Beer road trips

You might find the article cited in this earlier thread

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/brews-travelers-finish-epic-beer-road-trip.243065/


worth a read.


Also, road tripping for beer is pretty popular, so if things get derailed you can always spend time looking through the prior threads....

Have fun!

 

Next week I'm flying to San Diego to begin a 10 day San Diego to Mendocino road trip.

My wife doesn't yet know it's a beer road trip though. I'm still figuring out how to handle that part.

 

I think my favorite to date was traveling from VA to Dark Lord Day last year, was a pretty boring 10 hour drive but once we got there we met up with some other BA'ers that were staying in our hotel. Shared some bottles the night before the festival, the met up with them at the festival and shared some more beers. The hotel we stayed at was from we were told in a bad part of town. There was an armed security guard patrolling the halls all night, also no matter what time of day/night there was kids jumping/playing around on the floor above us. And when I mean anytime I mean it, it was 2,3,4,5 Am and they were still jumping. Also made the trip up to Chicago to check out some Binny's locations and beer temple. Trip was totally worth it and would do it again in a heart beat.

I think my next beercation I would like to go Huna day or Great American Beer Fest.

 

Most of my road trips involve beer in one way or another. I had a friend who collected photos of fire hydrants (had several notebooks full) and would organize all of his trips around fire hydrant photo taking. I can't imagine any beer road trip even half as absurd as driving halfway across the country to photograph fire hydrants.

 

I was picking up some HT yesterday and met a guy who'd driven up from North Carolina and was picking up HT among other things. One thing he did that I thought was an awesome idea was bring a cooler packed with rare/regional stuff from the south along with plenty of other just generally rare things and used it for trade while talking to people. Next time I go up to VT for a beer run I think I'm going to hit Nightshift and Trillum first and do the same.

 

Haha - will report back

Joking aside - I'm way too transparent to be able to effectively manipulate her - she can figure me out immediately. Luckily though she's quite into beer herself - she's even been researching some breweries to go to.... so stoked for this trip

Edit - other than that, I've flown to some beer destinations, but I guess they don't really count.

The only road trip we do is to drive up to VT a couple of times a year. We rent a house near Hill Farmstead, and go to a couple of the other beer destination-type places in the area (Pro Pig, Parker Pie etc etc). That's about the extent of my road-tripping.

Final edit @adamsns6696 - in the other thread where I said I would occasionally line up for beer - I was referring to HF haha. Unavoidable there unfortunately. But there's no way I'm going to spend 8 hours driving up there without getting a few growlers.

 

I made a trip to VT with my dad last November. We hit up a bunch of breweries and bars, spent the night in Waterbury, and came home with a nice haul of beers we can't get around here. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we'll be going back next month.

I think what many of the "I don't travel or wait in line for beer" people don't understand is that the adventure of acquiring the beer can be part of the fun. I understand why that may not appeal to some people, and I certainly appreciate that I can go to my local bottle shop and have a great selection of world-class beer, but I've never enjoyed buying beer more than I did on that trip.

 

I haven't ever done a road trip specifically for beer (except a 14hr solo trip back and forth from vermont before my wedding), however, beer/visiting breweries has become part of every road trip I take now. For instance driving to Boston now means stopping at tree house, trillium, jack abbey's, armsby abbey etc. Driving to indianapolis means stops at brew kettle, fat head's, columbus brewing and great lakes. Driving to DC means stops at troeggs, victory, max's. Even driving to the Hudson Valley to the wife's family means stops at local breweries like Rushing Duck, Newburgh, Catskill, Schmaltz etc etc.

My wife enjoys the breweries so much now (not even a huge beer drinker) that she suggested driving across country and stopping at all the breweries we wanted...talk about an easy convert.

 

Wife, bro-in-law, sis-in-law and myself ventured out from a vacation cabin in Lexington VA last year and headed south to Salem/Roanoke area (about hour away) to visit Parkway, Soaring Ridge, and Flying Mouse breweries.

This year, we plan on heading north instead, back to Staunton VA to hit the breweries there.

 

If your wife is like mine, she already has figured that part out. :-)

 

Just recently had a mini brewery tour of sorts on the 'other side' of Michigan. Three day trip involved travel to Grand Rapids: Harmony Brewing, Grand Rapids Brewing Co, and Founders on Friday, Founders again on Saturday (aborted plans for OddSides in Grand Haven) and Brewery Vivant on Sunday.

