The Top-Searched Beer Style and Brewery in Every State

Many people love to relax after a long day with a nice, cold beer. Which beer each person prefers, though, can vary quite a bit.

At Business Broker Network, we connect buyers with sellers of a wide array of company types, some of which offer beer and wine. With this in mind, we grew curious to see how beer preferences differ across the nation. Consequently, we decided to dig through Google Trends data to uncover the top-searched beer style and brewery in every state. The results gave us an interesting picture of the state of beer preferences in America.

First, we looked at the search interest data to find the top beer style in every state. The most common style, in terms of count of states, was ale (11). As any beer-lover may expect, hoppy beers were also very popular. India pale ale was the second most common style at 10 states, with pale ale following at 9. After these, the rank went lager (7), wheat (6), saison (2), hefeweizen (2), kolsch (2), porter (1), and stout (1).

Here are the rankings, from most popular to least: Ale India Pale Ale Lager Wheat Saison Hefeweizen Kolsch Porter Stout

Wisconsin and North Dakota were the most unique states, each being the only ones to search most for stout and porter, respectively. You can find the entire list of styles by state at the end of this post.

Next, we uncovered the top-searched brewery in each state. Nearly every state searched most for a local craft brewery, though not all of them were the largest brewery in that state. For example, those in Massachusetts search for Harpoon Brewery more than Samuel Adams. A few states even looked outside of their own borders, such as Washington DC. The top-searched brewery in the district is Victory Brewing Co, a brew house from Pennsylvania. Missouri was the only state with a non-craft brewery – the top choice was Busch.

Below you can view the entire list of beer styles and breweries for every state.

Did your favorite local brewery end up on top? How does your state's beer style preference compare to your own?