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With an over abundance of excellent breweries and tons of data I'll forgive any of these lists (top breweries, top beers, best cities etc) for introducing some

With an over abundance of excellent breweries and tons of data I'll forgive any of these lists (top breweries, top beers, best cities etc) for introducing some form of bias. It's inevitable. One flaw I will take issue with in the 'microbrew capital' list is that it's somewhat irrelevant when you take into account distribution. Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist will make anyone's top ten yet they are not in catchment for Burlington VT. I'm also truly surprised not to see Boston show up anywhere on this list no matter how I tweak the inputs. There are multiple dozens of breweries within the metro area. Without question, Portland ME is a mecca. But MA & VT cities don't seem to make the cut while clearly over representing in the 'top' lists? I'll take this list with a pinch of Irish Moss to damp it down a little. Here's one of the more compelling brewery reports I've seen recently http://flowingdata.com/2015/10/26/top-brewery-road-trip-routed-algorithmically/ http://flowingdata.com/2015/10/26/top-brewery-road-trip-rout...

pyk 10y ago
Boston is not surprising to me. As a Boston resident when I visit other major metropolitan areas they are exceeding Boston in microbrews and brewpubs, very likely due to cheaper real estate and maybe easier to navigate regulation. Minneapolis is a great comparison, lots of breweries and tap rooms relatively speaking vs. Boston.
cmurphycode 10y ago
I had the same reaction about Boston, and decided to look a little closer. I am not sure how the city selection works. Tree House is more than 50 miles from Boston, so it doesn't get included. But if you move the selector to 1+ breweries and 50 miles, then Treehouse shows up, under Chicopee, MA. Which is an interesting choice, because Treehouse is less than 50 miles from Worcester, which is also less than 50 miles from Trillium (although barely), which would certainly show up. So, maybe there are some details around the "grouping" that aren't clear. Maybe the brewery gets "pinned" to the closest city with more than 40K people? it's also quite unclear how he used the Ratebeer data. "Data from RateBeer. Only breweries with 3+ beers that were reviewed 10+ times and 50+ total reviews were included. Restricted each brewery to its top 10 beers by review count (which accounted for greater than 90% of all reviews)." And yet Santa Rosa, his primary example, lists the breweries Bear Republic Cooperage Fogbelt Henhouse Moonlight ...but not Russian River?! It's pretty obvious that Russian River is better rated than Bear Republic, especially by his extended criteria. So, yeah, I guess I'd like to see his data and code.

pyk 10y ago

Boston is not surprising to me. As a Boston resident when I visit other major metropolitan areas they are exceeding Boston in microbrews and brewpubs, very likely due to cheaper real estate and maybe easier to navigate regulation. Minneapolis is a great comparison, lots of breweries and tap rooms relatively speaking vs. Boston.

cmurphycode 10y ago

I had the same reaction about Boston, and decided to look a little closer. I am not sure how the city selection works. Tree House is more than 50 miles from Boston, so it doesn't get included. But if you move the selector to 1+ breweries and 50 miles, then Treehouse shows up, under Chicopee, MA. Which is an interesting choice, because Treehouse is less than 50 miles from Worcester, which is also less than 50 miles from Trillium (although barely), which would certainly show up. So, maybe there are some details around the "grouping" that aren't clear. Maybe the brewery gets "pinned" to the closest city with more than 40K people? it's also quite unclear how he used the Ratebeer data. "Data from RateBeer. Only breweries with 3+ beers that were reviewed 10+ times and 50+ total reviews were included. Restricted each brewery to its top 10 beers by review count (which accounted for greater than 90% of all reviews)." And yet Santa Rosa, his primary example, lists the breweries Bear Republic Cooperage Fogbelt Henhouse Moonlight ...but not Russian River?! It's pretty obvious that Russian River is better rated than Bear Republic, especially by his extended criteria. So, yeah, I guess I'd like to see his data and code.