10 Best American Brewpubs Every Beer Fan Should Visit

6. Urban Chestnut Brewing
St. Louis, Mo.
Anheuser-Busch's sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev(BUD) a few years back was a big blow for St. Louis. How the city and its brewers responded helped make St. Louis a burgeoning craft beer powerhouse. Urban Chestnut's brewmaster Florian Kuplent built his resume by apprenticing at Bavarian breweries, brewing throughout Germany, England and Belgium, hooking on with New England craft brewers and eventually creating a line of craft-style beers for A-B's Michelob brand. When he finished at A-B, he started Urban Chestnut to meld the traditional beers he'd studied with the envelope-pushing beers he'd helped craft. His brewpub's brats, pretzel rolls, sausages and cheeses are lovely and all, but 15 taps of "Revolution Series" beers such as Kuplent's hoppy STLIPA double IPA and "Reverence Series" beers including his refreshing Snickelfritz Hefeweissen are what make this a standout brewpub in a strong beer town.

5. Cascade Brewing Barrel House
Portland, Ore.
It's hard to pick any of Oregon's myriad brewpubs and say definitively it's better than all the others. RateBeer's long-form list put Cascade up front, but also included Cascade's Portland neighbor Hopworks, Bend's Deschutes Brewery & Public House and Pacific City's Pelican Pub and Brewery. What sets Cascade apart? Sour and barrel-aged beers, and lots of them. Cascade's Elderberry, Strawberry and The Vine grape sours sips like wine, while barrel-aged fruit beers and bourbon-barrel-held "bourbonic" blueberry and cherry beers turn up the heat. The rotating cheese, charcuterie, fruit compote, tapenade and soup selections and full lines of more standard IPAs, saisons, porters and other beers round out the experience, but it's the barrels that keep adventurous beer lovers coming back.