"Best Beer Cities"

Your in the right business, I’m not much of a people person either, but no one knows that but my wife. I can take em or leave em for the most part, working retail will slant your view of people kind. Damn, I’m a grumpy old man, lol.

 

Really? The secret's been out a looong time. You're not the best at keeping secrets.

 

Ha,,, lol.

 

Distribution notwithstanding, I suspect this is why we don't see, as an example, Grimm IPA's like Tesseract, Lambo Door, etc out here in California.

 

This has to contain some old information. It lists Asheville as #4, partly because the average pint is $4. Uh.. no.. Sure there are a few breweries that have specials on one day a week, but go to the South Slope, and it's pushing $7/pint, but overall it is clearly $5 to $6 average.

With the rare exception of a very few brews at a couple of breweries, I can't think of any brewery that offers anything less than $5/pint, and only on 1 or 2 of their brews. Flagship/production brews are $5, $6, and sometimes $7 at virtually all 40+ breweries in Asheville.

 

They included all bars, not just breweries, and they include macro beer, not just craft beer.

 

I’d rate cities based on the quality of the beers, price plays no factor here imo. Personally I think the beer culture in Asheville is amazing, but the quality of the beers imo are mostly so -so. It’s a Tickers paradise though, and you can tick yourself to death in a weekend and not even put a scratch in it. It might take a month of diligent drinking to tick your way thru Asheville.

 

Could not agree more!

 

Most places have half off Mondays or Tuesdays whatever, but that hits the $3.50 mark, but.. if there’s really something good on they just cap it fir the night. The only beers that’s cheap per pint is Bud Light or Yuengling, and I wouldn't drink either for free.. But to their credit our local Lowe’s Foods has half off Thursday’s, and everything is half, KBS, CBS etc., actually you can get hammered for $10, bring your wife to drive your ass home.

 

Me too. I like Middle Ages and a few Empire beers--and I know there are a bunch of other breweries up that way--but I didn't expect to see them anywhere on this list.

 

Which doesn't represent the craft beer scene. Asheville is a beer destination, people don't come to go to a tap room or pizza place and order a Bud.

 

One issue with their "Best beer cities" is that it concentrates on tap beer, disregarding canned/bottled craft beer sold in stores. Yes, the trend is towards craft on tap but canned/bottled is still very significant. Perhaps they could have considered the number of craft breweries in distribution in the local market - at least that would cover availability.

 

This list though

 

I’m surprised a bit when I go to some of the better bars around here and Miller Lite, Corona, Bud Light bottles are still prevalent on the bar tops. Some beer drinkers like the bar and pub experience as much as anyone else they just like AAL’s. Asheville a bit different in that a good many of the bars are also Brewery run, so obviously no guest taps, but places like Barleys are all over the place, both on tap and bottles.

 

Now that Empire has closed their location Syracuse will probably drop off the list

I don't have the numbers, but I'd wager that region wide Bud, or at least AB beers, outsells all the craft beers.

 

Which isn't what this list is about at all.

As I posted earlier, their objective is biggest variety of cheap beer. It has nothing to do with craft beer beyond the variety part.

 

Yeah, these average pint prices are a joke. The average pint price in Grand Rapids is $3.25??? I must be going to the wrong brewpubs. I have seen a pint of beer for $3.25 since Bush 43. And if I did, I would probably be dead by now.

 

Id guess some are happy with AALs, but unlike most places substitute the word bar for a brewery bar. So it’s a dedicated bar run by a brewery, they don’t do guest taps or guest bottled beers. True bars in Asheville appeal to everyone including wine and spirits, they’re independent and want to make money so anything goes, but there’s not many of these.

 

This list is based off of data (the most beer available per person for the lowest cost etc) and not around opinions on quality. Missoula might be in the top 10 but I don’t think anyone is trying to say Missoula makes better beer than Seattle. I used to live in Madison so I knew it’d be high on a list like this because of how many bars there are, but I was surprised to see there’s now at least 16 breweries there. That market has grown a lot since I left.