Notes From the Road: How Regions Differ in the U.S.

Rarely does one have the opportunity to travel the country in a concentrated burst. I set out on such a journey on October 2nd, and am just now finishing it up in New England. Over that time, I visited 18 cities across the country and (at least) 44 breweries and several assorted pubs and beer bars along the way. That’s actually .5% of all the breweries in the US, which ain’t bad as sample sizes go. It follows a similar tour I took in 2015, an enlightening experience that informed a lot of my thinking about American beer then.

So what did I learn, and how have things changed in the past half-decade?

It’s worth noting that in that first trip, which happened just before hazy IPAs became a national phenomenon (they had already arrived in New England), I observed the maturation of the “juicy era” of brewing. We retroactively credit hazy IPAs with introducing those intensely fruity hop flavors into our IPAs, but brewers everywhere were discovering how whirlpool and dry hopping created that juiciness. It was a time of great change, and on this tour I got to see the aftermath.

Of course, the juicy trend found its voice largely in the form of the now-ubiquitous hazy IPA. If you’re hoping I found something interesting that cuts against this trend, I’ve got some bad news. The American tradition of hoppy ales I wrote about in the new edition of The Beer Bible is very much an American thing. We have near perfect homogeneity on the hoppy side of the ledger. Only specialist breweries like Dovetail eschew the IPA totally (even Notch makes a couple), and you find an almost monotonous blend IPAs everywhere you go. You find outliers in the margins, but those are actually further evidence of the style’s dominance. In the US, breweries have made styles within the hoppy ale family, and what counts as “variety” is when breweries toss out the odd black or fruit IPA.

You might find this dispiriting, but it seems wholly organic and predictable to me. When a country or region finds its voice, the range of styles narrow. Pity the poor Bavarian who doesn’t like lagers.

On the other hand, it is the United States, an immigrant country with an ADHD approach to flavor. There’s no way a country this big and diverse is ever going to accept just a few flavors of beer again—not while there are nine thousand breweries in the country, anyway. If you want to get a regional flavor, you have to look at what else is popular wherever you go.

I’d love to do a quantitative study on the country’s taplists, but in the meantime we have my impressionistic take. Lagers are definitely on the move in the US, and most places I went had a few. This is a big change from even a few years ago, when they were still a decided rarity (despite all the articles hailing their arrival—one of which I wrote). Yet they’re not dispersed evenly. They’re thinner in California and the Northeast (New England excepted). In fact, this may be the biggest regional marker on the West Coast right now. I found lots of lagers, and even all-lager breweries, in Chicago and Minneapolis, but in Madison they were rarer, illustrating just how narrowly regional these things can be. Austin and Atlanta had lots of them and also some of the best I found in the US. I’m not sure that’s typical across the South.

Cask ale lives! at Bonn Place! [Bethlehem, PA]

There’s a flavor of old American brewing in the NY/NJ/Eastern PA region. This is where cream ales remain popular, and it seemed like I saw a lot more old-school American craft styles. Folks there also seem to be more oriented to seasonals. Even though lagers aren’t a big deal, I saw seasonal Oktoberfest everywhere. Pumpkin ales, absent elsewhere, were just coming on line as well. It felt a bit nostalgic in many of the pubs and breweries I visited there.

The Midwest seemed to be the most balanced on the whole. You find a lot of everything. As I mentioned in the past, I think Minnesota is one of the most underrated states in brewing. I had such consistently good beer there, even when I took fliers on pours from breweries I didn’t know. Chicago is developing an impressive sophistication, with niche breweries making elegant and unusual beers. It has come a long way from the time when it was a one-horse (or goose) town. Wisconsin seems to be a haven of experimentation and offbeat approaches—pretty surprising when you consider Milwaukee’s legacy.

I don’t feel too confident trying to characterize the South except to note that Austin and Atlanta both surprised me with how advanced their beer scenes are. I’m especially curious to see how these diverse cities will evolve as more underrepresented people start to make their voices heard there. I plan to keep my eye on both of them. They may point to a future we can’t yet envision. (I hope!)

California is an interesting place these days, especially So Cal. A decade ago, San Diego was more sure of itself than any city in the US. They knew what they liked (strong, assertive IPAs) and were very confident they made them better than anyone else. The region’s identity hung on these beers. Hazies have really scrambled the picture and while I found some really exceptional beer there—no surprise—it also seemed like a place searching for an identity. Drinkers there want hazies as much as anywhere, but the legacy of San Diego IPAs is strong. It will be interesting to watch how hoppy beers continue to evolve there.

Finally, it’s worth noting a trend that’s not happening: barrel-aged wild ales. Many breweries still make these and they’re really proud of what they’re doing. This vein represents some of America’s best actual innovation (as opposed to the “innovation” of making the 3,293rd example of whatever style is trending). As I consider the beers that most impress me each year, wild ales always punch way above their weight. Nevertheless, the market for them was always tiny and, because so many breweries have started barrel programs, the supply is vast. Breweries rarely even put them on tap anymore, hoping core fans will pick up bottles when they visit the brewery. Were I starting a brewery today, I wouldn’t even consider investing in a coolship or barrel program. They’re too expensive, too unpopular, and too many breweries already make exceptional examples. Kettle sours (or more likely Sourvisiae sours) are still common, though it seems they’ve become more a specialty some breweries specialize in. They have a real audience, though.

All of this is comparative, of course. It’s not like you can’t find lagers in the Northeast. It’s just that there’s less demand and consequently less supply than you find in lager-rich places. It’s hard to appreciate these differences if you pop into one or even a few breweries on a trip. There are so many breweries in any given city that it’s hard to judge what you’re seeing if you don’t have a basis for comparison. The past six weeks have been fascinating because I had the rare chance to compare regions. My insights are relevant now and for the next year or so, and then everything will change again. But at this moment, in late 2021, this is the state of beer in the US.

Beer CultureJeff AlworthNovember 24, 202110 Comments