Portland, ME… at least according to Andy Crouch, author of The Good Beer Guide to New England. While I have never been to Portland, I won’t disagree with him. The sheer number of breweries in and around that small city makes it a pretty easy call, but competition in this beer-oriented corner of the country is tough.
Here in New England, several cities vie for the title of Best Beer Drinking City in the region. While listing my top cities, I think its important to do some geographic arithmetic. Of the top cities, the Massachusetts nominees include Boston (including Brookline), Cambridge (including Somerville, i.e. the near North of the River communities), and Northampton and Amherst. Maine offers Portland. New Hampshire offers Portsmouth. Rhode Island offers Providence. Vermont offers Burlington. Connecticut doesn’t really have a competitive offering but I’ll be polite and suggest New Haven.
He gave Burlington, VT second, listing the 3 brewpubs in a 3 block area a main reason. I’ll take that though. Burlington is a great city with tons of great beer. Heck, even the whole state of Vermont is into good beer. In all the restaurants we visited, I don’t remember seeing much Budweiser, Coors, or Miller. The same goes for the liquor stores and convenience stores. However, there was a lot more Labatt’s Blue than I normally see in southern New England (the French-Canadian population there could be the explanation). Regardless, Vermont tends to be very proud and supportive of Vermont products and smaller more homegrown companies.
Surprisingly, Boston came in third. The only beer destinations in the Boston area that I have visited are Cambridge Brewing Company (aka CBC) and Sunset Grill. However, for all the bars in Boston, Andy has it right. They’re all pretty similar and nothing special when it comes to beer selection. I do have to get up to the Publick House in Brookline sometime. Perhaps I can coax my Boston friends to go out to dinner there some night.
Anyway, the article is worth a read. He makes some great points about all the great New England beer towns.