Here’s a reason to raise a socially-distanced cold one to Bellingham’s breweries
With restrictions due to COVID-19 battering local breweries and tap houses across the state along with a number of other industries, Bellingham’s brewery industry — and all of us — could use a little shot in the arm.
No, not a vaccine — though that certainly would help, too. We’re talking about some good news.
Smartasset.com, a New York-based personal finance company, on Wednesday, Dec. 9, released its 2020 list of Best Cities for Beer Drinkers, and Bellingham made the top 25. It marks the third year Bellingham has made the list and the highest it has ranked.
Bellingham was No. 22, one of three Washington state cities to make the list along with No. 14 Seattle and No. 48 Spokane. Portland, Ore., ranked No. 4, behind No. 1 Cincinnati, Ohio; No. 2 Asheville, N.C.; and No. 3 St. Louis. Bend, Ore., also made the top 10 at No. 7.
Smartasset’s list weighed the total number of breweries from data listed on ratebeer.com, the number of breweries per 100,000 residents, the average number of beers produced by each brewery according to ratebeer.com, the number of bars per 100,000 residents and the average price of a pint of domestic draught beer according to Numbeo.com.
According to the list, 384 cities were ranked.
Bellingham was listed with 11 breweries, which worked out to 11.9 breweries per 100,000 residents, 79.6 beers produced per brewery and 17.9 bars per 100,000 residents. The average cost of a pint was lists as $4.75 — a little on the high side compared to the other 49 cities on the list, but well below the $7 tab in No. 29 San Francisco.
Making the list is actually nothing new — Bellingham also made it in 2019 at No. 35 and was 28th in 2018.
So raise a cold one — socially-distanced, of course — to Bellingham’s breweries, and let’s all hope we can all enjoy another together in 2021.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 9:05 AM.
