What are your top 5 beer cities?

Yes, hopefully.

And maybe then Austin may be in the running for a top 5 slot?

Cheers!

 

Grand Rapids, Michigan
San Diego, California
Brooklyn, NY
Austin, Texas
Portland, Oregon

 

I'll frame this as "top 5 cities I've been to"
1) Asheville NC
2) San Diego CA
3) Portland, OR
4) Boston MA
5) Brooklyn NY

 

Based on where the beer I buy comes from;

Arcata, CA
Ft. Bragg, CA
Chico, CA
Sacramento, CA
Santa Rosa, CA

 

NYC
Burlington, VT
Copenhagen
San Diego
Brussels

 

Yeah their taproom is a mediocre sports bar/music venue these days. I often joke with a friend that they seem to work at assembling the biggest uninteresting tap list possible. 20+ taps and I usually end up with an snpa or scrimshaw.

However, Redwood Curtain is brewing delicious beers across the style range out of Arcata these days. Better quality and better range than hbc ever had. Oddly, they're also the only brewery I'm aware of that has managed to avoid doing any packaging, even through covid. It's pretty impressive really

Edit to add: between redwood curtain and dead reckoning alone I think Arcata has a shot at "Best town under 20k people for beer drinking".

 

Top 5 I've been to (not including Asheville because I'm biased from living here for almost a decade and everyone knows it's the best anyway )

Chicago, IL
Philadelphia, PA
Portland, OR
Richmond, VA (I haven't spent multiple days there but have passed through several times and can tell it's a helluva beer town I need to explore more thoroughly)
Burlington, VT (For the plain fact that Burlington Beer Co is there and you have access to so many great New England brews)

Honorable mention goes to Knoxville, TN. Just did a visit there and they have a super solid brewery scene that's really only just recently cropped up. If there continue to be more breweries added that are the same caliber as Abridged, Pretentious, Xul and Albright Grove, Knoxville could become a force to be reckoned with

 

Places I’ve been at least a few times. Not including one time visits.

1. NYC
2. Philadelphia
3. Richmond, VA
4. Pittsburgh, PA
5. NOVA/DC

 

I see you haven't been to Brooklyn in 15 years.

 

Have you been to Bierstadt, Suarez, or anywhere in Germany?

 

I'm going with:

Brooklyn NY
Portland OR
Portland ME
Richmond VA *homer's choice
Tree House MA

And yes, I've been to Munich, Brussels, Seattle, Philly, Asheville, San Diego, LA, Chicago, Denver, and every other great beer city I can think of.

 

#1 — Greater Burlington, VT
#2 — Bend, OR
#3 — New York, NY
#4 — Greater Los Angeles, CA
#5 — Bay Area, CA

The Bay Area has far more middleweight contenders than Greater Boston does heavyweight contenders, so that tips the scale there. My other Honorable Mentions are Portland, San Diego, Seattle, and Tampa. (I have yet to visit Asheville, Austin, Denver, Grand Rapids, or Minneapolis for the principal purpose of enjoying brewskis.)

 

Based on the cities I've actually been to on beercations and in no particular order:

Denver, CO
Portland, ME
Burlington/Stowe/Greater area, VT
San Diego, CA
Chicago, IL

I lived in the twin cities metro for 10 years and am surprised with the number of votes for Minneapolis. Maybe just an effect of where people have traveled?

Austin is a great place to visit but I wouldn't put it in the top 20 of beer cities. That being said, ABGB might be one of the best breweries year to year over the past 10.

Michigan (I'm biased to this state as this is where I'm from) has great breweries but in various parts of the state so no particular city can serve as a destination. Detroit is not much of a craft beer city.

I live in Columbus, OH now and its a pretty good beer city but Ohio is similar to Michigan in that there are great breweries but distributed throughout the state. Fatheads, Columbus Brewing, Jackie O's, Hopping Frog, Land Grant, Rheingeist etc etc.

 

Yep. Only a few very small Scottish brewers have used peated malt for one-off beers in living memory. Since the industrial revolution peated malt wasn’t used for brewing.

My theory is that since Islay malt whiskies are peaty, people assume that Scottish beer is, or should be, peaty too.

Nobody ever says that Irish beer is peaty, although Ireland is almost made of peat. I guess that’s because Jameson’s Irish whiskey (which outsells its nearest rival 10 to 1 in the US) isn’t peaty.

 

I don't base my answers on subjective opinions or "homerism," I use data and facts. This is the accurate test to determine the greatest beer city:

- Do the dogs outnumber the toddlers at the breweries?
- Do the cashiers expect tips when you buy a 4 pack of cans to go?
- How many different Brut IPAs can you buy at their Total Wine?
- How expensive is the priciest hotel room within half a mile from the highest rated brewery? (The more expensive the room, the better)
- What do you get when you just ask for a "lager" at a bar?
- Have the food trucks ever been featured on a TV program?
- Can you buy a beer from the BeerAdvocate "top 250" in a gas station?
- Can you buy a beer from the BeerAdvocate "worst rated" at a brewery taproom?
- What are their gas prices?
- Can you fly there directly or do you need to have a layover?
- Is bubble wrap in high demand?
- Do postal workers ask too many questions?
- Do they add an umlaut to LUKR?
- Do their date stampers use non-smudging ink?
- Do they have plenty of beer there from lesser beer cities so you don't have to drink all of the lackluster and overpriced local stuff?

 

London
Chicago
Brooklyn
St. Louis

I also plan to travel to London on the spring holiday, I miss the beer here so much

 

For me, they will be:
1.Munich
2.Pilsen
3.Portland
4.Bruges
5.Copenhagen