At an alarming rate, home is now where the heart beer is.
But in an ever-changing landscape of craft beer, can you really ever go “home” again? When we say “things aren’t like they used to be” when it comes to beer, however, that’s a really good thing.
I’m from a small city in upstate New York where growing up, there was only one craft brewery within an hour drive. Now, there are at least a dozen breweries either open or in planning stages. For a region consumed by 100 or so wineries of the Finger Lakes, things are different.
Times, they are a changin’.
… and I’m thrilled for that.
Places like Community Beer Works in Buffalo and Fairport Brewing Company and Bacchus Brewing in Dryden show that New York State – even in its wine country – are feeling a little hoppy about beer. Best of all, this trend continues in 2013.
As you’d imagine, what we see from New York can be spotted all over the map where cities and towns who perhaps once gave craft beer an afterthought are now on the bandwagon. Per the New Yorker, the “United States contained three hundred and seventy-seven more craft breweries in 2012 than 2011.”
So what does this mean when we go home to see friends and family? When we return during the holidays? When friends are getting married and having kids?
It means one home is now very much like the next. When I return to New York from my beer haven (and current home) of North Carolina, I no longer have just one brewery to seek out that sits an hour away. I have one in my hometown. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sort of.
Above all else, a map like thisemphasizes how fast and vast the craft beer landscape is changing and how it benefits all us weary travelers who just happen to be beer lovers. (If you’re not both, you’re doing it wrong
Plus, next time you have to go home and deal with family, at least you know there’s a good chance a sudsy solution to any potential headaches is easier to find than ever.
+Bryan Roth
“Don’t drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.” — Jack Kerouac
