Best Beer-cation cities

Munich > 2hrs to Bamberg > 7hrs to Brugges - can even drink while travelling...

 

Don't know much about the brewing scene but I can attest that Flagstaff is just a cool unique city. Close to the Grand Canyon too.

 

I have not been to enough of the areas to choose the best (just some in Colorado) but what I will say is that I go to a lot of little places on camping trips etc (typically on vacation I avoid big cities) and finding decent to really good microbreweries all over or at least stores that sell good local selections. Just got back from Minnesota. Did not go to the twin cities but got a lot of mixers with beers from there and I enjoyed them all. Been up the the North Shore, which is beautiful and worth the trip for the scenery and hiking, but there are good micro breweries all along and I really liked Castle Danger. Two other less known I really liked were Beaver Island in St. Cloud and Bad Habit in St. Joseph.
And kind of to the point of finding good breweries all over in the city closest to me, Topeka, which understand I know is NOT a vacation destination, there are three pretty damn good breweries in Blind Tiger, Norseman, and Happy Basset in that order for me. If you're ever in Topeka for some reason such as staying the night on your way to or from Colorado they are worth a try.

 

New York, New York, New York, and before you say I'm being biased, I will give you some mighty good reasons:
1. Like the rest of the city, beer is innovative, electric, growing as fast as lightening, and ahead of its time.
2. Who doesn't want to visit NYC anyway?
3. The best breweries, bottle shops, and brewpubs will take you off the over-beaten tourist paths and straight into the absolute best this dense city has to offer.
4. It's beyond easy to beer hop with our public transportation system.

Message me for tips: I know where you should go, and you will not be disappointed!

 

I'd say San Diego for the number of nice breweries out there, but also lots of things to do and see. And, the weather is usually comfortable.

 

Not for nothing, but you seem to have forgotten Beer Bars, which I think is our greatest strength beer-wise; the incredible regional brewers and broad distribution, mixed in with the local stuff, and on full display.

 

one of my best friends from college lives in Minneapolis now so I visited him last year for a few days and it's a really cool city. their Distro is crazy good and Surly is an AMAZING place to visit as well as their beer is available everywhere and it's great. I remember drinking Fulton and Toppling Goliath as well.

i went to Ohio State and enjoy the beer available there as well.
Columbus Brewing, Hoof Hearted, Fat Head's, and GLBC obviously aren't all in Columbus but Ohio has some really awesome spots.

Columbus is the central location and you have the NFL Hall of Fame, Rock n Roll hall of fame, Cedar Point, 2 NFL teams, a top college team, 1 NBA team and 2 MLB teams. a really cool place to visit if you want to incorporate more than just beer.

personally i think of Cali (Stone, Russian River, Firestone Walker, Moonraker and other random treats), Portland, Boston and Vermont.

 

True, true!!!!

 

I have done Vermont twice with Burlington and Lake Placid as home base. Amazing scenery, fantastic beers and tons to do. I am gong back in 3 weeks and can't wait. Looking forward to filling my fridge with Focal Banger, Sip-of-Sunshine and anything else I can scrounge up.

 

Yeah it's weird that Connecticut and Rhode Island are no where near Canada, and NYS goes way north of both states, and has a large Canadian border, but New York State isn't New England, while those other two are.

And for a beer vacation that has great natural beauty, laid back folks, and amazing beer in every direction you can't beat my area of New York, the Mid Hudson Valley.

 

Been thru the upper NYS area on two occasions, I like to visit but would not like to live anywhere around the Lake Regions. Watertown visiting my son at Drum at the time was my jump off onto Waterbury Vt. Love central Vt, great beers if your within a 30 mile radius or so of Waterbury. I think if you planned it right you could do Vt, Boston, ME quite easily. That would be my ideal.

 

I absolutely loved the way how you mixed breweries with other good local food and things to do!
I always plan my vacations that way!!
I mean, if my better half allows to mix in the breweries (to her credit, most often she does)

 

This. End of thread. Not even close.

 

My incredibly biased opinion is that ABQ and Northern NM as a whole makes a great beercation, especially during Fall and Winter. Summer is fine if you don't mind the heat (still about 15F cooler than PHX) and you can come during the monsoons to flip one's assumptions about NM on it's head. But for my $$$, the Fall and Winter are really incredible here.

