Is Sonoma the best brewery county around?

Wow. No love for Denver, eh? I love that city as a beer town. Not sure what else is included in the county, but just in a 20-minute walking area I was able to hit Great Divide, Epic, Crooked Stave, River North, Jagged Mountain, Freshcraft, Falling Rock, and Wynkoop.

That was impressive enough for me.

Then again, I was just in DC and was blown away by the scene there. I guess this is partially because the distribution is mind-boggling, but there are some great local beer spots and both Right Proper and Bluejacket (superb beers) were top-notch.

I think just about anywhere I go, I find plenty of good to enjoy (eg. Tucson, NYC, Paso Robles, lately). I guess the one exception was Vegas, which I found weak.

Bottom line, for me the question is subjective since I would throw distribution and beer bars into the discussion along with breweries. But hell, I think we're spoiled rotten as beer-drinkers in the United States.

 

Without needing to get into too much detail, both Multnomah and Denver counties are clearly superior to Sonoma brewery-wise. You sir are suffering from "the grass is greener" syndrome.

 

What's an SKU?

 

Here you go.

 

Stock Keeping Unit/logistics/inventory mgmt etc. Thanks for the snobby responses as expected when someone asks a question. WTF does that mean in context to "number of world class SKUs"? There still is a different meaning than that in beer talk. I've seen it in numerous posts and just can't put 2&2 together.

 

All in good fun brother!

http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/community/ba-blog/show?title=too-many-craft-skus

 

I would definitely cast a vote for San Diego (and I'm a Northern Californian at heart). I have yet to visit the Midwest or Northwest since earning my legal drinking age, so I can't weigh in there though...

 

I think county x is best

 

While I see your point when it comes to Sonoma county, I think comparing counties nationwide for their beer scene isn't really a fair way to judge. As you already pointed out, the Boulder/Denver area is world class, but they're not in the same counties. Same goes for everything going on in Northern VT across Chittenden, Washington, Orleans, and other counties even though they are all relatively close together.

 

simple answer...YES

 

The grass is definitely still green in Colorado. And orange. And purple.

 

Surely it's Nottinghamshire: Warwick & Richardson, Heppenstall, Holes, Trent Brewery, Davey's - who can match that?

 

No. Not even really close.

 

I am sure many of us would vote for our own areas as well.....so.....I will throw Cuyahoga county (Cleveland -NE Ohio) into the mix.....here are some of the highlights / breweries in this county;

Great Lakes Brewing Co
Fat Heads Brewing
Market Garden Brewing
Nano-Brew
Buckeye Brewing
Black Box Brewing
Rocky River Brewing
Cornerstone Brewing
Brew Kettle
Portside
Indigo Imp Brewing
Bottle Haus Brewing
close by in adjacent counties;
Willoughby Brewing
Little Mountain Brewing
Cellar Rats Brewing

NEW breweries in the works;
Butcher & Brewer
Tremont Taphouse
Brew Mentor
Franklin Brewery
Platform Brewery
Palace of Fermentation
(and several others - just in Ohio City area alone - west Cleveland)

Yes, have been to Sonoma County, and other parts of N.CA.....great area and lots of great beer (to say nothing of the wine!)....but, NE Ohio is rocking the craft beer scene pretty hard lately!!

 

E-Z... Washington County, VT.

 

I agree for the most part, but Butcher and the Brewer/Tremont Taphouse are the same thing. TT is financing B&B. Franklin Brewing is already brewing and their Kolsch is awesome. Also not Cuyahoga County, but Wooster Brewing is probably the 2nd or 3rd best brewery in the state(and fairly near to Cleveland).

 

Just another Ron induced chuckle.

 

Heady and Lawson's? I'd take Tired Hands and Forest & Main (Montgomery County, PA) over those two every day of the week.

 

Broward County is of course:
Funky Buddha Lounge

What more do we even need?

 

Traitor.

 

Don't know if San Diego is the best or not, but FWIW, here's what we've got:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/place/city/28/

 

So, no ma(mom, mother), Santa Rosa, CA, is a great place to start any pub crawl. W(h)ine and beer together.

 

+1 and don't forget Sly Fox, Round Guys, Prism, Iron Hill, Manyunk, Appalachian. And if we're going off of others' suggestions to include other area breweries, Victory, Troegs, Weyerbacher, Lancaster, Triumph, Philadelphia, Fegley's BrewWorks, Stoudt's, and Free Will. The Philly area might not have too many 'world class' breweries, but a ton of really good beer is made here.

 

How 'bout a lil' love for Hennipen County in MN? C'mon man, we got Surly, and uh...Grain Belt.... Yeah man, let's hear it for Grainbelt, 'n' Pig's Eye...or maybe not...

 

Sonoma Area is GREAT, but I sure love BOURBON COUNTY!!!

 

Multnomah, Sonoma, Denver, San Diego, and a few other counties across the country all deserve to be in the conversation. But you probably won't get more than about 30% to agree on which one is "best."

 

The two best counties are "the county I'm currently in" and "the county from which someone is sending me beer."

 

Threads like this would be more interesting if there was a rule that you couldn't argue for your own home area, but only ones that you had visited.

I wouldn't put Seattle (King Co.) in the top tier anyway. Among places I've enjoyed beer, my top three would be Sonoma, Multnomah (Portland), and Hennepin (Minneapolis). I was pretty impressed with the range of Wisconsin beers on a visit to Madison, but I don't know the county distribution. Denver beer is also pretty good, but if I had to pick a place for a beercation, it'd be behind Sonoma and Portland.

 

I heard Buncombe County (Asheville NC) has some real nice breweries. Cant speak from experience though.

 

Yeah, I think they'll be alright.

 

beers is up for debate the best Zins in the world and the best Pinots on this continent come from Sonoma

 

i went to school at sonoma state university and no, sonoma is not the best brewery county around. Russian river is world class but sonoma only has 7 or 8 breweries tops

 

I'm a big fan of both of those and visit them regularly. As they don't package for retail, I didn't consider them. Based strictly on the beer, I still prefer Alchemist and Lawson's.

 

Even though I'm a driver/three iron away from Sonoma County, everything is subjective.
I think whatever counties Portland and Grand Rapids fall under are better as SC only offers me Bear Republic. The rest I can care less about.

 

I stand corrected on Lagunitas (I posted at 6am and coffee hadn't kicked in yet) but RR to me is nothing more than trade bait. IMHO just average and WAYYYYY over hyped.

 

Everyone talks about counties in California being the strongest but Cook county (Chicago) should really be mentioned in this conference, breweries like FFF, Pipeworks, Revolution, and Half Acre just to name a few with pretty easy access to both east and west coast beers. Chicago is like a beer hub it's awesome.

 

They actually both package for retail, albeit on a very limited basis (hoping this changes some with the Tired Hands expansion). And I love Heady as much as anyone, but a brewery that makes 1 beer (yes, I know, they made many before their brewpub was destroyed) doesn't really qualify it as a beer destination. It's nice that you can visit Waterbury and find HF on tap as well, but I believe the OP was specifically asking about breweries located within a county.

Of course, now that I think about it, both Westvleteren and Flemish Brabant (and probably any other one in Belgium you can name) have it all over any county in the U.S. I think they are considered provinces, not counties, but area-wise they are closer to a U.S. county than a state, except maybe for some of the tiny ones in the NE.