BEERcation (Beer Travel)

Last year my wife planned a 3-day birthday weekend for me to NYC where we hit like 12 different breweries a few other fun non-brewery stops. It was a good trip, easy to plan, many good under-the-radar breweries in the boros, flexible schedule, and the NY subway system makes brewery hopping very easy without the complication of driving. I would recommend it to anyone.

Other than that NYC trip I don't do "beercations" though. There's way more to see and do in the world than drinking in a brewery warehouse/pub. My wife and I plan trips to places with attractions we want to see and if a brewery or a good craft beer place happens to be along the way we will happily stop in, but it's never the goal of the trip. Apart from a cruise (which we will never repeat), we have always found good beer on our vacations even in relative beer wastelands [like Utah and Iceland], so the strategy has worked well.

 

Heading out in 2 weeks to the heartland for a few short days of my own beer and food cation!

 

Church Brew Works is cool for for the building, but the beer was just okay when I was there.

 

Was in Asheville for three full days earlier this month. Got to do the Brewhouse Tour at Sierra Nevada, plus lunch and flights. Amazing facility, amazing tour, best food I had the entire trip. Sierra Nevada is a "must visit".

Had lunch and pints at Wicked Weed (to avoid the evening rush), and flights at Green Man, Burial, Wedge and Hi-Wire. Definitely recommend all of them! Wedge just started canning Iron Rail, and Burial had cans (can't get them at home), so got beer to go from them. Hi-Wire and Green Man are easy to get in Wilmington, so didn't bring anything home from them except a bomber (or bigger?) of Hop Circus #4 from Hi-Wire; it was brewery-only and absolutely fantastic.

Also went to Appalachian Vintners a couple of times for beer; the store is probably 2/3 wine and they still have a killer beer selection. They had a keg of 2013 Ten Fidy Bulleit BA on tap, which was aces. $10 for a 10 oz pour and worth every penny.

As far as food goes, Sierra Nevada, Wicked Weed, 12 Bones, and Biscuit Head all lived up to the hype, and I'd recommend all of them. The food at Nine Mile was good, but the kitchen was slow as molasses and the service sucked. I don't know how Patton Public House is so highly rated on Yelp; the food was mediocre, they were out of half the items on the menu (on a Saturday night) and the joint was dead... it seemed to be a restaurant in its death throes, about two weeks from shutting down for good.

All told, great town, great beer, great restaurants... already making plans for the next visit.

 

Headed there in 2-weeks. Thanks for all the info!

 

Luckily I live in NY and we have some kick@ss breweries, so every week is "beercation week"

Best of 2016-Boston/MA for Treehouse and Trillium
Vermont- Alchemist/Burlington Beer/Foam brewing

 

In other news, because the camping forecast for Crozet sucks, I'm heading to Lexington VA again. Plan on venturing out to Waynesboro instead to hit Stable and Seven Arrows. Praying for no more new plans because I'm OCD

 

small cantina in Xalapa, Mexico. Drank my fill of Indio. Cobblestone streets, fog, lots of coffee shops, etc. Stayed in a beautiful hotel for $40 per night.

And Ireland. Guinness on tap at the hotel bar. Could drink all night then just walk upstairs to our room. Guinness in Ireland is delicious.

 

Exactly. I have never gone to another city simply for beer, but I sure have sampled the local brews. When travelling, I always check nice retail outlets for beers that are new to me. I enjoy the odd science of beer distribution variations state by state and country by country.

 

I am an avid planner and beer is always on the itinerary. Every vacation for me will contain a good amount of beer. You can't get to 135 breweries in under 4 years without prioritizing it pretty frequently! I'm going on a cross-country trip in 6 months so I'll be getting to a LOT more breweries... damn near 90% of the breweries that frequently mentioned on this site.

 

Tokyo was my first and only beercation. After a gruelling 18 months in Korea on Cass and Hite I couldn't remember what proper beer tasted like. I was literally dreaming about it. What's sad is that I hardly drank anything Japanese and I pissed away much of my time drinking when I should have been soaking in the culture. I was a desperate man.

