Trip logs for Outside the PNW

I was in Japan this past April. Third time there.

Osaka

Craft Beer Base: little craft bar in the shadow of the Umeda Sky Building. I think they had four taps. Three Japanese craft options and a Pizza Port Amber.

Minoh Brewing: Minoh is a small residential suburb of Osaka. The brewey is a ten minute walk from the station through a housing area and a little park. The brewery is open to the public, but I don't think they get many foreign visitors. No one there could understand why my wife and I came out. Really friendly people, great beer, and there was a party for the employees and their families. We were invited to stay. If you end up in Osaka, go there.

Tokyo

Ushitora: kick ass craft bar in Shimokitazawa, my favorite neighborhood in Tokyo. Lots of OR and WA craft was on tap, but it was all about the Ji-biru. Probably my favorite beer bar in the entire country.

Baird Naka-Meguro: One of Baird's three brewpubs. I've been to the Harajuku location in the past, but this one is bigger and more laid back. Great selection of standard releases and also limited brews. Beer is expensive, but beer is expensive everywhere in Japan.

Pigalle: European craft bar in Sangenjaya, just down the street from our rental apartment. Cantillon bottles available alongside Swedish beers I'd never heard of before. Real hidden gem.

Devil Craft Hamamatsucho: deep dish pizza and lots of craft beer. Nice mixture of PNW imports and Japanese craft options.

Summary: Japanese craft beer is EXPENSIVE due to taxation of malt, but they're working hard on making good product.

 

Nice idea.

Just did holidays in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

BOTTLE SHOPS

Hit the local beer shop, Benz Beverage. Makes you realize how spoiled we are with our distribution. No Toppling Goliath in site and minimal local stuff. Most interesting options were Tallgrass Vanilla Bean Buffalo Sweat, Ethos, 8-Bit, etc. My issue here is that they only sell 4 packs. How fortunate we are to be able to buy singles and many spots! Some interesting European stuff that we don't get our way - La Bavaisiene Biere de Garde, for example. Also hit Hy Vee and found that the selection there was better than at the bottle shop. Prairie Cherry Funk, Christmas Bomb, Jester King Mad Meg, and some interesting stuff from Pretty Things Brewery such as St Botolph Brown. Grabbed a few items for Christmas day consumptuion. I wasn't able to make it down to Iowa City which I've heard has a good selection at John's Grocery.

BREWERIES

Lion Bridge in Cedar Rapids was legitimately great. No qualifiers as in "for Iowa." They're not even a year old and were churning out a wide variety of styles, many off the beaten path, that were all good to very good. For example, had an excellent English Mild (Workmen's Comp), a coffee version of the same, a dark saison, a brandy barrel aged wheatwine that was excellent, and several others. If you're in the area, it's worth a detour.

Other Cedar Rapids area breweries I hit were Millstream (20 miles or so east), Third Base (more sports bar than brewery), Granite City (a chain so may not really count), and Big Grove (20 miles or so south). Millstream is in a touristy German village (fudge and tchotchkes) and the beers are serviceable but there's no real reason to make the trip; they distribute and there's nothing special at the brewery. Third Base was "meh" but has the advantage of selling their beers in 5 oz samplers for $1 each so you can try the run of what's on offer for $8. The styles seem promising - strong ale, imperial stouts, etc - but the execution is sloppy. Not worth going out of the way but if you're looking to tick, it's a low cost option. Cedar Rapids has a horrendous food scene so you will probably find yourself eating at either gross local spots or inoffensive chains ... hence, Granite City. A sampler of all 8 beers was $4.95. That's the best I can say about it. Big Grove was another winner. The food strives for upscale and is solid by Iowa standards but the price point is a bit laughable. I've noticed that when you're the only restaurant in town serving better food - duck breast, chicken roulade, kale salads - you can get away with jacking up prices well beyond what a competitive market would allow. It's about 130% - 150% what Seattle would allow. The beers, however, were good. Worth the trip ... the only place I saw offering sours, a berliner, etc. Also in the vicinity is Backpocket which I've heard is decent but I didn't have the time.

BARS

Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have a surprisingly decent number of beer focused bars. I was unable to venture into Iowa City but hit Bricks, Parlor City, and NewBo Ale House. The taps covered a lot of local ground (breweries I'd never heard of like many of the above, Confluence, West O, Bent River, Empyrean, etc) as well as solid regional and national options (lots of Founders including Barrel Aged Red's Rye, stuff like Abyss, etc). Bricks ended up being my favorite because A) their happy hour went until 7 and offered 2 for 1 on all the local beers and B) they poured normal size beers such as 10 oz pours of big beers. Cedar Rapids bars have a love of 25 ounce pours ... even of 10% beers. And they'll fill it to the brim. Here's your headless DIPA in a 25 oz stein!