Best advice I can offer is to plan the stops as loosely as possible (i.e. have a loose schedule that you're willing to deviate from). An "okay" paddle at a non-busy establishment took much less time than expected, more so on the order of 30-40 minutes versus an hour to hour and a half. Then when my wife and I landed seats at the bar at Founder's it seemed like the place to be for many more hours than planned, but that was more than okay to give up on another plan. Going in I printed plenty of maps, details on addresses and open hours, etc. so we had plenty of information in the car at all times.

 

"oh look honey, there's another brewery right there. Let's stop for lunch"

After 3 days she'll probably catch on.

 

I did a quick day-trip last Saturday to score some dinner. Had a young lady in line who was just there to keep her friend company buy me a case and give it to me outside. When waiting for a release it ALWAYS pays to make friends in line.

Also as a day trip, last November a friend and I took a Thursday off from work and headed up to Vermont to try our luck. We scored $75 cases of Heady at Hunger Mountain Coop in Montpelier, grabbed a few four packs from other places then bolted to Beverage Wearhouse in Winooski and grabbed their last two full cases (also $75.) Headed down to Fiddlehead for their release (last mastermind and Second Fiddle or one of the IPAs in a growler. Then made the trek to the Northeast Kingdom for Hill Farmstead. A long line there prevented us from driving down to Treehouse in Monson MA but it was a good haul overall.

If you go to Hill Farmstead, print directions and a couple of good maps. There is no wireless signal at all out there.

 

Oh, some of us understand that quite well, but have been there and done that with other hobbies and interests so the ability to do it with beer too becomes incidental to other things, like spending time with people you care about. For me the true value in your experience is the shared time and interests with your father. For an opportunity like that I'd make more than one trip and enjoy the beer buying too. Hope your next trip goes as well as the first!

 

I never plan a beer trip. On the other hand every trip we take somehow becomes somewhat of a beer trip. Fun times.

 

When I graduated college at NIU in 2013 I went on a Brewery / National Park road trip which I think may remain the best man trip I will ever take. We started in Dekalb, IL drove 7000 miles covering IL to Washington down the coast to San Diego, up through Utah and Denver and then back home. We went through roughly 15 National Parks and quite a few breweries including:

- Elysian
- Ninkasi
- Deschutes
- Widmer
- Rogue
- Stone
- Green Flash
- 21st Amendment
- Hess
- Great Divide

Highly recommend the trip. Not much is better than hiking to Angels Landing in Zion NP with a fresh growler of Oaked Arrogant Bastard. Cheers!

 

I call them Beer Safaris. My best friends and I have done three now.

1) Nashville > Atlanta > Hilton Head > Savannah/Tybee Island > St. Mary's, GA/Cumberland Island > Jacksonville/Little Talbot Island

2) Nashville > Montgomery > Tuscaloosa > Birmingham > New Orleans > Pensacola > Panama City

3) Nashville > Asheville > Charlotte > Top Sail Beach/Camp Lejeune > Raleigh > Richmond > D.C. > Baltimore > Philadelphia

-We have always started from Nashville because most of us are based there, but we're all about to make major life shifts so the safaris probably look different in coming years. We're all poor graduate students, so our trips are usually dictated by where we can go where we know people and what's somewhat tenable in a 10-11 day road trip. Once that's determined, I consult a brewery map, check city guides (here for beer and at Serious Eats for food), then Google or whatever for other fun things (festivals, concerts, hiking, beaches, et al.).

-Also, a fun thing we've always done is have each person involved create a 24 hour long-ish playlist. We then rotate between playlists throughout the trip to keep it fresh.

-Stopping at a Total Wine or something similar before you start so you have some decent beer with you at all times is always good in case you find yourself in a dry spot.

-We have a tradition of playing Monopoly one night with a bottle of Scotch in the middle that must be finished by the end. Do so at your own risk.

-Suiting up one night is also a fun twist, depending on where you're going. Worked well in D.C. Not so much in Panama City.

-Most importantly, have fun and don't make it merely a whale hunt. Try the local whatever, soak up the terroir, and make it an adventure.

Happy Safariing!