Beer-Cation Suggestions

Wife and i just did 2 days in grand rapids Mi barely scratched the surface tons of breweries great food culture and awesome people if you go gotta stop at the mitten brewing co. Plus direct flight i would assume

 

Kind of far but maybe head over to silicone valley's beer week for a few days then spend the weekend in S.F. drink and pack lots of bottles to bring back home? It is at the end of July.

Edit, didn't see that you decided on VT. ALways wanted to go up there in Summer, should be great.

 

Chicago is an amazing place to visit right now as well. It's a bit of a drive but the beer scene in that area is exploding. Or just head to my hometown of Louisville and I'll buy you a pint. Lots of great beer around here too, especially if you split your time with Cincy and Lexington (all within an hour or so of each other).

 

Head into the Madison area and you'll find many, excellent, craft brewers worth visiting in the area. Ale Asylum, Karben4, Capital Brewery, Wisconsin Brewing Company, New Glarus, Next Door Brewing, One Barrel Brewing, House of Brews. Some great food places as well, and lots to do in the downtown area.

 

Um... your in Florida? Tell you what, I'll bring the beer to you.

 

Seriously though, Madison or Milwaukee would be fabulous. 3 days is tight 5 would be better. You could hit Sprecher, Lakefront, Milwaukee Brewing Company, (Miller -- I only say this because of the history, old Frederick was a micro brew when he started, and he comes out and talks with you in the original beer cave he carved in the 1850's where they chilled their beer), then moving 1-1.5hrn west to Madison Tyrenana (Lake Mills), Madison hit up Ale Asylum, Capital Brewing etc, move 1 more hour west to the quant city of New Glarus. Literally looks like a Swiss Village from the Alps. Great tour, great beer, go down the street to the restaurant Glarner Stube after the tasting to take a piss in the supposedly worlds largest urinal (I'm for real here) and have great steak with fondue.

 

I've been to chicago plenty of times, my sister lives there...great bar scene..been to fla plenty of times...been to Portland only 1x...but..I just moved to San Diego a year ago from NJ and I can tell you I feel like a tourist still everyday here...great beer...perfect weather...beautiful women...awesome beer bars! Out of all the places I've been to I will say if you want the beer most importantly, great weather, great views, great beers and women..I say right here in Diego!

 

Vermont is a fantastic change of pace from Florida. Great mountains, totally serene atmosphere.

 

A nice 2-parter for you would be to spend a day or so in the Charlottesville, VA area hitting breweries (Champion, Three Notch'd. Blue Mountain, Devil's Backbone, Wild Wolf, Starr Hill) and a boatload of wineries. Part two would be a 2 hour drive to DC where you have Right Proper, Bluejacket, Port City, etc, not to mention great beer bars like Churchkey, Meridian Pint, City Tap House, Big Hunt, and so on.

 

Hit Vermont. Great breweries, eateries, and nightlife in you're in the Burlington, Stowe, etc areas.

 

Asheville. It hasn't been named Beer City for several years in a row without good reason. The Wedge, Wicked Weed, Burial Beer, Green Man (the tasting room/brewery).. an on.. Great restaurants too, and you can pretty much walk to most places.

 

I also second Philly, even when it's not beer week there's lots of beer stuff to do, a dozen amazing beer bars (Monk's, Eulogy, Memphis Taproom, etc), a handful of breweries (Yards, Sly Fox, Victory, Philadelphia, and Troegs and DFH are a drive but nearby), and a bunch of great brewpubs (Tired Hands, Triumph, Nodding Head, Iron Hill, Forest & Main). Besides the aforementioned non-beer reasons to come.

Besides my hometown, definitely do VT, and if you have some flexibility on driving, add MA too, there's Trillium, the city of Boston (for non-beer, and beer bars), and Sam Adams is probably a pretty cool trip even if the beer itself isn't your favorite.

 

I guarantee you didn't do "all of that"... there's a TON to do (Consitution Center and going to Valley Forge weren't mentioned, for example) but if you were here for a wedding and a bit of touristing, and this is a beercation, it's worth the trip back for all of the beer that goes on here. But if you really feel like you've 'been there done that' with Philly, then do VT.

 

Are you driving or flying?

 

There are so many great beer cities out there, you probably can't go wrong as long as you know where to go when you get there. For my input - I like Portland, ME. Bissell Brothers, Foundation and Austin St are all small and new, and all in the same building. Allagash is literally across the street from them. They're a short drive from Rising Tide and Bunker (you can also hit up Maine Craft Distilling which is next to Rising Tide). With a driver you can hit all of these on one Saturday (I think you have to go Saturday to hit all of them, open-hours-wise). There's also other breweries/brewpubs I don't think twice about (Seadog, Shipyard, Geary's, Gritty's). If you can make it out of the city at all, there's plenty of breweries to visit, i.e. Maine Beer Co is a short drive north in Freeport. Not to mention Novare Res and (probably) some other great beer bars. Plus it's in Maine, there's plenty of other stuff to do (Vacationland!), so points for that. You can also try to get on a brewery bus tour if you're into that sort of thing.

 

It might take you that allmost long to fly to VT, unless you can fly direct.

 

That's good . You should be able to find a lot of the beers to try in Burlington pretty good Pub scene there.

 

I went to Farmhouse Tap & Grill on Bank St. in Burlington. They had a couple HF's on tap plus several other local breweries and killer Farm to table dishes.......just a suggestion