Check Your Homey Out on USA Today’s 10Best Awards For Beer!

Read what my panel collectively nominated and you vote for the best!

Yo, yo!

When USA Today hit me up last month to ask me if I wanted to be one of their handful of experts to make nomination on different categories based on beer for their 10Best Awards, I was truly honored and said “Hell yeah!” They even said they would have my bio and photo at the end of each category up there which was a super bonus.

To break down what this weekly competition is, here is their official description:

“Each week we ask readers to help us pick the 10Best in a single category which can range from food, lodging and destinations to travel gear and things to do. Our travel experts select the 20 top nominees and you—the reader—make the final selections!”

Sound like fun, right? Well it was! After hearing what the subjects were, my brain got a helluva workout shaving down my answers to their limit of 20 solely based in the U.S. Some were easy to make while others really gave me a tough time because there were so many to choose from thanks to the boom of craft beer over the years! Anyway, here are the subjects:

Best Brewpubs

Best New Breweries since 2013

Best Beer Scenes

Best Beer Bars

Best Beer Festivals

Best Beer Labels

Sneak Peek: The Theophan label was one of  my selections. 
It goes hard!

The latter I had the most fun with because I take art very seriously, majored in marketing, and love the creativity craft brewers have challenged themselves to come up with, but every category was a pure pleasure to tackle. I am just blessed to be have so many beer-themed experiences throughout this beautiful country to pick from. 

What’s even more cool is that my home city of Atlanta hosts so many of the nominees as well! If you have never been to the ATL, get the hell down here and I will hook you up with some awesome places to hit up.

Anyway, please submit your picks here and make it a priority to explore the others you have yet to visit or try. Going by the remaining choices my esteemed co-panelists made, I can’t wait to confirm their accolades. I assume they are as gangster as my picks! 

And to shout out the other experts, the other submissions came from:

• Dr. Mike Arra, CBO Chief Beer Officer of Bon Beer Voyage
• Jim Dykstra & Chris Guest, The Beer Connoisseur
• Julia Herz, Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association
• Gary Monterosso, Critic, “What’s On Tap”
• Jack Muldowney, The Hop Review
• And an extra special fist pound to USA Today Editor Lydia Schrandt!

Oh, and I will post mine on this blog category by category individually for you to enjoy. I don't want to blow my load by putting them all on one, ya heard?

Now get your voting on! You can pick a different choice (or same choice) in each category once a day which is kind of cool, too. That way, if you are torn, you can show others some love too.

Boom!

Here is the shout out they gave me under each category. Dope, right?

Happy Sippin'

Ale