A ‘Not So Smart’ Guide To 2018’s Best American Beer Cities

cities, A ‘Not So Smart’ Guide To 2018’s Best American Beer Cities

Financial and real estate firms such as SmartAsset have been using beer as a way to draw younger visitors to their sites for years. Beer is viewed as vital youthful and trendy… retirement and refinancing rates, not so much.

And while the methodology for these kinds of rankings can get sketchy…they still can be kinda fun… even when their overall results sometimes strain credibility.

SmartAsset is a financial site that started ranking “best beer cities” in 2015 and they’ve just released last year’s rankings based on 300 cities nationwide.

Using data derived from RateBeer, they start by calculating the total number of breweries and brewpubs in a city per 100,000 residents.

But things get a little sketchier when they introduce the average number of beers per brewery (again this data is input from RateBeer users not an actual count from the breweries).

And when the methodology takes into the average price for a pint of a draft beer in any given city, things get ridiculously skewed especially from a craft beer perspective.

The good news is that they’re no longer taking into account the average Yelp score of breweries as they did in the 2017 rankings. Nor are they factoring in the number of basic bars per 100,000 residents as they did last year.

And now, after more information than anyone needs on what is basically beer clickbait set to lure you into a financial planning site, are SmartAsset’s 10 best cities for beer drinkers….

  1. Portland, Oregon
  2. Asheville, North Carolina
  3. Portland, Maine
  4. Cincinnati, Ohio
  5. Bend, Oregon
  6. Duluth, Minnesota
  7. Denver, Colorado
  8. Seattle, Washington
  9. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  10. Fort Collins, Colorado

We’re fine with 70% of this year’s Top 10 cities. But with all due respect, Cincinnati at #4, Duluth at #6 and Pittsburgh at #9 ….really?

And absolutely no Top 10 love for San Diego?

San Diego, one of the nation’s most important beer destinations, finally shows up far below cities like Reno, NV, Lincoln, NE and Rochester, NY, at a humiliating #34….REALLY?

So here’s their overall rakings …See what you think.

cities, A ‘Not So Smart’ Guide To 2018’s Best American Beer Cities

We think SmartAsset would be ‘smarter’ to stick with financials.

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