Beer and Travel

I used to travel for work up to eight weeks a year nationally and internationally (Africa and Europe), and kick myself for getting into craft only after that stopped. I probably will travel for work again sometime and you bet I'll plan that out as far as stores and breweries to visit. As far a vacationing, we mainly stay within a few state area but I definitely plan out breweries and stores to go to by searching and posting on BA. I even drove five hours to Wisconsin specifically to have a Gruit, one of the last beers in my all-style quest, of course stopping at stores too.

I am the only beer drinker in the family. Still, my wife and adult kids tolerate my side trips, such as when we go to a Packer game at Lambeau. Whenever we go to Wisconsin, I try to stop at Casanova liquor in Hudson, WI which is an incredible craft-beer mecca. It's open 365 days a year, has an amazing attached restaurant (with the best burger I've ever had), and a large cave out back for fests. We went on a Disney cruise a couple of years ago and I made a point to have some craft on the boat, in the Bahamas, and at Disneyworld.

 

I always scope out a bottle shop ahead of time if possible. I have 2 younger kids so I don't always have time to drive around a city I'm not familiar with and find all the good spots. I also try to find 1-2 family friendly places to go for dinner with a good tap list. Being the only beer drinker in the family, it helps to have a game plan in place ahead of time.

 

^This 100%. Finding the best bottle shop in the area is key for saving both time and money, if your plan is to take beers back home. In fact, I recommend hitting the bottle shop 1st, as many times you can scratch off a local brewery visit all together if the goal is to mule home beers to consumer later on. In many places in the US now, many high-end bottle shops are also serving beers on tap (usually very high quality beers), and also serves food (sometimes very good food), so you litterally can kill many birds with 1 stop.

I generally go to the regional Beer Advocate forums and start searching and asking questions a few weeks before my trip. The insights from locals and people whom have traveled there in the past are invaluable. Also looking up the rank order of breweries, pubs, stores etc. in advance here on the site to see which ones to look into.

 

Another key point, is to not only research the town/city you are in but surrounding area out in the suburbs or country that could be a short drive away but not listed in the actual city's rankings. Many of the best beer places (breweries, taphouses, restaurants etc) are outside of the city limits you are visiting so make sure to do your homework.

Sometimes googlemaps is very helpful. Just search for "breweries" (for example) and see what pops up in the surrounding area, the from there do some scouting on BA forum. Just a method that works for me. If there are better more efficient strategies for finding great beer while on travel (BeerMenus or something else?) Please share.

 

I use to travel extensively for work. Anywhere from west Texas to the North Sea (It would not be unusually for me to be gone 20-25 days a month, when in Aberdeen sometimes 6 weeks at a time). I always use the places feature here as I found that really helpful, and as such I began reviewing and adding new places as I went. Of course Midlands, TX, Galliano LA, and say Port of Spain Trinidad didn't have the best beer scenes in 2007-2012 when I was doing most of my traveling. Though it helped out a lot when traveling in the UK.

I don't do that anymore thankfully, but still use the places feature here when visiting family, as I will drive from Houston to Illinois from time to time. Usually stopping in Little Rock on the way. There is always something new that I find here, and usually something that I can add to the database along the way as well.

 

I like to research area restaurants (including the beers they serve). Whether the trip is for business or pleasure, doing that research makes the trip much nicer.

 

My apologies on behalf of my fellow BA members above for not giving you the best answer. On the main menu, go to Places and you'll get a screen to fill in a city, state, country, and then click on the right to filter your search of the BA database for the type of establishment that you want, then click Search. You'll get a list of names, addresses, ratings, etc. and you can click on any name to reach the BA page for that business. I use it all the time for planning my travels.

When you click on Places, you'll also see a 'Nearby' selection. Click on it, give BA the okay to know your location, and you'll get a street map with a symbol for everything in the database near your location. (This search can't be filtered.) Two caveats: first, this feature has not been updated for over a year, so no new places will be shown, and, second, this great feature works in the US only.

 

I'll even go one step further once I've found a bottle shop and, if applicable, check their selections beerrmenus.com so I know what to look for. Obviously it helps if they update regularly, but even if not you can get a general idea of what they carry.

 

I dont travel for work, but in the last few years I have done two extended weekends per year by myself for craft beer specific destinations.

I am an over planner, but I make a spreadsheet with all of the breweries, bottle shops and bars in the city. I use BA mostly for the list of Places, but Google Maps and searching "beer" in the area will yield the odd hidden gem. Sorted by neighbourhood and the route I am going to take. Then I weed out the ones I feel I can skip or are too far off route and hit the road.

