now, and I can’t say that the list has integrity at all. But that does explain the movement towards the bottom of the list.
• Budweiser dipped right below 40% of the market, coming in at 39.9% this year. Still the most dominant beer brand in the world.
• Anheuser-Busch now owns 55.4% of the US beer market. Up from 53.4% last year and 41.8% in 2007. Behemoth.
• There’s only 3 separate companies that own the 10 beers on this list, two if you count MillerCoors together.
• The highest rated beer on the list at RateBeer.com? Only one is not rated a 0 out of 100. Can you guess which one? We couldn’t either. It’s Miller High Life, with a 1 out of 100.
• That is depressing. Seriously.

We were curious how our beer ratings distribution looked when presented graphically – was it a bell-shaped curve? So we present you with The BeerFathers Official Beer Ratings Distribution Chart as of March 2011 – 137 beers in to this magnificent beer journey. It shows on the X axis the ratings from 0 to 10 and on the Y axis the number of beers for a particular rating.

Yeah – not exactly a bell-shaped curve. Well, maybe a drunk bell. Or a pretty awesome roller coaster. But it goes to show that the majority of our beers are somewhere near the middle of the pack. It also shows that perhaps we tend to seek out beers we think we’ll rate highly – something we’ve probably been more guilty of lately. Either way – it’s a chart about beer. And we’ll drink to that.

We’ve identified a handful of beer and movie pairings that make perfect sense. Some prominently feature the beer in the movie, others fit the theme of the movie, even if the movie doesn’t feature beer. You’ll probably want a six pack of whatever is listed to fully immerse yourself into these films:

• Dazed and Confused – Natural Light
• The Firm – Red Stripe
• An American in Paris – Kronenbourg 1664
• Urban Cowboy – Lone Star
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner - Yuengling Black & Tan
• Smokey and the Bandit – Coors

Are there any other beer and movie pairings you can think of that you’d like to add? Add you comments and help us build out the ultimate beer and movie pairings list!

First, “I Am A Craft Brewer” by Greg Koch of Stone Brewing and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media:

(Watch I Am A Craft Brewer at Vimeo)

And secondly, “I Am A Craft Beer Drinker” by Stephen Johnson, John Holzer and New Brew Thursday:

(Watch I Am A Craft Beer Drinker at Vimeo)

Enjoy. Cheers to good beer!

Tell us what you don’t like about beer in general or specifically about whatever beer someone gave you to try that turned you off beer forever.

What we’ll do is offer up two recommendations:

1. One will be our best recommendation of a specialty craft beer from our experience of drinking hundreds and hundreds of craft beers.
2. The other will be our best recommendation of a more common beer that is widely available mass market style that you should be able to find in most grocery stores.

Now for your part don’t hide behind “I don’t like the taste” – that’s not going to help us guide you anywhere. Tell us what beer(s) you’ve tried and be as specific as you can about why it didn’t take – “I didn’t like it because it was too sweet” or “It was too bitter” or “It tasted like corn” – statements like this will help us help you. Also if you can tell us what you do like in other drinks – if you like coffee or chocolate or mixed fruity drinks or sweet whiskey, etc. You can even tell us if there are certain foods you like better than others. That will help us get you to a beer that suits your tastes.

So if you don’t like the taste of beer, this is your chance – think of it as a “Stump the Chumps” ala Car Talk. We feel confident we can find you two beers you’ll like. Leave your comments below and we’ll take care of the rest.

So, what are you coming home with? What’s your go-to beer?

Obviously the big deal in 2010 for us was the rebranding of the site from Dr. Beer Love to The BeerFathers – that was a good move for us for a lot of reasons, most of which we outlined in our post explaining why we made the name change.

Our previous life in beer post, which should have happened in 2009, actually was in 2008. Needless to say we’re a bit overdue. As always, the reason for this life in beer retrospective is to go back through the past year to see what we learned, what we liked and how we grew. So here are our thoughts on our life in beer in 2010 (note: these beers were new to us in 2010, not necessarily new beers that came out in those years):

• Best New Beer Style of 2010: Gueze Lambic
  When The BeerFathers smelled their first gueze lambic they had a Dr. Cox style reaction (from Scrubs) – “I’m gagging and vomiting at the same time… I’m… I’m gavomiting!”

