The Best (And Worst) US Cities For Beer Gardens And Breweries

Normally these random beer rankings are run by real estate or financial companies to drive you to their online sites, but the K. van Bourgondien company sells Dutch flower bulbs of all things, (that’s the beer GARDEN connection) so they get points for that.

To analyze the best (and worst) cities for beer gardens, they looked at the top 50 most populated US cities and ranked them for…

• Average Annual Precipitation – It’s less fun dinking in the rain (Weight: 1.50)
• Number of Beer Gardens and Breweries per Capita – They used Yellow Pages data for this one, and we didn’t know they were even still around. (Weight: 2.00)
• Annual Average Annual Temperature – They’re less beer gardens in artic regions (Weight: 1.00)
• Walk Score – Another online site that ranks the walkability of cities and neighborhoods (Weight: 1.75)
• Cost of a Domestic Pint of Beer – They used Numbeo, a cost of living database, for this one (Weight: 2.25)
• Google Trends Search Volume for “Beer” – All these beer rankings lean on Google (Weight: 2.00)

 And after combining the differently weighted scores they came up with the ranking’s final results…

Turns out the best cities for beer gardens and breweries fell within the Northeast, Midwest, and West regions of the US. Strangely enough, none of the best cities on their list appeared in the South.

Providence, Rhode Island topped their ranking with a score of 37.19. With 126 beer gardens and breweries per capita and a high walk score of 78, it’s easy to get around to plenty of local favorite watering holes in this city.

Chicago, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado, tied for second place on our list with a final score of 35.97. Trailing not far behind in third place is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania earning 35.26 points in all.

Sure enough, five out of our top 10 worst states for beer gardens are located in the South. Birmingham, Alabama tops the list with only 12.68 points. Jacksonville Florida (2) earned 15.17 points, Nashville, TN (4), took 16.41 points, and neighboring Tennessee city Memphis earned 17.70 points. Finally, Tampa, Florida was their final worst city for beer gardens, scoring 20.66 points in tenth place.

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(All image credits: K. van Bourgondien)