A Considered Reply To The Hottest 100 2017

Yay Hottest 100 beer and music time again, when everyone gets up on their high horse about whatever terrible taste they have. Like “omg a rap song and a pale ale are popular this is outrageous”.

Once again the major beer players stepped up with some really good content around the event. Crafty Pint has analysis and infographics while Australian Brews News did some amazing live crosses with brewers and luminaries, all from the eventual winning brewery. Genuinely good stuff from the beer media. Meanwhile at Ale of a Time dot com

 

That’s right, it’s time for another installment in my low effort “ripping on social media comments” series. Being a reflection of 2017 beer, I have decided to do memes as well. I’ll scatter them along the way like some juicy meme-nuggets. Enjoy and please if you want to make a dull comment, I would absolutely love you to. Never change, people on the internet.

Here’s the full list: https://www.gabsfestival.com/h100-2017-aus-main-list

You can read previous installments of this series here.

First commenter up:

😂 how boring!
I’ve had 100 craft beers better and more interesting than this top 100.
Unfortunately beers with bigger distribution get more votes, doesn’t mean they’re better!

Beers with bigger distribution get more votes? This is fascinating stuff. I wonder what more insight he has…

And stone and wood second. It’s like the VB of craft beer!

I don’t understand this. Like, at all.

Jules comes in with a sick reference to a video that went viral like, two years ago. He’s been sitting on this one for a while, ready to drop the hammer:

Look… it’s zingy and easy drinking, but it’s not a succulent Chinese meal

Meanwhile, is this Michael Ainsworth bragging that he goes to the Opera House? Geez, how fancy, your royal highness.

This now about distribution not beer quality. I can buy this at the Opera House & the Chinese restaurant in my nearest Leagues club. And of course Dan Murphy’s.

You gotta give Ainus Horriblus (which is probably what his mates call him during their bant sessions) some credit, he does have a keen eye for seeing products in places. He’s just cruising round all “yep, I can buy products in these places”. What a champ.

Rowdy Sean Piper is giving us a look through the They Live lens at the real top 3. Here’s his take:

It’s the mainstream craft top 100. Real top 3 – modus operandi sonic prayer, pirate life mosaic ipa, bentspoke crankshaft

 

I mean, one of those is literally in the real real top 3. The next is #6 and the other is 21st. His complaint is that three beers he rated highly didn’t rate highly except they all did incredibly well. Sean, buddy, just think before you type next time. If the list is “mainstream” then you are mainstream because like… you know…

Let’s just start using our brains a bit more. It’s not just Sean, of course, it’s all of us. As a society. This shouldn’t be so hard and yet we here we are.

 

Via twitter, Richo has ideas to improve things by only letting people with one year’s worth of credibility vote. Also he uses the term “squirrel snot” out of nowhere. I don’t think I like it tbh:

A new requirement for voting in the #Hottest100Beers should be that the voter has been drinking craft beer for over 12mths. Will eliminate squirrel snot like yak and squire from the mix.

Now some real analysis from someone who is at least two years deep in the craft beer game and thus would qualify to vote under Richo’s scheme. Here’s his comment on Pacific Ale at #2:

It was a great beer 2 years ago… craft beer has moved on since then… no way no.

 What these old school craft heads are telling us is that craft beer is way beyond fruit forward, low bitterness, hazy beers. Thank you for FINALLY saying it Andy and Richo.

Tom Holland has a question that we need to answer:

Did big shed Californicator get up there?

Maybe look for yourself? It’s a post about the list with a link to the list you could just click on the list. Nah type it into a Facebook reply and send comment and good work.

 John hasn’t checked it in years (he’s probably been super busy doing awesome things. Fuck yeah Johnny boy!) but he has a question about the pale ales:

Haven’t checked in on this comp in years. When did it become a Pale Ale dragrace? Seems a shame.

Not like it used to be mate, even though a pale ale has literally won it every year since the start. Damo, agrees that it’s fallen to the level of “bogan juice”

It’s just gotten worse every year!! It’s a joke now. #danmurphysboganjuice

After using classist insult “bogan” like he’s probably going to go to the Opera House with muggins up there, I low key crept on Damo’s insta and he was pretty excited for the Guns N Roses concert, AND he shortens his name to “damo”. Et tu Damo.

