The best airport bars in America

There is an argument to be made that an entire airport waiting area is basically already a bar, albeit one with crappy vending-machine drinks and people idly paging through used Michael Connolly tomes while a TV turned to CNN is playing at an awkwardly high volume. But in an effort to parse out the actual bars in your air and/or jetport that are worth adjusting your flight schedule to hit, we, well, flew to a lot of places this year, and reached out to our esteemed city editors for other recs.

A small note: as much as possible, we opted for places that focus on drinks/beer before food. As you might expect, that left us with a high number of brewpubs and tap rooms. We’re not complaining. But if you want to, do it in our comment section below.

SEE ALSO: The 8 busiest airports in the world

Albuquerque International Sunport

Rio Grande Brew Pub and Grill (Concourse B)
The first time I went to this pub, I ordered the Pancho Verde Chile Cerveza, as I figured: New Mexico! Green chile! New Mexican green chile beer! And then, four minutes later, two girls sat down next to me. “All the tourists just get the green chile beer, but they have some really good local ones,” one of them assured the other. Needless to say, it’s true: the Rio Grande & Sierra Blanca Brewers have some genuinely interesting stuff -- like the Alien Wheat with curaçao bitter orange, sweet orange, and coriander spice, or the grapefruit- and pepper-hinted Rio Grande IPA. And just to be fair -- that green chile beer is pretty good too.

Austin-Bergstrom International

Saxon Pub (East Concourse)
Post-vacation airport conversations are best limited to commiserating about or hashing out exactly what happened the night before. That this outpost of a Dirty South mainstay dive can actually let you relive the night -- live music included -- means there’s nowhere else you should head in Austin-Bergstrom. (We’re assuming you’ve gotten your Salt Lick already, of course.)

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International

Good People Brewing (Concourse A)
What could be yet another airport brewpub, gets a giant step up thanks to Good People -- a trailblazer in Alabama craft brewing -- staffing the spot with ONLY cicerones, which means that, despite flying out of a region still bereft of the influx of craft breweries that the rest of the country is enjoying, you’ll be getting one of the most knowledgeable pre-flight drinking experiences possible.