The beer biz never sleeps at American Craft Beer. And here’s just some of what’s been happening in the beer world while you were enjoying the weekend.

Last Round For Rate Beer

One of craft beer’s heritage online sites, RateBeer is no more, left-behind by more advanced and more friendly apps like Untappd, which effectively crowdsource beer data. But RateBeer has been “dead man walking” for a while now, as the Beeronaut explains..

“In 2017, Anheuser Busch bought a minority stake in RateBeer from owner Joe Turner, through its incubator ZX Ventures. The claim was that they were looking to access RateBeer’s demographic data, but many fans and brewers feared AB would try to muscle their product into more prominent placement. This led many raters to quit, and some brewers tried to demand that their beers and places be removed from the site.”

“Two years later, ZX claimed full ownership of RateBeer. Though users continued to post new beers and brewers to the sites, the pace slowed considerably. RateBeer’s front page, even this January, headlined a link to “Ratebeer’s Best—” of 2020. Even so, in 2022, RateBeer users managed to have logged one million beers.”

This from Joe Turner’s final announcement…

Hello all,

I have some difficult news to share with you – RateBeer will cease operations as of February 1, 2025.

RateBeer was born and evolved around a core purpose: To provide a place for beer enthusiasts around the world to share their passion and experiences. When I started building RateBeer over 2 decades ago, I couldn’t have dreamed of what it would grow into and become. Together, we’ve built a close community that helped shape the history of craft beer.

It’s undeniably tough news. In closing this chapter, I want to thank each one of you for being part of the RateBeer community. I am truly grateful for all of those who’ve contributed to our success.

Thank you…JoeT [/box]

Words to Drink By

“When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.” Anthony Bourdain –  American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian

Sky High Beer Prices

Grabbing an airport beer while you’re waiting for your flight is an America tradition. But given today’s economy, some of those beers are more affordable than others.

A new report by FinanceBuzz indicates that beer prices can vary as much as $8 at airports across the country. At 13.83 a beer LaGuardia airport in New York needs to be avoided like the plague.  But NYC’s other airports are pricy as well.

On the other hand, Salt Lake City International has the cheapest airport beer ($6.40) of any US airport followed by Portland International Airport ($6.81) and Southwest Florida International Airport ($7.29)

The average cost for a beer across America’s 50 busiest airports in 2024 was $8.97.

But travelers should plan to shell out at least $10 if they want a brew at any of the 10 most expensive airports in the country. And not that surprisingly, eight of the 10 on the most expensive list sell beer for a full dollar more than the national average.

10 US Airports Where Beer is the Most Expensive

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