The pandemic killed off DC’s best beer festival last year, but like a phoenix, rising from the ashes, Snally is back! It’s still on Pennsylvania Avenue, with ample room to socially distance when not queuing up for the hypest whalezbro, and the best plain ole beer flavored beer, the District has ever seen. There are 450 beers to be ranked, and our ironclad methodology is once again in effect.

Per usual, the standard is “what we’ve done here is think about what our predilections would be on the day-of; which beers would we be most likely to drink, to wait in line for?” This takes into consideration a great number of things: the esteem in which we hold a brewery, our relative style preferences (slightly more on this below), our understanding of a given beer’s reputation, ABV, and availability (we’re not, by and large, going to Snallygaster to drink things we can typically get).

What we’ve cobbled together is a rough approximation of our relative preference for the beers that will be available. Note that not all of us have had all of these beers. We make no claim to that effect (it would be extraordinary if we had). Instead, we’re using the factors above and our preferences to make our own lists. In some cases, but not all, we’ve consulted rating sites like Untappd. In some cases, we’ve consulted the breweries’ websites.

How did we go about doing this? Each beer was ranked 1 to 4 according to each scorer’s personal preference and predilection for ordering. We averaged those scores, then we did a second round of scoring, also 1 to 4, within that point system, so that every beer that got a 2, for example, was then ranked against its peers.

Obviously this is not scientific, so don’t come beating down our Twitter for putting your favorite IPA at 3.1 instead of 3.3. Make your own power rankings. Want to chat about what you think we got wrong or under- or over-ranked? Let us know on Twitter at @DCBeer! Let us know at Snally, we’ll be around. We’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks, @beerbecue!

A few last things before we finally get to it:

  1. We’ve tried to be sensitive to last-minute changes to the beer list, but exceptions and mistakes will occur. If there’s something on here that doesn’t make it to Snallygaster, remember that it’s just beer, there are at least 440 other options.

    1a Update: the beers from Floodlands, Humble Sea, Moksa, Sante Adairius, TRVE, and Yeast of Eden didn’t make it, per Snally’s official beer list and its Untappd counterpart. 
  2. No hard feelings, breweries. It’s not that we don’t like you or your beers (generally, at least), this is the nature of the power rankings, which tend to depress the scores of locally available year-round and seasonal beers.
  3. The list at Snallygaster really is an embarrassment of beer riches that we shouldn’t take for granted. Kudos to Greg, Tim, Bruno, and the NRG team for putting this together.
  4. Want to join in the fun? Tickets are still available. Also, proceeds go to a good cause.
  5. We are old. We care not for lactose in sours or IPAs, and barely tolerate it in pastry stouts. We do not “ISO” on Instagram, nor do we trade in Facebook groups or other fora. If you do, and are interested in writing, or drawing, about beer, we are interested in giving you a voice. Really. Let us know.

All that said, awaaaaaaaay we go! Have fun and be safe at Snally!

Our top ranked beer, with a perfect 4.4 score is… UPDATE, didn’t arrive in time, so it goes (Brewery, Beer Name, Beer Style, ABV, Festival Location, Sublocation)
F̶l̶o̶o̶d̶l̶a̶n̶d̶,̶ ̶S̶e̶e̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶A̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶L̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶9̶,̶ ̶O̶a̶k̶ ̶B̶a̶r̶r̶e̶l̶-̶A̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶M̶i̶x̶e̶d̶ ̶F̶e̶r̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶A̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶/̶ ̶N̶e̶c̶t̶a̶r̶i̶n̶e̶s̶ ̶+̶ ̶R̶o̶u̶s̶s̶a̶n̶n̶e̶ ̶&̶ ̶S̶a̶u̶v̶i̶g̶n̶o̶n̶ ̶B̶l̶a̶n̶c̶ ̶W̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶G̶r̶a̶p̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶7̶.̶6̶%̶,̶ ̶G̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶,̶ ̶8̶

Rounding out the top 10, in alphabetical order, scored 4.3:

We kept it “fair” in that one brewery couldn’t place more than one beer in the top 20 (Scored 4.2).

Also ranked 4+, but we wanted to give airtime to more breweries:

Scored 4.1, reverse alphabetical order

Scored 3.4

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Scored 3.3

Scored 3.2

Scored 3.1

Scored 2.4

Scored 2.3

Scored 2.2

Scored 2.1

Scored 1.4

Scored 1.3

Scored 1.2

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Scored 1.1, or, “Why are you still reading this? Is it just for the schadenfreude, you sickos?”

All our coverage of Snallygaster 2021 in one place? We’ve got that, plus a podcast!

Also, why did you scroll all the way down here?

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