Best Breweries Near Phoenix, AZ

Arizona Wilderness in Gilbert.

I would take a moment to do a search in this forum. There's been a thread on this in the past, I believe. Might not be super recent but should offer a starting point.

 

You'll get varying degrees of responses, but I'd recommend Wren House, Wilderness, and McFate. Check their tap lists when you arrive to prioritize your styles.

 

I’m not a local, but wilderness is the obvious choice. Food was surprisingly good. Adventurous brews - some are unique and great and a couple may suck. I also enjoyed santan and sun up. Both good places for eats, as well.

 

Wilderness is too hit or miss and in my opinion too miss but they have the reputation so go make up your own mind. If you want clean beers than Sun Up, Huss and San Tan are the best and McFate is usually pretty good and they have a great patio. If you want mediocre beer than go anywhere else.

 

i will stick with Phoenix options since that is what you asked...wren house, helton, and sun up. do yourself a favor and stop at wandering tortoise bottle shop and bar, best selection on taps by far in phoenix proper...

 

Hi, not trying to threadjack but was looking for similar advice. Can anyone tell me if Wren House and/or AZ Wilderness fill growlers and what the policies would be if so?

 

Wandering Tortoise and Wren House are essentially on the same street, so those are no brainers. Great taps/bottles at WT, and crowlers/growlers at Wren (don't believe there's a limit for the beers they fill). Also, Helton and McFate are in the vicinity, and would recommend both.
To the question above, Wilderness is the same with growlers - no limit on what they fill (or at least I have yet to see one), and they usually have a few to-go bottles.
Haven't heard much in regard to tap takeovers for BF.

 

Re: bars, in addition to Wandering Tortoise, I'd highly recommend Kings Beer and Wine, which has a great taplist and bar AND is also an awesome bottleshop. (And is also doing a big Black Friday/Bourbon County thing. Check FB.) 50+ taps, very affordable growler/crowler station (crowlers don't cost extra, which is awesome). Also, classic spot is Angels Trumpet Ale House in downtown Phoenix. Good food menu and a reliably cool taplist.

For breweries, McFate is a good time, great patio, and really solid beer across a nice range of styles. Helton also has a great range + cool food options. Wilderness is fun, good food, kind of out of the way, but worth a stop for the novelty/variety.

Other AZ breweries that you may find on tap at bars and worth trying -- Dragoon for sure (superlative West Coast hoppy beers + and terrific command of other classic styles, from saison to pilsner, porter to golden ale). Tombstone, as you may know, is the operation of BA user @honkey and makes great Northeast-ish hoppy beer, as well as other cool styles (they released a bunch of oak-fermented beers like mild and ESB fairly recently on draft).

 

Will be in phx over Xmas, thanks for this great thread!

 

Yikes, that’s a harsh take on the scene up there. Wilderness is willing to take big homerun swings. As a result, they strike out a bit and they hit them out of the park a bit. For “clean” beers, I would put McFate at the top of that list. I don’t get much San Tan on draught, but their cans are always oxidized. I would also add Pedalhaus to the list of good breweries and Wren House has a lot of good stuff too.

 

If you’re here on Wednesday, Flanny’s has a tap takeover going on in conjunction with Ballast Point. We are sending some NEIPA’s (More Hops and Citra IPA), a Brett saison aged in Chardonnay barrels, a bourbon barrel stout, a mixed fermentation cherry sour, a mixed fermentation mango sour, and an Imperial Milk stout aged in toasted oak:

 

Yeah it is in Tempe and their Facebook page advertises 5:00 as the start time

 

Thanks for the help! Think I'm going to hit Wren and WT on my way tomorrow. Probably have to skip AW this time, but at least I've been there before.