Best Cities To Open A Brewery: See How Colorado Ranks

It's no secret that Colorado is a craft beer mecca. Over the past decade, craft beer's popularity has grown rapidly, and the state's breweries continue to expand. But Colorado has plenty of competition — the number of craft breweries in the United States has ballooned from just under 1,500 in 2007 to more than 7,000 in 2018.

Bid On Equipment has released a list of the top 25 cities to open a brewery, and a whopping six Colorado cities made the cut, four of which have at least six or more breweries per 50,000 people.

Denver took the top spot at No. 4, followed by Longmont (No. 5), Loveland (No. 6), Fort Collins (No. 9), Boulder (No. 15) and Colorado Springs (No. 16).

The report compared cities with at least 50,000 people in two categories: Business Environment and Business Costs. Metrics within those categories analyzed state taxes, brewery license costs, median income, number of breweries, percent of population over 21 and self-distribution regulations.

With a population of fewer than 100,000 people, the densely-populated city of Somerville, Massachusetts topped the list. The city has the highest percent of population over 21 years old on the list, the lowest state excise tax on barrels of beer and the lowest brewery license fees in the country. Madison, Wisconsin took the second spot.

According to the Beer Institute, a national trade association for the American brewing industry, “Taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in beer, costing more than the labor and raw materials combined.” Research has shown that approximately 40 percent of the retail price of beer is dedicated toward covering all applicable taxes.

Interestingly, few large cities made the cut — only five cities on the list have a population of 500,000 or more. Many small cities such as Royal Oak, Michigan; Bend, Oregon and Longmont topped the ranking.

Both Colorado and Oregon made the most appearances on the top 25 list.