This past year has not been kind to America’s craft beer industry. With a large percentage of breweries forced to temporarily close or at least limit their space to comply with social distancing requirements, many were forced to find new ways to serve the public. Some managed to survive while others, sadly, were forced to close their doors indefinitely.
Despite this forgettable year of setbacks, craft beer remains a resilient industry and more breweries continue to open. America’s largest metropolitan areas are still bubbling over with craft beer and the numbers may surprise you. According to the Brewers Association, the number of breweries in the United States is close to 9,000 which is an all- time record that will likely pick up steam in the coming year as the COVID-19 crisis settles down and the economy reopens.
Which American cities are best for beer? Lots of folks produce rankings but they all differ slightly in their methodology. Realestatewitch.com has devised a rankings system of its own and it bases its rankings on the total breweries, density of breweries per 100 square miles, average number of beers per brewery, and average beer styles per brewery. One nice thing about this ranking is that it takes the entire metropolitan area into account. There are other rankings of best beer cities that look only at the breweries within the actual city limits. This ranking is, in many ways, better because it looks at the entire metropolitan area, which of course means nearby suburban cities and unincorporated areas that lie just outside the major city’s boundaries. You’ll notice, too, that there is no mention of Bend, OR; Asheville, NC or other smaller, beer- centric cities. That is because this ranking focuses only on large metropolitan areas.
Using this methodology, the overall best city for beer is San Francisco! Not only does the San Fran area sport 144 breweries, but they are packed into a relatively small area. This helped push the Bay area to the top of the rankings. It’s not too shocking to find places like Portland, OR; Denver, CO; and San Diego, CA in the Top 10, but I was a little surprised that Indianapolis took the number two spot. I say that not because I have any doubts that Indy is worthy of its status as a premier craft beer city, but because I had not seen this Midwestern town rank this highly in any other “best beer cities” listing.
Anyway, here are the top metro areas in the United States, ranked 1 to 50 based on Realestatewitch.com criteria:
| Ranking | Metro Area | No. of Breweries | Avg. Beers per Brewery | Avg. Beer Styles per Brewery |
| 1 | San Francisco, CA | 144 | 19 | 11 |
| 2 | Indianapolis, IN | 102 | 39 | 20 |
| 3 | Chicago, IL | 180 | 32 | 15 |
| 4 | Philadelphia, PA | 139 | 26 | 15 |
| 5 | Los Angeles, CA | 158 | 20 | 12 |
| 6 | Portland, OR | 183 | 19 | 11 |
| 7 | Denver, CO | 155 | 24 | 14 |
| 8 | Tampa, FL | 83 | 29 | 13 |
| 9 | Cleveland, OH | 49 | 33 | 17 |
| 10 | San Diego, CA | 69 | 36 | 14 |
| 11 | Cincinnati, OH | 67 | 33 | 17 |
| 12 | Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN | 121 | 18 | 12 |
| 13 | Baltimore, MD | 55 | 30 | 14 |
| 14 | Detroit, MI | 58 | 30 | 15 |
| 15 | Columbus, OH | 60 | 30 | 15 |
| 16 | Washington, D.C. | 88 | 23 | 14 |
| 17 | Charlotte, NC | 76 | 19 | 11 |
| 18 | Milwaukee, WI | 58 | 16 | 10 |
| 19 | New York, NY | 135 | 18 | 8 |
| 20 | Boston, MA | 94 | 18 | 10 |
| 21 | Raleigh, NC | 53 | 15 | 11 |
| 22 | Pittsburgh, PA | 72 | 23 | 11 |
| 23 | Seattle, WA | 97 | 14 | 9 |
| 24 | Dallas-Fort Worth, TX | 84 | 16 | 12 |
| 25 | Austin, TX | 71 | 15 | 10 |
| 26 | St. Louis, MO | 63 | 21 | 12 |
| 27 | Hartford, CT | 50 | 9 | 7 |
| 28 | Atlanta, GA | 58 | 20 | 12 |
| 29 | Providence, RI | 41 | 12 | 8 |
| 30 | Richmond, VA | 37 | 26 | 11 |
| 31 | Houston, TX | 52 | 17 | 11 |
| 32 | Kansas City, MO | 48 | 18 | 11 |
| 33 | San Jose, CA | 9 | 31 | 11 |
| 34 | Buffalo, NY | 39 | 8 | 6 |
| 35 | Phoenix, AZ | 48 | 16 | 12 |
| 36 | Nashville, TN | 40 | 17 | 11 |
| 37 | Louisville, KY | 33 | 16 | 11 |
| 38 | Sacramento, CA | 43 | 17 | 10 |
| 39 | Jacksonville, FL | 34 | 16 | 10 |
| 40 | Oklahoma City, OK | 36 | 14 | 9 |
| 41 | San Antonio, TX | 22 | 17 | 11 |
| 42 | Virginia Beach, VA | 33 | 11 | 7 |
| 43 | Miami, FL | 34 | 14 | 8 |
| 44 | Orlando, FL | 30 | 11 | 9 |
| 45 | Las Vegas, NV | 29 | 12 | 10 |
| 46 | Birmingham, AL | 18 | 15 | 8 |
| 47 | Memphis, TN | 9 | 13 | 9 |
| 48 | New Orleans, LA | 20 | 7 | 5 |
| 49 | Riverside, CA | – | – | – |
| 50 | Salt Lake City, UT | – | – | – |
Wow this was quite a thoughtful list of beer cities and a detailed breakdown of its ranking methodology. Yay San Francisco!
144 breweries in the greater San Fran area!
I’d like to be able to go to any of those cities and enjoy a tall pint of beer. I just hope so when all the travel restrictions have been lifted.
Hhhhmmmm….this is very good information to know! Thank you for sharing.
Interesting i didn’t know about the best city of beer.I have to share this post to my brother now!He gonna love it.
This is a great list for anyone who loves beer and travel. You could put a beer trip together for any of these cities. Very cool.
This is all such useful information! I learned a lot. Thank you for sharing this with your readers.
Wow! I am surprised that Milwaukee is so low on the list. I used to live there — I would have figured that breweries would have been popping up all over the place there. I didn’t know San Francisco was the best city. This is a great list.
Wohoo, Minneapolis is on there. That’s a cool list and I know I haven’t had a chance to try all the local breweries yet.
The most impressive stat about Minneapolis/St. Paul is the number of breweries- 121 total!
YAY! Love to see Dallas on this list!
I have visited a couple of restaurants that offer good beer when I visited Chicago and Milwaukee ! Now I have a couple of cities to visit and cross off my beer tour list!
I am not a beer person, but this is a great list for the beer lovers of the world!!
Frankenmuth, MI comes to mind. Though it didn’t make the list.
This list was limited only to the 50 largest metro areas in the United States. That means places like Frankenmuth were excluded.
Woo HOO. Let’s go SFO!!! My daughter will be so happy to be ranked at the top.