The Best City for Beer Lovers in Each State 2024

Looking for the best place to crack open a cold one? You’re in luck. We found the best cities for beer lovers in each state with the top breweries and local tips for places to go. If you consider yourself a beer connoisseur, or you just enjoy the atmosphere of a beer garden, we’ve got you covered.

To find the best cities in each state for beer lovers, we calculated the breweries per capita in major cities. (We considered major cities as those with more than 100,000 residents—for states that don't have cities with a population of 100,000 or more, we chose the most populous city with the most breweries.) Cities with the most breweries per capita were ranked the highest in each state.

From local breweries in big cities like Austin, Texas, to the off-beaten-path nano breweries in Anchorage, Alaska, this list can help you find your next place to move or be an itinerary as you road trip across the U.S.

The best part is that there’s something for everyone.

Looking for a simple lager or a tart IPA? There’s a brewery for that. Want a fun atmosphere? We’ve got that too. How about award-winning brews? Oh, yes. So, pack the car and let’s road trip to the best breweries in each state! (Drive and drink responsibly, of course.)

Turns out, there are a lot of beer and breweries in the 50 states. There are more than 13,000 beers and 780 breweries in the top beer cities. What does that mean? There are a lot of options for beer lovers to explore!

Sure, there were some obvious winners like Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Still, our data also found some pleasant surprises like Bend, Oregon, beating out Portland and Rochester, New York, taking the cake over New York City and Buffalo. (Portland and Buffalo were some of our top 20 cities for beer lovers two years ago.)

In fact, six cities repeated from our 2021 list of the best cities for beer lovers in the U.S.

• Cincinnati, Ohio (#3), Richmond, Virginia (#4), Spokane, Washington (#5), Minneapolis, Minnesota (#9), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (#10), and Albuquerque, New Mexico (#18) all appear on both lists.
• In a twist, Portland, Oregon, the former #1 city for beer lovers in the U.S., did not rank as the best city for beer lovers in Oregon. Instead, it was replaced by Bend in Oregon, and Portland, Maine, became the sole Portland on the list.

Our research found that Austin, Texas, has the most breweries per capita (46), making it the top city in the nation for beer lovers in the U.S.

Jackson, Michigan; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Charleston, West Virginia, have the lowest number of breweries per capita in our study (three each).

• These cities still rank as the best cities for beer lovers in their corresponding states, according to the highest number of breweries per capita data.

Looking for the best deal on beer? The average price per pint is just $3 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, making it the lowest cost for beer in our study.

• On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll shell out at least $8 per pint in New Haven, Connecticut.

The Listermann Brewing Company, in Cincinnati, Ohio, offers the widest variety of beers in our study, with 842 available. The Veil Brewing Company in Richmond, Virginia, is the only other brewery with over 800 beers on tap.

• Meanwhile, Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, has the most awards of any of the breweries on our list with over a dozen—including two years running as the Best Brewery in Bend!

If you’re looking to crack open a cold one and try out some of the best small-batch beers the U.S. has to offer, then you’ve gotta check out the top beer city in each state. Each offers something different—from classics at Genesee Brewhouse in Rochester to the innovative flavors at Uhl’s Brewing Company in Boulder.

Maybe the top beer city is actually right down the street from your new house. Stop by, meet the locals, and have a cold one.

Cheers!

Population estimates were gathered from the 2021 Census Population Estimates. Count of breweries was gathered from ratebeers.com. Breweries per capita rank was calculated by taking the total number of breweries in the city and dividing it by the value of the total population estimate by 100,000. Cities with less than 100,000 residents were excluded from the ranking.