TL; DR: there are some good options but the overall beer culture lags. Nevertheless, it's run to see how fast the desire for (and prodution of) interesting craft beer is penetrating middle america.

 

Totally disagree. If there is one beer-related thing to do in the San Diego area...make that So Cal in general...it is to drink (and eat..their bbq is good) at Alpine.

And their staff are big fans of Sassy's.

 

Well I agree with both of you...absolutely worth the trip. Food is pretty solid, beer is amazing. Some of the staff is very nice but they are so busy they can be slow and appear inconsiderate...funny story that no one probably wants to hear:

my wife and i went and it was very crowded and there was a long line to get a table so we asked about the bar. we were told that the wait list also included the bar...after about 30 minutes or so we were the next party of 2 up on the list and two people were cashing out at the bar. we started moving toward the seats and were super excited to try the beer and very hungry. as we were about to sit down and older couple hopped into the seats. we hadnt seen them in line and were a little upset. my wife tried to tell them that there was a line but the older woman pretended like she didnt hear her or couldnt understand what my wife was saying...i noticed that the older couple seemed to know everyone that worked there and told my wife to let it go. we got seated about 5 minutes later, at the bar, right next to the older couple. they were very nice and we started chatting...after a couple minutes the older lady admitted that the reason they were able to cut the line was that their son/daughter (i cant remember which one) owned Alpine. apparently they only drink Willy which made me way more upset than the fact that they cut us in line...access to Bad Boy, Nelson, Duet, etc. and YOU ONLY DRINK WILLY???!?!!? but seriously, they were nice people and Alpine is worth the trip.

 

My wife and I did beer trips to Santa Rosa/Petaluma, San Diego, Kansas City, Vermont, and NYC in 2013-2014 and will be doing Charleston, LA/Paso Robles/Bakersfield, Bend (PNW so not relevant) and maybe Denver in 2015. I will post some comments on each spot when i have a little more time but can't right now...if anyone happens to be going to any of the places I mentioned in the near future please let me know and I will try to write something up quickly!

 

Well, my most recent "trip" involved me putting all of my shit into a Mazda 3 and driving to Portland from NJ, and there was for sure a ton of beer to be had along the way. Here's a brief rundown for anyone interested:

1st Stop - Kalamazoo, MI: Bell's Brewery. After getting a ridiculously kind offer from the hotel staff to watch our dog, the wife and I headed over to the taproom for dinner. It was everything I hoped it would be. Such a down to earth, friendly, and "homey" feeling pub, especially considering how large and successful Bell's is getting.

2nd Stop - Munster, IN: 3 Floyds Brewing. You know I had to stop here on the way to Chicago. This was in late August on a hot, sticky, gross midwestern day. Since we had a dog with us, my wife agreed to take "shifts" at the bar so one of us could stay with the dog outside. My shift went pretty well, hers, not so much. Similar to the above accounts about Alpine, this place was crazy busy (even on a weekday afternoon), and their reservation/waiting list applies to the bar as well. My wife didn't realize this and took a major scolding from the big, tattooed metalhead "host", and long story short ended up leaving the place crying. Pretty bummed about that.

3rd Stop - Chicago, IL: Half Acre Brewing, Revolution Brewing, Gene's Sausage Shop, The Bad Apple. We have friends in Chicago so we spent a whole weekend there. Loved every second of it, except for the traffic and the terrible sticky heat. Gene's Sausage Shop has a nice rooftop bar with food/beers. The Bad Apple has an awesome tap/bottle list, and decent, relatively cheap food.

4th Stop - Madison, WI: we stopped at some liquor store to stock up on New Glarus because the next leg of the trip was through a beer desert as far as I know. I'm sure we missed some things along the way.

5th Stop - Bozeman, MT: Montana Ale Works. Our trek to Portland almost ended in Montana. I loved Bozeman, and this brewpub we stopped at was great, even though the beer wasn't top notch.

6th Stop - Coeur d'Alene, ID: we ate at some "fancy" pizza place by the water. I had a Caldera IPA. Portland was so close I could almost smell it.

Last Stop - Portland, OR. The apartment we had arranged for our arrival is near the Mississippi Ave. strip, so as soon as we parked and unloaded the car, it was off to Ecliptic and Stormbreaker Brewing. It's been hard to feel like the subsequent months haven't been just a continuation of my beer journey. This town is ridiculous, and I'm going to be sad to leave it.

