Cheers, Indianapolis!
Real estate data company Clever evaluated 50 of the United States’ most populous cities last year in terms of their beer. Nearby Chicago came in third for “its tavern culture, which has been honed through 160 years of award-winning brewing tradition” and our very own Indianapolis came in second place for “the greatest variety of brews of any metro area” while San Francisco took the first spot as the #1 beer city in the US as the home of “the first type of beer originally developed in the US.”
Clever evaluated the cities across 4 metrics:
- The number of breweries within each metro area
- The density of breweries per 100 square miles
- The number of beers per brewery
- The number of beer styles per brewery
Indianapolis ranked #1 for having the highest average number of beers per brewery and #1 for having the highest average number of beer styles per brewery. We were some way behind on the total number of breweries, however, with Portland and Chicago’s 183 and 180 respectively some way ahead of Indianapolis’s 102 total number of breweries.
Clever acknowledged Indianapolis’s impressive variety stating that in our great city “breweries excel at offering variety, with an average of 39 brews per brewery — more than any other metro area on our list.” According to the Brewers of Indiana Guild, the beer industry fuels more than $1 billion of the state’s overall economy.
Books & Brews also got a mention with Clever explaining how “along with traditional pubs and tasting rooms, Indianapolis also offers unique tasting experiences such as Books & Brews, where you can order a literary-themed beer and browse the in-house used bookstore.”
According to Clever, the 50 metro areas examined in their study collectively offer a total of approximately 70,067 unique beers.
[Featured image from Shutterstock]