Beer by state

[dmclone]

Here is what's tough about a list like this.

#1 How much weight do you give to national brewers, state wide brewers, and nano brewers? From someone living in Iowa, Oregon is a terrible choice. There is one decent brewer(Deschutes) that brings their beer to Iowa and I wouldn't put their beer in my top 20 list. Where you have a place like Michigan which brings Iowa Bell's, Founders, and Jolly Pumpkin. You have a place like California that gives us Stone, Alpine, Lagunitas, etc and in the next few years could bring us Sculpin, Firestone Walker, AleSmith,etc.

#2 It's hard to summarize a whole state. If you live in the Des Moines metro you have a ton of excellent choices from national, state, and nano's. If you live in Cherokee, not so much.

 

[Al_4_State]

I've traded for some of the highly regarded Oregon IPAs, like Ninkasi, and I've never been that impressed.

My top 5 beer states:
Colorado
California
Michigan
Vermont
Wisconsin/Massachusetts

 

[Al_4_State]

Interesting list. I am blown away by recent explosion of good beer in Oklahoma. If you would have told me ten (heck, even five) years ago that I could only have beers made in Oklahoma, I would have crawled into a fetal position and whimpered for about a month. Now? We have some really good stuff. A month or so ago, I went to a beer bar near my house. That week they only had Oklahoma beers on tap - around 50 of them.

Prairie is good, but way overpriced. $8 for a 12oz bottle of Prairie Bomb, for instance. Coop, Anthem, Roughtail, Black Mesa, and Iron Monk are all putting out some good beer.

Sadly, our crap liquor laws prevent us from getting some of the best beers here. I agree, inCyteful, Colorado could easily be #1. We freaking share a border Colorado, yet can't get Odell, Oskar Blues, Black Bottle, New Belgium, Funkwerks, and others.

My last trip to Ames was for a football game in 2005(?). ISU beat the crap out of OSU. I can't remember what local beer we had then, but I'm guessing the beer scene has changed a ton since then. Anyway, what are your favorite Iowa beers that I should be on the lookout for?

Ames has added 2 breweries since then, one of which (Alluvial) came out the gate with excellent beer. I haven't tried Torrent yet, but that will change Friday afternoon.

Olde Main is less about the beer and more about the place. The beer is passable, and some of their seasonals can actually be pretty damn tasty, but it doesn't seem to be their focus.

 

[cycloneG]

cool list. I did a Twin Cities beer tour this summer, and enjoyed the heck out of it. We hit Surly, Fulton, Dangerous Man, Summit, and a couple others I can't remember. I highly recommend doing it. A lot of the taprooms are close enough that you can walk between them, but there are plenty of ways to get around if you don't feel like walking. And the Surly "compound" is a place I could hang out all day.

I did the same last summer. Dangerous Man was definitely our favorite taproom. Highly recommend doing a beer tour in the cities to others.

 

[Styx]

Actually, I found it...I had seen on the port brewing website that the founder had worked at Pizza Port, but didn't know whether it was still associated. It's not, other than a loose connection and some of the same owners:

Aren’t Port Brewing and Pizza Port the same?


Nope. Two of our founders, Vince and Gina Marsaglia, are the owners of the Pizza Port empire, and a third Port Brewing founder — Tomme Arthur — used to be head brewer at Pizza Port. It’s true that Port Brewing spun-off of Pizza Port several years ago, but it’s a completely separate company with its own brewers, employees and direction. Even the beer names we share with Pizza Port — Hop 15, Shark Attack, Wipeout (holdovers from when our head brewer was theirs) — have gone in different directions. (If you think TV shows, we’re the Frazier to Pizza Port’s Cheers.)


Sure, we’re proud to have “Port” in our name, and we still stay in contact with the extended family. But like any member that grows up and moves out on their own, we’ve established our own identity and we’re making a unique mark on the world on our own terms.


Pizza Port is an awesome place both for their tasty grub and fine grog, but if you want to know more about what’s going on there, you’ll have to check out their website www.pizzaport.com or give one of their locations a visit. (And if you do drop into a Pizza Port, can you do us a favor tell them we said “hi” and we’re sorry we haven’t called. We know we should, but we’ve just been really busy.)

To add to this, Port and Lost Abbey ARE the same. Both beers are brewed at the same brewery in Escondido and you can order beer from either at the tap room. Their location is actually the old Stone brewery.

 

[VeloClone]

cool list. I did a Twin Cities beer tour this summer, and enjoyed the heck out of it. We hit Surly, Fulton, Dangerous Man, Summit, and a couple others I can't remember. I highly recommend doing it. A lot of the taprooms are close enough that you can walk between them, but there are plenty of ways to get around if you don't feel like walking. And the Surly "compound" is a place I could hang out all day.

I did the same last summer. Dangerous Man was definitely our favorite taproom. Highly recommend doing a beer tour in the cities to others.

State law just changed here giving brewpubs more freedom to sample their wares at the State Fair. I didn't partake as I was at the fair with the kids, but if you can make it a trip to the fair might be a way to get a sampling of what the entire state has to offer in one location.

http://www.mncraftbrew.org/statefair

 

[NickTheGreat]

Lot's of good Wisconsin breweries. O'so, Rush River, Central Waters, Ale Asylum, MKE. Lakefront isn't bad and even Potosi puts out a couple decent ones.

Yup. Wisconsin is accurately ranked.

LOL at the idea of New Glarus being good to mediocre. Spotted Cow might fit that description, but there's a hell of a lot more to New Glarus than that.

Okay NG is a good brewery, but a lot of their popularity is due to the exclusivity. And the article specifically called out Spotted Cow.

I would think Minnesota and Florida should be ranked higher. And NC.