Ever vacation just to try a beer?

Your a lucky man, March is incidental.

 

My cousin and I just did a beer trip a couple weeks ago. Hit up Three Floyds, Flossmoor Brewery, Revolution, New Glarus, and a few other bars/taverns along the way. Awesome 2 days! Checked in 32 or so beers on Untappd, many of which were samples, but all of which were new to us!!

 

Typically I'll include a brewery/bottle shop visit into any vacation but no specific reason. No beer is that good.

Take last week I was in Philly for dinner with my girlfriend, a Tired Hands visit was in order. And 2 weeks ago me and a few buddies went on a baseball road trip to Cleveland, Cincy and Pitt so we stopped in at Great Lakes for dinner and a tour.

And when I go to Chicago in September for Riot Fest, I'll be grabbing as much Three Floyds and GI as I can.

 

Anyone visiting Philly and not hitting up Tired Hands should be considered a failure of an vacation.

 

the 1st Vermont trip should be done in winter....Northeast Kingdom should be seen w/ a proper amt of snow...imo

 

Gonna be celebrating 27, yes 27 years of marriage!! Heading to Vermont....yes...The Alchemist, and Lawsons and others will be feeling the NJ way to celebrate their anniversary...I plan on having a plethora of Heady, Double Sunshine, just booked.....lots of blogs coming at the end of Sept!

 

I plan on doing this next Summer and taking a trip up the Pacific Coast - hitting up as many as possible.

 

Does this count as ``vacation''?....

Leave house at 8am.
Drive 5 hours to Three Floyds.
Eat lunch.
Buy bottles of Zombie Dust, etc.
Drive 5 hours home.

 

I'd call it an infatuation. Or more simply, NUTS!! (But I like ZD too.)

 

Of course not...but I would.

 

Oh yeah.

 

My wife and I were planning a short trip to the jersey shore when I floated the idea of going to rehoboth beach in DE to get away from the crowds. To this day she has no idea I rerouted our entire trip just to get over to Dogfish Head. Came home with some world wide stout. Funny thing is , we really enjoyed Rehoboth.

 

Two of my good friends and I did a beercation to Bend this last weekend. Our goal was to accomplish the ale tail and drink tons of good beer. Mission accomplished! Hit up Three Creeks (in Sisters, OR), Worthy, Cascade Lakes, Goodlife, 10 Barrel, and the Deschutes Brew Pub on day one.

Day two we stopped by Boneyard nice and early (Hop Venom at 11:00 am is great, Diablo Rojo en Fuego was a little much), then off to the Deschutes Brewery for a tour (which was awesome, 4 free tastes including Black Butte XXV). After Deschutes we hit up Brew Werks, Crux Fermentation Project (where we were introduced to Tough Love, a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel-aged RIS), Silver Moon, and then Bend Brewing Co.

Our last stop was to be McMenamin's Old St. Francis but we found out The Broken Top Bottle Shop was pouring PtE. Having been searching for PtE and PtY for some time now we walked 1.5 miles out of or normal path to go whale hunting. Thus fortified by Pliny we walked 1.75 miles across town to finish the night at Old St. Francis. Last stop before leaving town on Monday morning was The Brew Shop, picked up 2 bottles of Crux Tough Love amd 1 bottle each of Ballast Point Sculpin and Victory at Sea.

Highlights of the trip:
1. Deschutes Brewery tour and Black Butte XXV.
2. Hop Venom on tap at Boneyard (brought a growler of it back home). Have loved their stuff for some time now.
3. Crux. All their beers are worth the stop but especially Tough Love.
4. Peep Show and Swill from 10 Barrel (great pizza too).
5. PtE!
6. All the good looking, friendly waitresses!
7. Ale Trail accomplished.

 

So...does anyone else start planning craft beer highlights to hit when they know they about to travel to a new location, or is it just me? What was your biggest surprise and what was your biggest disapointment?

 

Yep, constantly. Biggest surprise was finding Kanes Head High in Jersey.

 

Going to San Francisco in October. 21st Amendment and Russian River are obvious stops, but I see a Mikkeller beer bar a few blocks from my hotel. Draft list online looks unreal, but the few reviews on here say too many douchebags.

 

You just made me literally "laugh out loud" . Some times you gotta make sacrifices for the love of the craft.

 

I always do that. My general course of action is to go to google maps, get a list of some of the towns surrounding my destination (including my destination), then hit up the Beerfly hard. I also use seekabrew and the regional forums to get an idea of what I should look out for.

My greatest revelation what when I realized all the beer PA gets that NY doesn't. I go to PA close to 10 times each year, which means access to breweries like Bell's, Voodoo, Lost Abbey and Hair of the Dog.

 

You really wanna laugh, read the review . Something about "If you're 25 and work in finance this is for you. If you know about beer it will just piss you off". Or something like that. I thought it was funny

 

Now...I'm not from NJ...but shouldn't you be able to find Kane's in Jersey? Or is that like finding limited releases from Bell's and Founder's in West MI lately?