The Mrs and I are taking a long weekend trip to Atlanta, staying in Midtown. So far we have plans to hit up Wrecking Bar, the Porter, Brick Store, and do a tour at Sweetwater. Any other places we need to make sure and hit up to have a beer? I know we have several restaurants we'll be trying on top of those, but if there are any other beer spots I need to hit up just let me know. Cheers!
Friday evenings at Redbrick are a good time. We go whenever we're in ATL. Pay like $8 and get a glass and 4 beer tokens for 4 beers. It looks like they do tastings on other days of the week now as well (http://www.redbrickbrewing.com/?page=tours)
I'd skip Sweetwater myself, it's a shit show. I like them, and I buy their beers, but the tour sucks, and it's always busy, and more about "get drunk" than anything else. College aged crowd. I'd instead go to Redbrick, and to Monday Night, both on the same side of town.
I really enjoyed my time at Sweetwater with friends but yeah, it did. A girl took us to 3 different parts of the brewery and said 3 things that had almost nothing to do with the surrounding environment. She told us about the history of the brewery, the history of the beers in another section, and took us to the kegs/bottling line and didn't really explain how anything worked. I was disappointed.
It's about as close as you can get to a frat party. Half pours of beers you can get ANYWHERE in town, but you are shoulder to shoulder with people. GA sucks for breweries period. We can't go and sit at the bar and belly up and have a couple drinks, some pretzels and cheese and shoot the shit. Instead, we are forced to toe the line of the law, pay $10 for a shit tour no one wants to go on, so they don't put the effort into them for those interested, and push you off with $10 less in your pocket, a shitty shaker pint, and roughly 2 drinks worth of beer you can go to the local bar/restaurant/gas station and buy. But, none of that's sweetwaters fault..
Agreed as above. Red Brick and Monday Night are WAY better options than Sweetwater unless you love popped-collar fratboy douchebags trying to get hammered before the game comes on, and then my all means go for it. I'd do Decatur too and tour Blue Tarp and 3 Taverns. Both have much better beers than anything Sweetwater has done in years.
Your current pub list looks great! You could head to Hop City (bottle shop) and take a browse, too...
