Best Hidden Gem Places to Drink in 2024

What does it mean to be a hidden-gem place to drink? We feel like the answer to that question is like watching the technical round of The Great British Baking Show. Give ten different bakers the same ingredients and basic recipe steps, and they may still make vastly different desserts. Mostly because they all interpret each step a little differently, and their own personal histories influence their decisions. The places below each appeal to us for different reasons.

One is an OG beer lovers’ paradise in Florida.

Another is a Mancunian pub, tucked into a winding side street, serving pickled eggs.

One is a beer den in Yakima where all the brewers visiting for hop harvest end up once the sun goes down.

Another is a world-class meadery with everything dialed in from top to bottom.

We all have those favorite places that we want to keep to ourselves, whether it’s the dive bar down the street, the nothing-fancy neighborhood taproom, or the low-key cocktail bar in the city.

While our exact interpretations may change, one thing remains the same: We have soft spots in our hearts for these hidden gems, and we almost (almost) don’t even want to share them with you.

But of course, we will.

Below, we pulled together a list of the teams’ favorites. We listed these best hidden-gem places to drink in no particular order because we each love them all in their own way. Of course, any “best” list is open to interpretation, so take these picks with a grain of salt. And if you want to share your favorite place to drink, just hit us up at @hopculturemag.

The Best Hidden Gem Places to Drink in 2024

Holy Water

San Francisco, CA
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

I first met Holy Water’s bar manager and partner John Ottman during SF Beer Week in February. Despite having lived in the Bay Area for four years, I hadn’t yet ventured to this holy watering hole.

Not visiting sooner was a colossal mistake.

As Ottman explained to me while we stood around in a packed house, sipping beers during a GOAL. tap takeover, Holy Water has become somewhat of an institution in San Francisco.

In 2013, when the bar in the heart of the Bernal Heights neighborhood first opened, cocktails dominated the menu.

Although their original draft menu included beers like Drake’s Stout, Green Flash IPA, Stone Levitation, and Allagash White, Ottman slowly but surely started bringing in kegs from folks like Russian River.

Today, Holy Water’s draft list is like the who’s who of the West Coast—Cloudburst, Ghost Town, Radiant Beer Co., Cellarmaker, Moonlight, Sante Adarius, Private Press, and, of course, Russian River.

Plus, you’ll still find Allagash White and, in cans, one of the industry’s Belgian favorites—Taras Boulba. (IYKYK.)

Whether you need to confess your sins, pay homage to the altar of community, or just commune within the holy grail of craft beer bars, Holy Water is there for you.

They say it’s the New York water that makes their bagels so incredible. Well here, it’s the holy water that makes our beer bars hidden gems.

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Redlight Redlight Beer Parlour & Brewery

Orlando, FL
Submitted by: Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Nestled in Orlando, Redlight Redlight is an OG beer lovers’ paradise. With an impressive, rotating lineup of international craft brews and a knowledgeable staff ready to guide you through the extensive menu, Redlight Redlight promises an unforgettable experience.

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The Rumah

Rotterdam, Netherlands
Submitted by: John Gross, Director, Strategic Business Development, Next Glass

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“Rum is Dope.”

That’s what the neon sign said in the back of the bar by the bathrooms and some sort of Netherlands gambling machine. You know what? Rum IS dope! Rumah has quite the collection and is ready to chat with you to get you set up with something special.

Rumah has been serving hospitality and artisan rums since lockdown. Rotterdam is rich with stellar food and drink, but the warm character (and characters) of the neighborhood cocktail pub was a standout. Specializing in worldly rums and juxtaposed with a hearty dose of Wu-Tang on the stereo, the bartender blew me away with genuine human connection and hospitality. He helped me navigate the vast Dominican rum offerings, cocktail after cocktail, along with top-notch Euro-people watching, which made for an all-time great bar experience. Rum makes the vibes better. Rum is dope.

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The Tamworth Tap

Tamworth, Staffordshire, England
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

I hopped off the train and walked ten minutes to the center of town, my suitcase trailing behind me along the brick-red cobblestone. In the middle of town, I found myself standing outside a little unassuming pub called The Tamworth Tap.

Why, you might ask, did I detour from my originally scheduled train ride between London and Manchester?

Why did I find myself in a market town of around 78,000 located fourteen miles northeast of Birmingham on Easter Sunday morning?

Because I’d heard about a place in Staffordshire that had done something almost no one else had ever done before: won CAMRA’s prestigious Pub of the Year award two years in a row.

