Do you "drink local"?

It's easy to prefer local when so many of the breweries in my city make great beer. If we expand the term local to include Seattle (about 100 miles away) then it gets ridiculously easy to buy local. If we consider regional to mean WA/OR/Northern ID, I'd guess 97-ish% of beers are regional.

I regularly get Georgetown IPAs (Bodhizafa, Lucille, Johnny Utah) at Rite-Aid at a week old. rarely is it a month old. Why buy the Away Team beer when the Home Team is so good? My exception is Elevated from La Cumbre. That might be my favorite IPA, and if they distro'd up here, it would be in the fridge always.

 

If "local" can be expanded to "in state," then I've got it covered. Too many options... greater distribution makes it easier to obtain product from regional breweries, let alone the rest of the state, but so too does a zillion breweries out of state, and it's hard passing up on that one-off psycho stout shipped from the mythical lands of drought and fire (or Michigan).

Plus, anything truly local can be patronized in person and may be on draft elsewhere, so there's that.

 

My options for local beer are extremely limited so I drink very little local beer. When I lived in Grand Rapids and in DC I drank more but I have always been more concerned with getting what I like than where it comes from.

 

I am also fortunate to have a lot of quality local choices. I'm roughly equidistant from Philly and Baltimore, but Lancaster. York, and Harrisburg offer a huge variety of excellent hyper-local stuff. I'm into variety, and I'm able to go a long time without repeating a beer if I so choose.
But that's "home field" local. I just got back from a couple of weeks in Costa Rica, and by god I bought local there. Now mind you it wasn't very GOOD local, but it was a damn sight better than the "imports" (Corona, etc). I actually found a couple of very local IPAs that were quite respectable.
My point being: no matter where you are, you're local. Buy some of the local beer and see what it's like.

 

I can walk to two local brewpubs that offer on premise and cans to take away (not cheap). The quality just isn't there so I would rather look for freshly canned/bottled options from SN, Bear Republic, Pizza Port, Trumer, Original Pattern, etc. which are all in California and range in distance from 50 to 400 miles away.

There is also an Out of the Barrel craft taproom nearby which is the best option to grab a pint. It features local brews. Take away cans are available but at a marked up price.

 

Probably 50% of beer purchases are from a local brewery. I live in Northwest Florida and there are about 25 breweries an hour or less drive from my house, and over half of those are less than 30 minutes. Pretty much all of them sell crowlers and growlers so I’ll occasionally make my way over to one of them and fill them up. We have a pretty good beer store here too that has over 250 different beers and can make my own six pack. I’m spoiled here.

 

Quality Uber Alles. I will certainly tout good local beers, but if it is middling or worse. pass. There are some locals I have flat given up on. If I had easy & economical access to the top tier beers nationally; I would kick 95% if my locals to the curb.

I will say from the freshness perspective visiting local places usually assures good quality. Once we are talking retail, a lot of bets are off. Not that to rack the locals & spot new product. But thanks to this site, pretty easy to do so with regional & national brands

 

I'm less concerned about location and more concerned about business practices. Really it's more virtuous to drink this project dank from a state away than it would be to drink a coors from my state, no?

 

Originally, not really. When I got back into drinking good beer again, I went back to what I usually liked, which was beers on the malty and yeasty side. So I love Dubbels, Tripels, Rauchbier, Ambers, etc. and German and Belgian styles like any Hefe’s, Bocks, Saisons, Lambics, Kriek, and so on. None of these seem to be high on local brewers lists or even in the NA craft scene which tends to love it’s crazy imperial stouts with cookie coffee crazy adjuncts and Octuple IPA’s (mostly joking on the last one, highest I’ve seen is a ‘quadruple IPA’)

But as I’ve had more and more of these offerings (and my cellar grew), I branched out. Mostly because the LCBO in Ontario only sticks so much stuff. For example, we’ve always had Weihenstephaner Hefe, but they’ve never stocked any of their other beers. Not back in 2010, and not now 12 years later.

I do enjoy a good NEIPA, and I find my palate has changed since I was young. I always loved scotch for example, and mostly Islay stuff, so I do find myself drawn to hoppy beers which I originally just found bitter, more bitter, and super bitter, but I find myself enjoying the complexities (and able to actually taste them) now. Ironically I’ve had tons of IPAs and the ones I’ve had are all hazy, ‘juicy’, or close to the NEIPA style even if that isn’t what they say on the label. Lots of tropical, but low bitterness.

I’d say most of the local Canadian craft tends to be IPA, NEIPAs, Amber ale, Stouts, pale ales, and occasional lagers. Heavier on the stouts and IPAs, and ‘fruit’ beers are common now, but they’re less like a Gose or typical fruit beer or sour like Rodenbach or Duchesse de Borgogne, and more kind of like a general ale that they added some kind of fruit juice to.

Though, out of 28 of my last beers on my list I bought, 16 were local. Which is actually quite a bit. If I scroll up on my list, when I just got back into beer, only 7 were local out of the first 28 I bought. So that’s a good improvement! I do like to support local but taste always comes first for me. Can’t keep shelling out $5 for these Bellwoods IPAs that taste just like every other NEIPA when $4 gets me a Belgian strong dark ale

 

It's about an hour drive to get to a halfway decent brewery from where I live. So if "local" means closer than that then my answer is no, I don't buy local beer because I'm sorry to say that it's lousy and I'm not going to waste money on lousy beer.

