WASHINGTON — The United States has a booming beer industry, but the District's beer scene falls flat, according to new data gathered by real estate research company Clever.
In order to create a list of the 50 best beer cities in the United States, researchers looked at the following criteria in the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the country:
- Breweries per capita
- Average price of beer
- Affordability of domestic beer
- Affordability of imported beer
- Average Yelp rating of breweries
- Average Yelp rating of bars
- Bars per capita
A "beer passion" score was also calculated using Google Trends data to look at a combination of search volume for 17 different beer-related search terms like microbrewery, lager and pilsner.
Adding it all up, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, took the top spot on the list. According to the research, Pittsburgh has 2.3 breweries per 100,000 residents. That's 77% more than the average city in the study. Cincinnati, Ohio, came in at No. 2 because its average beer price is just $4.15 — compared to $4.78 in other cities ranked.
Meanwhile, D.C. ranked as the 8th-worst beer city. The District is home to 17.4 bars per 100,000 residents with an average Yelp score of 4.1 out of 5. A daily beer in Washington, D.C. costs an average of $5.71 compared to Detroit, where the average daily beer costs $3.55 — the least expensive out of all 50 cities studied.
Take a closer look at the beer city data here.