Wilmington ranked top 15 best US cities for beer drinkers

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Over the last few years, the beer industry has been overflowing in the Wilmington area. A new report released shows the Port City may also need to be named Pint City for beer lovers.

According to SmartAssest.com, Wilmington has ranked in the top 15 best cities in the country for beer drinkers.

The report shows Wilmington is the home of 15 breweries with the average price of a pint costing customers $4.00.

One of those breweries is Wilmington Brewing Company. Since opening in 2014, they have expanded from a small homebrew shop to a 11,800 sqft facility on S. Kerr Aveune.

“Small home brew shop, we were doing great, and John’s like we gotta keep going, keep moving,” Wilmington Brewing Company Owner Michelle Savard said. “So then we went to this building which is 12,000 square feet, added the brewery, then we expanded the Brewhouse.”

Now, they are growing even more. Wilmington City Council recently approved the business to grow by about 5,000 sqft. They are adding an event space at their S. Kerr Aveune location.

“We’re just trying to keep up with demand, so we get bigger tanks, and bigger tanks to be able to brew enough beer to send out into the market,” Savard said.

Edward Teach Brewery in downtown Wilmington is expanding, too. Located in the Brooklyn Arts District in an old fire engine house, the business open its door in December 2017.

“We’re currently in a 10,000 sqft. space, and we’re adding on an additional 30,000 sqft., space,” Sholar said.

In the SmartAsset study, they analyzed data on metrics like the number of breweries, concentration of bars and price of a domestic pint to find the best cities for beer drinkers nationwide. Out of the 350 total cities we analyzed, Wilmington and Asheville cracked the top 15.

Asheville leads the way, ranking as the fourth-best city for beer drinkers nationwide. Wilmington came in as 14th overall.

Both cities rank better than average in four of the five metrics we considered: the total number of breweries, the density of breweries, the density of bars and the average price for a pint of domestic draught beer. In particular, Asheville and Wilmington stand out for their top-10 figures for the number of breweries per 100,000 residents.

According to Smart Assest, the United States beer industry sells more than $119.3 billion in beer and malt-based beverages to consumers each year and 26.5 gallons of beer and cider were consumed per person (21+) in 2018.