Beer Highlights: Bell's Two Hearted, Bell's Ales for ALS, 3F Zombie Dust, 3F Gumballhead, 3F Moloko, Revolution A Little Crazy, Half Acre Space, Half Acre Daisy Cutter, New Glarus Moon Man, Big Sky Moose Drool, Ecliptic Canopus (I'm counting it!)

 

I like the idea of this thread. I'd be very interested to learn what NW BAs have seen outside our area.

My wife and I hit San Francisco, Minneapolis, Colorado, Albuquerque, Boise, and Duluth this year. Since we just got back from Duluth, I'll post a bit about that, and maybe add something on the others later (and glad to answer any questions).

Duluth has a pretty good rep as a beer city; some compare it to Bend. I don't think it's in that league, but it's a good spot. Fitger's Brewhouse had the best beer and pretty good food. They are a brewpub, not exactly a brewery. [Digression on Minnesota weird beer laws: In MN, a brewer can choose to be a brewpub, which means they brew beer and serve food. But they can't distribute their beer. Not to anyone. You can get growlers at their brewpub, but otherwise it's sit there and drink!. So although Fitger's is excellent, you'll have to go to their main place or a couple of satellite places to get their beer. Town Hall and Barley Brown's in Minneapolis are two other places that make superb beer that can only be had at their own establishments. The flipside is that the breweries aren't allowed to serve any food.] The best bar I went to was the 7 West Taproom. They have great food, and a wonderfully varied selection of about 40 beers that was really thoughtfully put together. The best brewery was Bent Paddle ... pretty good and well worth a visit to their taproom, but it wouldn't make the top five in the Seattle area. Canal Park Brewery has a scenic location and so-so beer.

I think there are a lot of serious beer fans in Duluth. We stopped at a chain restaurant near the mall for barbecue (Grizzly's), and they were pouring both Surly Darkness and Deschutes Abyss, which made for a great comparison. Deschutes seems to have a big presence in the area, on tap and in stores.

Right across the river is Superior, Wisconsin (the two towns share a harbor and are known as the Twin Ports). That means you can get New Glarus, which doesn't distribute outside the state. I got Scream, Raspberry Tart, and a couple other of their fruit beers, which are amazing.

And along the way, I picked up three new birds for my life list, ran in the snow, and had a great time. Fine place to visit.

 

There's a Barley Brown's in Minneapolis? Like the one in Baker City, OR?

 

SD - I would add Stone Brewing (both locations), Lost Abbey, Pizza Port (I have only been to Carlsbad), Alesmith, and Ballast Point Little Italy.

 

Fantastic thread.

Waterbury VT:
Blackback Pub- I dug this place. Friendly staff, and great taplist that seemed much more local focused than the majority of places I visited in New England. Many places seemed to be a mix of stuff that was local to New England and the rest dominated by California breweries we get here. Not Blackback.

The Reservoir- Wasn't as thrilled about this place. Food was just ok and the taplist wasn't nearly as good as Blackback.

Prohibition Pig- This place was great all around. Great service, taplist, and food. Really nice place that I wish we had spent more time at.

I'll also say that if you're planning a visit, I'd avoid fall. A room at the local Best Western was something like $220 a night because it was foliage season. People go absolutely apeshit over the leaves changing colors in the North East and flock to Vermont, thus driving up room prices. Also, unless thing's have changed there's only 1 hotel within walking distance of the hot spots of Waterbury (The Stagecoach Inn iirc) and it was booked solid.

I'd add what it the experience at The Alchemist was like but they stopped selling beer at the brewery like a month after my visit.

 

No, my mistake. The Minneapolis one is "Barley John's". I was going from memory, and it turns out my memory is easily confused! This brewpub is actually in a Minne suburb. Details here: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1168/?view=ratings

 

I love the idea. I've floated the idea of having a "Trip Reports" section on the main site a couple times, and have been met with thunderous silence. We get so many 'Visiting" threads, and rarely do folks post how they liked our areas beer, and our suggestions. A dedicated thread like this will at least help us amongst our selves. Here's how an aviation site I check does it:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/trip_reports/

 

How long before this thread gets moved to the general section? You know this section is only for talk about the PNW.

 

I hope that doesn't happen. In other regions/forums, every local brewery and beer bar is the best ever or "in the conversation" as one of the best. It's hard to place a lot of stock in opinions like those.