Omnivore - Atlanta beer bars grab national attention in annual lists
High five Atlanta beer
Like everything else on this godforsaken hellscape we call “the World Wide Web,” craft beer has more listicles dedicated to it than you can shake a Stout at. From bars to breweries, beers to Better Homes and Gardens, Beastie Boys to baba ganoush, Bootsy Collins to bears, beets, Battlestar Gallactica, craft beer has...well, see how it easy it is to get carried away?
There are any number of ways to get craft beer suggestions while you’re visiting an unfamiliar locale (or even exploring your very own hometown). Regional publications often have some sort of coverage intended to point you in the right direction, be it columns with event listings like the one I write for this fine publication, best-bar lists like this one from St. Louis alt-weekly Riverfront Times, or statewide beer superlatives like this Portland Monthly write-up.
On a larger scale, websites like CraftBeer.com and Chow.com present various ways for readers to call attention to their favorite bars and brewpubs, respectively. (In the latter, you’ll note that Atlanta’s Wrecking Bar made it into the “elite eight” of the nationwide bracket.) The robust, mostly-forum-based website of monthly magazine BeerAdvocate, meanwhile, features a constantly updating Top 250 Beers list, which is rated by users and comes complete with a “Bayesian estimate” that pulls and sorts data with a statistical formula’s help in the weighting process. BA and RateBeer.com, two of the most comprehensive places for beer ratings on the Internet, each have their own guides to specific regions, which can be customized in various ways. And then, of course, there’s Yelp, which, while continually proving itself to be a less-than-reliable narrator in the world of food and drink ratings, well, it’s still an option. Phew! All right. If you haven’t already clicked away and are somehow not completely exhausted, let’s take a quick breather and meet up after jump.