As a woman in her early thirties of extensive alcohol-drinking experience, I’ve come to understand the perfect summer beer as having a few crucial qualities: The ideal beverage for a sweltering afternoon is heavier than a Coors Light (gross) but certainly lighter than a Sam Adams (even grosser)—something that tastes like a beer without much of the aftertaste or bite. It’s readily available in bottles, which simply feel better sweating in one’s hand and are indispensable props for those of us accustomed to talking with their hands. And, crucially, the ideal summer beer is of a slight enough alcohol content that you can drink about a hundred and fifty of them and still operate heavy machinery if the occasion calls for it. (Summer is about spontaneity and adventure, after all.)
As today appears to be the day national news organizations are just sort of throwing out kinds of beers they like to drink on a sunny day, here is Jezebel’s definitive list of good summer brews. You can try to fight me on the inclusion of the new light-beer versions of Harpoon and Dogfish Head’s ales but they are the perfect halfway point between a watery beer and a heavy beer and I will be drinking them until they are discontinued and/or I die.
A Definitive Ranking of Summer Beers
1. Pacifico
2. Rec League
3. Tsingtao
4. Lone Star
5. Tecate
6. High Life
7. Budweiser
8. Slightly Mighty
9. Narraganset
10. Modelo
11. Corona Extra
12. Pabst Blue Ribbon
13. Heineken
14. Miller Lite
15. Rolling Rock
16. Corona Light
17. Stella
18. Miller Lite
19. Negra Modelo
20. Yuengling
21. Michelob Ultra
22. Blue Moon
23. Natty Ice
24. Bud Light
25. Coors Light
26. Bud Light Lime
27. Bud Light Chelada
28. Bud Light Lime-a-Rita
29. No beer
30. Any and all hard seltzers, which by the way are classified in most regulatory cases as “beers”
Update: In creating this list, I listed Miller Lite twice, which might seem like a mistake but was actually clearly intended to reflect the bland ubiquity of the middling beer.