Local percentage

I do drink a good bit of local but saying that they are large local, victory, yards, neshaminy creek. I drink these because I like them but mostly due to the fact that I can buy them cheap at a place I go to. If I had to pay $40 for NEshaminy IPA I would not buy it. To go local small guy is too much $. Good luck drinking at Tired Hands all the time, you need to be making six figures.

If I could not get the beers I get cheap I would be drinking mega brews more, High Life etc. I do drink Hamms by choice now.

For me it really comes down to cost and walking into a local beer place local beer is no bargain at most of them.

Enjoy

 

Though in America 2017 it isn't PC to think about these kinds of things, it is worth noting that when you buy local beer your beer has used the least amount of transportation fuels to get to your glass. Even better is beer made locally with local ingredients. Happy to say that NY is a leader in encouraging local beer made with local ingredients.

 

Quite true, but we also need to factor such things as solar power and recycling of both spent grains and water. Shortcomings in those areas can throw off the balance. Local can but doesn't necessarily mean better for the environment.

 

True. Local can and does mean it takes less transportation fuel to reach your glass from the brewery.

 

Agreed.

But my point is that it is the overall balance that counts not just one factor.

 

Understood. Lacking a reasonable way to make such an equivalence as you propose, my point is the only one that has any practical value.

 

I'd say I'm roughly in with the 75% crowd. I generally only venture outside the area for very specific things I can't get here (say, BCBS or imports) or for price (Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas).

I'm lucky that our local area includes a number of large-ish places that can offer good pricing (Jack's Abby, Ipswich, Smuttynose). If "local" only meant $16 four packs my percentage would be very different. Ten dollar six packs and fifteen-ish dollar twelve packs are really my bread and butter.

All that said, I can't really claim to be "buying local" as much of a statement or ethos. My tendency towards locals mostly sort of bubbles up out of a combination of a desire for freshness and warm feelings of familiarity for places I've actually visited.

 

But there are reasonable ways to create such equivalences.

We have at least one Philadelphia based brewery which uses solar almost exclusively when some others do not. The difference between them is quantifiable and can be factored into the balance.

 

There are also some kick ass farm breweries popping up all over the place! Kent Falls and Tilted Barn are two that come to mind by me that are brewing some fantastic beer

 

Really? That's great. Did the panels come from China? How about the tanks in the brewery? The canning/bottling line? The rest of their equipment? Where do they source their materials used for manufacture? How many miles did they travel? How far do they ship their finished products? What is the fuel used in the trucks? How fuel efficient versus industry standard are the trucks? How often are they tuned up and inspected for emissions? How often do they return without a return load?

Like I say I am sure you make a good point, it just isn't a practical point, nor one I think can be made as reasonably as you suggest. My point is simply it takes less transport fuel to get the beer to my glass from local brewers. I am certain other factors can allow breweries that distribute out of area to figure out that they have made equivalence for their transportation costs, by savings of fuel in other areas. And I say good for them, good for all of us. Meanwhile I don't and can't know those things, and my point stands on its own merit

 

Haha, Derek, the brewer at Kent Falls is an old friend, and yeah they try to stay as local as possible for sure, great example. You guys keep him so busy making him brew beer constantly his old buddies hardly get to see him anymore, though!

Closer to me we have Plan Bee, and they try to source everything as locally as possible and don't distribute. Arrowood Farms is another one doing the same. It's great for many reasons to see so much being done by locals, with locals, for locals, and for hops and barley to be grown here (NY was once the number one hops state in the country).

 

I'm sorry to say that there's only a couple of breweries within 30 miles of me that produce what I would call good beer, so basically 95% of my consumption is of beer made "elsewhere".

 

I just drink what I'm in the mood for. Whether it's a nice DDH IPA from Trillium or if it's a nice adjunct lager like Orion beer from Okinawa; location makes no difference to me.

 

I'd guess that over 75% of the beer I drink is brewed in my town/county. Probably another 20% comes from the I-5 corridor from Vancouver BC to Eugene OR (with Bend, Yakima, and Spokane making contributions as well). The other 5% Comes from BIFs, trades, some imports, and least of all, craft brews from around the country that see distribution in my area.

The breweries in the PNW make enough great beer, in the whole spectrum of styles, that I don't feel the need to stray very far, very often. This approach also helps reduce the impact of transportation, and other environmental issues.

 

If I can count all of Texas as "local+plus" (which is a stretch of course, but ...) then I bet I'm real close to Michael's 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

I love drinking beer from New Republic and Blackwater Draw here in Bryan-College Station, but those are my only true options inside 30 miles. About 60 miles gets me into Southern Star and Lone Pint (and Cyclers and B-52) territory, which is awesome, but there's no way I could drink from just inside that circle and be happy ... not after drinking Rochefort 10 and Westmalle/Chimay/Duvel/Orval and Konig Pilsener and Founders Sumatra Mountain and Sierra Nevada's Narwhal and Bell's Oberon and Well's Bombardier and Samuel Smith's whatever-I-can-get-my-hands-on plus everything from the Houston, Austin and DFW areas and did I mention I'd marry Bitburger if it were legal to marry an imported German pilsener only that would make me a bigot because I've already proposed to Schlenkerla ...

... you get the point ...

 

I have to say, probably the majority of beer I buy still comes from California and Michigan. There's just too many favorite breweries and favorite from those two states for me to cut back. However, in the past year or two--as more and more breweries continue to open--my purchases have become increasingly regionalized. I'd say about 50% of my beer purchases still come from California and Michigan, but the other 50% come from the greater Northeastern region, and about 20% of those are from NY, including local breweries. I always buy a lot of Sixpoint, Ommegang, and Ithaca, but lately War Horse has become my favorite local brewery. Everything from them so far has been absolutely stellar and ridiculously well-priced at $8.99 for most four packs of pints.

 

I'm figuring local+plus to be like a 2 hour driving radius, so that's probably just a fraction of Texas as a whole .

 

Probably 50%. I definitely drink a lot of Aslin and Veil. Also trade a bunch of it, which helps them also. I'm getting a little tired of trading and have thought I'd be just fine drinking predominantly their beers.

 

So, I'm driving from Houston to San Diego. When I'm half way there, I'm still in Texas!

 

During the hurricane I head the stat that the metro Houston area is twice the size of Connecticut. I thought for sure it was a mistake but google confirms it's roughly 5000 square miles vs. 10,000.

Bonkers!