Thrillist: "America's Seven Best Beercations"

Meh.

1. I spent my 50th birthday this year hiking the Long Trail and hitting up the Long Trail Brewery, The Alchemist, and Hill Farmstead. I ate at the Mad Taco, Blackback, and Prohibition Pig.

2. Last weekend I went camping near this place called Surly.

 

No list like this is complete unless it has Southwest Michigan at the top. Plus, with all of the new breweries opening up here in Michigan in the Traverse City/Northern Michigan area, we'll soon change the beercation destination's name to be called West Coast MI Beercation.

 

You definitely need a beer after going up and down Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.

 

For my next beercation I want to go to San Fransisco beer week. Russian River (PtY!), Lagunitas, Firestone Walker (maybe), Sierra Nevada, ????? It just sucks that they have this in Feb.

 

Whenever I plan to visit a city to drink beer, I make sure there are no beer weeks or some other tickeriffic events that I would have to fight beer geeks and wannabe's to get a seat at a beer bar.

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Currently planning an extended family vacation to the San Diego area. The wife, her mom, and the kids can spend their days at the beach or sightseeing while my fil and I go IPAing.

 

Give Madison Craft Beer Week a try if you happen to be in the Midwest around that time -- lots of great beer (with specific events for Founders, Goose Island, Tallgrass, Green Flash, Lagunitas, Ommegang, Toppling Goliath, Bell's, Central Waters, Alaskan, New Holland, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, and many more) and very few crowds or waiting. Highlights this year included three-year verticals of BCBS and KBS, a five-year vertical of Alaskan Smoked Porter (all the way back to 1996!), and sipping KBS and Doom at the Founders brunch.

It's kind of exhausting.

 

As usual, it all depends on what you want to do besides beer. That's what makes a visit to the Republic of Cascadia so good. More beer than you could ever drink, plenty of outdoorsy activities if that's your thing, and 3 major urban areas (YVR, SEA, PDX) if citified things are more to your taste.

 

How is Asheville, NC not on here.

 

No Bay Area/Santa Rosa love? I am disappoint.

 

It's all about the bottle share.

If you haven't been to SD make time to head down the road to Alpine.

 

Have to agree. The Cascadia region has it all. Including Bend which should have been number one on this list anyways. Bend, Oregon is THE beercation spot. Loads of breweries within a 100 yard radius, all the outdoor activities you could want, and a great small town feel. Basically, the Cascadia region has it all and more and better of it.

 

Neither Vermont nor MI on the list? Really?

 

Another vote for the Cascadia/PNW region. You could spend weeks up here. Seattle, Portland, Bend and many other areas with tons of amazing breweries, world class beer bars and tons of stuff to do when your not drinking beer. You have the ocean with it's beaches, the Sound, mountains, rivers, lakes, fishing, hunting, sking, watersports, hiking, camping, National Parks......... To much to list!

But then again, no one wants to come up here and drink and buy all OUR beer. It's all horrible and tt rains "All The Time"!

 

Word. Top 7? Too lazy for a top 10?

 

Wait...beer fanatics disagreeing with a "top" list created by casual fans? Your favorite random city, brewery, or region isn't on there? OMG!

 

I like this new age of disagreeing. Remember when everyone agreed on beer about 40 years ago and we only had BMC? Boy were those the days! The fact that we can even have debates on the best places for a beercation in the U.S. is a small miracle when you look where the industry came from.

 

I just think it’s funny because this happens constantly. Some posters seem legitimately irritated when their favorite spot (usually obscure even by BA standards) and tourist destinations like “the north southwestern greater Chesapeake metro region” aren’t on lists like this.

 

Portland is great, for sure. Most of the places I like to go to are too remote for beer "culture". I take my own and am plenty happy.

 

No top ten (or 7) list is going to include everybody's favorite beer town. That said, all those places would be worth a weekend trip.