Order Entries in a Section by Category Titles
After some further research this http://craftcookbook.net/recipes/279 was a better fit for my needs.  The code I ended up using based on the link is below.

{% set beer = [] %}
{% set beerBrands = craft.categories.group('brandCategory').level(1).find() %}
    {% for category in beerBrands %}
         {% set beerRelatedCategories = craft.entries.section('beers').relatedTo(category).find() %}
         {% set beer = beer|merge(beerRelatedCategories) %}
    {% endfor %}