Zane Lamprey names Boston 9th-best beer city

Zane Lamprey, host of television shows "Three Sheets”, “Drinking Made Easy”, and “Have Fork, Will Travel” has made a career out of traveling and drinking. So he's more than qualified to come up with a list of the world's best beer-drinking cities.

Lamprey has been counting down the 25 best beer cities in the world on his website, and now that he's done it's time to break down his choices. Boston finished 9th, one spot ahead of London and one spot behind Denver, two great beer cities in their own right.

The top 10:

10. London, England
9. Boston
8. Denver, Colo.
7. San Diego, Calif.
6. Asheville, N.C.
5. Prague, Czech Republic
4. Portland, Oregon
3. Dublin, Ireland
2. Brussels, Belgium
1. Munich, Germany

Now I'm a huge, unapologetic homer, but it's hard to quibble with Boston's place on this list. Munich, Dublin, Brussels, and Prague are historically great beer cities. Portland, San Diego, and Denver are leaders in the American craft beer movement. I've never been to Asheville, but everything I've read suggests it's a small city with a huge love of craft beer. Sierra Nevada and New Belgium breweries are opening operations in Asheville in the coming year.

The existence of Samuel Adams and Harpoon probably earned Boston the No. 9 spot as one of the founding cities of American craft beer, but anyone who's been here lately knows that the emergence of breweries like Pretty Things, Backlash, Blue Hills, Notch, Slumbrew, Mystic, Jack's Abby, and Clown Shoes puts Boston at the forefront of craft. World-class beer bars like the Publick House, Lord Hobo, Sunset, and Deep Ellum make Boston a great place to grab a pint. And then there's the traditional aspect: you've got bars like Doyle's in Jamaica Plain who pour a perfect pint of Guinness

If any city should have a beef with this list it's Philadelphia, who finishes 17th. Chicago can't be happy finishing 20th, either.

E-mail me (gdzen@boston.com) and start a conversation. Follow me on Twitter. Cheers.