  However, when we tasted it we immediately fell in love. Never has something that smelled like sweat socks tasted so fanciful! Gueze lambic, as with all lambics, is a hard addiction though, because lambics just aren’t a cheap beer (starting point of around $5 or $6 a bottle). But if you can find a Gueze, hold off on your next two Starbucks grande latte enemas and get the Gueze. You will not be disappointed.

• Best Beer of 2010: Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout
  This beer has everything in the world we like – bourbon, coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla and a smoothness that is out of this world. It’s little stepbrother, Founders Breakfast Stout, was a great intro, but the KBS, as it’s called, is like the difference between the Yankees and the Mets (meaning there’s more pinstripes). Interestingly the KBS isn’t just the regular Breakfast Stout with more stuff, it’s a completely different beer. It’s everything we look for in a stout, aside from the fact you can only get it during a brief window of the year, like you’re launching a space shuttle. Runner up: Duck Rabbit Rabid Duck.
• Best Non-Stout of 2010: Aventinus Weizen Eisbock
  “Non-stout,” in our year end reviews, is our highbrow way of saying “lager.” Stouts tend to dominate our favorite beer selections so this keeps us grounded and looking for other beers that can hold their own without necessarily being brewed with top-fermenting ale yeast. To that point, the Aventinus Weizen Eisbock joins 2008′s winner, the Aventinus Doppelbock, as our favorite non-stout of the year – by far. Our review, when finished, had 22 aromas and 21 tastes – and this bad boy is a malt lover’s delight. It’s a privilege of a beer to drink and one of the highest rated non-stouts you’ll find on our site. Perhaps we should call this category the “Best Aventinus Beer of the Year.”
• Best Fruited Beer of 2010: Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
  To say the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale is our favorite fruited beer of the year was tough, because we weren’t 100% that pumpkin was a fruit. We did some research and found that it is technically a fruit, in the same way that tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, green beans and bell peppers are also fruits. Have we lost you? Yeah, us too. Turns out if the item in question has seeds it is technically a fruit, in a truly botanical sense of the term. “Vegetable” is not actually a botanical term, it’s more of a culinary term, and is a bit more open to interpretation. So we’ll just say pumpkin is both a fruit and a vegetable (full explanation here). All that being said, the DFH Punkin Ale absolutely blew our socks off. It is perfectly spiced and is probably the finest example of a beer fitting the season it’s brewed for. It just gives us one more reason to look forward to fall. Honorable mention: Founders Cerise.
• Best IPA of 2010: Dogfish Head 120 Minute
  If you’ve met us or read anything we’ve ever written, you know that we’re not really hopheads. We’ve been called everything from malt madmen to malt mavens to malt mofos, but that doesn’t keep us from trying beers we know are hoppy – and there’s no better known hoppy beer than an IPA. This past year we had the chance, thanks to a friend of ours, to try the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA and we were floored when we did. The DFH 90 Minute won in this space in 2008, but when you try the 120 Minute you’ll know what happened with those extra 30 minutes. The ABV comes in at 18% (double the 90 Minute version), which is reason enough to put it here, but there’s a lot more going on with this than an alcohol wallop. The smell is dominated by the hops but the taste is dominated by the malts. We labeled it “a malt lover’s IPA” and we think that about sums it up perfectly. It’s so good we decided to cellar some to try around 2025. If you can get it, get it.
• Best Non-Classifiable Beer of 2010: Dogfish Head Midas Touch
  Every now and then you try one of those beers that really just messes with you and Dogfish Head is really good at coming up with these – ones that push the outer limits of “beer.” The Midas Touch is no exception. It’s based on a 2,700 year old Turkish recipe from the tomb of King Midas and DFH’s web site says it’s somewhere between a wine and a mead. RateBeer calls it a traditional ale, BeerAdvocate calls it an herbed/spiced beer and the bottle calls it a golden elixir. What do we call it? Damn good. It’s got barley, white muscat grapes, honey and safron and it is unlike anything else we’ve tried.
• Best Beer Review of 2010: Beer Float Social
  Yes, we know technically it wasn’t a beer review per se, but we sure had a lot of fun with our Beer Float Social. My wife came up with the idea after seeing it in Southern Living and it was a perfect summer treat for us to experiment with.

