People travel all over world to come to Vegas. The city tries hard to make these visitors feel welcome by having a little bit of their home somewhere in town. There are “mini-cities” amongst the hotels, there’s a buffet for nearly every ethnicity of food, and various attractions featuring animals from all around the world.
But what about beer? I’ve found a few shops and bars in town with large selections of beers so I presumed that this town had the beer scene covered. However, as I started following different out of state breweries on Twitter, as I regularly read other beer sites and as I’ve gone to bars in other states, I’m hearing of so many breweries that I have never heard of before. After a while I begin to wonder why it is I hear so much about a particular brewery, but have never seen it on tap or even for sale anywhere.
Recently, the Brewers Association released a list of the top 50 breweries of 2010 (based on volume of beer sold). Of this list of 50, only ~20 of the highest selling breweries distribute in Nevada. Looking through my Untappd profile, the only beers I’ve had that were not of the 20ish breweries that I’m referring to were either:
A: purchased while I was in another state
B: shipped to me from another state
C: from one of Las Vegas’ local breweries or
D: not an American brewery.
That being said, Las Vegas is not a destination for craft beer. The beer that is distributed here, is definitely very good. My 3 top breweries distribute here (Stone, Dogfish Head and New Belgium), but there is still so much more that this city is missing out on.