Who's Number One?

A wonderful discussion broke out on that lively Brew Crew listserve I mentioned some time back. At issue was which state had bragging rights for being the most breweried. Of course, this is easy to ascertain--it's California by a mile. But wait! Surely there's a way to calculate it so Oregon's number one? David Cato submitted the following list, which is a pretty nice bit of work. It shows that Vermont actually gets bragging rights. (Though there was an extended debate about whether to include the multiple McMenamins and Lucky Labs in the count. Conclusion: depends.)

There is a related, if slightly sideways look at beer and states over at Champagne of Blogs, where Dave is trying, in this election year, to determine which states brew better beer, red or blue? If number of breweries is any indication, blue's killing red. But per capita consumption even things out a bit.

Personally, I think the fact that people were having this debate and putting together statistical measures for proving Oregon's superiority is itself all the evidence we need. But for those who wish to see the numbers, here you go (columns are state, population, number of breweries, and people per breweries):

         State                 Pop.   Brew.    Ppl/brew

1 Vermont ............... 621,254 19 32,698
2 Oregon ................ 3,747,455 90 41,638
3 Montana ............... 957,861 23 41,646
4 Maine ................. 1,317,207 28 47,043
5 Alaska ................ 683,478 14 48,820
6 Colorado .............. 4,861,515 96 50,641
7 Wyoming ............... 522,830 9 58,092
8 Washington ............ 6,468,424 93 69,553
9 Wisconsin ............. 5,601,640 64 87,526
10 New Hampshire ......... 1,315,828 15 87,722
11 Idaho ................. 1,499,402 16 93,713
12 Delaware .............. 864,764 8 108,096
13 Nebraska .............. 1,774,571 16 110,911
14 New Mexico ............ 1,969,915 17 115,877
15 South Dakota .......... 796,214 6 132,702
16 Hawaii ................ 1,283,388 9 142,599
17 Michigan .............. 10,071,822 70 143,883
18 Nevada ................ 2,565,382 16 160,336
19 California ............ 36,553,215 218 167,675
20 Kansas ................ 2,775,997 16 173,500
21 Massachusetts ......... 6,449,755 37 174,318
22 Iowa .................. 2,988,046 17 175,767
23 Rhode Island .......... 1,057,832 6 176,305
24 Pennsylvania .......... 12,432,792 67 185,564
25 District of Columbia .. 588,292 3 196,097
26 Utah .................. 2,645,330 13 203,487
27 Connecticut ........... 3,502,309 16 218,894
28 Missouri .............. 5,878,415 25 235,137
29 Minnesota ............. 5,197,621 22 236,256
30 Indiana ............... 6,345,289 26 244,050
31 Arizona ............... 6,338,755 24 264,115
32 Virginia .............. 7,712,091 29 265,934
33 North Carolina ........ 9,061,032 31 292,291
34 West Virginia ......... 1,812,035 6 302,006
35 Ohio .................. 11,466,917 37 309,917
36 Maryland .............. 5,618,344 18 312,130
37 Illinois .............. 12,852,548 40 321,314
38 South Carolina ........ 4,407,709 13 339,055
39 New York .............. 19,297,729 51 378,387
40 Tennessee ............. 6,156,719 15 410,448
41 New Jersey ............ 8,685,920 19 457,154
42 Florida ............... 18,251,243 36 506,979
43 Oklahoma .............. 3,617,316 7 516,759
44 Georgia ............... 9,544,750 17 561,456
45 Kentucky .............. 4,241,474 7 605,925
46 North Dakota .......... 639,715 1 639,715
47 Arkansas .............. 2,834,797 4 708,699
48 Texas ................. 23,904,380 33 724,375
49 Louisiana ............. 4,293,204 5 858,641
50 Alabama ............... 4,627,851 3 1,542,617
51 Mississippi ........... 2,918,785 1 2,918,785
Total .................301,621,157 1,472 204,906

Notes:
1. BA lists 85 breweries in Oregon but Brewer's Guild
Director Brian Butenschoen said we have 90 breweries
so I used Brian's number instead. (The BA's number
drops Oregon to 3rd place.)
2. There's at least one brewery in Texas, Southern Star,
that I'm aware of that is not included in the BA's list so
I included them, but their inclusion doesn't change Texas'
rank, nor does it make it any harder for Louisiana to
overtake them.

All I have to add is: poor Mississippi.