Let’s say you’re not a beer drinker personally, but you’re throwing a Super Bowl party for guests who are. Or maybe you love beer, but specifically only the hoppiest double IPAs and understand that’s not everyone’s bag. Or hey, maybe you’re just reaaaalllll nostalgic for college and all you ever buy is Keystone Ice. That’s cool, too.
Either way, you’re going to have to diversify your fridge for the waiting masses. You don’t need a curated list of wonderful local beers with notes of citrus pine or barrel aged goodness. You need beers you know people are going to drink — the kind of brews with enough mass appeal that anyone searching for suds is liable to scan the fridge, shrug and walk away happy with their choice.
You need the most popular beers you can find. And these, per YouGov’s polling are the most popular. They’re absolutely not the best — but if you’re looking for common ground, this is it.
Stout: Guinness
91 percent of respondents had heard of Guinness. 54 percent stated they liked it — the highest mark among the 75 beer brands surveyed by YouGov. It’s a fancy-looking middle ground brew that pours beautifully, then defies the laws of conservation by somehow becoming warm minutes later.
European lager: Heineken
The second-most preferred beer in the polling was Heineken, which tastes like beer and nothing else. The bottles are pretty, though.
Mexican beer: Corona
Don’t drink Corona. Modelo, which ranks two slots below the Mexican macrobrew, is the superior beverage and doesn’t require a lime to taste like something.
Wheat beer: Blue Moon
Blue Moon is fine. Totally fine. They’ve got a Hazy IPA now that’s a little better. It’s not a wheat beer exactly, but your guests might prefer it.
American lager: Budweiser/Samuel Adams
Bud (not Bud Light, surprisingly) and Sam Adams each clocked in with a 46 percent popularity rating. A bottle of Sam seems fancier, especially if you’ve got the Budweiser brand covered with …
Light beer: ... Corona Light?
Really? I mean … OK. For the record, here’s how the top five light beers ranked:
- Corona Light, 45 percent
- Bud Light, 43
- Miller Lite, 41
- Coors Light, 40
- Michelob Ultra, 38
Personally I prefer Miller, but I’d take any of those over a Corona Light.
Hard seltzer: White Claw
White Claw and Bon & Viv were the only two to crack the top 75 in terms of recognition. Both have been slightly left behind by an evolving seltzer world with significantly better, more drinkable flavor. Can I interest you in a High Noon instead?
American craft brewer: Great Lakes
Now we’re talking. Once you’ve got your macrobrews sorted out you can splurge with a few sixers of the good stuff. Great Lakes’ Edmund Fitzgerald is the gold standard for widely available porters. Here’s what I wrote about it over at the Post Route:
The gold standard for microbrewed American porters is the Cleveland brew whose name evokes fond memories of, uh … Gordon Lightfoot and watery graves. Dark and malty, the Fitz is straightforward all the way through; it tastes like it smells and it smells like it tastes: awesome.
The full top five for American craft brewers looks like this:
- Great Lakes, 36 percent
- Fat Tire, 32 percent (I don’t know why every other brewery is labeled by its name in the survey and New Belgium is reduced to its most popular beer, but it’s not like we needed more reason to question this data)
- Dogfish Head, 28
- Founders, 27
- Lagunitas, 25
Those are all great. Grab 12 of those and a few local beers to pad out your Bud Light/Guinness haul and, boom, you’re set for Super Bowl 57.
