Top 100 ‘Best to Worst’ American Cities For Beer Lovers

American Craft Beer|September 4th, 2021|

Move.org is an online moving resource. They review moving companies and the things you might have think about when moving to another city. And they recently ranked the best to worst American beer cities that you may (or may not) want to move to.

The methodology couldn’t have been more basic.

Move.org looked at the 100 most populous cities in the United States according to the US Census Bureau and compared each city’s population to how many breweries it has using numbers from Open Brewery DB a community-driven database that gathers public information about breweries.

Other factors like the output of a given brewery or the quality and popularity of its beers were not considered in this ranking…

Key findings

With three cities in its top 10 (Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma) Washington is one of the best states for beer lovers.

Even though Denver, Colorado has more breweries than any other city in the US, Portland, Oregon has more breweries per capita, making it this ranking’s top city for serious beer fans.

However some of the biggest cities in the US, New York and Los Angeles in particular, have relatively few breweries per capita, landing them in the bottom 10,

And now, drum roll please…

The Top 100 Best to Worst US Cities for Beer Lovers in 2021

Rank	City	Population	Breweries	Breweries per 100,000 residents
1	Portland, Oregon	656,751	85	12.94
2	Denver, Colorado	735,538	91	12.37
3	Cincinnati, Ohio	304,548	34	11.16
4	Richmond, Virginia	232,226	25	10.77
5	Spokane, Washington	222,050	23	10.36
6	Seattle, Washington	769,714	75	9.74
7	Tacoma, Washington	219,945	21	9.55
8	Saint Louis, Missouri	297,645	28	9.41
9	Minneapolis, Minnesota	433,111	38	8.77
10	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	299,226	26	8.69
11	Cleveland, Ohio	378,589	29	7.66
12	Boise, Idaho	229,776	17	7.4
13	Reno, Nevada	259,290	19	7.33
14	Saint Paul, Minnesota	306,717	22	7.17
15	San Diego, California	1,422,420	90	6.33
16	Buffalo, New York	254,479	16	6.29
17	Madison, Wisconsin	263,094	16	6.08
18	Albuquerque, New Mexico	562,540	32	5.69
19	Colorado Springs, Colorado	482,131	27	5.6
20	Milwaukee, Wisconsin	589,067	29	4.92
21	Austin, Texas	995,484	49	4.92
22	Anchorage, Alaska	287,095	14	4.88
23	Raleigh, North Carolina	474,414	23	4.85
24	Orlando, Florida	289,457	14	4.84
25	Anaheim, California	353,676	17	4.81
26	Tampa, Florida	407,599	19	4.66
27	Atlanta, Georgia	512,550	23	4.49
28	Saint Petersburg, Florida	267,802	12	4.48
29	San Francisco, California	866,606	38	4.38
30	Kansas City, Missouri	497,159	21	4.22
31	Scottsdale, Arizona	262,647	11	4.19
32	Lincoln, Nebraska	290,505	12	4.13
33	Sacramento, California	512,838	21	4.09
34	Indianapolis, Indiana	877,903	33	3.76
35	Norfolk, Virginia	242,803	9	3.71
36	Lexington, Kentucky	324,735	12	3.7
37	Columbus, Ohio	903,852	33	3.65
38	Oakland, California	424,891	15	3.53
39	Charlotte, North Carolina	900,350	31	3.44
40	Tucson, Arizona	553,571	19	3.43
41	Baltimore, Maryland	586,131	20	3.41
42	Miami, Florida	471,525	16	3.39
43	New Orleans, Louisiana	389,476	13	3.34
44	Nashville, Tennessee	671,295	22	3.28
45	Louisville, Kentucky	618,338	20	3.23
46	Tulsa, Oklahoma	403,166	13	3.22
47	Durham, North Carolina	285,897	9	3.15
48	Riverside, California	330,786	10	3.02
49	Greensboro, North Carolina	297,878	9	3.02
50	Fort Wayne, Indiana	272,398	8	2.94
51	Honolulu, Hawaii	341,555	10	2.93
52	Winston Salem, North Carolina	248,112	7	2.82
53	Wichita, Kansas	391,731	11	2.81
54	Omaha, Nebraska	478,393	13	2.72
55	Virginia Beach, Virginia	451,231	12	2.66
56	Aurora, Colorado	387,377	10	2.58
57	Chicago, Illinois	2,677,643	64	2.39
58	Chandler, Arizona	265,398	6	2.26
59	Washington DC	712,816	16	2.24
60	Long Beach, California	454,681	10	2.2
61	Henderson, Nevada	329,172	7	2.13
62	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	662,314	14	2.11
63	Las Vegas, Nevada	662,368	13	1.96
64	Detroit, Michigan	665,369	13	1.95
65	Gilbert, Arizona	257,658	5	1.94
66	Toledo, Ohio	271,455	5	1.84
67	Corpus Christi, Texas	327,248	6	1.83
68	Jacksonville, Florida	920,570	16	1.74
69	Boston, Massachusetts	691,531	11	1.59
70	Glendale, Arizona	255,307	4	1.57
71	Memphis, Tennessee	649,705	10	1.54
72	Lubbock, Texas	262,611	4	1.52
73	Santa Ana, California	331,301	5	1.51
74	Fresno, California	530,267	8	1.51
75	Dallas, Texas	1,343,266	20	1.49
76	San Jose, California	1,013,616	15	1.48
77	Chula Vista, California	272,979	4	1.47
78	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	1,578,487	23	1.46
79	Houston, Texas	2,316,120	31	1.34
80	Fort Worth, Texas	927,720	12	1.29
81	Fremont, California	234,569	3	1.28
82	San Antonio, Texas	1,567,118	19	1.21
83	Phoenix, Arizona	1,708,127	18	1.05
84	Bakersfield, California	385,725	4	1.04
85	Plano, Texas	291,296	3	1.03
86	Stockton, California	312,716	3	0.96
87	Mesa, Arizona	528,159	5	0.95
88	Garland, Texas	238,139	2	0.84
89	Irving, Texas	240,916	2	0.83
90	Jersey City, New Jersey	262,664	2	0.76
91	Arlington, Texas	398,864	3	0.75
92	Irvine, California	283,700	2	0.7
93	El Paso, Texas	681,534	4	0.59
94	Los Angeles, California	3,970,219	23	0.58
95	Hialeah, Florida	232,037	1	0.43
96	Chesapeake, Virginia	247,011	1	0.4
97	Newark, New Jersey	282,520	1	0.35
98	New York, New York	8,253,213	13	0.16
99	Laredo, Texas	263,640	0.0	0.0
99	North Las Vegas, Nevada	260,098	0.0