My wife makes fun, but its colour coded, complete with address, opening hours, if they have food or not (Full/Bites/Trucks/NoFood).

Did I mention that I am an over planner. I also overthink accommodations for my trips, but thats a different story

Done:
Cleveland/Chicago (20 locations)
Rochester (31)
Grand Rapids (29)
Pittsburgh (30)
Asheville (31)
And this spring Burlington/Stowe

 

Like others here I research a ton for my pleasure and business trips alike. That’s just my nature anyway. A few years ago, for instance, my wife and I took an overnight flight to Milan. As soon as I got her In the hotel she was luxuriating in the bed and I was in the streets, walking to a great store, and returning to the room with a bunch of cantillon bottles for room party and pizza shortly after. Of course I had a half dozen options for take out dinner up my sleeve as well. I basically love obsessing over this kind of shit. A business trip took me to SF in late 2017; as soon as I got myself settled I was walking to cellarmaker and then picking up terrific Pakistani food for dinner afterwards.

Beer advocate is of course an invaluable resource. That other site tends to have a lot more international insight; I also have a chowhound account that I’ll sometimes use to do some restaurant research.

 

For food/restaurants I usually rely on Tripadvisor. Rarely lets me down.

 

One thing I would add as both initiator and receiver is to find an active BA in the area and reach out. I have been contacted by people who are passing through or visiting and gave them my best advice. On the other hand, I reached out before our family summer vacation last year and was able to use that conversation and the BA place database to make some good decisions about what to hit and what to skip.

 

I was a fortunate vagabond in the pre-internet age. I was a discerning visitor and asked people I met what I should see, try, and eat. It never failed. It was like slow motion internet but with human connection. Europe as a 21 year old was a life changing experience.

 

Haven't traveled much since starting the hobby. Will re-read all of this thread though, may go to Sweden in some months. Of course will visit the "monopoly" and look for NA beers. Then it's the biggest warehouses and their drink departments. And, must do, some shop specialized on beers. All in all, the bigger places the better, they tend to have the most different NA beers, which is crucial with the limited supply.

An internet search may give some optimum balance of closeness to the hotel and supply Or then just march in as they come by.

 

This is very similar to my trip planning. Research, research, research. I create Google spreadsheets that I share with my wife and any other traveling companions. Here are some points I can add-

• Google Maps- After bringing up a map of the area you will visit, type in Brewery, bar, taproom etc. in the search bar. I really like looking at the photos of places on Google Maps. Because these photos are by common visitors you can find out a lot more about the place, taplines, food etc. than any "perfect" pictures on the establishments' website. I also use this same technique for restaurants, museums etc.
• BA Places, already described above. Reviews and ratings are useful, but pay attention to the total number of reviews.
• Craftbeer "Find a Brewery" map. Kind of a bitch to navigate, but almost always the most inclusive, including "just opened" places and "planned" places. I actually use this for my own state to find what new places opened or are soon to open that I have not heard of.

We just spent almost 2-weeks in Hawaii for a wedding and had two full-day layovers in LA. The planning worked great and I don't think we missed out on anything given our time constraints.

 

Use the regional forums. If you know your city destination or destinations , simply ask the forum about must try places. Could be a bar or a bottle shop, but you’ll get a lot of information.

 

Three years ago, I was into the craft scene, not as heavily as I am now, but took a trip with a buddy back to South Bend, IN in April for the wedding of a former manage. Thankfully, we were late out of San Fran to Chicago and when we arrive we picked up the rent a car. On the plane I had been looking at traffic and routes to South Bend...and what did you know, we could pass through Munster, IN and hit 3 Floyd's. It wasn't on our original itinerary, but worked out perfect, picked up a few cases of beer, had dinner and a couple of pints.

When we got to South Bend, our hotel was talking distance to Evil Czech Brewery, where we met the next day for lunch and a few pints. The day of the wedding, we had time to kill, so drove west to Cabela's since we didn't have one in CA and on our return, started looking for breweries and ran across Burn 'Em Brewery, in Michigan City, IN. It was so small, we passed right by it twice, before realizing it was in a small house. It was a great experience, some outstanding beer.

While ECB was the only planned stop, the detours to FFF and BEB were awesome. Now when I look at taking a roadtrip or heading out of the Bay Area, I do look at potential breweries to stop by.