The year after I went back and explored Japan properly. Didn't think much of the craft scene though. Run-of-the-mill IPAs and not particularly tasty curio. Overrated.

 

Had some training scheduled for a job this last weekend. Naturally, it had to be a beercation. There is no other option for a true beer conniseur.

 

Back at the end of May I drove out from SW MO to the following places -
Capones in Chicago IL
FFF in Munster IN
Bells in Comstock MI
Founders in GR MI
Trillium in Boston MA
Tree House in ????? MA
That was one hell of a beer haul. The one thing i wish I would have done was - FFF, Bells and Founders I'd been to already, so I would have drove straight through to the east coast and hit more NE breweries. But that was also before the Alchemist opened up their new brewery store. Next time ill make it NE breweries only.and stay out there a few more days.

Then in August I went the opposite direction SW and hit these locations:
La Cumbre in Albequerque NM
Sun Devil and Tops Liqours in Phoenix AZ
Firestone Walker Barrelworks in Buellton CA
Then drove up Highway 1 along the coast...
Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa CA
Back in 2014 I also went to FW and RR along with Stone and the Bruery

All were great trips. I usually buy a few rounds at each brewery and then cases worth to bring home at each place. I just don't like to drink more than a few beers worth on any given day so taking it home makes more sense. Biggest thing ive learned: too many ipas/pale ales to bring home too many times left me with a case of Zombie Dust sitting thats now going on 6 mo old. Its more expensive at the time to buy more stouts and sours but its better in the long run if im just going to waste good hops anyway.

 

Went to Gettysburg 4th of July and sat with my 17 year old son in the Appalachian Brewing Company beer garden with some like minded people after touring the battlefield. It was like in a dream (beer was just OK though).

 

We plan our trips for hiking / biking FIRST and what we find in terms of beers & breweries is incidental. It means we find a few things here and there through pure serendipity. If We are in Montana, we look for Montana beer. Ditto for Tennesse or Washington or North Dakota (slim pick'ns there). That could change when retirement comes around, but for now that's what we do and it works for us.

 

I just got back from a trip in the northeast bookended by CBC in Boston (a poor decision) and Zwanze Day in Philadelphia (would do again). The festival was the original motivator for the trip, but of course the itinerary had a decent bit of beer otherwise. We stopped off at Jack's Abby, Night Shift, Trillium (Canton), and Tired Hands. And after dinner each night we hit at least a good beer bar or two, including places like Lord Hobo, Tria Taproom, and Monk's (not just on Zwanze Day). Not quite as much drinking as originally intended, but I netted an almost adequate 218 ticks in my week and a half away.

 

My wife and I went to Portland, ME back in March. We had planned it for 4 or 5 weeks. We ended up with the flu but went anyway (it was a mild case). After getting fed up or tired from roaming LL Bean we drove up the road to Maine Beer Co., got there just before they opened, first in line and lo and behold they were releasing their Beer #4 from their Hop Program that day! Needless to say it was definitely one of many high points to going to Portland, as were Novare Res and Fore Street for dinner. We also stumbled upon a sweet little bar called Maps with Bissell Bros in pitchers and cake for munchies!!

 

Dude...really?

 

All of you are putting me to shame, guess I've got some catching up to do!!

New Orleans 1.5 yrs ago: Crecent City, Abita (cans), I think we had a NOLA, but could be wrong.

St. Louis - went to 4 hands, also had a bit of schlafly.

Boston this past May/June: Harpoon (tried quite a few), Trillium -couple bottles - a double IPA (i think uppercase) & a dry hopped Fort Point Pale Ale, also got tix for the microbrew event which had some great NE breweries (Night shift- hefe, Cambridge Brewing - flanders red, and many others i can't remember).

Green Bay: Hit up a liquor store to load up on some local brews: Hinterland berliner weisse, Badger state brewing english brown ale & ruffian chocolate stout, titletown johnny red. Only have 1 can of Badger state ruffian stout left, I'm saving it for breakfast on a snowy day

Thinking about going to Seattle/Portland next year, and definitely going to hit up as many breweries as possible (may need recs, i'm already scouting the NW board lol).

Also to note Chicago suburbs have some excellent breweries, i've been to many and plan to go to many more!