10.Beer
When people fault American beer for being bland, they almost invariably have names like Budweiser or Miller in mind. What they don’t know is that the U.S. has an extremely rich and diverse craft-brew industry that produces, by many accounts, some of the best, if not the best, beers on the planet. American breweries like Three Floyds, Russian River, Founders, AleSmith, and Cigar City enjoy a level of reverence among beer enthusiasts that equals and frequently exceeds that of the very best European breweries (arguably Westvleteren, de Struise, de Molen, Mikkeller, and Rochefort). Among the most popular styles are the imperial stout, the barley wine, the sour ale, and the double IPA, which are stronger in taste than most German and even Belgian styles – you might consider them opposite of bland. Even skeptics who assert that U.S. craft beers are not as “refined” as their European counterparts admit that they hold a couple of American brews among their favorites.
On the other hand: Americans still largely favor Bud Light and Miller Lite when purchasing beer. There are more than 1.700 craft breweries in the U.S., yet they were able to capture only 7% of the U.S. beer market. In all, while it is inaccurate to say that American beer is bland, it is fair to say that Americans, by and large, drink bland beer.
