Represent your local brewing scene.

St Louis Mo,- perennial/side project, urban chestnut, civil life, 4 hands, Schlafly, ofallon, modern, heavy riff,
Extend a little out farther and you get scratch, 2nd shift, crown valley and many more

 

great list, I think Aardwolf is doing the best job across the board.
Green Room and Intuition come in next for me
Bold City is kind of the proletariat locals place. I love going there even though I do not think their beers are as good as other places, but the people are amazing.

I also love doing the Bold City to Intuition to Kickbacks crawl

 

Virginia:
-Southeast:
--St George has the most capacity and regularly contract brews. They've never really developed Big beer program into something hypeworthy, but I like the stuff they brew (particularly for Back Bay, the Steel Pier lager is really good and hoppy).
--Alewerks - Probably the best in the area, they have recovered from a lackluster start and their head brewer has created some masterpieces both in DIPA (Bitter Valentine), Pumpkin, and BA (Cafe Royale, BB Porter). Amazingly, they sell out locally within a day or two. Even their session IPA Shorty Time is excellent. Their old standards, despite the old horrible labeling, have also improved to the point Drakes Tail IPA is a reasonable option.
--Back Bay - Tiny, Their flagships are ok (except Steel Pier Bohemian Lager/Helles which is excellent) but their brewpub stuff has been consistently fantastic. They are on the beach, and can't produce fast enough to sell on their current system, hopefully they can get more space. The Atlantic Ave Mosaic IPA is amazingly fresh every time because of this.
--Beach Brewing - Started tiny, and because of Virginia's law allowing on premises selling of pints at retail prices has been able to expand and experiment quite a lot. Their standards are very solid, their branding has improved considerably, their tasting room is now actually nice to be in (greatly expanded). They have started experimenting with Brett, mostly as the primary fermentation yeast, so more fruity than Funky, and have had mixed results with Barrels.
--O'connor - The best distribution of this part of the state, their El Guapo is fantastic fresh, and their new facility is ambitious and fantastically large, making it a destination and natural event host. Being so well distributed, they've not had the chance or ferm space to experiment as much, but that should change with the new facility, and I look forward to it.
--Smartmouth - The first with a really nice tasting Room, Has dome some cool ones. Just began canning their flagships which are good, and well distributed on draft. They have a good DIPA Notch 9 that shows up on rotation more than seasonally but less than year round. They do a good job getting sessionable seasonals and one offs out, as well as collabs.
--Young Vets - They started on a shoestring, and had a good burst of Press to start (many human interest news pieces, think local news level) QC suffered at first (a few underconditioned beers went out, a few kegs seem like they sat before being served) but have their feet under them now. Cool branding, beer that appeals to more than just hopheads and tickers (pineapple hefe!) and good community involvement.
--Opening Soon Big Ugly Brewing and Pleasure House Brewing being opened as Micro-Brewery Pub only places. Both homebrewers and craft beer junkies, I can't help but expect good things.

 

Austin, TX
Jester King along with Austin Beerworks, Live Oak, Pinthouse Pizza, Hops and Grain, Austin Beer Garden Brewing, NXNW, Adelberts, 512, Circle and a handful of others.

 

Kane, Carton, and Flying Fish are all top notch breweries that each do different things from each other.

River Horse sometimes makes some good stuff as well.

 

Long Island
Barrier Brewing Co- Money, Daddy Warbucks, Lights Out Stout, Moochelle
Rocky Point Artisan Brewers-Crom, Hefeweizen
Sixpoint- Gorilla Warfare, 3Beans, The Crisp, Hi Res, etc
Great South Bay- Lethal Cupcake, Dirty Deeds
Tons of great bars popping up everywhere in just the last year alone...the renaissance has begun!

 

Is that some good shit? There's bound to be a good brewery or 5 somewhere nearby.

 

Minneapolis/St Paul has had an explosion of breweries/taproom in the past few years, all making some good beer.
The big boys like Town Hall Brewery, Surly and Summit are always around but then you got tons of small ones pushing out really good stuff. Just within maybe 10 miles of downtown minneapolis there is fulton, dangerous man, 612, indeed, sociable cider works, steel toe and day block. get a little farther out in the 'burbs and find stuff like big wood and lift bridge and barley johns. plus, im leaving out several due to not enough coffee yet this morning. Its a great beer scene right now.

 

Truckee,CA:
I can walk/bike to 50/50 from my house and find some variety of Eclipse on tap most of the time. I rarely order it though because the rest of their beers are good too and a lot cheaper.

 

I loved Bluejacket. So many great beers on tap and I too appreciated the uniqueness and adventurousness of the offerings.

I also second Port City, which I didn't visit, but which I've found several times in NYC now and loved. Colossal One and Two are my sheeeit.

