Photo by Heather Goss

Love our city’s beer scene? Think it stacks up to some of the other great beer cities around the country? The polling for the fourth annual BeerCity USA contest is open and D.C. is once again a write-in contender. From last year’s poll, these cities are already in the running:

• Asheville, N.C.
• Bend, Ore.
• Boston
• Boulder, Colo.
• Chicago
• Denver
• Fort Collins, Colo.
• Milwaukee
• Philadelphia
• Portland, Maine
• Portland, Ore.
• San Diego
• San Francisco/Oakland
• Seattle
• St. Louis

While our city is steadily carving out our niche in the brewing world and breweries like DC Brau are getting noticed nationwide, D.C. has some of the most lenient importation laws—and that allows bars here to get some of the best beers in the world. Very few cities can compete with both the quality of beers that come into the city and the sheer amount of different breweries that are sold here. There are certainly cities that have a larger footprint in sending their hometown beers all over the country, but D.C. is truly at the epicenter of an international beer scene by having so many brands on the shelves and in the beer coolers.

Moreover, we have the second largest yearly beer event, SAVOR, taking place right in our Smithsonian Building museum again. This event continually brings the beer community’s focus right to D.C. with the entire U.S. beer community here for the week-long festivities.

The write-in nominating poll closes April 21 at 11:59 p.m. So make sure to put our city on the map where it belongs as Beer City USA. After all, do we really want to be known for cupcakes and overpriced burgers?