Best beer cities

Do you guys agree with this list?

Looks ok. I haven’t spent enough time in the west coast cities to really weigh in on those but I think they’re fair choices in the context of micro history. The only one I’d nitpick is Philly, which has a great drinking scene but the best breweries are scattered about eastern PA.

I have a hard time with Philly and Boston and am surprised Chicago and Seattle didnt make it. No issue with Portland being at the top

Seattle is probably a solid 9 or 10 on the list. Portland or San Diego at #1 works for me. If you include Fort Collins & Longmont w/Denver, you add New Belgium, Odell, Funkwerks & Oskar Blues which puts that near the top.

I love seeing Bend on the list.

James, what is it about Boston? Home of most of the first microbreweries and brewpubs on the east coast, fueled by the insatiable thirst of college students. Sure I’m biased, but in the late 80’s/early 90’s Boston was undoubtedly the best beer city on the east coast.

Lots of smaller, more interesting, beer in Denver than the boring/tired New Belgiums and such. Agree with Funkwerks, but add in Prost and 'burb places like Bull & Bush and Denver proper stands on its own.

What are the recommendations for San Diego? We’ll be there a couple times in the forthcoming months and would love to spend time at a great brewery or beer bar.

Todd,

Stone & Ballast Point are two of the most well known breweries, I’m sure you will get great suggestions from the locals for bars & brewpubs.

Societe (!!)
AleSmith
Green Flash

Bar: Obrien’s

If you can trek… Stone, Lost Abbey / Port, Alpine.

Do not buy bottles at Alpine, huge risk reward factor.Tap is fine.

Cheers,

Bud

Brent, not disagreeing about Boston (or Philly for that matter) from the eighties and early 90’s but not in the past 5 or so years. In fairness I haven’t been in a few years but its just not a place I think of for exceptional beers. And I’m hopeful to be proven wrong on my next trip.

All good advice- I’d add Toronado as a bar & would definitely make the trek for Stone & Port.

+1

My last two beer runs in San Diego I haven’t bothered with Alpine, was kinda curious about the Obrien’s IPA but just haven’t gotten over there. To be honest I was disappointed with the last batch of Hoppy Birthday. I know that Nelson will call my name back there though, man I love that beer. Wish it were easier to support this brewery.

rolleyes

give it a few more years and Chicago will rightfully be up there. Lots of new breweries in the past 24 months and it will take some time to sort all of it out. It does look like the North Center/Ravenswood/Lincoln Sq area of the city is fast becoming brewery central with Begyle and Spiteful going full bore along with Half Acre now bringing about their tap room.


While I haven’t been to San Diego yet, I’ll +1 what Bud said about Alpine. His experiences there alone make me never want to go there. No beer is worth it with the way they go about customer service for a regular.

I remember visiting Portland back in 2001 and talking to someone there about microbreweries. I was trying to be complimentary to him about how great Portland was but he was adamant that Denver had the best beer scene in the US. I guess that’s changed since then? I was surprised to see Denver at #5.

It would have been a lot easier to compile this list a couple of years ago. The growth in both quality and options for craft beer has been exponential in the past 2 years. Using DC as an example, we had little to nothing to choose from in terms of consistently good and interesting beers. A few examples but nothing to get excited about. We now have several breweries/brewpubs that are cranking out fabulous beers that didn’t even exist a year ago with several more scheduled to open. Throw in some great beer bars and it is a landscape that just didn’t exist before. This kind of growth is going on everywhere. You would have been laughed at a couple years ago if you had said Albuquerque had a great beer scene. It certainly does now. I think the more important list would be ranking countries based on quality local craft beer and the US would certainly be in the top 5 of any credible list and probably #1 on most. That wouldn’t have been the case a decade ago.

I believe it was Nelson that I originally recommended to you a few months back. That is the only beer that I could recommend these days but only from growler. I actually drain poured a bottle of Duet it was so polluted. And it’s not just us, hundreds of other folks who have been long time customers are no longer buying their beer. Add to that they are now going to bottle and can in Minnesota and you get more concerns than ever. 99% of the time when a brewer contracts like this there is inevitable changes to the beer from a flavor profile to body to color.You will hear " man I remember the old Nelson "

Oh, and I am adding Long Beach to the list of beer city’s on the strength of Beachwood alone.

Cheers,

Bud

Belgium has the USA beat on this, imo. Of course, this is really picking nits, given that I’d put the U.S. at a solid #2.

What? Can you expand on this bottle and can in MN thing?

Belgium still has some fabulous breweries for sure, but many of them are now copying US styles (hop accentuated beers) which I find unfortunate. The only styles that I think the Belgians still do better are the spontaneous naturally fermented beers such as gueze but even there I think the US isnt that far behind. Drie Fonteinen is still the best, but several US brewers are coming close. Personally, I’d prefer the Belgians to stick to what they do well which tends to be malt centric beers but that’s not what the market is asking for. If I never had another “Belgian IPA” I’d be more than content. The Belgian yeasts just don’t work with hops for me, but I guess I am in the minority on that.