Charlie Papazian, world-famous beer lover, recently wrapped up his 2012 BeerCity USA poll.  What he ended up with was BeerCities USA, a statistical tie between Asheville, NC and Grand Rapids, MI.

From Papazian:

Voting for the annual BeerCity USA poll is over. From the start it was clear that communities from several areas of the United States intended to make a run for winning the honor of becoming 2012 BeerCity USA. Facebook, Twitter, other community networks and local media were active throughout the 13-day polling period.  With 55,926  votes cast for 31 different American cities the results clearly indicated that both Asheville, North Carolina and Grand Rapids topped the poll with a statistical tie.

We’ll be a slight voice of dissent and say 1) who cares?  Craft beer is inherently regional/local, and comparing two cities seems fairly useless.  It’s like being named the city with the most popular meteorologists — unless you live there, it doesn’t matter.  But 2) assuming you’re really trying to rank-order cities, it doesn’t seem very logical that Grand Rapids would end up tied with Asheville, which is quickly becoming the place where western breweries open their second locations.

But either way, congrats to both, and to Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, Portland, and any other city that is working to develop their beer culture.