Top U.S. Cities for Beer Lovers

I think we need to consider what people may be looking for in these "beercations". Are they hardcore BA types? Are they looking for a fun time with beer alongside? There is a lot to consider.

As for "Boston" being omitted...well Treehouse is an hour+ away and has no real tasting experience. Trillium in town has no tasting experience and minimal even in Canton. Nightshift, Mystic, Wormtown, Jack's Abby...reasonably close. Same in Vermont really...the breweries are places you go to get beer, but not great experiences themselves for the most part (Alchemist may change that this summer). If the focus is the beer...it belongs. If the focus is drinking at the brewery, maybe not.

 

Asheville... Why Cleveland?

 

Lists are usually stupid and no more than click bait

 

Ohio is a great beer state. I'd have to go with Akron being an under rated beer city, not top ten but close enough to Cleveland to make it a better trip. Hoppin frog and thirsty dog in the same city makes for a good extra stop.

 

...clickbait.

 

Surprised to not see Asheville. Honestly this is a very good list for coming from AARP. Sure it's not perfect, but it's not coming from a beer website.

 

Oh what do they know.

 

It seems pretty well rounded list to me. Certainly geared to larger cities and the entire country is well represented. It's much better than some of these lists I've seen where it should be renamed "Top 10 breweries/bars I went to when I went to Vermont". I've seen some of these lists and 90% are from two states. Haha.

 

Top 10, in no particular order:

• Philadelphia, PA
• New York City
• Portland, OR
• Portland, ME
• San Diego, CA
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Chicago, IL
• Denver, CO
• Burlington, VT
• Asheville, NC

Seattle and San Francisco are both wildly overrated beer cities IMO. Not saying they're bad beer cities, just overrated.

 

When you only have nine subjective choices, obviously several good places will be left out. But seeing that I've visited 7 of the 9 and live in one of them, it's a list I can agree with for what it is since lists are simply one person's or a committee's opinion and certainly not an exhaustive presentation of the only places where good beer can be found in quantity.

 

Just curious, why? I don't see how NYC is better than either of them.

 

Asheville, Minneapolis both should be on.

 

Does the AARP magazine not send their people east? No Asheville means, no, they don't.

 

Get rid of Philly and Seattle. Substitute Asheville and Bend. Based solely of course of my personal opinion of having been to all four cities for at least a week.

I find it amusing that AARP would advise a bunch of seniors to go bar hopping in Philly.

 

SF should be higher on the list, but I think its a pretty good list.

 

well we need to consider the source, AARP - like al jazeera doing American sports exposes

I wud say all of the cities selected were large American cities and in terms of numbers, they may be right for # of beer establishments. And if u restrict the article to the city proper, u don't really get the areas that BAs think may be regions for beer heaven (e.g Burlington, VT which would encompass many other cities in my view given the entire state has only 600,000 people). I would never exclude Asheville, Portland ME, and Burlington, VT in any top 10 cities/regional areas for beer lovers...

 

I think that both Seattle and San Francisco are more about volume than quality. There are TONS of breweries, but when compared to other cities on the list, they don't necessarily stand up. I think the bar scene in both are much better than average, but overall, they don't make the cut for me.

NYC is home to one of the best in-city IPA line-ups in the country (Grimm, Barrier, Other Half, Singlecut, Finback), the low-abv lager and ale powerhouse that is Brooklyn Brewery, and the best brewery backyard that I've been to (Threes), as well as exceptional brews of basically every style brewed within city limits (Grimm, Threes, Finback, Captain Lawrence, Transmitter, Big Alice, etc.).

The other plus about NYC is that you can drink all day and not give a damn about driving. You can hit almost any part of the city by subway, giving you the ability to hit seven breweries in a single afternoon.

The beer bar scene in NYC also might be the best in the country. Other cities cannot touch the food/beer pairing scene here (Luksus and Torst, Threes, amongst most other craft bars), the bars here are better than most (The Jeffrey, The Blind Tiger, Proliteriat, Torst, The Pony Bar, The Cannibal, Threes, Muggs, Beer Street, and list goes on and on and on), the beer selection at restaurants both high and low brow is outstanding (hello Gramercy Tavern), and the proximity to Hudson Valley leaves with a steady flow of Peekskill, Rushing Duck, and other Hudson area breweries. Lastly, good beer makes it's way to NYC. The NYC distribution is fantastic. I can walk into my local bar and get either Hill Farmstead or BFM (international offerings are fantastic) poured for me without fail.

I might be biased, but I think I'd put NYC in my top three.

This is all a matter of opinion though, so that's just mine.

 

NYC seems to do a lot better than most other places when it comes to the beers from other countries. That, plus it's no slouch in the 'craft' department either.

 

Said someone from Indiana. Been to Philly ever? One word: Monks

 

Mainly Google and Facebook. Log into google, go to "my account", click on "Ad settings" (under Personal Info and Privacy), and then click on "Manage Ad Settings."

Everything you search for, every "sponsored result" you click on, every google ad you click on, every Youtube video you search for and watch, etc, provides them with metadata that provides them insight into your age, gender, and interests. For example, it correctly assumes that I'm a male aged 35-44 and that my interests include music, arts, action/adventure movies, hiking & camping, golf, reptiles, and more. Oh, and if you have a smart phone with google maps installed they most likely know where you live, where you work, and which restaurants, stores, bars, breweries, parks, etc you visit most frequently.

In addition to direct advertising revenue, google makes lots of money selling anonymized datasets and providing analytics to companies like AARP (and presumably BeerAdvocate) that help them figure out who their main demographic is, which ads are more effective, and what types of content drive more pageviews.

Even if the company isn't paying for it, Google is using the info about you to target ads on any website you visit that uses their ad platform. For example, on my last few page refreshes on BA, I've seen ads for several different McMenamin's properties. Those ads are useless to anyone who isn't a beer lover in OR/WA, so they're obviously targeted based on the nature of this site and my location. I also saw an ad for some new show called "Street Outlaws" that seems like something I might watch if I actually had Discovery Channel.