Looking back on 2010 it’s easy to see it was a good year for The BeerFathers. We got to continue our mecca towards complete beer enlightenment by trying new stuff and expanding our beer acumen. It was also an epic year for the The BeerFathers web site – despite our lack of updates we’re getting around 9,000 unique visitors a month, so we feel like we continue to help push good beer out to the world. Thanks to everyone for loving the beer with us – here’s to beer in 2011!

• Father Beer Love’s answer: Porter
• Son Beer Love’s answer: Doppelbock
• Your answer? Leave a comment and let us know!

So dad and I set out on planning our ice cream beer float day logistics. Which ice cream? Which beers? Which glasses? The ice cream brand was the easy part – we knew we had to do Blue Bell, but it came down to which flavor? We opted at first for Blue Bell Natural Vanilla Bean, but we quickly found out that Son Beer Love couldn’t find this in his local market in Charlotte, NC (Father Beer Love lives one state over from the Blue Bell headquarters so they actually deliver directly to his house). So we called an audible and went with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla instead, which is the most popular ice cream in Blue Bell’s lineup and with good reason.

Getting ready for the beer floats with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream

Now that we had our ice cream it was onto the beers. At first we thought five beers would be good but then we thought it would be too much (see our infamous Strawberry Beer Menage a Trois for proof that too much good can be no good). “We must be scientific!” we said as we banged our fists on the table, furrowed our brows and made stern faces. So we settled on three beers that we had already rated here on the site – Guinness, Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and Wild Blue. Wild Blue only comes in bottles, but for the others we opted for cans, which as we all know, beats the bottles. We stored them at fridge temperatures as we thought letting the beers warm up to the recommended serving temperature would be counterintuitive to the whole polar ice cream caps melting phenomenon we hear so much about.

Guinness seemed like a natural choice – already a very creamy beer we thought it could only get creamier. Young’s Double Chocolate seemed the most likely candidate to win the whole contest, as it is one of our top sessionable go-to beers. Chocolate and vanilla? Why yes, don’t mind if we do. Wild Blue was a late choice for us but the combination of blueberry and ice cream sounded pretty great – we’re known for having blueberry pie and ice cream in lieu of birthday cake in our household, so why not?

The BeerFathers beer floats poured and ready to be consumed

As our last executive decision we chose snifters for our glassware. This mostly had to do with the fact that we knew we each had three snifters and only had two of most of the other required beer receptacles (goblets, pints, shakers, tulips and weizens being the other state mandated beer glasses). In hindsight the goblets would have been the better choice because of the wider opening, but we’re not complaining.

Now that we had made all our CEO level decisions, it was time for the review. We opted for the Friday before the 4th of July – July 2, 2010. Going into the challenge our hypothesis was that Young’s Double Chocolate would easily be the hands down winner. Yes, we got all scientific method on these beer floats and had a hypothesis. Of course forming a hypothesis was the only step of the scientific method we could remember and we were too lazy to Google “scientific method” to figure out what the real steps were. For our example they will be 1) form a hypothesis, 2) drink beer, 3) jump to conclusions, 4) rinse, 5) repeat.

Father and Son consuming and hypothesizing their beer floats

Father Beer Love did a dry run the evening before to get some “best practices” for the real thing. We came to the conclusion that to avoid the issue of beer foaming you had to pour the beer first, then put the ice cream on top of that. Using this method provided the most scientific results, we felt. In our snifters we wound up pouring in about 4 or 5 ounces of beer and then loading 2 to 3 scoops of ice cream on top of that. Worked great.

Now it should be noted that though we’ll present these notes linearly, we in fact did nothing linear during our test. We’re not even sure what linear means. We would try one beer float, move on to the next, jump to the next, go back to the original, ad infinitum.

We started with Young’s Double Chocolate – our hypothesized winner. Our notes:

• The vanilla ice cream dominates the bite and overpowers the chocolate
• You get a pretty firm kick of bitter on the aftertaste
• Not as enjoyable as we thought it would be
• The “broth” (beer with no ice cream) is not great alone – you need a good amount of ice cream with each bite to tame the bitter edge
• It gets more enjoyable after the ice cream matriculates its way through the glass
• A good trick was to get some beer scooped off the bottom of the glass with each bite

Father and Son continue investigating the beer and ice cream combinations

Next up was Wild Blue, the blueberry beer du jour. Our notes:

• Wow! That really pops!
• The least bitter of all the beers – there is a tiny amount of bitterness in the end, but that’s it
• Great combination of blueberry and vanilla – like a blueberry pie a la mode
• The “broth” is good by itself
• Really, really enjoyable and the 8% ABV of Wild Blue makes it that much better