Anyway, let’s have a look at how much worse it has gotten since 2008 to prove John and Damo’s point:

1 – Little Creatures Pale Ale
2 – Murray’s Icon 2IPA
3 – Mountain Goat Hightail Ale
4 – Knappstein Reserve Lager
5 – Little Creatures Bright Ale
6 – James Squire Golden Ale
7 – Coopers Sparkling Ale
8 – Coopers Pale Ale
9 – Holgate Mt Macedon Pale Ale
10 – James Squire Amber Ale

lol

Meanwhile Brucey has taken a leaf out of ol Ainus Horriblus’ book and is out there on the streets keeping us informed that places do in fact sell products.

Seriously how could Pacific ale be the second best beer in Aus? Is it the fact most places sell it? Even the local grilled stocks it!!!!

Goin down to get a burger at his local Grill’d (Aussie Sunset is their best burger don’t @ me), and he sees Stone & Wood there!? He’s like “nah mate, not a good beer if it’s here”. This is how all beer should be judged fyi.

David has a wee story (wee is a pun here hahaha)

After a night drinking real craft beer ma piss would taste better than Stone and wood so what does that say about the whole voting process??

 

I’m not sure if he’s implying that the voting process is done by people that drink his pee? Or their own pee after drinking Stone & Wood (which ain’t a REAL craft beer fyi. Independently owned, does a ton of work for their community and the environment, and invented a style that typifies local craft beer. All of these things are definitely NOT REAL craft). Either way, there’s pee involved and it’s on his mind.

 Matty Ryan should’ve spent the last 12 months working on his understanding of public polls:

Your list is a joke. Again! You need to diversify the judges from having all pale ale makers selecting pale ales (nearly 80% of the list) and leaving out so many makers and styles. What a biased judging panel. Stone and Wood compared to others? Pissing in each others pockets each time. Amusing seeing this posting each year and the same list being put up. Last year pale ales made up 83% I think it was so you’ve dropped a smidge.

And once again, I’m confused by a piss comment. Is he saying S&W are pissing in other people’s pockets? Or… what’s happening here? That’s not how that saying works. Anyway, let’s diversify the judges from literally anyone in the entire world who wanted to vote. Yeah good idea, Elon Musk.

What we are really wondering is, what does Grant Crawley think about all of this? I, for one, I hope he regards this list…

After reviewing the list, I’m going to go ahead and disregard it…it seems to be a mish mash of good and extremely average…but then again, I find that with most of these type of lists.

Oh shit. He’s disregarded it. This is big news.

 

Very surprised a top quality beer like Modus Operandi’s Cascadian Howl didn’t get a mention. A bit suss…

That was from Bluetonguebill and he’s right, it is verrrry surprising that a one off, small release, Black IPA didn’t poll in 2018. Yo GABS can you check this for vote rigging. Why are you doing this to them. Please fix it.

I forgot to note down this next blokes name (funny that all these entitled expert comments are from blokes aye)

Seems very stagged (sic) to what is sold at Dan Murphys.

It IS weird that a bottle shop that has over 30% market share (in terms of dollars spent) would have such an influence on what people drink. Also I’m not sure what he meant to type when he typed “stagged”. I thought “staged” initially but that doesn’t make sense. Did he mean “tagged”? “tied”? Thoughts below please.

Finally we have Pete, who manages a bar in Melbourne, and set himself up to be owned by his buddy Jason:

Peter: Some fairly average beers making the top 5 so far

Jason:  looking at your bar menu you know a hell of a lot about average beers

lol. Sucked in Pete.

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3 Responses

  1. Ed says:

    Just thought I’d write something dull.
    Love the memes😂😃😂. Especially the disregarded one and the opera house cartoon, also I forgot to vote, do you think it matters?

    • AleOfATime says:

      Does your vote matter or does the poll matter? The answer is yes to both! It’s hard to saw how much it matters but given how much bigger it appears to be getting each year, to still have independents the size of Kaiju and Hop Nation in the top 10 is exciting.

  2. Bryan James says:

    This article has spelling mistakes. Therefore, it is not credible or worth reading.

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