Availability?

This will get you started.
http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

 

Well you can try seekabrew to see what's where. You can trade for brews you'd love to try, but cant get locally. I haven't got them all but I'm managed most.

 

Go to Max's/Churchkey/Meridian Pint and start checking off the list, or screw the list and just drink the other amazing beers you can get. MD is hardly a tough place to find good beer, no one has access to all the big hype brands.

 

Thanks for the helpful list! I was just discussing the ridiculous mish-mash of laws for beer distribution around the country with a local distributor. He told me that every distributor in PA (for example) has to bid in each county for the rights to distribute their beers. How absurd...

 

There's a lot of stuff I can't get either (and I've been around here for a long time), it's all about learning what you have available that's desirable and establishing beer trading relationships. PA gets some pretty good stuff but there's no location in the world that has easy access to all of those 250 beers. Be patient and enjoy the journey.

 

Seekabrew is a wonderful resource that I use all the time, especially figuring out what extras I should get when trading (at the brewery level).

Also, you might want to check out totalwine.com. There are couple of stores in Maryland. You can quickly browse through their inventory and get a sense of what is available in your distribution area. In Southern California, Total Wine's inventory is pretty good

The top 250 is loaded with many highly sought after, limited distribution beers that are really hard to come by without trading, traveling a lot, or just plain luck. There's a companion Beers of Fame list here that lists top 100 beers based on 2,000+ reviews which means those beers, while still very high quality, are easier to acquire.

 

The above listed links should help you, the list “beers of fame” should be easier to get.


The problem with availability is that it changes constantly & is very hard to keep track off.

Plus it is different for everyone, Bud Light is unavailable where I live but is available for most on here, just to give an example.

 

The Beers of Fame is a much easily accessible and more importantly more rewarding list than many of the others on here. That list compromises mostly of great beers that are very accesible just about anywhere in the US with some exceptions, and that have often stood the test of time.

Lists are lists, they're just guides but don't beat yourself up over them. There's a huge amount of good beer in this area from several breweries and lots of others from out of state that show up on shelves. Happy hunting.