The Tamworth Pub sits in a former tourist information office where The Tamworth Tap Head Brewer and Co-Founder George Greenaway used to work from a desk on the second floor. “There’s more tourists now than there were then,” he jokes. (I suppose I could personally attest to that.)

As one of the only remaining government employees in the building, the council gave Greenaway the keys. “I got to thinking that I could make it look occupied, which is always good for the council, by just doing a little community brew project.”

Originally an empty shop with suspended cable lighting, polystyrene ceiling tiles, and magnolia and grey carpet tiles, The Tamworth Tap completely transformed the building under Greenaway’s direction.

Push open the door now, and you will immediately understand why Greenaway’s place has become a fan favorite.

Knick-knacks crisscross every corner, spilling out into the beer garden. Not crammed but purposefully placed.

“I don’t want it to look cluttered or unfinished,” Greenaway explains. “The pub should be quirky like most museums in a way—tidy but not too cluttered.”

For instance, a traffic light from the 1960s stretches out, overlooking the outdoor patio. Greenaway found the working street machine on eBay (during COVID, he says they used it to control the queue to get a beer).

“I’m always seeing things,” Greenaway mused. “That would look good here, and that would look good there. I just love these old things that I find.”

History seeps into every crack and crevice in the cobblestones; every window, shutter, and wall potentially has a story to tell.

As Greenaway walked me around, he pointed out a Tudor door covered up by the Victorians, a staircase built by the Georgians, and original one-hundred-year-old Edwardian shutters. In the brewery next door to the pub, Greenaway showed me a Tudor wall from 1580 where they found actual horse hair.

He knows the history of it all.

Then there’s the obvious. The pub lies in the shadow of a turret from Tamworth Castle, a Grade I Norman castle. “That’s history,” he says, pointing out a thousand-year-old wall that butts up against the brewery. “It’s Saxon, so that … would be 800-900 AD. It’s quite humbling to be a custodian.”

Which is actually a pretty apt description for Greenaway, whose clear glasses, custom-made Tamworth Tap navy blue polo, and shock of silver-grey hair make him appear more like a docent than a brewer.

But in a way, he is a docent of drafts, warmly shepherding anyone who comes in his doors.

At the Tamworth Tap, it’s more than just what is on the wall, it’s who is within those walls, too

Back inside, sitting on pews imported from local churches, I told Greenaway, “Well, this has become a church for many people, right?”

“A cathedral,” he answered without skipping a beat.

Chances are, if you visit The Tamworth Tap, you’ll find Greenaway inside. He’s almost always at the pub. “Normally seven in the morning until lockup,” said Greenaway, who lives five minutes away. “I’ve done it in three minutes, though!”

During our conversation, at least seventy-five percent of the folks who passed our little corner stopped to chat with the pub owner or give him a simple hiya.

Greenaway says the pub has at least one hundred “Tappers,” a term for regulars that Greenaway’s wife, Louise Greenaway, invented.

Regulars like Martin Watts, who Greenaway introduced to me as the man who has 10,000 check-ins on Untappd.

“It’s 6,199,” Watts told me proudly. “1,300 here [at The Tamworth Tap].”

Watts, who has lived in Tamworth for sixty years, said he’s known “George since a century.”

Although The Tamworth Tap has only been around for six years, the pub (and the people in it) feels as much a part of the fabric of the town as the nine-hundred-year-old castle overlooking it.

Greenaway often hears a familiar refrain: “We’ve lived here thirty years, and we never even knew this place was here. We don’t know how we missed it!”

The Tamworth Tap attracts them all from eighteen years old to eighty years old.

You can’t walk into The Tamworth Tap and leave without a new friend.

“Everyone just seems to get on with each other,” Watts shared.

People love this place. And this place loves its people.

There’s just that little something about The Tamworth Tap that you can’t quite put your finger on. It’s the people, the community, the staff, the cask beers, the history baked into the walls, the windows, and the wagons.

Or it could be as simple as this: “George doesn’t sit on his laurels,” a regular named Bryan told me, asking me to hold down the fort as he went off to find his mate, who always came in at five past. “Every time you come in, there’s something different on the wall.”

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OFF SITE

Miami, FL
Submitted by: Dustin Jeffers, VP of Brewery Product and Experience, Next Glass

OFF SITE, a must-visit destination for craft beer enthusiasts in Miami, has been serving the city’s beer lovers for years. Founded by Adam and Nicole, the brains behind Boxelder in Wynwood, OFF SITE offers a wide variety of beers, including their signature Super Good Lager. Whether you’re a local or a visitor, you’re sure to find something to tantalize your taste buds at this vibrant beer bar.

