Grain Belt Premium Named as America’s Best “Cheap Beer”

Courtesy of Deadspin:

I realize you’re going to spend Independence Day happily drinking whatever cold adult beverage you’re served, because you’re polite and you’re an alcoholic. And I trust you’ll have a fine old time no matter what you drink. But that doesn’t mean America’s shitbrews are all the same. The list below breaks down 36 of them, from worst to least-worst.

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.

1. Grain Belt Premium. I always think of Minnesota as a secretly sexy place, and not just because of Kent Hrbek and Al Franken. Maybe it’s all the trout and music and Lutherans. Toss in a smooth, creamy, and dreamy local budget brew like Grain Belt and it’s a wonder Minnesota hasn’t seceded to form its own naked blond utopia. Grain Belt Premium is America’s finest cheap beer.