I went out on the town in Bismarck for a weekend out, totally forgetting that bar close in this town is 1:00 AM. In reality, it is a little more like 12:30 AM. The first night I went out, 12:30 was the time the Blackjack dealer dealt her last hand to my table. The second night, my group was locked out of our last-stop bar at the same time!

Mayor Steve Bakken said that, if bar owners wanted to be open later, it is possible to change the current 1:00 AM closing ordinance. He told me that the reason towns like Grand Forks, Fargo, and Minot are open that extra hour is because they have more of a college crowd to appeal to. He pointed out that factors like Bismarck State College being a two-year school (students graduate before the age of 21) and the University of Mary's location on the outskirts of town could be reasons why there is not a massive college crowd pushing for bars to be out until 2:00 AM.

The 1:00 AM bar closing time seems to be a western North Dakota thing. I moved to Grand Forks when I was still in high school and spent college years there and in Fargo. Then, I moved to Colorado. So, as an adult, I had never even heard of a bar closing before 2:00 AM until I moved to Bismarck. But I totally think we should get that extra hour over here! I mean, Minot did it back in 2019, why can't BisMan?

Top 11 Drinks That Make NoDak's Throw up.

 

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

 

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