Best Beer-cation cities

Multiple beer-actions are actually what have shown me how warped my concept of those states' layout and positioning is haha but I am always open to more research.

 

And drinking beer at the source is the 'best' kind of research if you have the wherewithal.

Cheers!

 

"Back East" vague?

Not where I grew up. For us it clearly meant Denver.

 

Did Asheville 2 years ago. Great time, tons of breweries and great food. Close to great scenery and hiking too.

Went to Austin this past spring. Also tons of fun. A lot of breweries, great food, music and stuff to do. Plenty of fun for people that are not only about beer too. Not the best for public transportation, but not bad. We got around pretty easily (fake Ubers, renting bikes, DD, etc.).

I used to live in Portland ME, always a great time. Can take a bit of driving to hit all the spots but easy to get around. Lots of stuff to do outside of beer as well.

Was in Portland OR about 5 years ago. Also a great time, but overall less my style city than the options above. Can't go wrong with the great food and beer there though!

 

I will chair the committee to take up a collection.

 

If the beach if your thing, San Diego. Chicago and NYC are both awesome for food and beer.

 

As a native of Upstate NY (near Rochester), I would like to point out that it is a very long way from Montauk, on the Eastern tip of Long Island, to Niagara Falls. The town I grew up in is closer to Toronto, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh than it is to NYC. As mentioned elsewhere, the 6 New England states are their own thing.

 

Eek... totally forgot to add Toronto!!!

 

My wife and I are part of a tour group that is heading for Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec in early September. for a week I don't know how much time we'll have outside of our group-arranged events (I have not seen the full itinerary yet), but we're going to try to hit a few breweries if we can. Right now I only have Dieu du Ciel on my radar because I haven't started doing any scouting yet to find more places, but do either of you have recommendations that would be must-visit breweries (especially with food if we can get away from our tour group for dinner on our own) for any of those three cities?

 

Calling myself out before someone else does... New England is comprised of 6 states, not 5, oops.


@Mothergoose03 try the Canada forum, I see a discussion for each of those cities on the first page.

 

By far the best beer centered vacation spot is Prague. The city is beautiful and safe and the beer culture is fantastic. Furthermore there is a respectable pub every 50 feet that pours Czech Pilsners for $1.50 US for half liters. In addition there is a great craft movement going on right now with some fantastic local beers available. Regarding hotels--a mom and pop place with great character can be found for less than $100 per night and Prague has an excellent subway system that can get you around town for less that $5 per day so no driving at all. Flight will cost roughly $1000 but what you save on drinking, hotels, and public transportation coupled with the trip of your life---it is well worth the journey. Finally everyone under 50 speaks English is there is no language issues.

 

Yup that's on my list as well...

 

Lets get that Patreon account and PayPal donations started shall we!!

MOTION CARRIED!

thunk!

 

on a side note Minneapolis for me, was a fantastic beercation destination last I was there.

Love that place!

 

Definitely want to check out SD. The very best beercation I've had was to Bend. If you like outdoorsy stuff its especially appealing but even if not we tried tons of delicious beer all on foot. We even met some (very drunk) folks who were getting flights and were in the process of getting their 70th different beer taste of the day in.
Second I would have to say Portland, OR. Sooo much beer and all in walking distance. In a bit of a bigger window I would definitely shout out western Michigan. From Greenbush just across the Indiana border up to Short's you've got a ton of quality brews and some real world class stops (Bell's and Founders' anyone?) and you can hit it all without being more than 2 hours from some of the nicest beaches in north America.

 

Fort Collins and Boulder have enough going on to warrant trips of their own. Colorado Springs doesn't have anything worth driving down there for. Play your cards right and drive up to Casey instead.

 

I agree that there are lots of good choices these days. It really is an amazing time to drink beer. One city that I haven't seen anyone yet mention but deserves to be in the conversation: Los Angeles (greater area).

Yes, you have to drive so if that's a deal-breaker then LA isn't for you. But otherwise, there are many terrific breweries (Beachwood, Monkish, Bottle Logic, Noble, Highland Park, etc etc) and there are also many outstanding pubs to get great beer (Father's Office, Lucky Baldwin's, Tony's Darts Away, and many others). For example, Pliny is as easy to find in LA as in the Bay Area, maybe in some ways even easier. Distribution of other California beers (especially SD breweries) is similarly excellent.

The bonus is that the food in LA is amazing, even at the inexpensive end. You can eat affordable and interesting food from all over the world. If you treat the region as a collection of smaller areas to explore, and move your base among 2 or 3 places to minimize driving, you'll get the most out of it while minimizing the hassle. The last bonus is there are lots of nice beaches!

 

I don't know. I have a weak spot for the Springs. Phantom Canyon and Trinity are cool places and Pike's Peak and The Garden of the Gods are neat places to visit. As is the AFA. Bristol used to make good beer and I'm sure there are newer places around as well.

 

Boston as a base for New England.

 

I'll begrudgingly second the LA area rec even though I generally avoid the whole region like the plague. Great food and some really great beer.
Another one I haven't heard mentioned and haven't visited myself in almost a decade is Milwaukee, I'm sure there have to be some new breweries since I was last there and the beer drinking culture is really excellent. I was in my early 20's last time I visited but I have rarely had more fun out on the town, beer is cheap and the people like to drink it.