We’d just like to remind you of how lucky you are to be living in New England. Why, you ask? If it’s not the weather, the traffic, or the football team, whatever could it be? Well, the beer, naturally. For whatever reason—possibly the weather and the traffic—New England has a high concentration of amazing breweries and brew pubs. You can hardly finish a drunken stagger without falling over one.

Pardon the blasphemy, but forget Sam Adams; there are dozens of other breweries and brewpubs in the Boston metro area alone whose beer beat the pants off a Boston Lager. And while Harpoon IPA will always be our solid beer of choice in a dive, there are lots of others worth trying, whether on the commuter rail or outside the 95 loop.

How can you find these places? What's in store for you? Another reason to thank your lucky stars: BeerAdvocate is in town. You can find the magazine at some of Boston’s best beer bars, The Publick House, for instance, but even better, you can search BeerAdvocate's website for reviews on breweries, pubs, and individual brews. Another amazing resource for finding the perfect brewpub and choosing the perfect beer to try first is Andy Crouch’s The Good Beer Guide to New England. There are 26 listings for Massachusetts alone, and that doesn’t even get you into Burlington (Magic Hat) or Portsmouth (Smuttynose).

It’s a lot to take in. We know. But don’t feel overwhelmed. If you’re worried about running into beer snobs, you probably shouldn't. But if you’re still worried, both the book and the website have pages and pages devoted to learning about different beer styles. And if you’re simply overcome by the sheer number of brews to test, just remember how long our winter is. Lucky you.

Post contributed by Llalan Fowler