A ‘Not So Smart’ Guide To 2019’s Top American Beer Cities

Financial and real estate firms such as SmartAsset have been using beer as a way to draw younger visitors to their sites for years.

Beer is viewed as vital youthful and trendy… retirement and refinancing rates, not so much.

And while the methodology these kinds of rankings use is sometimes sketchy…they still can be kinda fun… even when their overall results sometimes strain credibility.

SmartAsset began ranking “best beer cities” in 2015 and they’ve just released last year’s rankings based on 300 cities nationwide.

Using data derived from RateBeer, they start by calculating the total number of breweries and brewpubs in a city per 100,000 residents.

But things get a little sketchier when they introduce the average number of beers per brewery (again this data is input from RateBeer users not from the actual breweries).

And when the methodology takes into the average price for a pint of a domestic draft beer in any given city, things get ridiculously skewed especially from a craft beer perspective.

The good news they’re no longer taking into account the average Yelp score of breweries as they did in the 2017 rankings.

And now, after more information than anyone needs on what is basically beer clickbait set to lure you into a financial planning site, is SmartAsset’s 10 best cities for beer drinkers….

Some of this year key finding’s…

Six of the cities that made the top 10 last year did so again this year: Cincinnati, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Asheville, North Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado and Bend, Oregon.

And Western and Midwestern cities continue to dominate… In the top 10, there are four cities in Western states (two of which are in Oregon) and four cities in Midwestern states (two of which are in Ohio).

Top 10 cities for beer drinkers

1. Cincinnati
2. St. Louis
3. Portland
4. Pittsburgh
5. Denver
6. Bend
7. Madison
8. Madison
9. Missoula
10. Cleveland

And here is SmartAsset’s complete 2019 ranking…