Father and Son continue their beer ice cream float saga

Last up was Guinness. Our notes:

• Not bad – better than we thought it would be
• It was less bitter than you’d expect, considering it’s Guinness (especially with ice cream in the bite)
• The subtle coffee notes really worked well with the vanilla – quite good!
• More subdued than the Young’s Double Chocolate

Father and Son Beer Love finish up their beer ice cream floats with two bellyaches

Conclusions

Much to our surprise, Young’s Double Chocolate was not the winner. Here’s our final vote:

1. Wild Blue
2. Young’s Double Chocolate
3. Guinness

That’s right, Wild Blue was the outright winner – the fruit and vanilla combination was too much for the other beers. It should be noted that we struggled back and forth on whether Guinness or Young’s Double Chocolate was the outright number two. They were both very good, just not as good as we expected. In the end it was Young’s by a whisker (it got better as the ice cream had more time to work with it). You really can’t go wrong with either of them. Side note: I don’t think my stomach has ever been so full as it has after three beer floats. A definite bellyache of a night, but good nonetheless.

So if you get brave enough to enjoy a beer ice cream float this summer, our recommendations on making it a good experience:

• Get a good, strong vanilla ice cream as your base
• Pour the beer first, then put the ice cream on top
• Use a regular beer pint glass or goblet if you’re going to use authentic beer glasses
• Make sure you put in enough ice cream to have some ice cream in every bite, as the “broth” may not stand well alone
• Scoop off the bottom when you can as the flavors have had more time to meld together
• Fruit beers are good, as are beers with chocolate and coffee notes
• Porters might be better than stouts (just a theory)
• The longer the beer and ice cream co-exist together the better the flavor gets
• It might almost be best to put some ice cream in the beer and let it melt to marry the flavors together first, then load it up with lots of ice cream on top of that to create the smoothest possible beer float

We hope you get to try a beer float this summer – it’s a great change of pace from your normal beer routine and you’ll feel a little giddy doing something naughty like mixing beer and ice cream together. Here’s to summer!

* Special thanks to Wife Beer Love for both the idea of the beer floats and for taking pictures of me and dad during the beer float challenge. And also for being a great wife and mother to our child. And countless other things.

We’re more than happy to oblige, thanks to YouTube. The following are some of The BeerFathers personal favorites – stay thirsty my friends!

Our original Most Interesting Man in the World video:

Even the prepositions:

Our all-time favorite 30 second spot, with the best line in the world about chicken:

Some short 15 seconds ones:

And our all-time favorite 15-second spot, proving less is more:

If you have some more favorite spots send them to us and we’ll get them posted up for you.

Update: June 29, 2010 – 2 new videos:

At museums, he’s allowed to touch the art:

Sharks have a week dedicated to him:

Top Craft Beer Brands 2009:

1. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (unchanged from 2007)
2. Sam Adams Boston Lager (unchanged from 2007)
3. Sam Adams Seasonal (unchanged from 2007)
4. New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale (unchanged from 2007)
5. Shiner Bock (up from #6 in 2007)
6. Widmer Hefeweizen (up from #7 in 2007)
7. Sam Adams Variety Pack (not listed, per se, in 2007, but Sam Adams Brewmaster Collection was #8)
8. Sam Adams Light (down from #5 in 2007)
9. Sierra Nevada Seasonal (not listed in 2007)
10. Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale (not listed in 2007)

The BeerFathers Notes on Top Craft Beer Brands:

• Same as in 2007, Sam Adams gets to lump its collections together, like seasonals and the variety pack, to show up as one brand, which is quite misleading.
• I wonder if you lumped together some of New Belgium’s seasonal offerings like Skinny Dip, 2 Below, etc if they’d show up on this list like the Sam Adams collections do? It’s noted that New Belgium Seasonal sales are up 40% for 2009.
• Though the overall beer category was flat in dollar sales for 2009, the craft beer category was up 12%. Maybe taste does win?
• Hooray for one of our favorites – Shiner Bock – moving up the list to push out Sam Adams Light for the #5 spot!
• Never heard of the Mirror Pond Pale Ale – but congrats for knocking off Pyramid Hefeweizen Ale from the #10 spot in 2007. Substandard hefes have no place on this list, no offense Widmer.

