A quick reminder of the methodology: To make this list, I started with all Houston-area beers with at least 100 Untappd check-ins. I then excluded any beers that have had less than 5% growth in activity since last quarter. The resulting 193 beers from 21 breweries were then weighted using a Bayesian estimate based on total check-ins and ratings. And finally: obviously all ratings should be taken lightly. Ratings are subject to the whims of rarity, perceived excitement, and even personal vendettas from groups of people. This is just a fun exercise but should not be considered a reflection of my opinion or the opinion of Houston Beer Guide.

Last time around, we only had 188 beers from 18 breweries. It’s exciting that in three months, three more breweries have qualified for this list (including one that finds itself on the Top Ten Breweries list). In addition, to upgrade the chart from last quarter, I’ve added helpful up/down arrows and yellow stars to indicate when a beer/brewery is new to the Top Ten list. Without further ado:

The Top Ten Beers in the Houston area, weighted:

Not much has changed since August in terms of the content. BBH still holds the top spot. The only newcomer is its vanilla variant, coming in at #4. Other entries moved around a bit, and only Southern Star Buried Hatchet fell off the list. I had expected Brash beers to make the list this time, but they just barely missed, due, still, to volume. A bit more activity will almost certainly propel at least one entry onto next quarter’s list. Indeed, without even a single beer on the list, they managed to fare pretty well in the top brewery list.

The Top Ten Breweries in the Houston area, weighted:

Brash, as the newcomer, is rising with a bullet, and knocked Texian off the list. What will these lists look like in three months when even more new breweries have new offerings? Be sure to check back next year as we see how these lists look early in 2016!

The post Top-Rated Beers & Breweries in Houston: November 2015 first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Top-Rated Beers & Breweries in Houston: November 2015 appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

And because I also love excel and tedious data entry (ugh), I decided to create this exercise for Houston beers and breweries. The findings are kinda fun, though sadly, the love of my life did not make the #1 spot. I suspect foul play and am in the process of requesting a recount.

To make this list, I included all Houston-area beers with at least 100 Untappd check-ins. I excluded any beers that are part of a series except for the latest in the series, and I excluded any one-time releases that have not had significant activity in the last several months or prior vintages of active beers. The resulting 188 beers, from 18 breweries, were then weighted using a Bayesian estimate based on total check-ins and ratings. I should note that I had also hoped to do a similar comparison using BeerAdvocate numbers as well (I did this same exercise some time ago on Twitter and was able to include BA ratings) but due to their recent rating system change, there is simply not enough data. Sadly, there were no qualifying beers from a few breweries, each of which I hope will show up on the next iteration of this list.

And finally a disclaimer: obviously all ratings should be taken lightly. Ratings are subject to the whims of rarity, perceived excitement, and even personal vendettas from groups of people. This is just a fun exercise but should not be considered a reflection of my opinion or the opinion of Houston Beer Guide.

The Top Ten Beers in the Houston area, weighted:

The chart is pretty heavily dominated by Saint Arnold (4/10), but Karbach (2/10) and Southern Star (2/10) also both have multiple spots. This should come as no surprise. When ranking the breweries using the same methodology among all the cumulative beers, these three all appear in the top five.

The Top Ten Breweries in the Houston area, weighted:

Check back in the future when things have changed; Brash’s debut was too recent to affect the standings (not enough volume) but that will certainly change in the future, and as beers rise and fall, I’ll be sure to update!

The post Top-Rated Beers & Breweries in Houston: August 2015 first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Top-Rated Beers & Breweries in Houston: August 2015 appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.