Hey guys. My husband is a huge craft beer guy and I would love to do something special for his birthday this fall. I would like help finding a brewery whose beers we can't get in Indiana to take him to as a surprise. We love sour beers and he also loves Belgium style quads. I'm not sure where to start. If it could be near one of the following locations that would be awesome...I'd like to do an away game for the Colts at the same time. Jacksonville Nashville Houston Boston NY Oakland Philly DC Any ideas or suggestions?
Go to New York. First off the Jets will stink so the Colts have a good chance at a win. NYC has plenty of great breweries Other Half, Fifth Hammer,...... Or go to the Oakland game. Russian River is two hours away.
I know he would love to have Russian River. That's one of the few breweries I have heard him talk about. Do they have a taproom with their good stuff always available? I'll check out the NY ones you mentioned. Thanks!
For general access to lots of different beers, I'd narrow the list down to Boston, NY, Philly and DC. (@SammyJaxxxx has already mentioned some things about NYC) The advantage Philly has over the rest is Russian River and Belgian style beers in general. Pliny the Elder can be found on tap fairly often and there are a lot of the RR -ation bottled beers available (e.g., Consecration, Temptation, etc.). As for the quads, etc. there are a couple of Belgian style restaurants in Center City (e.g., Monks where you can have properly prepared Mussles and Frites with your Belgian style beers, e.g., something from Cantillon). Indeed, we have so many Belgian beers on offer in the Philly area that during two weeks in Brussels a few years back my biggest challenge during my beer time of day was finding Belgian beers that I couldn't find around here. Indeed, one local beer writer has claimed we drink more Belgian beers in the Philly area than the Belgians in Brussels do. Staying in the Center City area you'd be in reasonable walking distance of places like Monks along with several other local beer destinations. The down side is that the beers may be pricy compared to some other locations.
Thanks for that. Great info! Seems like Philly we would do more bars vs specific breweries? It would definitely be easier and cheaper to go to Philly. I don't hate the Eagles, so it wouldn't be as painful to lose to them.
Yeah, but then they would have to go to the Eagles game. That is no place for a couple of nice people from Indiana.
look at some of the regional forums for ideas/breweries that fit what you are looking for. There is plenty of good info there
Good point. But on the other hand there are worse places for nice people going to an out of town game.
FTFY. That said, Philly would be my suggestion. I would also consider Nashville and Oakland as viable choices. I hate big cities, so NYC, Boston, and Houston are off my board, YMMV.
Go to Oakland. Just scratching the surface ...stay in SF and hit Cellermaker....drive north to Santa Rosa and hit Russian River.....then south to SA Rustic Ales. Spend hours in the one of a kind beer bar Toronado near Haight/Ahbury. Get an Airbnb on the Panhandle nearby. Tough to be beat a Bay Area beer tour..
Russian River has a great taproom with very good food to match their great beers. The tap list is typically around 20 beers, and I don't think it changes very much. At least their most popular beers are always there, and that probably includes 5-6 world-class sours. You can get a sampler paddle that has 18 beers on it (sometimes 1-2 more) and I think the glasses are 3 oz, although I'm not sure of that. Plus you can drink all the Pliny that you want. The trick is getting into the place because the crowd is endless. The few times that I have gone there we arrived just as they were opening on a weekday and we were seated right away. The weekends are probably not that easy. Edit: Once you choose your city, use the Places feature on the main menu to get to the search function to discover all of the breweries in the city and read the recent reviews to get an idea of your specific pub crawl itinerary.
I'm definitely a homer, but NYC is prettty good these days. Other Half is one of the big trendy names for IPA, but LIC Beer Project, Interboro, and Finback are all phenomenal, and Threes, Greenpoint Beer & Ale, Singlecut, and KCBC are very solid, and that's not to mention Transmitter, Big aLICe, Folksbier, and Braven, that I've heard of but never been to/tried, and probably handful more I've forgotten about. If you have a car, or the will to rent one, you'd also be able to take a day/half-day trip to District 96, Industrial Arts, or Captain Lawrence, all of which are about a 45 minute drive. If you're adventurous you could also make it up to Equilibrium, Hudson Valley, which are about a 90 minute drive upstate, or to Barrier or Sand City, which are about an hour into Long Island, but the traffic that direction is terrible so I wouldn't advise it. And then outside of beer, it's not like you'll have to look hard for other interesting stuff to do in NYC. As much as I agree that NYC is a great beer destination these days, the Colts are more likely to play the Giants this year. Though if Luck is back, and both NY teams look like they did last year, a W should be easy for them.
Well, in the city, I tend to favor Yards and St. Benjamin, but here’s a longer list you can look at: https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=breweries&find_loc=Philadelphia,+PA Edit: no car required to get around. Public transit or a cab,etc. Trains to and from the airport.
The Colts will face five teams that made this season's playoffs (seven total games), and another with a winning record. Home: Buffalo, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Miami, N.Y. Giants, Tennessee, Cincinnati. Road: Houston, Jacksonville, New England, N.Y. Jets, Philadelphia, Tennessee, Washington, Oakland. New England isn't a bad call either, Treehouse, Trillium
