The definitive ranking of this summer's special edition beer cans

It’s America weekend, and as we all know, Summer America is the Best America. Summer America means drinking cold cheap beer in the hot outdoors. We’re suckers for clever beer can branding in the summer time, the kind that plays off our patriotism, our nostalgia or our desire to at least not look like your average frat bro/basic bitch when guzzling mass market hops. So using our expertise as cheap beer consumers, we present: Brokelyn’s definitive ranking of the throwback and AmeriCans of summer 2014.

Conal still drinks Bud? You Belgium ass he does. Photo by Rachel DeLetto.

5. Budwesier AmeriCans
Usually a stiff non-negotiable cheap staple of our summer outdoor drinking thanks to its flag-waving label (and, coincidentally, the only time of year we usually drink Bud), the Belgian-owned company’s rankings plummeted this week thanks to Belgium being slightly better than the U.S. in soccer, a sport we slightly care about. King of Beers? Well, I didn’t vote for you.

4. Miller Lite 70s can
Miller Lite has spent much of its corporate wealth in recent years researching how to get beer in you faster instead of, oh I don’t know, trying to make the product taste less like a beer pong spit bucket. So it never caught our eye in the bodega cooler. Until, that is, the brewer unleashed this sexy throwback can, making you feel like you’re drinking the 70s a time before America had truly unleashed its “bro” wave upon an unsuspecting planet.

3. Gennessee flag can
Genny: it’s cheap, it’s big, it’s American, and it’s vaguely beer flavored! The Rochester brewery unveiled some red white and brew cans this summer, with a simple flash of the flag that will screams, “Don’t tread on me and/or door me on my bike, please.” These are a bit harder to find in Brooklyn, but we’ve seen them at the Pathmark at Atlantic Center, if you can make it through there without renouncing your citizenship and moving to a country with socialized grocery care.

The champagne of the AmeriCan beers — The French wine of AmeriCan beers.

2. Miller High Life red, white and blue cans
To quote Dave from the great Brokelyn AmeriCan debate of 2012, while Bud’s Patriot Cans “are for your grandfather, who, God bless him, never really learned about subtlety, these are cans that say ‘I like America, sure, but not in a ‘love or leave it’ way.’ It’s about recognizing that America has faults but it’s still awesome, the same way that Kurt Vonnegut felt and Joe Biden feels.”

Also, High Life, which is mostly water mixed with some leftover copper scraps, touts itself as the “champagne of beers,” a kind of self-aggrandizing braggadocio that is truly American.

Upon up your Jaws and drink some beer. — Upon up your Jaws and drink.

1. Narragansett 1975 Quint can
‘Gansetts are relatively new to New York City, so we missed out on this original wave of throwback cans, which were first introduced a few years ago to celebrate the anniversary of Jaws, in which Quint chugs and crushes a classic can of ‘Gansett.

The brewery is in New England (yeah, we know, booo-urns and all) but it takes the top spot here because 1) Narragansett is the only beer on this list that might be considered “pleasant tasting;” 2) it’s usually cheap [tallboys are just $3 at Rippers!] and 3) it has to do with sharks, and sharks are the America of the ocean.

Whatever your beer of choice is, hoist one up for America this weekend, where corporations are people and women are not, but at least we’ve eaten all the cows! Happy 4th everybody!

Disagree? It’s a democracy so tell us what your favorite speciality can of the year is in the comments!

Follow Tim’s can crushing exploits on Twitter: @timdonnelly.