The other thread I started today Best Draught Menus You've Seen In Person | Community | BeerAdvocate made me think of another idea. What are your reasonable "beer goals" for the not so distant future? I'm checking a couple off of my list with my trip to Portland and a visit to Deschutes, Full Sail, and Horsebrass, but my Top 5 after that are as follows, in no particular order: 1) Visit The Toronado - was reminded of this not only in the thread, but by watching an old episode of No Reservations 2) Visit Sierra Nevada Chico - It's were it all started (sorta), I need to make it a priority 3) Visit Hopleaf - I've been to Chicago SO many times, it's criminal that I haven't been. 4) Go to Michigan: Home of Jolly Pumpkin, Founder's, and Bell's. It's too close to not go. 5) Visit New Glarus - Great beers and a cool little town. Sold. What are you all up to in the next couple years?
Top 25 Bucket List Breweries 3Floyds (IN) Jackie O’s (OH) Cantillon (Belgium) Untitled Art (WI) Equilibrium (NY) Tree House (MA) Hill Farmstead (VT) Allagash (ME) Jester King (TX) Bell woods (Toronto) Von Trapp (VT) Pelican (OR) Alchemist (VT) Toppling Goliath (IA) Anchorage (AK) Bottle Logic (CA) Russian River (CA) De Garde (OR) Fremont (WA) Weldwerks (CO) Lagunitas (CA) The Bruery (CA) Vivant (excuse to visit Grand Rapids) Alesmith (excuse to visit SD) Already went there but I was three sherts to the wind so I need to go back) Dildo (Newfoundland) just because lol) Limit of 5 be damned. Reasonable be damned.
In no specific order, mostly US centric but there's definitely more to add outside the US Tour the NorthEast (Happening in roughly 1 month from now!) Check out the Michigan scene (Bells, Founders, etc) Sierra Nevada's East Coast Brewery (Matt at Firestone told me this was the most beautiful brewery he has been to anywhere period) A monastery brewery tour in Belgium An Ohio brewery tour
Mind sharing where you want to go? Awesome It IS absolutely gorgeous Which breweries do you want to see most?
Like I said in the other thread, "Who am I to make the rules?" 3Floyds (IN) - Love metal and love their beer. I'd definitely like to go as well Cantillon (Belgium) - IDK what else to say other than, Hell Yeah. Hill Farmstead (VT) - As much shit as I give people for pimping them, I do want to make the pilgrimage Jester King (TX) - Their digs look cool and I really like their beers. Pelican (OR) - From what I saw in the A Brew with a View | Community | BeerAdvocate thread, count me in too. Anchorage (AK) - Any excuse to go back to Alaska! Russian River (CA) - Same here. Love to go back without all the COVID bullshit I had to deal with in 2020. Lagunitas (CA) - I'd be a lot cooler if I did.
I'd like merely to make it back down the road to Acopon Brewery outside of Austin. It's just far enough away (three-hour car drive) that I've not been in quite some time now.
My current plan: Boston (1 day) Treehouse Charlton (as I have only been to Tewkesbury) Jack's Abbey Waterbury, VM (2 days) Hill Farmstead Lawson's Finest Liquids Alchemist Fiddlehead Foam Brewers Von Trapp (Maybe) Portland, MN (2 days) Maine Beer Barreled Souls Bissell Brothers Allagash
Sounds amazing. I wasn't crazy about The Alchemist or Allagash, just as places. It just wasn't my vibe at either place when I went, but I did manage to leave with beer and swag regardless. Von Trapp WAS my jam, but if you don't have time and those aren't your types of beer, I would understand why you wouldn't choose to go. You hitting up Ben & Jerry's while you're in Stowe?
Very reasonable goal. Once they put softshell crabs in tamarind sauce back on the menu for the season, go to Mekong and enjoy with either a dubbel or quad. Other than that, save up enough money to take another trip to visit my sister and her family in Osaka and check out some more breweries/bars there.
That's setting the bar kinda low. Whoa! Not so low on that one. How is the beer scene there? Heard the food is ridiculous.
Not sure about 5, but I've got a few. 1. Burial/Asheville (one week out from going) 2. Side Project (end of summer hopefully) 3. Chicago 4. Toppling Goliath I'd love to see New England but hard to do that with my current setup. I'm aiming to get to every great beer city within driving distance and spend my money there since the Nashville scene has sort of imploded and has become rather disappointing.
My top-5 semi-reasonable beer goals are; Visit Revolution to pick up all of my Deep Wood Season Ticket beers after talking them into storing them for me until the end of the season. I'd pay for several Season Tickets and the beer in advance. (Prairie Artisan used to do this for their "Prairie Dawgs" Club, though a lot fewer beers) Finally win the Toppling Goliath KBBS lottery Accomplish my all-states goal on BA by reviewing a beer from each state (reviewing NJ next week, then eight left) Talk our distributors into getting Revolution, Bottle Logic, and Firestone Walker (OK, at least one of them would be a reasonable ask) Re-accomplish 'all styles' on BA for about the fourth time (or is it fifth?)
You've never had that dish. It's that good. It's pretty cool. Freshness is very important there. The little bars that are tucked away on side streets and alleys use 5L kegs, so they're constantly turning over. Draft beer is "Nama Birru (fresh beer)" the one Japanese phrase I'm 100% comfortable with. The Japanese beer we get here, even the stuff brewed here, is a ghost of what it is there due to how fresh it is. Suntory Pure Malt was my favorite. Suntory actually has a line of really nice German/Czech style lagers that are as good as anything Americans do, lager-wise. You can get 150mL cans from vending machines on the street, which is sometimes all you need to fortify yourself after a long day of train rides and walking checking out all the touristy stuff.. But there aren't any trashcans or recycling bins, so you're just walking around with an empty beer can all afternoon. So far as craft, they do lagers, the lighter Belgian styles, and wheat ales very well. Makes sense, those are beers that go well with the food. Lots of fruited American wheats. My mom just got back, she said that she wasn't treated as nicely as an American this time (cause, you know, *waves hands at all this shit*), but when I've gone, everybody was really cool and folks would buy me rounds just because they wanted to hang out with an American. One thing to remember is that everybody takes English in school, but most people can't really speak it. Just like how most people take foreign language classes in America, but my Spanish skills rapidly declined once I stopped working in kitchens. So just like any other overseas trip, learn the basic phrases to be polite, and folks will try to meet you halfway. They say that you'll automatically revert to the first second language you learned when you don't speak the native tongue, and I found myself slipping into Spanish time and time again, and my mom says that she often starts speaking in German when she's there.
My next, and probably my last goal to achieve is to during a beer in each state plus DC. I already reached the goal to drink a beer from each, and all of these have been at home because I have the bottles/cans on display in a section of my bottle/can collection. BA stats have me at 43 states but I know that there are five states where I drank beers before joining BA, thus no ratings for those beers. I've visited two other states recently (MS and AR) that are missing from my list, and I'm certain I did ratings or reviews of beers I had there. So some research on these omissions might fix those two. A pub crawl thru the south Is in the works for this fall that will get me MS if my research referenced above doesn't fix this omission, plus AL, GA, SC, MD and NJ. If time permits I'll also find my way thru NYC to visit CT and RI. (CT is another one where I've visited pre-BA but can't recall having a beer.) Hawaii will be the last state, and again I've been there (twice) but I don't recall if I drank a beer or filled up on mai tais. I may never get that one officially on the list.
