I did not know that. Now I hate Becks. 
Yuengling is based in Pennsylvania and has a brewery in Tampa, therefore is usually found concentrated in those areas. My data points: widely available in North Carolina and Southwest Florida. Impossible to find on the west coast.
I rather like Fat Tire’s 1554. It’s not terribly common but hopefully I decent liquor store has it. I have been told Fat Tire is harder to find in New York but that was a couple of years ago maybe they made inroads.
Anchor Steam is not unavailable but even harder to find just outside of California. Newcastle and Beck’s are pretty good. when the price isn’t jacked up because “it’s an import.” Negra Modelo is great.
[nitpick]The Brewery is New Belgium, Fat Tire is just one of their beers.[/nitpick]
I’d go with Sierra Nevada as well, although living just a couple of hours away from Chico I cannot attest to its availability throughout the rest of the country.
Oops, you’re right. As a related aside, nobody ever says “I like Boston Brewing Company’s Noble Pils,” they always say “Sam(uel) Adams.”
I’ve never been a huge fan of Sierra Nevada’s regular Pale Ale (green label). A lot of their offerings tend to be in the “throw a lot of hops at it” school of thought. I do drink their beers almost every Wednesday.
New Belgium doesn’t distribute to Kentucky. I have to stock up when I’m in TN or NC. My understanding is that their commitment to keep their brewing process as green as possible means their expansion has happened slowly.
Choosing from a small pool of beers that I think are very widely distributed, I would choose pretty much any beer from the following labels:
Sierra Nevada
Anchor
Sam Adams
Guinness
Yuengling is only distributed along the east coast from Florida to New York. Cain’t get it in New Hampshire, unfortunately. I have never seen Shiner Bock outside of Texas, but doesn’t mean it isn’t available.
BTW, Guinness is not a small brewery by any stretch of the imagination.
I think perhaps you mis-read post #26?
mmm
Who said it was?
ETA: Ah, if my post is confusing, what I mean is that I’m choosing from a (relatively) small set of beers that I think are good and available pretty much everywhere. I would nominate beers like Dogfish Head or Rogue or whatnot, but I feel like they might not be that common. The beers that I listed are ones I think you are likely to find at a place that has your typical American-light lager style macrobrew beers and may carry only a couple of more “crafty” brews. I think I may be overestimating the availability of Anchor, though.
I was responding more to the OP (“Widely imported micros like Becks or Guinness are fair game”), post #26 just refreshed my memory.
They’ve had Shiner products in Chicago since 2007. It’s…OK. I didn’t grow up with it, so I don’t quite get the hype. I understand the love for Yuengling a bit more. It’s a great example of its style, although I prefer beers with just a little bit more body to them. (Although, I really shouldn’t talk, as I default to Old Style when I’m at the local bar which has almost nothing fancier than your macrobrews.)
Nix Guinness’s new black lager offering. It’s unbelievably bad.
Have no idea how widely its distributed, but I just poured a bottle of Ellie’s Brown Ale, from Avery Brewing in Colorado. My God, it’s beautiful.
Yeah, it does kind of taste like the bastard love child of an American light lager and an Irish stout. Still, I’ll drink it. I was thinking of Guinness Stout, Extra Stout, and Foreign Extra Stout when I wrote that, though.
Another vote for Negra Modelo.
Third Negra Modelo, and Ill also add Dos Equis.
Mississippi Mud
Popping in just so the thread will be tagged. Intend to try some of these next month. Damn, but it sounds like the beer situation has improved enormously from my days of Miller Genuine Draft.
I had one last weekend in an Irish bar in Clifton, NJ. (For old times’ sake, I used to live in Austin.) They had a neon sign and everything. I didn’t think their distribution made it much further north than Maryland, but there you go.