I've been talking for a while about driving down to some of the great breweries in southern Maine, Foundation, Bissell Bros, Allagash. I've had many of their beers, but going to the brewery and getting fresh brews is a great experience. Today my wife carted me around to a bunch of different breweries and I got to try new beers, brewery only beers, and beers I can never get in bottles/cans. It was a great time and I'm very grateful for this. We discovered Austin Street Brewery (in the same building as Foundation and Bissell Brothers) who make an awesome pale ale called Patina, had Epiphany (Foundation), The Substance (Bissell Brothers), Another One (Maine Beer Company), and many others on tap. Got some growler fills and bottles to bring home, and it was a great experience. I recommend stopping at any of these breweries if you visit southern Maine and give a special shout out to Austin Street Brewery who are primarily under the radar but are brewing some great beer. Epiphany and Weez were even better at the brewery than canned/bottled and Bissell Brothers Swish and The Substance were also great. A big thanks to my wife for driving me down and bringing me to all these great Maine breweries.
My wife's done the Vt trip twice, stood in line at HF, and she doesn't even really drink more than a few beers a year. With my son stationed in WA state, we'll do the PNW right.
Mine went out with her friend to get 2 cases of MBC Dinner as I was working. And this was the last december release. Nothing I will ever do will match up to that! Doesn't mean I won't keep on trying to repay for that. So many people (all those who I shared and traded with) very happy from that...
My wife almost always brings me home some local beers from her work travels... can't complain about that.
Agreed @Hoppy_Time with Austin Street, they are great and while their neighbors have a few of the best DIPAs around, Austin St had one of the best saisons I've ever had. ...And my wife puts up with a lot of my beer adventures that is for sure!
I have a wonderful wife as well, she tolerates my beer "hobby" and drinks PBR (we'd go broke if we both drank the beers I've become accustom to drinking.) Cheers.
Yes I can fortunately say the same here. Every time we head out to a local brewery my wife is the DD, she doesn't like beer, but likes the atmosphere. On the other hand she has never taken me on an all day brewery trip . I get to pay them back next month, I am DD on a trip around Napa.
Haha I don't know, but I think I'm going to have to up my game for valentines day. I talked to the guys at Austin Street for a bit, which was great because they were mobbed and still took the time to chat for a minute as they worked, and they think they might have canning set up this year for all their beer. They definitely made a good business choice setting up in that location, I heard lots of people talking about being there for the bigger breweries but stopping in and being surprised. Foundation had already sold out of cans of Epiphany, and I'm starting to think that I should have went with a growler instead of a howler, cans of their other offerings make it up to my local beer store, but Epiphany never does so it was my first time trying it, it is an excellent DIPA and that howler isn't going to last long.
My wife was a strictly wine and liquor drinker until recently. Now she's coming around to bourbon barrel aged stouts and barleywines. Which is perfect for these winter months. She's much more understanding when I come home with lots of beer if it's "the good stuff".
I have one of these as well! Wife is great. We spent a weekend in Maine for the last Swish release and she even stood online with me for Swish in the cold, tagged along to bottle shops and bars. Can't thank her enough for putting up with it, especially since she doesn't really drink at all. She's done the VT trip too and even got yelled at from some workers at Winooski Bev for going online more than once, but she quickly backed them off cause she asked one of the owners before she got back online.
Be careful mentioning getting in line more than once, many in these threads get a bit testy regarding that!
My wife had a workshop in Orange MA the first weekend in Dec and came home with a growler of Branch Bridge PA from Honest Weight brewing. I'd seen the name but hadn't associated it with her trip... it was all her initiative. I've been making the 45 minute growler run more weekends than not ever since.
