Favorite Brewery to visit

GREAT LAKES BREWERY AND BREWPUB. GOOD FOOD AND GREAT BEER!

 

I've probably been to a 75 or so breweries. But my vote goes to:

• Stone, Escondido CA: sentimental for me, and just a great garden space. Tour and brewing facility (for my taste) are so-so though

• Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, Hood River OR: Anyone whose been knows the magic in the place (a quainter version of what I imagine Hills Farmstead to be)

• Upright Brewing, Portland OR: Half the fun is navigating to its basement dwelling.

• Pilsner Urquell, Pilsn CZ: Best tour. Best beer.

• Crux Fermentation Project, Bend OR: Just a beautifully laid out brew house.

Of course, the best brewery visit is always on the horizon - the one that is there yet never visited.

 

Jester King

 

Troegs was awesome - highly recommended for beer, food, tour and it's in Hershey! If visiting Philly for all of the excellent bars (www.phillytapfinder.com) a trip to Yards is a must - great vibe and food trucks on weekends (bar food during week is excellent as well - you get to eat the beef/pork that feeds on the Yards beer used grains - the circle of life). Nice part about Philly is public transit covers most of the city so a pub crawl is realistic.

 

My favorite is Kuhnhenn since I live so close, but I definitely do love a road trip to Founders every half year or so!

Haven't done much out of state traveling yet though, so the list could change a little.

 

In Florida: Intracoastal Brewing, 3 Daughters and Two Henrys
Outside FL: New Belgium

 

Tired Hands in Ardmore, PA and 3 Floyds in Munster, IN are two of the greatest restaurants I've ever been to. I've heard they also serve beer...

 

I absolutely love Hill Farmstead but the brewery I'd most want to visit for location would be Pelican.

 

Jackie O's, 50 West, JAFB in Wooster Ohio, as well as Elevator and Barley's in Columbus.

 

Weyerbacher was a good time. Free tastings from like 18 taps. Plenty of bottles for sale.

Carton is a must see if you're in NJ. Intimate tasting room upstairs.

Kane was good too. Some good stuff on tap if you're lucky.

Yards was a fun time as well. And there's a casino right next door too.

 

Fiddlehead is one of the more down to earth breweries I've been to. Hill Farmstead is cool too.

 

I'm going to go away from what most people have been suggesting and say you should take the Anheuser Busch tour in St Louis. Love or hate ABInbev, its a pretty cool tour with a lot of history. Plus you'll be very close to Perennial and 4 Hands, which deserve a visit.

*As a disclaimer, I'm generally not a fan of craft brewery tours as they are all pretty much the same to me

 

Really enjoyed Alpine and Pizza Port while in SD.

 

Its a lazy answer, but Half Acre. Living < than a mile makes it easy to visit frequently, grab new releases, one off tappings, etc.

 

If you come to Portland, ME, there's a bus that brings you around to the breweries in the area. Portland's also a great little town to hang out (Old Port) in. And Maine's a beautiful state. Especially now as the leaves are changing.

 

Boulevard was my first about 20 years ago. It was much smaller back then and seen mostly only on the KC area. It doesn't get much better than Boulevard beer and KC BBQ. When I move to NYC, my first 2 Saturdays I went to Brooklyn Brewery. Fell in love with their Monster Ale during those visits. FFF was also a blast for all the same reasons a previous poster mentioned.

 

Kane, Carton and Tired Hands.

 

In terms of local options, I am always down for bomb food and beer at Beachwood BBQ.

 

I'll give another vote for asheville. Went camping for the weekend a few weeks ago and it was awesome. Seemed like there was a brewery every 500 feet and you can jump on the trolley from downtown that brings you to OB in brevard.

 

The only beer mecca that I've really visited is the Denver area. Lots of well known breweries in Denver, and even lots of "non beer" stuff to do. And really great scenery. Then you have all of the surrounding areas to visit, like Fort Collins, Longmont and Boulder. In Fort Collins you have a mix of big, like New Belgium or Odell's and small and cozy like Funkwerks or Equinox.

I can see that I need to plan trips to the East Coast, West Coast, NE US, NW US and Belgium/Germany. Ah, so much beer and so little time!

Oh Yeah, Congrats on the up coming 10th!