Beer Vacation ideas

San Diego has everything you'd ever need in life.

 

I was also going to suggest Asheville. Nice touristing town, good for a weekend visit, some beers that are hard to find outside of NC, easy to walk around the downtown and visit brewpubs.

---Only problem is the flying part. I'm guessing you'd have to fly into Charlotte or Raleigh and then do a car rental. Not real convenient and would probably eat up part of your weekend driving from the airport to the city and vice versa.

 

Bend or Portland OR.

Denver to Ft. Collins CO. Or Denver and the I-70 route to the west.

Franconia in Germany.

There are some parts of Great Britain I would like to explore more.

 

Asheville.

 

I just spent 6 days in Bandon Dunes and drove around Bend and didn't find a single good beer place.

 

San Diego's a good call but you won't be walking to many places.

 

I walked to every single one, from my car. and then back to the car afterwards.

 

Didn't your parents ever tell you not to walk when your drunk?

 

Sure beats riding on a bus around Portland with a bunch of drunk homeless people, which is allegedly a perk of the Portland beer scene.

San Diego FTW.

 

x2 Austin. Amazing local breweries and brew pubs, bad ass food and lots of fun places to visit.

 

Hard to believe. Boneyard is owning the Northwest right now, clearly you missed some of the best IPAs out there right now. Not to mention Deschutes, Crux, 10 Barrel, GoodLife, Bend Brewing, Brew Werks... it's in the water in Bend.

 

Seattle. Or St Paul/minneapolis. Or Seattle. I really like Seattle. Walkable, drinkable, scenic, wet.

 

Deschutes was everywhere but it's also everywhere here in Cali. TBH, the tap water in Bend was the worst tap water I've ever had in the U.S. It had a taste of it's own and I thank god the Oregon breweries don't use tap water.

 

The water in Bend was much better than in my hometown. Just saying. Or in San Diego for that matter.

 

Asheville is fun and has a lot average to good beers but nothing that will knock your socks off. (talking about the local brewery/brewpubs)

 

If I were to take a road trip beer vacation right now, I would go to Vermont. Hill Farmstead, Alchemist, Lawson's Finest.

 

Another vote for San Diego. Quite possibly my favorite place in the world, for many more reasons than just the absolutely ridiculous amount of great beer, breweries and bars.

 

Lets get real here. I love Asheville it's a great BAR town with a lot of very average brews. Yes, there are some exceptions with some breweries, but Asheville is a fun place with great bars, good food, good music. If there were world class beers here it would be a mecca, but there isn't, not worth a plane trip from Chicago where you already have great beer. So I'd go SF or SD for better beer, or I'd say fuck it and go to the Bahamas and enjoy the beach and suffer pretty girls and rum drinks.

 

People who don't like beer flock to Vermont in October. It's seriously gorgeous here, especially if you come on the early side of October and catch some good foliage. Fly into Burlington, stay in Stowe or Waterbury and hit Ben and Jerry's, the Waterbury trio of awesome (Pig, Blackback, Resevoir), Alchemist (won't take long and is about 1 minute from Ben and Jerry's) and then see if you can take the 90 minute trip to Hill Farmstead. The DRIVE to Hill Farmstead will be insanely fun just from a leaf-peeping POV, if that's you're thing.

Seriously. Early October, come to Vermont.

 

I hope to god this sarcasm