If local means beer from my state (California) , or even the half of the state that I live in then yes, I buy tons of local beer.

 

In my neck o‘ the woods there are several small-scale breweries, collectively which produce some excellent and many great brews (moreover, palate-satisfying) of different styles, one of which has a dedicated revolving selection of European styles, as well as superb IPAs(both WC which I seek, and hazies and full-blown NE which I don't) and APAs and elsesuch. At ~ 5–7 dollars per sub-⟮9%_abv⟯ pint to-go (offered in freshness-preserving crowlers and 4-packs, as well as growlers) and considerably heftier for ingredient/time -heavier bottlings, the pricepoint is close to but slightly higher than comparable offerings’ at bottleshops from regional, international, and export- vendors, although the quality is consistently high and even innovative, and as bonuses induces smaller carbon footprint with the profits supporting local commerce.
But alas, $>5/pint (of non-imperial, non-BA beers ---which constitutes most of the beer I drink) is too rich for full occupancy of my beer diet. As such, about ~40% of the beer I imbibe at home comes from ‘local breweries’; ~half from regional distributors Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas( brewed a few counties away), and macroes; and maybe ~10% reserved for “craft”/premium options originating from farther away. A smaller but not insignificant portion of my beer expenditure goes to expanding my perspective by trying examples of styes I have yet adequately to experience (from a distributor orand while traveling), as well as in general more-local options availed while traveling( which entails funds beyond the norms of my means), with a larger (though smaller than for- at_home consumption) portion of my beer-intake transpiring at a local watering hole (i.e. a microbrewery-tastingroom within bicycling trip fromto my residence), bringing my total “local beer consumption” by volume to slightly more than half of the beer that I drink (thus my voting "mostly buy local beer") albeit slightly higher portion of my thereon money-spent pie. If I were rich, then my beer-imbibed pie (not counting ‘nano’- and home- brews) would likely be approx 40% local - 50% foreign - 10% non-local US - 0% macro (whereas in actuality, it is roughly 55-5-10-30) where ‘macros’ include large multinational companies, and subsidiaries thereof, with more than a couple manufacturing sites (by some definitions producing in excess of 5million gallons per year).

 

You got a point about the Belgian trappist-style beer—their refinement, choice ingredient selection, and dedication expertise imparts a very high standard indeed, that which approaching (let alone surpassing) is quite a feat.

 

Depends on what you mean by local. Local breweries and taprooms can vary tremendously. Here in Philly Yards and Triple Bottom are only a few blocks apart--and one is a wonderful open but intimate room where one can socialize and relax (Triple Bottom), the other is a large less personal bus station type place (Yards--though the previous Yards taproom was great).

On the other hand most of the smaller and strictly local breweries in our area have done away with the beloved 12 oz. bottle and only sell 16 oz. cans. Fourpacks of these have gotten very expensive (per ounce) and for me anyway 16 oz. is just too much to drink at one sitting, especially for the higher abv beers. On the rare occasions my wife will split a Dreamtime Haruspex with me that's great--otherwise... So I often go for the larger tried and true breweries (Troegs, Yards, Victory, even Sam Adams) that still sell 12 oz. bottles or cans.

 

I try to support my local brewers as much as I can but all of them price at $12 crowlers and $14-$18 4 packs so I only splurge a few times a year for to-go/ at home consumption. I’ll try to visit a local brewery for a beer out with my wife or friends maybe once a month on average. If locals were priced lower I’d support them more frequently. Plus I’ve been burned a few times with canned beers sold on site to go as not being fresh (both in MD and and at a PA local brewer).

 

For beer purposes, I self-identify as a global citizen. I'll drink beer from anywhere. (Except ABI.)

 

My BA stats say 833 beers, or 29.15%, of my beer reviews are from my home state of Missouri. This 29.15% jumps up past 31% if you factor out my international reviews. Before you write this off since that stat includes St. Louis breweries (Side Project, ABI, 4 Hand's, Narrow Gauge, Schlafly, etc.) my top three most-rated breweries are: Boulevard Brewing Co., BKS Artisan Ales, and Alma Mader Brewing Company - all of which are local to me. In fact, these three breweries account for 266, or just under a third of my Missouri beer reviews.

There was a time when my Missouri consumption was below 25%, according to this same stat. I recall trying to 'maintain' 25%, which was a little more difficult without all the new, and quality local brewers, and the amount of trading I was doing.

With all that in mind, I'd say "yes", I do drink locally, especially over the past couple years. The only caveat is I don't get to breweries on the Kansas side as much. Only reason that's worth mentioning is it's a shorter drive for me to get to a handful of KS breweries than several MO breweries in our metro area. I'll work on increasing the 91 Kansas beers (or 3.18% of my total consumption) I've reviewed this year, supporting other local area brewers.

 

You are the Missouri ticker. Curious - what percentage of your ratings/reviews are Missouri? That stat should show for you if you go to your beer rating/review page and select 'States'.

I love when you share thoughts on a beer before I get to it, even if it's within my home city. It also means I don't have to add the beer

 

These days, when I travel to another state, I'm usually more interested in looking at what imports they get than all of their local options... which is really saying something.

 

Probably about 60% of what I drink is from NC/SC breweries with a fair amount of those being Charlotte area breweries. I usually keep beers from Olde Mecklenburg, NoDa, and Birdsong in my fridge.