Throwing a good Super Bowl party isn’t just about having a properly massive television on which to watch the game. It’s about creating an environment from which you can absorb and process whatever nonsense Tony Romo spews toward the screen at the intersection of a quarterback’s throwing motion and his personal life.
The strongest among us can shake this off. The rest of us can find solace in malt, hops, yeast and water.
The Super Bowl provides a rare opportunity where Sunday night drinking isn’t just tolerated, but mostly encouraged. But putting together a beer lineup for your party can be an intimidating task given the vast array of choices on stocked shelves across the country.
And while the most popular beers in the U.S. aren’t necessarily the ones I’d pick, they’re a good barometer for a lowest common denominator brew that will keep the widest swath of guests happy. In order to figure out which beers fit that bill, I used YouGov’s consumer awareness index, which plots what percentage of poll respondents have heard of a certain beer and what percentage actively like said beer.
Here are the results.
Beer you've convinced yourself is good but needs a lime wedge to be drinkable: Corona
Yeah, fine, maybe I’m editorializing on this one. And 53 percent of respondents have a positive opinion of Corona, so it’s possible I’m wrong. But at 96 percent, it was the beer the most people are familiar with, showcasing the power of Eli Manning and Christmas commercials from three decades ago.
Stout: Guinness
Guinness is slightly less known than Corona (92 percent of respondents were familiar with it versus 96 percent) but clocks in tied for the highest popularity rate at 53 percent. Those are high scores for a beer than inexplicably turns warm minutes after pouring.
OK, I promise not all of these reviews are going to be expressions of my beer snobbery.
European lager: Heineken
Heineken slipped from second place to third in overall popularity between 2022 and 2023. Maybe the advent of a new 95 calorie light brew will help restore the Dutch beer monolith?
Six-pack your dad thought was a craft beer/American lager: Sam Adams
Sam Adams is a reliable step up from most macrobrew lagers. It’s also a little boring and you can almost certainly find something better from a local brewer. Only 11 percent of respondents said they disliked it, second-lowest among the top 10 most popular beers behind only Stella Artois (!).
Mexican beer that is actually decent: Modelo
It tastes a little cleaner, a little crisper and a little more flavorful than Corona. The Negra is the better option in the Modelo lineup, but they’re all solid enough to keep your Super Bowl guests happy.
Light beer that isn't made by Corona: Michelob Ultra
Ultra targeted its ads toward active folks out there and it worked; each year when the CrossFit Games come to Madison, Wisconsin local bars report running out of their slim cans with quickness. This doesn’t mean it’s a good beer, just a slightly healthier one than most alternatives.
Here are the top five most popular light beers in America, per YouGov’s survey:
- Corona Light (95 percent known, 45 percent liked)
- Michelob Ultra (92, 43)
- Miller Lite (94, 42)
- Heineken Light (90, 42)
- Coors Light (94, 41)
Hard seltzer: White Claw
There are so many better options than White Claw, the Honda Accord of hard seltzers. If we include canned cocktails to the list, these are the better drinks I’ve reviewed since the start of football season alone:
- Vizzy’s mimosa hard seltzers
- Melograno canned cocktails
- Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s VMC tequila-based canned cocktails
- Berczy’s British hard seltzers
- Sonic’s admittedly kinda-mid hard seltzers
- Blake Lively’s very good Betty Booze canned cocktails
You can do so, so much better than White Claw.
American craft beer: New Belgium's Fat Tire
Here’s where YouGov’s system gets frustrating. When it comes to craft beers large enough to qualify for the survey — e.g. craft brewers who’ve been acquired by larger companies — the methodology gets inconsistent. Fat Tire is tops in that category, which tracks given the specific beer lines seen above. But in second place is Great Lakes… which is very much a brewery and not a specific beer itself. Third place? Founders, which, same thing.
Anyway, New Belgium not only makes the most popular craft beer out there but also the biggest selling India pale ale. And it’s a doozy; their Imperial Voodoo Ranger clocks in at nine percent alcohol by volume (ABV), reflecting a rising tide of drinkers looking for big flavors and a lot of booze all in one.
You know, the opposite of Corona.
Anyway, here are the five most popular craft(ish) brewers in America, in case you’re looking to head down that road.
- Fat Tire (61 percent known, 35 percent liked)
- Great Lakes (55, 33)
- Founders (46, 31)
- Lagunitas (47, 29)
- Bells (41, 27)
Guess what, they’re all pretty good. If you’re gonna lean into any one category too heavily this is the place to do it — even if it’ll cost you a little more money.
