Another List

I just received a book in the mail--Ben McFarland's World's Best Beers. McFarland is the prolific UK writer who seems to have be eying Michael Jackson's now-vacant seat as dean of beer writers. This book is sort of his master's thesis, wherein he surveys beers from across the globe. (I'll do a review next week.) In any case, he offers his list of the top ten beer cities in the world, which is interesting ballast to the Men's Journal thought-free list I posted on Tuesday. As an interesting addition, he includes one beer as the city's icon.

1. Bamberg (Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier)
2. Bruges (Anything)
3. Munich (Forschungsbrauerei Pilsissimus)
4. London (Fuller's London Pride)
5. Boston (Harpoon Ale)
6. Portland (BridgePort IPA)
7. Prague (Plenz z tanku)
8. San Francisco (Anchor Steam)
9. Brussels (Cantillon Gueuze)
10. Cologne (Muhlen Kolsch)

While I generally find these lists uninteresting, this one sort of caught my eye. Bamberg? Bruges over Belgium Brussels? Prague seventh? (The cop-out on Bruge's beer excepted.) Owing to strange life circumstances, I've spent a lot of time in Asia and none in Europe. So this intrigues me. It subverts some of the reputations of the more famous cities. On the other hand, Boston, while one of the great cities of the world, rich in culture, heritage, and the arts, is a bad beer city. It's not even the best beer city in New Enland (the other Portland is better, and Burlington's at least as good).

European travelers--does this square with your experience?