On the non-drinking front, we have incredibly beautiful scenery, world-class skiiing, snow-boarding, mountain biking/climbing/backpacking... great outdoor activities. We have a culinary tradition that is truly unique and that, for the lovers of spice, is really an incredible experience to experience a culture simply congregate around a chili pepper. The weather, esp. in Fall and Winter is truly incredible. A cloudy day is VERY rare.

On the beer front... Again, really biased, but I don't think you can find better West-Coast IPAs that you can find in ABQ. Bosque, Marble, Boxing Bear, Steel Bender, Turtle Mountain, Canteen, Quarter Celtic and La Cumbre will almost all have 2 sometimes 3 variations of IPAs and they will all be very good to world class in quality. Lagers, Belgian-styles, British ales including cask conditioned ales, and kettle sours are represented very well and you will be able to find mind-blowingly good examples of each around the city. The breweries here do not specialize in any one style/tradition of brewing, instead we all run the gammut. Most of us have a deep respect for German lagers and that's reflected in usually at least one offering if not several. Belgians can be harder to find, but Marble's Double White is great as are their other Belgian-styled beers, and La Cumbre regularly has a farmhouse-inspired beer on tap. Bob at Steel Bender worked at Oxbow before he worked for us at La Cumbre and is doing some great things with his kettle sours as well as his Belgian-styles.

While walking is not really doable to hit up much of the breweries, and driving without a DD is not advisable (really ever, but especially not in ABQ) ubers are everywhere and they are very reasonably priced in ABQ... Come to think of it, nearly everything is really reasonably priced in NM. You'll want a car to get up to Santa Fe and/or Taos, but getting around ABQ to the different breweries is best done by uber at this point.

Santa Fe has Santa Fe Brewing, Second Street, Duel and the new Rowley Farmhouse Ales which are all worth a stop. And Santa Fe as a whole has some incredible cultural draws that I am not qualified to go over really... but check out Meow Wolf.

Taos is an incredibly cool town 1.5 hours north of Santa Fe with some of the best skiing in the country and Taos Mesa Brewing Co., truly one of the prettiest places to have a beer in the country. Lots of hippies up there, and the food and culture reflect that, but I can't imagine someone not enjoying themselves in Taos.

If anyone ever wants to come out to NM and would like some advice, there is a regularly contributed to NM thread in the Southwest forum that I'd encourage you to peruse and introduce yourself on. And you are always welcome to shoot a line to me and I'd be happy to help you in your travels. [email protected]

 

Sante Fe is definitely cool. Drove down when I lived in Denver. Fun little city.

 

Agreed. This is what we do...

Start at Greenbush in Sawyer, MI (southwest MI) to eat to get a good base - solid food menu - and of course Greenbush has pretty solid beer. Head north on 94 a couple exits to Bridgman to Transient and Tapistry (mostly Transient). If you want to eat again, hit up Haymarket Pub & Brewery and eat some good pizza and get some more beer.

Keep heading north on 94 to Kalamazoo for Bells and Arcadia (or any of the other 10+ breweries in KaZoo).

Then, head up to the GR where you will be in beer heaven. Just make sure Founders is serving CBS when you go :-) HopCat is a must visit, and like KaZoo, there are countless other breweries to visit.

Spend the night, or nights, in GR then carve out a couple days to head north to Traverse City, like someone else mentioned earlier. There's a hundred breweries/brew pubs in Traverse City (maybe not literally, but A LOT).

Oh yeah, Lake Michigan and the beaches are relatively close if you want a day at the beach.

That is a fun trip!

 

Milwaukee has some of the nicest people in the world as well. The Mrs and I visited a few summers ago and loved it. Stayed right by the river downtown, hit up many great little bars/restaurants/breweries, enjoyed a great street fest, and did the Lakefront tour/fish fry combo on a Friday evening. Can't wait to go back.

 

I second the Hudson Valley as a great place for a vacation in general and from what I've heard about many of new breweries you folks have coming out of the woodwork it's now great for a beer-cation, especially for a family, since there's so much for youngsters to see and do as well.

 

Was in Anaheim last month for a conference (well, tagged along with the wife) and really enjoyed the beer scene in Anaheim. Not only were the more well-known breweries great, I really enjoyed some of the smaller ones (Asylum, Phantom, Legends)

 

The detroit area has a lot of breweries. Oddside ales, bells taproom, jolly pumpkin, Perrin, dragonmead and I'm sure more. Haven't been there for a beercation yet, but someday soon.