Within our great union of states, Wisconsin comes in third as far as good beer goes. Wisconsin could pretty much take all of the medals our brewers have ever won for good beer, and swing them around its head like some sort of giant, shiny weapon, and smack the crap out of states like Texas, New York, Oregon, and (naturally) Ohio. How do we know this? Because Rick Lyke told us so.

You see, a truly inspiring journalist named Rick Lyke has created an infographic straight forwardly titled “The Best Beer in America.” Using data on Great American Beer Festival medal winners from 1987-2007, Lyke has ranked all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Wisconsin has won an impressive 232 medals in last twenty years. Unfortunately, those yeasty hopheads from Colorado have achieved 322 medals, and those drunks over in California have nabbed a whopping 474 medals. (Really? California?) But the most important bit of data is this: Guess how many medals Minnesota has? Thirty-seven. Yep, didn’t even break forty.

Lyke also bar-graphed the nation’s Top Beers and Top Breweries, using the same data. Read about his findings and check out a huge, more readable version of the map. (Thanks to Eric Rasmussen for the tip on this.)