Top Imported Beer Brands 2009:

1. Corona Extra (unchanged from 2007)
2. Heineken (unchanged from 2007)
3. Modelo Especial (up from #6 in 2007)
4. Tecate (unchanged from 2007)
5. Corona Light (down from #3 in 2007)
6. Heineken Premium Light Lager (down from #5 in 2007)
7. Labatt Blue (up from #9 in 2007)
8. Dos Equis XX Lager Especial (not listed in 2007)
9. Stella Artois Lager (not listed in 2007)
10. Newcastle Brown Ale (down from #7 in 2007)

TheBeerFathers Notes on Top Imported Beer Brands:

• Wow! Guinness Draught was knocked completely off the 2007 list (was in #8 spot). Has Guinness lost a bit of it’s luster?
• Heineken continues to prove marketing can overcome all obstacles, including skunky taste.
• We address the Dos Equis rise up the list in a separate post about their spokesperson – The Most Interesting Man in the World.
• The highest rated beer on this list according to RateBeer.com is Newcastle Brown Ale with a 49. No beer on this list is above the 50th percentile and you’d be shocked at the score for the rest of them. Let’s put it this way – Stella Artois, with a 15, is the only other beer on the list that ranks in double digits. One beer on the list is a zero (bonus points if you’re the first to comment with the correct beer that has a zero without looking at RateBeer!). All the single digit beers do have one thing in common though – heavy marketing dollars. Let that be a lesson to you MBA students out there.

Top Beers by Brand 2009:

1. Bud Light (unchanged from 2007) – 28.3% market share
2. Budweiser (unchanged from 2007) – 11.9% market share
3. Coors Light (up from #4 in 2007) – 9.9% market share
4. Miller Lite (down from #3 in 2007) – 9.2% market share
5. Natural Light (up from #6 in 2007) – 6.1% market share
6. Corona Extra (down from #5 in 2007) – 5.3% market share
7. Busch Light (up from #8 in 2007) – 3.7% market share
8. Busch (up from #9 in 2007) – 3.4% market share
9. Heineken (down from #7 in 2007) – 3.3% market share
10. Miller High Life (unchanged from 2007) – 2.7% market share

The BeerFathers Notes on Top Beers by Brand:

• All the same players as 2007 – no new entrants crack the list.
• Budweiser absolutely dominates the brands with over 40% of the market. Pretty incredible.
• Anheuser-Busch owns 53.4% of the US beer market – in 2007 they had 41.8% of it.
• There’s not a single company on this list whose owners are headquartered in the United States.
• The highest rated beer on the list at RateBeer.com? Forget it. Okay, it’s Heineken. It has a 6. Out of 100.
• We think Heineken is rated too high with its 6 out of 100.

Anyway, they mention the Dos Equis spokesperson – the Most Interesting Man in the World. You know who I’m talking about – the guy in those commercials you can’t get enough of who says “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis” like this:

So anyway, I mention beer and the Most Interesting Man in the World because I’ve wondered, as I’m sure most of you have, how exactly this ad campaign has done for Dos Equis. And sure enough, there in print in Beverage Industry magazine, is validation – in 2009 sales of Dos Equis XX Lager Especial went up 27 percent in the U.S. This makes it the number 8 imported beer in the U.S. in 2009 with sales of over $80 million. It wasn’t on the top 10 imported beer list at all in 2008.

The story even mentions, though somewhat opinionated, that Dos Equis could have the most recognizable advertising campaign in the beer industry right now. If you think about it can you think of another beer campaign right now that’s better? I can’t.

In what was a down year for a lot of products in 2009, Dos Equis expanded their U.S distribution, ramped up marketing and made gains as a company. Hats off to you Dos Equis, way to “Stay thirsty, my friend.”

• The Best Beers Overall for 2010
• The Best Beers by Style for 2010
• The Best Beers of the United States for 2010

There are more lists than the ones above, those are just the most interesting ones to us. Check out the entire 2010 Best Beers page for all the other lists (by brewer, by other countries, etc).

By contrast and for those interested here are the BeerAdvocate.com lists of top beers:

• Top Beers on Planet Earth
• Top American Beers
• Top Session Beers

The session beers list is of particular interest. We’ve done lots of the ones on this list – no surprise to see one of our all-time favorite session beers – Young’s Double Chocolate – in the top 15.

Here’s to good beers!