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The Butcher And The Bar

Boynton Beach, FL
Submitted by: Adam Feingold, Team Brewery Lead, Next Glass

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The Butcher & The Bar is one of my favorite places that focuses on “local” as much as possible. They have a fabulous cocktail selection with a fantastic list of bourbons and gins. Although small, they have a great local craft beer selection as well as a scratch kitchen with the menu changing every so often. As a bourbon and steak enthusiast, it’s difficult not to take home a cut of their locally sourced Florida beef from the in-house butcher after a couple of Old Fashioneds.

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Schab’s Bier Den

Yakima, WA
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

Most folks I talked to while in Yakima recommended stopping here at least once. I have to say, I’ve been on quite a few beer trips at this point, and no matter what city, town, or village I’m in around the world, every place…always has that place.

You know what I mean, right? It’s the one spot that you keep going back to every night. When we visited Bellevue, it was Tapster. When we went to Bruges in Belgium, it was de Garre (which made this same list last year).

In Yakima, it was Schab’s Bier Den.

This is the best craft beer bar in Yakima. Period.

Owned by Zack and Trena Schab, this local watering hole carries the most carefully curated compendium of craft beers around the Yakima Valley.

On my visit, this meant an almost full tap takeover from Varietal, a phenomenal brewery everyone told us about. I didn’t have time to visit the taproom because it was a forty-minute drive away, so imagine my luck to just pop over to Schab’s Bier Den.

Walking in, I was greeted by a huge German shepherd named Bella patrolling the premises.

Highlights included Varietal’s Fresh Hop Tacos and Harvest Brain hazy IPA, which I was told were two of the most popular beers on the menu.

Although sleek and elegant, Schab’s Bier Den felt very calm. Long picnic tables with tree bark benches encourage folks to sit together. The vibe seems to be community, with craft beer as the connecting thread.

As Zack and Trena proudly say on their site, “It gives us great pleasure to contribute to the community with the best craft beer in town and a place to build relationships.”

I say mission accomplished! Feel free to return to Schab’s Bier Den every night you’re in town.

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The Marble Arch

Manchester, England
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

“Manchester is like a choose-your-own-adventure,” Matthew Curtis, beer writer extraordinaire and founder of the award-winning beer magazine Pellicle, explained to me as I sipped on a SoCal in Cloudwater’s airy, bright second-floor taproom. “Do you want modern? Do you want trad? … The quality is high as well. There’s a natural competitiveness to Mancunians, and it’s largely very healthy.”

Curtis first came to Manchester for beer in October 2013 and ended up permanently moving from London to the city four years ago. An avid runner, Curtis would plan his routes around the city just to see different pubs, saying to himself, “I’m going to come and drink in you soon.” And then, he’d find ten more pubs he also wanted to visit along the way.

After writing his first book, “Modern British Beer,” for the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 2021, Curtis says they asked him to write one called The Modern British Pub. Instead, he pitched an idea for a new book in his head: A drinking guide to Manchester.

After twelve months of research (read: lots of drinking) and writing, Curtis published “Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars.”

With two and a half days to spend in Manchester, I couldn’t think of anyone better to show me around.

The first place Curtis took me?

The Marble Arch.

As Curtis describes in his book, in 1997, Jan Rogers, who ran the Marble Arch pub, had to do something to increase foot traffic. The choice? Either start a karaoke night or a brewery.

“Thankfully, she decided on the latter,” writes Curtis, noting she installed a five-barrel system in the pub’s back room. “Marble’s influence on Manchester’s beer culture cannot be overstated”

The Arch, as it’s called, might be one of the most important and historic watering holes in Manchester. An institution, the pub started brewing its own beer back in 1997, bringing a new wave of British beer to Manchester.

It’s that combination of history and humanity that makes Marble a city favorite.

When you walk in, you might feel like you’re drunk already. You’re not.

But yes, the floor does slope.

It’s also covered in beautiful mosaic tile with Easter egg blue flowers with green leaves and pink petals. Curtis explained to me that, although the pub’s building has been around since 1888, Rogers, restored the bar much later, revealing original brickwork underneath that you can see now.

Every time a double-decker yellow bus (iconic to Manchester according to Curtis; London has red, and Manchester recently got yellow) zips by, the wood warps and groans, and the door creaks.

Dark wood tables and booths with plush red velvet seats or high-back army green booths capture sound, giving the Arch a pleasant hum during our afternoon visit.

