America's Best Craft Beer Bars (Slideshow)

America’s Best Craft Beer Bars

Craft beer is everywhere, but craft beer bars are a bit harder find.

#11 The Malt House Tavern, Madison

They bill themselves as the best beer bar in Madison, and Beer Advocate gives The Malt House its coveted "World Class" rating. With 18 beers on tap and 150 more in bottles, it's pretty easy to see why locals can't get enough of this place.

#10 The Bulldog, New Orleans

With 50 beers on tap, over a hundred in bottles, and a $5,000 dishwasher designed specifically for cleaning beer glasses, this Big Easy favorite draws a crowds of college kids and beer aficionados alike.

#9 Great Lost Bar, Portland

A local favorite that's practically a landmark, the Great Lost Bar has 69 taps, mostly craft beers of the Northeast. A whopping 15 of their beers come from local Maine breweries.

#8 Bukowski Tavern, Boston

In a town that loves beer, you've got to stand out to succeed. Bukowski Tavern, named for the late, notoriously surly poet, maybe not be the friendliest bar in Boston, but with 120 beers to choose from (and many of them local craft brews) they don't have to win any congeniality votes.

#7 Palm Tavern, Milwaukee

You won't find any Miller Lite here. They've got 25 taps and 150 bottles to choose from, but their big draw is their selection of rare, seasonal craft brews, like Canadian Breakfast Stout.

#6 Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn

New York Magazine raves that "no bar in the city pays more loving and thorough homage to beer." Spuyten Duyvil offers a long list of carefully selected, hard-to-find brews, specifically Belgian brews broken down by region — Flemish and Wallonian — and by type, with spontaneously fermented lambics a specialty.

#5 Draught House, Austin

It's hard to keep a bar open for even a month in pub-saturated Austin, but the Draught House has been serving beer for 45 years. That's probably because they truly love the stuff. With hundreds of crafts in bottles and on tap, plus a $3 special on local craft beer on Thursdays, Draught House might just make it another 45 years or more.

#4 Blind Tiger, New York

Time Out New York says it all: "Long before craft entered the lexicon, there was Blind Tiger, one of the OGs of the New York beer scene." The draught list is as extensive as it is impressive and features hard-to-find favorites like Kuhnhenn Lonnie Kuhnie.

#3 The Brewer’s Art, Baltimore

In 2008, Esquire named The Brewer's Art the "Best Bar in America." The bar itself is two floors devoted to the love of beer, including their own popular Belgian stout, a local favorite called Ozzy.

#2 Monk’s Café, Philadelphia

Monk's loves their Belgians, and it shows. They've got the finest selection of Belgian beers on tap in America. So fine, in fact, that they were semifinalists for a James Beard Award in 2013.

#1 Father’s Office, Los Angeles

Father's Office is named for the first place the owner tasted great beer; now it's a hotspot for beer lovers from all over the world. The bar was founded in 1953, adopted craft brews in the '70s, and has been a trendsetter in the industry ever since.  (It is also the home of one of the Office Burger, one of the most famous burgers in America, and justly so.)