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You know that the craft beer scene is aging fast when “best beer” picks start showing up in publications we didn’t even realize were still around, like the Reader’s Digest.
But it is and they recently ran an article on 19 Beers Every Beer-Lover Has To Try Right Now which was great fun for all the wrong reasons.
Some of you might remember Reader’s Digest as a touchstone to your parent’s (or grandparents) era. Described as family general-interest family magazine they started publishing it way back in 1922.
During its glory years Reader’s Digest was the bestselling mag in America and you couldn’t hit a dental or doctor’s office without finding a well-turned copy in the lobby.
But those days are long gone and it’s been like 20 years since we’ve seen a copy, even though their international circulation evidently remains huge.
It would be snarky to describe Reader’s Digest’s best beer choices as retirement home beers, but we guess we just have, And to be fair not all of them are lame but most of them are RETRO to the max.
When you start your “best beer” list with Bass Pale Ale you get a sense of where this thing’s going. It’s like they checked in on the craft beer movement in 1995 and figured they were done. And their craft beer picks run the gamut from acceptable to totally WTF!
New Glarus Spotted Cow was one of their more informed picks (yes it’s dated but it’s still a great beer). Sierra Nevada’s sometimes sorely overlooked Pale Ale was also included so we’ve got to give Readers Digest that.
But three Boston Beer additions, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Blackberry Witbier and their Winter Lager, to an international “best beer” list with only 19 titles….really?
Again this is a best beer list circa 1995…
Internationally we think Reader’s Digest ranking fared somewhat better…
We can’t quibble with their choice of Orval it’s a Belgian classic and a beer we search out when we’re in Europe. And Lindemans Framboise is a great Lambic that’s certainly list-worthy. But Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout although decent is hardly groundbreaking.
International favorites like Guinness, Hoegaarden and Stella Artois round out a list of 19 beers they consider necessary (and we have to ask, why not twenty?). And although there’s a time and place for all of those beers, were not sure it would be on any current “essential” beer list… just sayin’.
Magazine credit:Reader’s Digest