Across six hand pulls, you’ll mostly find Marble’s own beers.

I enjoyed a Marble Bitter and Marble Mild, which drank like a dark roast coffee with cocoa nibs, smooth and drinkable.

We suggest you eat lunch at the Arch because, after installing a kitchen in 2009, the food from this pub is banging.

May we suggest a cheese board big enough to feed four?

You could just while away an entire afternoon here and be happy.

The Arch is a true gem.

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The City Arms

Manchester, England
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

I really loved my time in Manchester. An almost surprise stop on my trip around the U.K., which included London and Edinburgh, I might venture to say that I enjoyed Manchester the most.

For that reason, I couldn’t pick just one hidden gem to add to this list: I had to go for two.

After all, do you ever go to the pub and drink just one pint of dark mild?

Curtis calls The City Arms his favorite pub in Manchester. “I love the City Arms,” he writes in his book. “In fact, such is my fondness for this superb traditional local that I will often find myself making excuses to visit, even if I happen to be on completely the other side of town.”

Unassuming on the outside, opening the door just a smidgen on a late afternoon is like dropping the needle on a record; conversation wafts out endlessly.

When Curtis and I snaked our way into the packed pub in the early evening, Curtis couldn’t help suggesting we get ourselves a couple of pickled eggs at the bar.

They pull one out of a jar and hand one to you with the choice to dab on hot sauce. We swallowed ours in one go before ordering pints of Cloudwater’s Piccadilly Porter from the selection of eight hand pulls.

Somehow, we managed to squeeze into a table in the back, where Curtis spent the next hour trying to explain to me the rules of cricket.

The City Arms might not have a distinct feature like the sloped floor of The Marble Arch or slick bright yellow bricks like Peveril of the Peak (another Manchester institution), but you can sink into any one of the maroon leather seats and eventually become a part of the furniture. And many locals have.

“The best pub in Manchester?” Curtis asks in his book. “Probably.”

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Zymarium Meadery

Orlando, FL
Submitted by: Adam Feingold, Team Brewery Lead, Next Glass

Mead may be one of the oldest forms of alcoholic beverages in history, but Zymarium Meadery takes a modern approach to both their mead and their meadery. The meads themselves are, without question, world-class and are crafted with vision and purpose, but drinking at Zymarium is an experience in itself. The decor is immaculate and eclectic; everything has a purpose, from the music to the lighting to the colors. Top to bottom, drinking (mead) at Zymarium is an extremely pleasant and immersive experience that everyone should enjoy.

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PULT

Prague, Czech Republic
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

When I visited the Czech Republic earlier this year with a group of twenty Canadian and American brewers, I spent quite a few nights at PULT, a bar part of the super well-respected Ambiente group of restaurants in the Czech Republic.

Walk into the tiny shotgun-style pub, and you’ll find a menu with just six main beers on draft. Uniquely, PULT opens up these spots on their tap list once a year. Those that they choose stay on for the entire year.

Or, as the pub succinctly puts it, “Six perfectly poured lagers on tap.”

This place just slaps. And they treat each and every one of those six beers on tap like royalty. Whether you order a Hladinka, Šnyt, or even Mlíko, you can rest assured that the tapster behind the bar will execute every pour perfectly.

Those like Magda Hoppova, who has been working at PULT as a tapster for the last five years.

Favorites from the current menu in 2024 included H11 from Hendrych.

I can’t tell you how many Hladinkas of this beer our group drank throughout just a couple of days. But “a lot” will have to do.

Hendrych’s flagship beer has a fair amount of bitterness for a Czech pale lager, but mysteriously, the more you drink it, the more drinkable it becomes. Sounds like a riddle, but it doesn’t have to be.

Personally, my favorite was Pivovar Clocks’ Anežka.

When we first walked into PULT, Hoppova helped me navigate the menu.

Do you want something hoppier or maltier, she asked me.

Maltier, all the way.

Hoppova didn’t steer me wrong. Anežka has a slightly malty sweetness supported by a resinous character that balances everything super crisp and clean.

But whichever of the six beers you get, you can’t go wrong. Just don’t leave PULT without ordering one of the toasted sandwiches, a tray of meats and pickled things, and the pickled camembert with black garlic.

And just accept right now that you’ll probably end up at PULT more than once during your trip.

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Blind Pig Speakeasy

San Francisco, CA
Submitted by: Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

The Blind Pig Speakeasy is a hidden gem set in San Francisco. Behind an unassuming facade, this intimate cocktail bar features a curated selection of exquisite drinks, each with a unique story.

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