The Street is a financial media company that covers the business world. Apparently they noticed that craft beer is doing well and put together a list of the
10 Best Craft Beer Vacation Destinations. Here’s the list below, though it’s not clear to me if the destinations are in any particular order or not.
- Full Sail Brewery, Hood River, OR
- Stone World Bistro and Gardens, Escondido, CA
- Highland Brewery, Asheville, NC
- Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY
- D.G. Yuengling & Sons brewery, Pottsville, PA
- Portland, Maine
- Samuel Adams Brewery, Boston, MA
- Sierra Nevada Brewery, Chico, CA
- Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton/Rehoboth Beach, DE
- Wisconsin
I love Yuengling, and it is a great tour, but it’s hard to lump America’s oldest brewery in with the more recent craft brewers. And the new owners of Anchor Brewery will be surprised to learn that they’re owned by North American Brewing, as incorrectly cited in the article.
Overall, it’s not a bad list. I’ve been to seven of the ten destinations and can attest to those, and I’ve heard great things about the other ones. But it seems weird that Colorado, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon are all noticeably absent. What places do you think are missing?
Where is Colorado??? Fort Collins has some of the best breweries in the country, and it’s a great place to visit. This seems like a very unscientifically created list…
honestly don’t know what to do with this kind of list envy. I mean, if you go anywhere in America for vacation, as a craft beer lover, and can’t find a good local beer, then you aren’t trying. And if the reason for the vacation is to find interesting craft beer, then the list above is pretty lame and you are a lazy drunkard. LOL.
How about Traverse City Michigan. With three breweries in the city, Right Brain, North Peak and Mackinaw Brewing and on the shores of the Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. Jolly Pumpkin Brewing is within a few miles and Shorts Brewing is about 20 miles. These breweries combined have won medals and continue to win them at the GABF and WBC, with Shorts winning the gold for experimental beer at the last two GABF.
How about Grand Rapids? Went there last year and enjoyed Founders. On the way there and back from Indy, enjoyed New Holland, Bell’s, and Dark Horse. Good stuff!
I’m writing this from our tour in Belgium, but the Rodenbach tour absolutely kicks the ass of any brewery I’ve been to in America.
As for US, Ft Collins is great.
I was surprised to read that Yuengling “produced more than 2.2 billion barrels of its lagers, porters and black and tans last year. ” That’s a LOT of beer – and they didn’t even need the Memphis brewery to do it. High gravity brewing?
(I don’t know- you’d think a “financial” blog would be careful about things like the difference between “million” and “billion”).
I enjoy the fact that the ENTIRE state of Wisconsin made the list, not just a city like the rest of the 9 locations. ON Wisconsin! Anyone up for a New Glarus this morning?