I think the title says exactly what I'm looking for. The two second search I was patient enough to do on here yielded no results, so if this has already been discussed recently...oops. I thought about clicking through seekabrew.com, but I'd rather hear from actual BAs.
With no evidence (having never been to the state) it appears that Wyoming has the worst distribution in terms of number of breweries. I can vouch that anything North of the twin cities in MN is pretty slim pickings, and north of Grand Rapids MN is a wasteland (I'm stoked when Leines or Nordeast is on tap instead of Michelob Golden Light). Cheers!
Click on a few probable states on this site to get a good idea. http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html My guess is Mississippi. EDIT: Are you talking about number of breweries or distribution? I think these are two different things, but responses so far seem to be confusing them.
While Wyoming doesn't have the number of breweries of some other states (the state has a total population of under one million), they do have some good breweries I've visited, including Black Tooth in Sheridan, Snake River in Jackson, and Thai Me Up in Jackson (never been here, however, but sampled during GABF). And since Otto Bros/Grand Teton started in Jackson.... New breweries are opening in WY but since most towns are quite small, the number will never be huge. I'm anxious to try the new one in Buffalo (Clear Creek) next time I'm up visiting family. My guess for worst, based on the criteria of brewery numbers only would be North Dakota.
West Virginia. This is also the first time the words "West Virginia" have been uttered on this forum. Don't believe me? This is their brewery list on SeekABrew: They make North Dakota look EPIC! At least ND has Bell's, Deschutes, Goose Island, and Boulevard amongst others.
Definitely not NC. Our local beers are amazing. We have Foothills Brewery, Highland brewery, Red Oak, and if you are desperate Natty Greens. Since I am a porter guy, the first two on the list are especially important.
Based on Seekabrew alone Mississippi looks slightly worse than West Virginia. Mississippi has one fewer brewer (24 instead of 25), and WV has Shelton Bros, Great Lakes, Harpoon and Epic. But in general it does look like these 2 states are amongst the worst in the Union for beer.
Arkansas, half the state is dry. Only a few good beer stores in the hole state, most people are poor and drink BMC, and even though we get GI we don't get many limted releases. Diamond Bear is the only AR brewery and the beer sucks...Avery and unibrouige is distributed here but the distributors just quit stocking it. On a up side we get plenty of Boulevard and get all their limited releases! And Missouri is only a 2.5hr drive away and they get odells, founders, bells, Avery, souther tier, and stone ...FML
Alaska has Alaska brewing co and some other great breweries. Where as they are not the best beer state they don't suck
Having moved from Philly, the distribution in Hawaii is not what I've grown accustomed to, but then again Philly is the best city when it comes to beer. At least I can still get Drie Fonteinen and Cantillon, I'm looking forward to Zwanze on the 1st without the shit show.
Diamond Beer is not too bad of a beer. They did win a gold at GABF a few years back with their Red. It might not be a beer geek's best tasting brew, but to the style, I think it was pretty good. Arkansas also has Core Brewing & Distilling, Refined Al Brewery, Fossil Cove Brewing Company, and Saddlebock Brewery, as well as five brewpubs. I don't think Arkansas is that bad of a beer wasteland. Just my 10 cents worth.
If we are truly talking about distribution it's not homerism to day that Philly/Southeastern PA is tops. This topic has been discussed before on BA and it's one of the less subjective ones (compared to Best Beer City/Best Beer State). Philly area truly does have world class distribution. Now if we are talking about the city/state with the best brewers than Philly and PA would have trouble cracking a top 5 list. Sorry to get off topic. To the OP: the worst selections I've seen when trying to buy beer on work trips are TX and LA.
*ticking states that I should never consider moving to, even for a large raise, due to abysmal beer selection* I was going to say TX, but looks like West Virginia or Mississippi takes the cake.
Beg to differ my friend. I'm on here uttering all the time, as are a few others. The SeekaBrew list is slightly out of date--doesn't include a few that are now distributed here, and even includes a brewery that no longer exists. To the OP: seems that you'll have to define "worst". Folks here seem to be confusing number of breweries with quality of breweries.
There's an old saying: "who does West Virginia make fun of?" The answer is always the same: "nobody". Based solely on principle I'm going with WV.
I was totally gonna start this thread, only mine was gonna be titled something along the lines of "What's the worst state to live in due to poor beer distribution?" But I didn't want to offend anyone. The only state not mentioned yet is Utah due to their 5% cap on ABV. Yeah, they still have good breweries but isn't that a pain in the ass?
Smallest amount of quality beer available is what I was going for. It doesn't matter if it's brewed in the state. Either way, the results are interesting so far.
I've never seen a place as devoid of beer as Mississippi. Other than Abita and Lazy Magnolia, I only saw Sam, Anchor, and SN. Alabama used to be worse, but in the last 3 years they've developed a surprisingly decent scene.
All the expired beer produced by the worst offenders in the bottle dating thread should be sent to the worst offenders in this thread. Old craft beer is better than no craft beer.
Alaska has a few good breweries howerver, I would be surprised if they got a lot of distribution from other states, seeing how far away they are from the continental US The question was which state has the worst distribution? Not which state has the worst beer. otherwise I would say Mississippi or West Virginia
I've been through Cheyenne a few times over the last couple years and, though I didn't do an intensive scrounge, Odell brewing was about as exotic as the selection got.
True. But, honestly they are not a stand out brewery, IMHO. They are good, but I'd much rather see Choc and Coop. But on a whole, Arkansas has a TON of room for improvement.
Kansas doesn't get those either, but since we're neighbors with Colorado, I'm pretty happy. Kansas misses out of a lot of the Michigan, Oregan, and major California breweries though.
Oh, torture. Sorry mate, you're getting no sympathy here. Couldn't you think of any more buzzword-beers to put on your list? Loons? Dark Lord? Doing good for those? Look around your beer store--you're doing fine.
Tennessee is quite bad. Just in the last several years we have lost Dogfish Head, Avery, Great Divide, and Boulevard (at least in eastern part of the state). We have no Bell's, Founders, Great Lakes, Goose Island. Things are gradually improving however with the introduction of Lagunitas, Southern Tier, and Green Flash coming soon.
Completely disagree, Florida has CCB, Swamphead, and Funky Buddha. CCB alone puts the state in the top 10 IMO.
Connecticut. Instead of just getting the beer out to stores when i arrives the distributors like to play games and sit on cases until they feel like delivering them. The other thing that stinks is not all beer is available throughout the state. For example, Flower Power is available in New Haven and Fairfield county, but you can't buy it in New London.
For the longest time I would have said Kentucky, as we don't get simple breweries like New Belgium and Yuengling. I have on a number of occasions driven for hours just for Fat Tire in TN or Ohio. KY is half dry also so it's not necessarily what is distributed but what or where beer is available. If you were lucky enough to be in a "wet" county often all you had we're Budwieser products. All that said Lexington andLouisville have jumped into the craft brew scene with two feet and things are much better now. As for who do people in WV make fun of? KY is often the butt of their jokes!
