The Session #97 – Roundup – Up-and-Coming Beer Locations

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. (You can find more information on The Session on Brookston Beer Bulletin).

We’re now midway through the month of March, and last Friday was March 6, Beer Blogging Friday. This was the date of The Session #97 – Up-and-Coming Beer Locations around the world.

For this month, I hosted The Session, and I asked the question:

What are the up-and-coming beer locations that you see as the next major players in the beer scene?

There were a number of great contributions to The Session this month featuring destinations around the world.

Europe

Lisa Grimm of Weird Beer Girl throws forth Copenhagen, Denmark, arguably the birthplace of modern industrial brewing, with its growing number of breweries and bottle shops. I wasn’t aware of the small brewery within Tivoli Gardens!

The Beer Nut touches a location near and dear to my heart for up-and-coming beer locations, Ireland! Here he shows how a short pub hop in Dublin can expose you to a number of new and interesting craft beers that are appearing from breweries around the Emerald Isle. I couldn’t agree more, based on my experience in Ireland in June for the 2014 European Beer Bloggers Conference.

Lars Marius Garshol reminds us on Larsblog that it takes more than just a few breweries making IPAs to make a destination up-and-coming. A truly great beer destination will offer a beautiful city and great food, as well as a unique style of beer.  Vilnius, Lithuania offers that with their farmhouse ales. Cheap prices and great bars help as well.

Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey of Boak and Bailey’s Beer Blog wonders what criteria would be that would help to turn a location in the UK into the perfect location for an up-and-coming beer scene. Some interesting insights, including feedback from a local brewery on what they are looking for in a location they may want to expand into.

United States – East Coast

Sam Rozzi shares a post by Edmond Medina on Craft Carolina extolling the virtue of the beers of North Carolina. Edmond recently moved to the Charlotte, NC area from Richmond, VA and seems to be very pleased and enthusiastic about the beer scene in his new home state, from the mountains to the coast. There’s definitely more to the state than just Asheville, the host city for the 2015 Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference.

Jack Perdue goes deep about the Beers in Our Backyard on Deep Beer. You don’t always need to focus on the high rated whales of the world, high on everyone’s wish lists. Sometimes, you just need to look out your back door, and take another, appreciative look at the great beers that may be coming from your little neck of the woods. In his case, this would be Maryland.

Franz Hofer of A Tempest in a Tankard sees New York’s Finger Lakes region growing much more in the craft beer scene, as the region expands into more than its current main draws of lovely wines and beautiful scenery. A great resource to visiting the region for beer is included as well!

Dan of Community Beer Works in Buffalo, New York takes a deeper look into a neighborhood of his city, Larkinville, Buffalo. Sometimes, these micro-locations are the perfect breeding for micro-breweries.

United States – West Coast

Derek Peterman of Ramblings of a Beer Runner brings up the great point that great beer is stsrting to come from “EVERYWHERE” now, but stays close to home with the Silicon Valley of California. Despite being the home to some of the biggest names in brewpubs, the local beer scene was still stuck in a pretty quiet back seat to wine and semiconductors. But that’s definitely been changing of late, and you can find some excellent, and unpretentious beers there versus other nearby locales.

Nathan Pierce, who will be hosting The Session #98 on Micro Brewr, moves across San Francisco Bay to the East Bay for his up-and-coming location. With a mix of new small, medium, and large breweries opening on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay, the East Bay is becoming a better place for beer!

Sean Inman of Beer Search Party brings us down to Southern California, not to the emerging Los Angeles or established San Diego, but to Orange County, home to a number of great breweries already.

Jon Abernathy on The Brew Site brings us to Redmond in Central Oregon, where the mix of current breweries and pubs along with a good business climate open to new breweries opening will lead to a continued growth in the beer scene there.

And in General

Will Gartrell of vonSchlapper’s Adventures With Beer was reminded on a recent trip to the UK that the next great beer destination is the next destination you’ll be visiting. And Alan McLeod brings it to a conclusion on A Good Beer Blog as he reminds us that good beer can be found everywhere these days. When you travel, be sure to experience the destination, as those memories may be just as enjoyable as the beer.

My Thoughts

I will admit, I was a little surprised not to see any mention of East Asia or South America on the radar for up-and-coming locations. Recent news has indicated that there is a huge growing craft beer scene in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, while the craft beer scenes in Japan and Brazil have been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years. I’m personally extremely excited to try some of the beers coming out of these locations. And of course, the continued growth of the craft beer scene throughout Europe and North America leads to very exciting times for all of us!