Another day, another random website conducting a study that doesn’t have anything to do with its actual purpose.
This time, it’s about beer.
Real estate website Real Estate Witch just conducted a study to determine the 50 “Best Beer Cities” in America, and Cincinnati fared pretty well, just missing a top 10 spot.
The Queen City ranked No. 11 on this list, which used “publicly available data” to determine:
- the number of breweries within each city’s metro area;
- the density of breweries per 100 square miles;
- the number of beers at each brewery;
- and the amount of beer styles brewed at each one.
“The average American brewery offers 19 different brews — but the metro areas in our top 15 all offered more variety, with an average of 28 types of beer per brewery,” says Real Estate Witch.
The study concluded Cincinnati had 67 breweries, 33 different beers per brewery and 17 different beer styles per brewery.
Of the city, Real Estate Witch wrote: “Cincinnati breweries aren’t afraid to get creative. The average brewery offers 17 distinct styles of beer, placing it in the top three among cities on our list.”
The write-up continued with this little nugget:
As European immigrants settled in Cincinnati in the early 1800s, they brought their beer traditions with them. The city’s beer history experienced waves of growth and challenges — from the highs of rise of German lager to the lows of Prohibition. More recently, the 1980s brought a craft brewing revival that pushed back against the dominance of Budweiser, Miller, and other national corporations.
Today, the city’s craft beer scene is thriving. You can find breweries that specialize in certain beers, such as aptly named dark beer experts at Darkness Brewing, as well as national award-winning companies such as Brink Brewing Co., which took home the prize for Very Small Brewery of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival in 2018.
No. 1 on the Best Beer Cities list was San Francisco, with 144 total breweries. And at the bottom in 49th and 50th place were Riverside, California and Salt Lake City, respectively, which both boast zero breweries.
Read the full results and methodology at realestatewitch.com.
This article appears in May 1-31, 2021.