I’m a listmaker. I keep lists in my head of breweries I love just in case I get asked for recommendations. (Hardly ever.)

There are breweries I love from afar — that I’ve never been to — and those I visit frequently. Locally, it depends on the quality of the beer and the atmosphere of the place — I have to have a chill environment to enjoy it properly, and sometimes that simply depends on the time of day and day of the week.

In Winston-Salem, my favorites to visit are Wise Man, Incendiary, and Joymongers. The latter is much more open and comfortable than its Greensboro counterpart, and the beers are always solid. My favorites are the Baltic porter, Citra saison, clementine foederbier, hefeweizen, double IPA, and Moo Juice IPA.

I wrote about SouthEnd Brewing fairly recently, but I have to mention it again. I’ve been four times since it opened, and I love the way they’ve lightened up the place with drywall and the fact that they have food on-site. Sometimes, the best way to gauge your favorites is to consider where you spend time.

I’m also a regular at The Beer Growler, which taps 40 kegs and always has plenty of NC beers. When I see these breweries on the board, I know it’s gonna be good:

• Heist (NC)
• Revision (NV)
• Grimm (NY)
• Bhramari (NC)

My secondary list, the ones that are hit or miss depending on the style and my tastes at the time (everything related to taste is subjective), is this:

• Epic (CO/UT)
• D9 (NC)
• Deep River (NC)
• 2SP (PA)
• Odell (CO)
• Fonta Flora (NC)
• Booneshine (NC)
• Olde Hickory (NC)
• Hi-Wire (NC)
• Ass Clown (NC)
• New Sarum (NC)
• Newgrass (NC)
• Brewery Bhavana (NC)
• Birdsong (NC)
• Four Saints (NC)
• Ponysaurus (NC)
• Triple C (NC)
• The Unknown (NC)

Slowly but surely, I’m working my way through my brewery bucket list, but it’s tough when they’re so far away. I would love to spend a weekend in Charlotte or Raleigh and hit up as many as I can, but until then, I’ve got my local taprooms and bottle shops.

Speaking of which, I have to give a shoutout to Stella Brew, which keeps lots of awesome and sometimes rare cans and bottles in stock, plus a few taps for growlers. (Sign up for their newsletter!) Gah, it’s great living here, right smack in the middle of so many incredible outposts of the beer industry.