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Terrible Beer, Ranked

Will Gordon of Deadspin has a hilarious ranking of America’s worst beers. For example: 36. Keystone. This is the worst beer currently sold on American soil. It sits behind chilled glass in a convenience-store fridge like a dumb rebuke to the explosion of American beer variety all around it. In 1978 there were 89 breweries in […]

Will Gordon of Deadspin has a hilarious ranking of America’s worst beers. For example:

36. Keystone. This is the worst beer currently sold on American soil. It sits behind chilled glass in a convenience-store fridge like a dumb rebuke to the explosion of American beer variety all around it. In 1978 there were 89 breweries in the U.S.; today there are more than 2,400, and most of the new ones are better than most of the old ones. In 2013 craft beer is no longer the exclusive domain of West Coast weirdos and psychotic woodsmen. These fine days you can score Samuel Adams or Sierra Nevada at the least ambitious of convenience stores and Dogfish Head 90 Minute on the least reliable of trains. And then there is Keystone, which first appeared to the world in 1989, in Chico, Calif., home of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Keystone separates itself from the rest of the crap pack by augmenting the typical stale/sour flavor profile with notes of brown bananas and green armpits. Keystone is worse than Heineken and murder.

“Worse than Heineken and murder.” Excellent! Have you had a Heineken lately? When I was in college, Beck’s and Heineken were the premier furrin beers. When I graduated and got a real job, I started drinking Heineken regularly, because that was the premium beer around, and I could afford it, at last. Well, it’s horrible stuff. Taste it, if you dare. I had one in the Netherlands recently, and it’s better than the bottled stuff we get here, but it’s still pretty gross.

More from the Deadspin list:

30. Schlitz. I loved Schlitz until a few years ago, when they made a big fuss about reintroducing the “Classic 60s Formula,” which tastes yeasty and sweet, like an infected donut.

And:

24. Busch Light. This is for the sort of person who buys tube socks at the bus stop. Like on the one hand, all right, good job holding it together enough to get some brand-new socks on your feet. But then on the other hand, I can’t help but point out that if you’d been a little more rigorous in planning your day, you wouldn’t be buying socks at the bus stop.

Read the whole thing. 

I don’t drink cheap beer, because yes, I’m a beer snob, but more practically, because I don’t drink a lot of beer, and when I do, I want it to be something that actually tastes of hops and malt. But if I had to choose a cheap beer to drink, I’d go with Coors Light. Agreed, it tastes like beer-scented club soda, but it’s tolerable, especially by the pool or at the beach, when you really don’t want to have to think about your beer.

What are y’all drinking over the holiday? I’ve still got a few Boulevard 80-Acre Hoppy Wheats in the fridge. It’s the beer of summer for me. The beer of every summer. If we could get it in Louisiana, I would be as fat and as happy as Junior Samples. 

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