Best Brewery Experience?

Sierra Nevada, Asheville, Trip in the Woods tour.

 

Going to Hill Farmstead on a "slower" day. The service is always incredibly friendly and getting to enjoy a pour of Edward out on the deck with that beautiful view is just...New England.

 

The Bruery, Placentia CA. Close to 30 offerings on tap including some of the rarest stuff they ever made. Was able to get a flight of 5 beers for $8 was awesome when you consider how much their bottles go for. Throw in a great conversation with one of the brewers about their barrel aging program and I would go back in a heartbeat.

 

Nearly all brewery visits are pretty much the same to me (I've visited over 500 of them for comparison), so it's when you add a brewery tour to your visit that you gain an overall experience that stands out. Two breweries that I visited in the same week were Lakefront Brewing in Milwaukee, where you get to drink beer and sing the Laverne & Shirley song during the tour, and also New Glarus, which has a self-guided tour during which you can also drink beer, but after the tour you also get to sit on a bench in their back yard and drink beer while overlooking the little town in the valley below, hopefully on a nice, lazy, sunny fall day like I experienced.

That was a great pub crawl that week with those two breweries included.

 

I've been to hundreds of breweries, and most of them are a lot a like. I like the ones that stand out. I tend to prefer the more intimate settings to the behemoths, interesting though the latter can be from an industrial and people-watching standpoint. So my favorite brewery experiences that I've encountered, both local to me in St. Paul, Minnesota, are Bang Brewing (a tiny, all-organic brewery in a converted grain bin) and Waldmann Brewery (a traditional German-styles brewery in a painstakingly restored 19th century German-American saloon). Both breweries make good beer and remind me of no other. Both also have nice patios if you're looking for a little extra space. I highly recommend both to any visitors to the Twin Cities.

Bang:



Waldmann:

 

easily sante adairius portal location

plenty for a fun afternoon

 

Bouy Beer, Astoria Oregon. Great beer, outstanding food. The entire building is a converted slamon cannery built on a wharf over the Columbia River's confluence with the Pacific Ocean. The staff is friendly and knowlegeable and besides the regular rotation, there's always some small batch brews available. Only brewery I know where you can look up from your mug and watch an ocean going freighter gliding by a few hundred yards away, not to mention the glass floor section where you can usually catch a group of sea lions hanging out.

 

Got to take a private tour of the GI Barrel House and sample several vintages and variants of BCS... an awesome experience...I was so horribly hung over that I probably could have enjoyed it more but....pros play hurt....

 

OG Alpine.

It’s also my best beer experience. After years of wanting to do the drive from Orange County my best beer buddy and I finally did it. He was moving up north so we said we have to do it before he moved. I still remember sitting on the outside patio area in the back drinking Keene Idea at sunset. It was awesome! Then another friend arrived later and we had the best dinner and more amazing beers. Also, had the best waitress who let me wear her Alpine jacket because I liked it so much. Yeah, it was tight on me, which made it all the more hilarious. Then Stumbled to our hotel with full allotments of Pure Hoppiness, Nelson, and Duet. Plus, some growlers.

 

Nice! That was our motto at work for sales trainings/travel. Party all night and we would say pros play hurt the next day when we were hung over.

 

I really enjoyed my time at Russian River for The Younger release in 2013. Lines weren’t a problem because everyone was cool, and inside their staff crushed it. Amazing beer, good food, befriended some Russian River locals... I didn’t get too much shit for my Dodgers shirt... Met Vinny’s wife (blanking on her name at the moment) but she was awesome and made sure we left with a case of Pliny.
My fridge after the trip:

Good times!:

Alpine during the glory days matched it. Damn shame what Alpine is now.

 

I still need to make to RR. Have a trip to the redwoods this coming summer planned and trying to spend the night in Santa Rosa. Hopefully, i’ll Finally make it! The only downside is i’ll Have the kids in tow. But to drink Pliny straight from the source in pint glass!!! Can’t complain about that.

 

Pliny from mama’s teet, there is nothing better.

 

Probably Sierra Nevada Mills River.

 

I visited here for the first time this summer and was quite taken with it too. Good food and beer. Friendly folks, and like you say; a killer view.

 

#1 Russian River production brewery in Windsor, CA this summer. I signed up for the tour starting at 11:00 am on a Sunday morning and was the only one on the tour! The woman that toured me around for a little more than an hour was very, very knowledgeable and I got to ask a lot of in-depth questions that I wouldn't have been able to do if it was a crowded tour. Drinking Consecration on-tap in the coolship room was just awesome.

#2 Sierra Nevada in Mills River, NC. I was there the first week the tour was available and it lasted 90 minutes. What a temple to beer! Being in the hop room with the many bales of different hops was unforgettable. What an amazing assault of smells. It was euphoric; like being on N2O at the dentist.

 

Plan Bee.

For anyone who hasn't been, it's on a quiet, idyllic farmstead just a couple miles outside of downtown Poughkeepsie, but you feel like you're 50 miles out into the country.

Anyhow, I've been quite a few times but once this past summer, I was coming back upstate from NYC by myself, stopped in there on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, grabbed a beer at the bar and then went outside and sat in the hammock they've got out there. Played some music off my phone (nobody else was in earshot so it wasn't disrupting anyone), swayed gently in the sun and drank a delicious farmhouse ale. Genuinely don't know if I've ever been as relaxed as that in my life.

 

Was there yesterday for a quick stop, thought it was fantastic. Great fall colors, live music, random goats, everyone just very chill and happy

 

Red Oak Brewery in Whitsett Nc. Really a perfect operation from start to finish, they have everything here covered. They use food trucks too, which have all been terrific. All Munich style beers, maybe 4-5 staples and two seasonal. I found it amazing they could put so much money into a very specific kinda beer and the place is well attended. I didn’t know or wouldn’t suppose these German style of beers were so generally popular. The Brewer is classically trained having and working in Munich for over a decade.