Ultimate Brewery Tour of the U.S., According to Science

Want to take the beer-soaked road trip of a lifetime? Want to do it as quickly as possible so you'll be able to return to that stupid job that drove you to take a drinking-centric vacation to begin with? Science has it all figured out for you.

Nathan Yau of the blog Flowing Data recently used a technique known as "genetic algorithms" to calculate the fastest way to visit the 70 highest rated breweries located in the continental United States according to RateBeer. This computer-driven approach calculates and recalculates different possible pathways before landing on the one deemed most efficient.

For American breweries, the end result was a 12,299-mile trip encompassing approximately 197 driving hours through 28 states to reach the 70 breweries that Yau decided to include in his calculations. For practical purposes, Yau says the entire journey would take about 20 days if you build in sleeping time, drinking time and, of course, time to sober up before continuing between stops.

But for even more adventurous types, the fun doesn't have to stop there. Yau also looked at how many additional breweries were within a five-mile radius of the main route and found that if you're willing to take a couple of short detours, you can hit up as many as 1,414 additional brewers!

Unfortunately, one thing the map doesn't take into account is when breweries' taprooms are open (and sometimes even to what extent these breweries are open to the public at all), but you can't blame Yau for not taking everything into account when creating his map: He has to save some time to drink at 1,400 breweries.

[h/t Washington Post]