This is interesting… RateBeer ran their own "best beer" contest—the "RateBeer Best"—and have announced the top 100 beers in the world. If I’m reading it correctly, it’s actually the 100 top-rated beers from their database over the last nine months… meaning they’re tapping the collective power of their contributors. Nice.

RateBeer Best was once again the world’s largest beer competition — over 30,000 different beers from over 4000 brewers in 120 different countries were eligible for awards. RateBeer’s total archive includes over a half million beer ratings collected on its internet servers from tasters worldwide. An emphasis was placed on beer and brewer performance over the last 9 months for this events’ judging.

Unlike other beer festival events, the judging was performed by thousands of mostly 25-35 year old beer enthusiasts from 65 countries around the world and with commercial samples – not special festival editions.

They have breakdowns by overall 100, by style, by country and by state. Lots of data to check out. The number one brewer: AleSmith Brewing Company in San Diego, California.