Do you live in beer country or wine country?

The map above shows the geography of beer and wine production in the United States.

I’ve plotted the locations of the country’s 4,500 commercial brewers and nearly 10,000 winemakers (notes and caveats on this data in a moment). The map divides the country into a grid of equally sized regions, counts the number of beer and winemakers in each region, and places a hexagon marker in each region colored by whether beer or winemakers are more prevalent, and sized according to the total number of beverage makers in the region.

The West Coast jumps out immediately for the incredible concentration of winemakers there. The California coast is dominant, but Oregon and Washington stand out as well. Washington’s Cascade Valley is also hard to miss. On the other coast, Long Island, New York’s Finger Lakes region, and parts of Virginia are colored deep purple too.

But the map also shows that wineries are everywhere, and in places you wouldn’t necessary expect. We can see that even more clearly if we map just the wineries, below.


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