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The 16 Best Beer Cities in America

By YPB Team

Some of these built their reputation on one enormous brewery; others on forty small ones within walking distance.

  1. Portland, Oregon — ranked #11
    Portland, Oregon
    Nicknamed Beervana, with more breweries inside the city limits than almost anywhere in the country.
    1000pts
  2. St. Louis, Missouri — ranked #22
    St. Louis, Missouri
    Anheuser-Busch's home since 1852, with the Clydesdales stabled on site.
    642pts
  3. Boston, Massachusetts — ranked #33
    Boston, Massachusetts
    Samuel Adams made colonial branding into a craft empire, and the city drinks accordingly.
    551pts
  4. Burlington, Vermont — ranked #44
    Burlington, Vermont
    The hazy IPA was commercialised here, and people still drive hours for cans of it.
    494pts
  5. Denver, Colorado — ranked #55
    Denver, Colorado
    Host of the Great American Beer Festival every autumn and the front door to Colorado brewing.
    428pts
  6. Cleveland, Ohio — ranked #66
    Cleveland, Ohio
    Great Lakes Brewing opened in 1988 and dragged an entire rust-belt region into craft.
    428pts
  7. Bend, Oregon — ranked #77
    Bend, Oregon
    A town of 100,000 with its own Ale Trail and a brewery for roughly every 4,000 residents.
    350pts
  8. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — ranked #88
    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    Iron City and a wave of newer breweries in the converted mills along the rivers.
    350pts
  9. Austin, Texas — ranked #99
    Austin, Texas
    Beer gardens the size of parks, and a brewing scene that grew with the city.
    350pts
  10. Asheville, North Carolina — ranked #1010
    Asheville, North Carolina
    A mountain town of 95,000 that talked Sierra Nevada and New Belgium into building East Coast breweries there.
    257pts
  11. Grand Rapids, Michigan — ranked #1111
    Grand Rapids, Michigan
    Branded itself Beer City USA and backed it with Founders and a dense downtown brewery walk.
    257pts
  12. Milwaukee, Wisconsin — ranked #1212
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    The city beer built: Pabst, Schlitz, Miller and a baseball team named after brewers.
    257pts
  13. Chicago, Illinois — ranked #1313
    Chicago, Illinois
    Goose Island started the craft-buyout era here, and the city still has one of the densest brewery counts anywhere.
    257pts
  14. Seattle, Washington — ranked #1414
    Seattle, Washington
    Ballard alone holds a dozen taprooms, and the state grows most of America's hops next door.
    257pts
  15. San Diego, California — ranked #1515
    San Diego, California
    The city that made the West Coast IPA a style rather than a recipe.
    0pts
  16. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — ranked #1616
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    America's oldest continuous beer scene, with a Belgian obsession and a citywide Beer Week.
    0pts

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