Visit the best American breweries of 2018 while minimizing travel time and distance.

RateBeer published their list of top 100 breweries in the world a couple of weeks ago. Of those 100, 71 of them have a physical location that you can visit in the contiguous United States. I mapped them to see where they are, but how can we construct the ultimate road trip? Below is the optimized route to visit every brewery in one go.



Optimized Brewery Road Trip Visit 71 breweries over 197 driving hours and 11,984 miles. Totally worth it. Hair of the Dog De Garde Rogue Heater Allen Hill Farmstead Founders Maine Beer Deschutes Bell’s Lawson’s Allagash Smuttynose Kuhnhenn Trillium Surly Schramm’s Ommegang Jack’s Abby Jolly Pumpkin Tree House Suarez Family New Glarus Bullfrog Toppling Goliath Sierra Nevada Other Half Hoppin’ Frog Pipeworks Tired Hands Russian River Half Acre Cellarmaker Lagunitas Victory Goose Island Almanac Avery Drakes Dogfish Head Three Floyds BrewDog Sante Adairius Crooked Stave Jackie O’s Boulevard Casey Firestone Walker Side Project Perennial Bottle Logic Bruery Monkish Wicked Weed Port/The Lost Abbey Superstition Stone Mikkeller Prairie AleSmith Alpine Westbrook Modern Times Beer Ballast Point Jester King Angry Chair Cigar City Cycle Funky Buddha 3 Sons J. Wakefield

Like with the route I made in 2015, I made use of Randal Olson’s implementation to figure out the routes using a genetic algorithm. The Google Maps API provides the travel times and distances. The algorithm then starts with a random route and then tries to improve with each iteration.

Here’s the algorithm in action:

Voilà. The ultimate road trip. Using the list below, start at any brewery and visit in order. You’ll end up back where you started.

OKLAHOMA

Prairie

MISSOURI

Boulevard

Side Project

Perennial

MINNESOTA

Surly

IOWA

Toppling Goliath

WISCONSIN

New Glarus

ILLINOIS

Half Acre

Pipeworks

Goose Island

INDIANA

Three Floyds MICHIGAN

Founders

Bell’s

Jolly Pumpkin

Schramm’s

Kuhnhenn

OHIO

Hoppin’ Frog

BrewDog

Jackie O’s

DELAWARE

Dogfish Head

PENNSYLVANIA

Victory

Tired Hands

NEW YORK

Other Half

MASSACHUSETTS

Tree House

Jack’s Abby

Trillium NEW HAMPSHIRE

Smuttynose

MAINE

Allagash

Maine Beer

VERMONT

Hill Farmstead

Lawson’s

NEW YORK

Suarez Family

Ommegang

PENNSYLVANIA

Bullfrog

NORTH CAROLINA

Wicked Weed

SOUTH CAROLINA

Westbrook

FLORIDA

Funky Buddha

3 Sons

J. Wakefield

Cycle Brewing

Cigar City

Angry Chair TEXAS

Jester King

ARIZONA

Superstition

CALIFORNIA

Alpine

Mikkeller

Modern Times

Ballast Point

AleSmith

Stone

Port / Lost Abbey

Bottle Logic

The Bruery

Monkish

Firestone Walker

Sante Adairius

Drakes Cellarmaker

Almanac

Lagunitas

Russian River

Sierra Nevada

OREGON

Deschutes

Rogue Ales

De Garde

Heater Allen

COLORADO

Hair of the Dog

Casey

Avery

Crooked Stave

(Start over)

One day. For now, I will just dream.