Top U.S. Cities for Beer Lovers

Anyone wondering if Philly deserves to be on the list should take a look at this article that describes some recent recognition of the City's credentials as a beer and travel destination.

http://philly.thedrinknation.com/ar...tion-in-U-S-Cites-Craft-Breweries-as-a-Reason

 

Can't disagree with the list per se, but Richmond, VA and the state as a whole I s kicking ass. I think it's right up their with any East Coast town. At least with locals as opposed to distro.

 

Not being facetious here, but curious, what breweries?

Need to visit there ASAP!

Haha. Austin will be omitted as long as their breweries must abide by the funky rules about selling beer and having normal hours.

Agree with everything you said about NYC. Disagree with what you said on SF and Seattle.

 

You have quite the bizarre BA user name.

 

Indianapolis is cool but could vastly improve if a good number of beer options were within walking distance of one another. I hoofed it all over that city and literally sobered up between stops just because of the sheer distance covered.

 

Agree with your Treehouse and Trillium points. Drinking on-site is crucial to a beercation experience. And Nightshift may be the worst brewery I've ever visited. Don't understand much how those guys are in business much less as hyped as they are.

Saddest thing is that the biggest draw and best beer experience I had in Boston was visiting Enlightment Ales and chatting with then-brewer Ben, who has apparently left that brewery. Really unfortunate. His beers on tap were great and the vibe in there was incredibly down-to-earth, as I guess can be expected in a tight warehouse space.

 

Blind Tiger sucks. I will give you that. But Proletariat is still the best beer bar in the country for me and within walking distance of there one can find 6-10 other great beer bars with phenomenal selections. Then get out of Manhattan and the brewery scene is awesome.

Really, really hard to hate on NYC these days.

 

That's the situation for Boston as well. If you changed the list to "beer region" for a beercation, and didn't put New England on the list, that would be criminally negligent. Omitting any one city or town is less of an issue.

 

I dunno man. The hour and a half plus drive to the LA area breweries and the possibility of dealing with traffic are not much of a selling point to anyone. San Diego stands on its own, both for the breweries in the city, and the ones in the surrounding areas.

I will say though, Modern Times is up there with the most disappointing breweries I've ever visited (right next to Night Shift which I mentioned above), though I visited the North Park taproom and not the brewery.

 

What was disappointing about your visit to Modern Times?

Cheers!

 

Underwhelming beers, unfriendly service, poor glassware, high prices on the beer.

 

I need to get out more in NYC. I've got 3 hours there next month. Where's good within a 5-minute walk of Penn Station?

 

The omission of Asheville and Bend makes this article suspect... But, hey, one man's opinion.

 

And part of the reason I think San Diego beer scene is over-rated is their breweries are too spread apart. I was underwhelmed by my San Diego visit a couple years ago. A 30-minute drive through the desert to get to Stone doesn't really feel like I'm in "San Diego" any more. And if San Diego can claim breweries in the LA-area as theirs then Philadelphia (where I live) should be able to claim all breweries in NJ and NYC as being in their "area" (and vise-versa). NYC is less than a 2 hour drive from Philly, or a 1 hour train ride. Just a little perspective...

 

Fair enough.

Here's why San Diego was cool for me: on a Sunday I went to Ballast Point Little Italy and it happened to be Victory at Sea Day. Drank a ton of great stuff. It's right next to Bottlecraft which has a great selection of bottles and some good taps.

From there I drove north and visited Societe (very cool vibe and people, visit highlight), Alesmith (lucked out on a second visit to get Speedway variants), Lost Abbey (decent), Stone (felt like Jurassic World going in... Weird... Too big and chaotic for me) and Toolbox (overrated). I do agree they are tok spread out but close enough to visit in one day.

In the North Park area, there's Hamilton's Tavern, Toronado, MT tap room (which I mentioned I did NOT like, but hey), Rip Current (beers were awesome), Belching Beaver (didn't make it but I like their beers).

Overall, lots of options and if you go the right day, you can drink some rare stuff.

 

Got to agree with this. For me one of the characteristics of what makes for a great beer town is that one doesn't have to drive or need a designated driver. As far as I'm concerned a proper pub crawl is a walking tour as well (but its OK to have some public transit thrown in for good measure). In Philly we can do that and do any of several different "tours."

(Here's one that can be done with an easy combination of public transit and walking:
http://www.beerscenemag.com/2012/08/r5-pub-crawl/ )

 

And once again I'll give a shout out to Boise. 18 breweries and growing, and I can hit most of them on my bike.

 

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but driving to a brewery in a metro area is no big deal. There aren't that many cities that have a ton of high quality places within walking distance. There is one area in Cleveland where you have 6-7 breweries and a bunch of craft beer bars, but most of the better breweries are in the burbs.

I will take a drive for great beer over walking to get good or average beer.

 

Good list but missing Greensboro Bend.

 

Barrier and Captain Lawrence are not in NYC. Just in case anyone planning an NYC beercation comes across this.

If you can make that a 6-8 minute walk, I'd recommend The Ginger Man and Rattle n' Hum.