Friday, September 4, 2026

The World's Top 45 Beer Bars

Taprooms and beer halls with honors behind the taps: the places the professional record ranks highest for a pint, worldwide.

  1. Rank 1. Ptitbeur

    Beer Bar


  2. Plastic dinosaurs lined up on the ledge, a letterboard menu that changes whenever it feels like it, and a taproom that still reads as someone's living room because it used to be one. This community-focused brewpub in Green Gables pours the Spellbinder hazy IPA alongside a rotating cast of fruit-forward beers, and food trucks regularly pull up out front to fill the gap. Small, friendly, and a little cluttered in the best way.


  3. Rank 3. The Vig

    Beer Bar

    The bocce court beside the patio gives away what kind of place this is before you even order. The Vig is a gastropub with a long tap list, a solid wine selection, and a food menu with enough vegetarian options to keep everyone at the table happy. The sprawling patio has its own outdoor bar, which cuts down on excuses to go back inside. Local acts and DJs show up on weekends, and the crowd skews toward people who planned to stay for one drink.



  4. A chef and a brewmaster share a converted post office in downtown Dundas, which explains both the rotating kitchen and the barrel-aged beers on tap. The menu shifts constantly, from Korean barbecue to tacos and back, so regulars who memorized last month's lineup show up to find something new. The cooking runs creative without being fussy, and the banana pudding tends to settle any debate about dessert. Michelin Bib Gourmand.



  5. Rank 6. Nomad

    Beer Bar



  6. Rank 8. Lagerbar Hércules

    German/Czech Beer Bar


  7. Racing memorabilia lines the exposed brick walls of this craft brewery, where the beer garden stretches out to fire pits, communal tables, and a corner that welcomes dogs. A rotating food truck or two parks out front, so you're not stuck choosing between a pint and dinner. The house IPAs lean citrusy and dry, and the blonde ale is the kind of thing you order when the Tucson heat starts winning.


  8. Rank 8. Prost Biergarten

    German Beer Bar


  9. A converted warehouse near downtown with exposed brick, high ceilings, and the kind of eclectic lighting that says someone had fun with the budget. Barrio Brewing Co. is a sprawling brewpub with an old-school Tucson feel, pouring house-made ales alongside a pub menu that leans local, including their own take on the Sonoran Dog. It's been around forever, which in Arizona brewing terms makes it practically a geological feature.


  10. Rank 12. Noble Hops

    Beer Bar

    A 30-foot mesquite bar that stretches indoors and out sets the tone at this Oro Valley gastropub. The patio comes rigged with misters, a gas fire pit, and heaters, so the Santa Catalina views are on offer year-round. Rotating taps keep the beer side moving, and the kitchen leans into crowd-pleasing pub food. Comfortable in the way a place is when it's thought through rather than just decorated.


  11. A two-story craft beer bar inside Tucson's Metal Arts Village, with a sprawling patio equipped with misters and a clear sightline to the Santa Catalina Mountains. The taps rotate through local and regional brews, and the bottle list wanders into sake and Mexican wine, which keeps things interesting. Pizza comes in from a neighboring spot, so the food situation is handled. It's the kind of place that's genuinely hard to leave once you've settled into a corner.


  12. A craft brewery where a pizza food truck parks just outside and freshly popped popcorn sits on the counter inside, which tells you everything about the vibe before you've even ordered. The patio spills into a grassy area with picnic tables where kids have room to run while the adults work through a rotating tap list. Come as you are and stay longer than you planned.


  13. Hold Fast is a Springfield craft brewery with a patio strung with lights and a rotating cast of food trucks pulling up to feed whoever's around. The house golden ale, the Patio Pleaser, is the kind of thing you order without overthinking it. Hammons Field is a short walk away, so the crowd skews toward Cardinals fans doing some productive pre-game research. Live music most nights keeps things lively without tipping into loud.



  14. A wide backyard lawn gives Mother's Brewing Company the feel of a cookout that never quite ends. It's a Springfield craft brewery and taproom with a rotating roster of beers, from hazy IPAs to sour wheat ales to hard seltzers, and the lineup changes often enough that regulars still find something new to argue about. The kind of place you bring out-of-towners when you want them to think well of your city, which they generally do.



  15. A sprawling lawn outside Springfield where dogs, kids, and adults with a pint of the house hazy IPA coexist without anyone seeming to mind. Wire Road is a craft brewery with a covered patio, rotating food trucks parked on the grass, and live music often enough that bringing a folding chair counts as planning ahead. The coffee menu means someone can always be the designated driver without suffering for it.



  16. Peticolas runs a split-level taproom out of an industrial building in West Dallas, with English, Irish, and Scottish-style ales brewed on-site. It's a semi-official FC Dallas supporters' bar, showing everything from Champions League to regional Mexican matches, which explains the noise level on a Tuesday. When there's nothing on the screens, the upstairs has foosball, ping pong, and shuffleboard to fill the gap.




  17. The sour program leans into nostalgic flavors both real and invented, with a pastel blue Star Wars-inspired sipper sitting comfortably beside a margarita sour. This neighborhood craft brewery in northeast Phoenix rotates its taps aggressively, and the owner's laugh tends to reach you before he does. Food trucks cover the kitchen gap while a ramen bar next door remains perpetually forthcoming. A good room for people who treat tap lists the way others treat wine menus.


