Relocating for Beer

I live in the Bay Area and it's between 70-90F for all but a couple of weeks a year. And I'm just over an hour away from Russian River. Just sayin...

 

Would I relocate for beer? No. That's just silly. Would I take beer into consideration if I needed to relocate? Hell yea.

 

Really anywhere that gets great distribution.. even if I can't get certain beers, I want to be able to have access to otherwise excellent beers that I can trade for the beers I want. There's no one place where you can have access to all the best beers, but there are better places than others in terms of access.

To me, that's the Great Lakes region- Illinois and Michigan being great ones, plus Minnesota for their access to the great west coast stuff like Deschutes.

That being said I would NOT mind moving to California or Oregon for their excellent shelf beers.

 

Burlington VT. It's actual civilization, but close enough to all the amazing beer and beautiful countryside! It also has some AMAZING places to drink LOTS of craft beers!

 

Cant leave NYC. I don't see how the rest of you manage to balance drinking all this beer AND having to drive.

 

When every beer you find is $9 a pint you start to consider. I love NYC, but my SF prices are already crazy!

 

I'm a native san diegan the beer scene is phenomenal. But the cost of living is pretty brutal.

 

i'd say any where in cali, i still haven't been to the west coast yet. i wanna experience the beer scene out there, and eat a ton of fish tacos.

 

It is...

...but it's still nowhere near as bad as the Bay Area.

I've had the great fortune to spend my entire life in Bend, San Diego and SF. Three of the top places in the country for craft beer. They each have their own drawbacks. Bend has no jobs for college grads and a large number of dumb Portlandites and Californians that like to screw everything up (cheap shitty housing developments, stupid business ventures, pretending to run the city because they have money, etc.) San Diego is flooded with tourists and has a substantial military population, many of whom like to drive agro and cause a scene after a few drinks. The stupidity of many tourists/non-permanent residents down there never ceases to amaze me. San Francisco is obscenely expensive and the city itself has shit for weather. Plus I-101 features the worst drivers in America.

That said, I love to travel and experience new things. Until I tired of them, I could enjoy Seattle, Portland, Denver, Ft. Collins/Boulder, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Philly, New York, Asheville or even somewhere up in Vermont or Maine. Hell, I'd move to Munich or Brussles in a heartbeat - I absolutely love it over there (smart and educated people and great quality of life!) My fiancee, on the other hand, is a San Diego native and misses her home. We will inevitably move back down there sometime in the future, and will likely own a home in Bend to get a little seasonal flavor.

 

probably anywhere in California.

 

NOVA (and greater DC area) is the worst.

Vermont's weather really isn't that bad, extremely low crime, and cost of living isn't that high.

Not enough Portland, ME love in this thread. It's a city that has some great beer, amazing food, doesn't get that much colder than Boston, and cost of living is fairly low for a city. It is Vacationland after all.

 

Very happy with living in the Detroit Metro area and spending a lot of time at families houses on the west side. Beer adds character if the people who brew it can survive in such TERRIBLE weather.

 

I like where the Twin Cities is headed, so I'll stick around and see what happens.

Hoping for some local sours...

Otherwise Portland, OR

 

Love where I'm at. No sense in moving from the North Bay CA, seems like there's a new brewery popping up every few weeks! love seeing these guys develop!

Petaluma Brewing District?! Come on! And we get a lot of love from So Cal...

 

Belgium

 

I live down the street from the Bruery, so that's pretty cool. Hmmm but if i could choose, I think I'd move a bit closer to San Diego. There's just SO MUCH good brewing going on down there.

 

Locally, the general San Diego area.

 

Back to San Diego.

 

Kansas. I love my family even more than beer. And they have some pretty decent stuff popping up too.

 

I wouldn't mind living in Vermont. The great outdoors and those world class breweries? Life could be worse.