Citizens of Missouri and Illinois have plenty of pride for their respective home states. And with reason. Missouri gave us Harry Truman and toasted ravioli. Illinois gave us Abraham Lincoln and deep dish pizza.

Alas, neither state has much to brag about when it comes to the latest rankings of “breweries per capita.” The Colorado-based Brewers Association crunched the numbers from www.census.gov and determined which states had the highest number of breweries per citizen. Why, we’re not sure. But what the heck? Lager Heads is as much a fan of cross-border rivalries as the next blog.

According to the rankings, Missouri came in at No. 25, with one brewery per (roughly) 204,00 people. That’s substantially ahead of Illinois - ranked No. 37 - with one brewery per 315,000 people (again, numbers are rounded.) But Missouri lags Kansas - gasp! - which holds spot No. 19. The good folks of Kansas have one brewery per 164,831 people.

And coming in at No. 1…Vermont! Yes folks, apparently the state’s rolling hills and picturesque villages also play host to 19 breweries. Which doesn’t sound like much, but when you divide it into the 621,270 citizens of Vermont, you get one brewery per 32,700 citizens or so.

“Fortunate citizens,” the Brewers Association calls the folks from Vermont. But you never know…if brewpubs keep proliferating around St. Louis, Missouri has a chance to make a run in the standings.