There’s nothing better than a beer and bratwurst while watching baseball, America’s great pastime. And while the major macro brewers out there tout being “America’s beer,” some stadiums are also great locations to enjoy America’s true beer: craft beer. Review Trackers took on the challenge and analyzed 130,000 stadium reviews to find the best ballpark for craft beer.
Review Trackers used their algorithm to analyze positive and negative reviews that were tied to a keyword such as “hot dogs” or “seats.” The algorithm organized the keywords into four main categories: Food and drink, facility, family friendliness, and fan experience. The algorithm then averaged the sentiment score for these four topics in order to rank each stadium for each category, and to determine the stadium with the best overall score. All of the results were interesting, but we’re focused on the craft beer scores here. Let’s take a look at the findings.
The top five baseball stadiums for craft beer are as follows: the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Petco Park in San Diego, Progressive Field in Cleveland, and Miller Park in Milwaukee. Max Schleicher, one of the researchers behind the study explained the likely causes behind these rankings to Paste Magazine: “The Reds have an 85-foot beer bar with 60 taps. The Padres have 30-plus local breweries on tap at Petco Park. The Indians have 60 different craft beers.”
Quality and selection seem to be the most important factors for stadiums with a high craft beer ranking. Furthermore, cities with thriving craft beer scenes, such as San Diego, likely contribute to their baseball stadiums’ craft beer rankings. It appears demand for better beer and wider selection have motivated stadiums to offer more than Budweiser and Coors Lite.
We’re lucky to live in an age of ample data and ample craft beer.