What kinds of beers do Mainers care about?
This interactive map from cartographers at the University of Kentucky gets at that question by visualizing Twitter mentions of different brands and types of beer across the country.
There are quite a few variables to compare but here are a few takeaways on all “beer” mentions normalized for tweet population:
- The Bangor area tweets about porters more than any other kind of beer.
- The area around Portland likes it hoppy. India Pale Ales topped the list there.
- That holds true for most of the coast, really. IPAs and pale ales are the top-tweeted beers until you get further Down East, where Budweiser takes over.
- Speaking of Budweiser, that’s a big one in the western part of the state, and it’s in the top five for most places.
This is what the map looks like if you compare IPA (blue) with Bud Light (red). Central and western Maine is more likely to tweet about Bud Light.
Play around the with the map and see what you find. You can compare some brands (I couldn’t find any Maine brands, like Shipyard, Geary’s or Bissell Brothers, for instance) and types from across the country. What jumps out at you?
