# The 16 Best Beer Cities in America

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

*By YPB Team · Published September 15, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-16-best-beer-cities-in-america*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

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

Tags: usa, travel, cities, beers