Beer Vacation ideas

While the Charleston craft beer scene is indeed improving by leaps and bounds, it's still far behind places mentioned like Asheville, San Diego, Bend, etc. For example, there are exactly NO brewpubs within walking distance downtown. (And I'm not counting Southend which only qualifies as a brewpub for people who want a change of pace from BMC but don't want to drink those weird dark craft things.)

Unfortunately, there are still far too many really good restaurants that think a champion beer list is Stella, Guinness, Bud and Blue Moon with a slice of orange. Charleston, at this point, is great for touristing, great for restaurants but not yet in the running for a beer-centered weekend vacation.

 

You make a strong case here...thanks for the input....

 

I am from the San Diego area living near Seattle, I would reccomend San Diego as a great beer trip but its by no means a walking distance trip. Unless your in San Francisco, no CA city is a walking distance city. Seattle on the other hand has, great public transit and great local brewerys and pubs all over the place. So that being said I must reccomend both places. Also, the weather on the west coast on Oct. is usualy all around pretty nice.

 

Go to Belgium. That is all.

 

Did exactly that trip at exactly that time of year. Awesome.

 

You are crazy. Water quality in Bend is better than most of cities named in this thread. It's minimally treated surface water coming out of the Tumalo watershed which is runoff from the Cascade range. It's very similar to treated bottled water, and Oregon has the strictest water quality standards of any state.

And you need to stop driving around next time and actually try some beers. Bend rivals Asheville as the best beer city in the US <100k population.

And what were you doing in Bandon Dunes, anyway? Smoking meth? That would explain your Bend experience.

 

How about the Fourth Corner? Fly into Vancouver BC (and score some fresh Central City stuff!), and hit all the breweries North of King County. A day/night in Bellingham (I'll be happy to show you around), then down to Skagit & Island Counties. After that, the breweries in Everett/ Snohomish. You could even hit a couple Seattle spots on your way to the airport.

 

my dream vacation? Chicago in the late fall. No particular reason why.......

 

I've been to Belgium on a beercation and it was awesome; my next one will be Vermont.

 

You could do a walking vacation in the North Park/Balboa Park/Hillcrest area, with Toro, Hammy's, Bottlecraft, Hess (once they open), BLAH, Tiger Tiger... but you would definitely need transportation to get to the more popular breweries. Of course, the Coaster goes from Downtown up to Carlsbad, and you could hit up Pizza Port.

 

Prague, Czech Republic, with a day-trip down to the Pilsner Urquell brewery!

The brewery tour ends with a walk through ancient underground tunnels with unpasturized beer samples, and before returning home the shuttle-bus tour stops at the world's oldest continuously-open bar (400+ yrs) for good times.

 

Go to brussels, awesome city, short train ride from amsterdam too.

 

Cleveland OH is an awesome beer town

 

Fort Collins Colorado. Rent a bike and hit Funkwerks, Fort Collins Brewing, Odell, New Belgium, Pateros Creek, and Equinox. I did and I had a blast.

 

A Whale's Vagina.