Most Improved Beer States

Minnesota for sure especially the city of Minneapolis

 

Texas has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. Some of our laws continue to hold us back but the good fight continues because of awesome breweries like Jester King and Freetail. They really need to get together and colab on a beer where all the proceeds go to fight the legislature.

 

Los Angeles, although we are still behind SD and SF, (im aware he meant states)

 

DC. Fermentation without representation.

 

Alabama is in the process of exponential improvements

 

I agree.. New York seems to be taking off in this area lately. Within the last year or 2 upstate we've seen Founders, Ballast Point, Maine Beer Co, Firestone Walker... also rumors of Bells and NEBCO coming soon too. Breweries like Crossroads, Sloop, Peekskill, Spider Bite and many more are popping up and are making some real good beer.

 

Alabama has to be the most improved in recent years. Couldn't get anything over 6% until 2009. AL has some pretty good breweries now and getting more good breweries distributed recently.

 

I dont know about IL as a whole but the Chicago area is on fire right now with Pipeworks, spiteful, Half Acre, Reveloution, Begyle, 18th street and a few others!

 

There are 6 microbreweries in Rhode Island. 5 of them opened in the past 18 months. I think it's safe to say that most states are expanding.

 

im from Columbus Ohio but just recently moved to Vermont, Columbus it self has come a long way in the craft beer world. im a chef and left a job at a restaurant called the pint room, were they had 127 craft beers on tap. and over 200 in bottles. really great stuff, and really great beer. so in my opinion i think Ohio has come a long way but still has a long way to go.

 

My beloved state of SC hands down. Before pop the cap, you'd occasionally find a bottle of high alcohol beer (8%) on the shelves. Now, we have one of the highest regarded beer stores, CBX, some well respected breweries, Westbrook, COAST, Holy City, etc..., and some top notch beer festivals.

I remember when I joined Beeradvocate, back around 2002, one of my quotes was about how I thought if SC would raise the alcohol limit on beers, it would become a utopia. Well, I don't know about the rest of SC, but Charleston is quickly becoming the "it" place to be.

 

You nailed that one, didn't you... (everyone voting for home state)

I'd vote NC - but more for the actual NC breweries you listed, not the satellites, which I don't think really factor into this.

 

I imagine it's less a factor for people on the coast or in the Piedmont, but for someone who will be 10 minutes from NB and SN when they open and is 30 minutes from OB, it's a pretty big deal. It probably won't affect beers on shelves much, but it will mean a lot more access to their rare and one-off beers.

 

As much as I complained about it (and believe you me -- I complained [and it was warranted]), in the time between visiting from California in '09 and living there for the last two years, Texas took extraordinary bounds in availability, price, and local fare. This improvement may have been specific to my location (up until a couple of months before I moved there Lubbock was a dry county!), but the hellscape of west texas actually had decent availability, and when I moved to Austin and found their local offerings to add to the imports, well...

 

When I first got into craft beer 3 or 4 years ago I felt like IL was pretty sad besides maybe GI and a couple others. There weren't a whole lot of beer events going on either. Flash forward to today and there are a plethora of great new breweries and its impossible to not find some sort of beer event going on practically every weekend, if not every day.

 

Actully North Dakota has 4 breweries now brewing beer in the state (Laughing Sun, Edwinton, Souris River, Buffalo Commons) which is a huge percentage increase from ZERO as recent as mid 2012. Then 3 more brewieries should start brewing in ND buy the end of this year too (Fargo, Little Deep, and Bird Dog).

 

We had one brewery in 2008. Two in 2009.

In 2013 we have 12 production and 2 contract breweries, with at least another 4 that should come online this year.

 

have done so, but he has not read it yet.

 

Florida no doubt, regarding both distribution and production.

 

most improved country?

U S A !

U S A !