  18. A craft brewery taproom in north Scottsdale that solved the age-old standoff between beer nerds and sports fans by simply installing TVs everywhere. The brewmaster leans toward classic European styles, rotating Czech lagers, English milds, and an Oktoberfest marzen through the taps. The covered patio connects to a permanent BBQ food trailer, so there's no reason to leave at halftime. Phoenix New Times named it Best New Brewery of 2025.


  19. A photo wall of Diana Taurasi greets you at the door, which tells you everything about what kind of sports bar this is. Planted in Phoenix's Melrose district, Title 9 is a beer bar and grill built around women's athletics, with imagery spanning players to sports journalists across every wall. The color palette reads as a quiet nod to the lesbian pride flag, a detail that fits the neighborhood perfectly.


  20. Pendant lights salvaged from a European monastery hang over the bar, which tells you everything about how seriously this place takes atmosphere. An old-school beer bar and pub on Henderson Avenue, The Old Monk pours drafts from around the world alongside a rotating cast of locals, with fish and chips that regulars treat as a birthright. Weekday happy hour runs until seven and has a reputation for extending the evening considerably past anyone's original plan.


  21. A sprawling patio bar right off the Katy Trail, the kind of place cyclists arrive at with good intentions and leave an hour later than planned. Nearly thirty Texas beers on draft and a solid lineup of Texas whiskeys keep things local, while the kitchen handles dark-beer venison chili for anyone who needs ballast. The patio is large and loud in the best communal way. Exactly what Dallas was missing before it existed.


  22. The side-pull tap that delivers a European-style pour with an extra few inches of foam is a good signal of what kind of taproom this is. Catalyst leans into big, playful styles, including sours, imperials, and hoppy IPAs, alongside a rotating cast of more traditional options. An in-house kitchen called S.A.L.T. handles food, and there's a generous patio when the weather cooperates, which in Tempe is most of the year.


  23. Rank 30. Three Links

    Beer Bar



  24. A faded pink building off Seventh Avenue, formerly a tax office, which tracks: there's something a little bureaucratic about a jukebox this good. Inside, the bar is cheap, loose, and happy to stay that way, with Scrabble at the booths and beers that don't require a budget meeting. The patio shifts into DJ territory after dark, and the rotating calendar of themed nights keeps regulars checking Instagram like it's homework.


  25. Rank 32. Strangeways

    Beer Bar

    The Yelp complaint that someone left about the music not being changeable is basically the place's mission statement. Strangeways is an East Dallas neighborhood craft beer bar with a patio, walls covered in eclectic art, and a vibe that has no interest in pleasing everyone. The beer selection earned a Dallas Observer nod. Watch for flight nights and pop-up dinners when they surface.





  26. A seven-foot plaster rooster presides over the bar, and a miniature Eiffel Tower tops the roof, and somehow neither feels out of place. Nutowne Saloon is an old-school gay bar in east Phoenix that has been around forever, surviving a fire that gutted the place and still coming back kitschier than before. Pool tables, a Merlin fortune-telling machine, and a patio covered for the crowds round out a room that grandma's attic would recognize immediately.


  27. The 12 tap handles are mounted in a repurposed fire truck behind the bar, which tells you everything you need to know about the vibe. Roosters is a country bar that's been an East Valley institution forever, with a red-and-black checkered dance floor, pool tables, live music most nights, open mics, and karaoke. A second stage and beer tubs sit out on the smoking patio. Strangers introduce you to their friends before the first round is done.


  28. A 9,000-square-foot taproom with a basketball court tends to set expectations, and Wonderland Brewing's beer menu swings just as wide, running from Belgian-style and barrel-aged English ales to high-IBU IPAs and wild sours. The Broomfield brewery keeps a permanent food truck on-site, so there's no rush to leave, which is convenient given that there's also ping-pong. A good place to spend a longer afternoon than you planned.



  29. A grilled pimento cheese sandwich and 24 taps anchor this low-key beer garden on the east end of Deep Ellum, where the patio comes equipped with heaters in winter and misters in summer, which is thoughtful given that Dallas has about nine months of summer. The beer selection runs deep into local cans and rotating taps, the bartenders actually know what's on them, and Wednesday brings a small Miller High Life with a Jameson shot for anyone who needs a Wednesday reason.


  30. A dedicated server circulates with a tray of 200-milliliter stanges and marks each round on your coaster, just as they would in Cologne, only with a warmer disposition than the legendary köbes of the Rhine. Fritz Family Brewers is a brewery in Niwot that takes its Kölsch service seriously enough to assign one person to nothing else. Cover your glass when you've had enough, if you ever decide you've had enough.


  31. Rank 42. Truck Yard

    Beer Bar

    A massive patio bar tucked off Lowest Greenville where the menu is deliberately short: Philly cheesesteak, a sandwich, nachos, and that's the whole argument. The beers on tap include brews from their own By The Horns brewery in Mansfield, which gives the place a little more personality than your average outdoor bar. It draws the kind of crowd that would rather eat outside on a Tuesday than anywhere fancy on a Saturday.


  32. A LoHi brewery where the patio is basically the point: a massive open-air front deck and an enclosed back area with picnic tables sized for groups, dogs included without a second thought. The taps are solid, food trucks rotate through on a regular schedule, and live music fills out the week. If you happen to be walking a dog in the neighborhood and need a reason to stop, Zuni Street has already thought of that.


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Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. Most of it is the record: the scored places within reach, weighed by distance, so more good stuff nearby means a higher score. The rest is how life is in that country: how people there rate their own lives, how long and how well they live, how safe they are, and what they breathe. If it looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.