 

Indeed. Other Half is doing great things. Loved the Singlecut Sour Hibiscus Lagrrr. Mad I didn't get up Gun Hill on my last visit.

I did hit Other Half though. That's an interesting little brewery fa ya.

EDITED- I wrote Other Hand for some reason. Hope no one noticed!

 

My closet. Produces super rare Berliners, talking about less than 40 bottle count.
Heavy Flow:
Also, The Funky Buddha isn't too shabby.

 

Albuquerque:

Marble- Excellent core lineup. Excellent big beers (Imp. Stout, Reserve, Barleywine, Tripel). Excellent sours (Le Peche, Sansa, 111 Farmhouse).

La Cumbre- Project Dank, Elevated. There used to be other great offerings coming from this brewery, but it has stagnated lately. Sad, maybe they'll throw their gose back on, brew a Berliner Weiss and I'll fall in love again.

Turtle Mountain and Bosque Brewing are on the cusp of doing big things with new, talented brewers. Il Vicino is an adventurous brewery that I can always count on to have something interesting--- and good--- on tap.

Santa Fe:

Santa Fe Brewing: Ol' faithful. Love the Imperial Java and their seasonals are always good. The occasional sours they've put out have been great (Kriek) to decent (Single-barrel Sour).

Second Street- English-centric beers are their forte and they do them well. Good ESBs and IPAs. But they also have produced excellent pilsners, Belgians, stouts, the whole nine.

DUEL BREWING- I can't say the name enough. Probably my favorite brewery in the state right now. Their sours and Belgian imperial stouts are perfection. Every beer I have there is unique, interesting and unforgettable (the type of beers I'm always searching for). If you can ever make it, hope the Orange Sour Wit, Grunewald and Tableaux are on tap. For $18 you can take a bottle of the latter.

 

The one in the pic looks beautiful. The world needs more Berliner Weiss.

 

La Crosse, Wisconsin is a pretty great spot to be for a beer lover. Pearl Street Brewery is cranking out some great beers like their double IPA Dankenstein and their Me, Myself, and IPA. City Brewing Company has been around since 1858 and is making over forty types of beer as well as some stellar craft beer. Toppling Goliath is less than a forty five minute drive away and avaliable on tap at several watering holes in La Crosse. I also like the idea that I can go to any grocery store and buy a bomber of Toppling PseudoSue for less than $10. Another brewery is expected to open up downtown in the near future and I like filling up my Toppling growlers at either the Root Note or Sloopy's for less than $20.

 

I never got to try Two, which I'm really bummed about, but I absolutely loved One (before they were given the "Colossal" moniker).

 

Bellingham WA.
Boundary Bay Brewery has won multiple GABF, NABA, and WBC awards, makes what might be the prototypical NW IPA, is very active in the community, and is one of the focal points of our little burg.

Chuckanut Brewery is arguably the best Lager brewery in the country. Their Pilsener is second to none, the Kolsch is one of the easiest drinking beers I've ever had, and they do a great job with everything they produce.

Kulshan Brewing is a little over 2 years old, and just won the award for "Best Large Brewery" at the recent Washington Beer awards. A great lineup of Ales, and a couple of recent Lagers added.

Wander Brewing has only been open a few months, but is doing an excellent job, and is producing a nice variety of brews.

Another "new kid" is Aslan Brewing, an all-organic brewery.

2 other breweries, Stone's Throw and Gruff, are hoping to be up and running by the end summer.

A couple of real good small breweries, North Fork Brewery, Pizzaria, Beer Shrine, and Wedding Chapel in Deming, and Menace Brewing in Ferndale, also contribute fine brews to our local scene.

The Green Frog Cafe, The Copper Hog, Archer Ale House, The Local, and The Up & Up serve up tasty beers from near and far.

Add in all the breweries and bars in neighboring counties, our proximity to Vancouver BC, and Seattle, and The Fourth Corner is a damn nice place to be a beer drinker!

 

Note to self: visit North Fork Brewery, Pizzaria, Beer Shrine, and Wedding Chapel next time I'm up on the 542... Sounds like a fun place.

 

SW PA breweries kinda sucks imo. Pittsburghers idea of good beer is Iron City... There are a few craft brews made in the area, but very underwhelming to me. I started this whole craft beer adventure out west, so my standard is a little messed up I guess. That's not to say we don't have amazing beer readily available, just not made here. Bells, Founders, Fatheads and Great Lakes distribute all over this area. Lagunitas, Green Flash, Stone, Dogfish Head all readily available as well. Sadly, no Russian River or Firestone Walker here.

I know someone from my area has to reading this and saying to himself, what about DuClaw, Church Brew Works or Flying Dog!? To that I say, crack open a fresh Pliny or Sucks and get back to me. (heck, even a fresh Hopstoopid for that matter)