10 Top Beers Of All Time (As Compiled By A Totally Clueless Beer Drinker)

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1.

Rainier Beer is the best beer. I am from Seattle. It is from Seattle. That is why it is the best beer.

2.

I like Miller High Life, too. I like it because of the sombrero-wearing cowgirl on the front, the one with golden hair eternally chilling on that sliver of moon like it’s her own personal barstool among the stars. She’s got that Mona Lisa smile. She’s raising a glass to you, a glass that never empties. In this world of elastic sexuality, I feel comfortable admitting that I, who have only ever dated men, would happily elope with that cowgirl and wouldn’t need a single beer in my system to do it. Then you’d see us both on the label, waving, stardust falling from our heels as we knock boots beneath the curve of the moon.

3.

IPAs! They’re funny, guys, right? They’re sort of spicy and like, wow, what are all those tingly bits!? Sometimes they taste like caramel that isn’t sweet! Other times they taste like if cedar trees produced berries and we made some sort of fermented beverage out of them. Or like pennies in a leather coin purse. Are IPAs hoppy? I think some of them are! Good! People like hoppy. I know this because of science. Third place for all you IPAs out there. Keep on doing…whatever it is you’re doing.

4.

Just after I graduated from high school, my friend Phoebe and I went to Europe for two weeks. Up to this time I had probably consumed, cumulatively over my entire lifetime, approximately one standard bar pitcher’s worth of beer. Phoebe, who has made a project over the years of winching loose the stick up my ass I was sadly born with, eventually made a proper drinking buddy of me with Kriek. Kriek is cherry beer, AKA a teenage non-drinker’s dream. It tasted like soda, only with some deeper, more complex flavor that was probably the beer part. Kriek put the thirst in me. Suddenly beer was something I wanted to enjoy, to know, to understand. And as you can see, I am succeeding.

5.

He’Brew: The Chosen Beer. Ha! Ha! Now that’s comedy! I relate! The beer is Jewish. I am Jewish. The beer is punny. I am punny. I have never tried this beer, but I have seen it in stores a few times, and every time I was entertained. Ten stars.

6.

Whiskey. OK, so it’s not technically beer. But I’m not much into the whole cold-beer-after-work thing—at least half the time, my first sip launches me into uncomfortable, violent hiccups. After a long day, give me whiskey in a real glass. Whiskey seeps into your bones like a balm. It massages your brain with warm, ruddy potato field worker’s fingers. It wraps your thoughts in eiderdown. It slides down your throat like honey, warms you from within like hot tea. I recommend adding honey and hot tea to your whiskey to amplify these effects. Whiskey is really the only beer that tastes better with tea and honey.

7.

Pyramid Seasonal Apricot Ale. I once drank this all summer long. All summer long I was mocked. All summer long I enjoyed not sharing any of my delicious fairy nectar with anyone. Apricot Ale is what fairies drink when they’re sittin’ around the toadstool on a summer’s evening. The bottle too big you say? Nonsense. They filch the beer from humans’ taps at night, carry it off in flagons and drink it out of acorn tops. Duh.

8.

If you ever travel to the country of Laos (and you should), it will probably take you about two minutes to discover Beerlao. With 99% of the beer market share in the country, you’re not gonna drink anything else. Get used to it. I have a Beerlao sweatshirt. It’s black because they didn’t have my size in blue, which was the color I really wanted. It’s OK, I guess. I mean we’re all the way to number 8 here. I don’t think there’s even an official ribbon color for 8th place. Have a bright green ribbon like they gave me at the third grade science fair, Beerlao. Have fun figuring out what that’s supposed to mean. I sure as hell never did.

9.

Sierra Nevada. It’s a damn good beer. What?

10.

I think I only know nine beers.