You ever had one of those moments when something goes badly and you worry that it might be your fault? I'm having one of those moments now as I think about Rockford's poor showing in a ranking of the best cities for outdoor grilling in America.

The reason that I'm having these feelings is that I must admit, in the interests of full disclosure, that I was fired from the position of Grill-Master at my own house. By my wife. Nearly 20 years ago. Why? Because I...well...kinda sucked at it, and she's much, much better.

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My Poor Grilling Skills May Have Cost Rockford Valuable Points

Maybe it was me turning beautiful burgers into charred hockey pucks. Maybe it was when I transformed lovely bratwursts into something resembling long-overripe bananas. Or it could have been overcooking shrimp so badly that they stood up in unison and jumped into the flames in a mass suicide. There are other incidents, but I've only got so much space here.

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Regardless Of Who's To Blame, Rockford Makes A Poor Showing On The List

The list we're talking about comes from lawncare website LawnLove.com, and it takes a look at the 183 best American cities for outdoor grilling. Here's what LawnLove went with as their criteria for judging:

Lawn Love ranked over 180 of the largest U.S. cities to determine the Best Cities for Outdoor Grilling. We looked for cities with plenty of butcher shops, affordable meat, nice weather, and community interest based on Google search trends.

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Rockford comes in at #135 out of the 183 cities. I think they've got us way too low in their rankings, but they don't asked terminated Grill Masters for their thoughts. Trying to turn lemons into lemonade, I can tell you that Rockford's score of 135 is better than:

  • Minneapolis (#141)
  • Milwaukee (#146)
  • Madison (#149)
  • Aurora (#166)

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LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

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