New England Beercation Question.

If you're taking the train through Rhode Island, Proclamation Ale Company is about a 1/2 mile walk from the West Kingstown station. Definitely worth the stop if you have the time.

 

A little bit of reading on this thread would do wonders...

 

Amtrack Noreaster runs from Boston to Freeport Me and also has stops in Dover NH(Garrison City Beerworks and 7th Settlement) and Portland Me ( Bissell Bros, Foundation, Austin St and Allagash)

 

You have chosen the most expensive and the most difficult without a car of your options.

Portland does have several breweries. There are companies that run brewery tours (you get on a bus and they drive you around to the breweries). This will be your best option for Portland.

In Vermont, it will be either impossible or hideously expensive to get to Hill Farmstead without a car. You currently cannot visit either Lawson's or Alchemist, although Alchemist is opening a new brewery in Stowe shortly. You can obtain their beers at a number of bars and restaurants in Burlington, Stowe, or Waterbury. But with no car, again your best option will be to get on a tour bus in Burlington and they will drive you around to the breweries. There are a couple bottle shops in Burlington where you may be able to find Sip and Heady, if you are there at the right time.

 

Also, not sure if you saw it in the other thread, but the drinking age in the US is 21, not 19 like in South Korea. If you are 21, you will need to carry your passport everywhere as your ID.

 

If you want HF then you should plan to stay a night in Worcester and get busy at the Armsby Abbey or Dive. They have maintained multiple HF taps at each for the past year or so. Both are easily walkable from the train station, as is Wormtown. Jack's Abby in Framingham is also close to a Worc-Boston commuter rail stop. Plus round trip TH-Boston would be like 5-6 hours at least on train/uber, though I strongly suggest trying to find someone to carpool with from Worc or Boston to save time and money.

 

Without a car it is going to be difficult, neigh on impossible to check off all the NE hype beers, but I think you could still have a fantastic beer-cation hitting NY, Boston and Portland via train. In addition to the NY breweries there are several bars there that get Hill Farmstead, so you could try it there, or you could take the train from Boston to Worcester and try it at Armsby Abby.

I saw your post about Tree House in that thread. I personally think it is absolutely ridiculous to take an uber to Monson, that trip will take your whole day, cost a decent amount of money and to me just plain isn't worth it. Look for someone to carpool with, maybe, or try to arrange an IP trade for Julius and some of the VT beers perhaps. But seriously ... if your uber driver was not willing to wait out the TH line and left you there, you would be absolutely screwed, I cannot explain to you how in the middle of nowhere TH is.

Stay in Boston, drink Trillium, drink Night Shift, Mystic, Jack's Abby, etc. Plenty of places in Boston, and every place in Portland have Maine on tap and on the shelves of stores, no need to go to the brewery.

I personally love Portland, so I'd recommend taking the Amtrak there. Getting an uber from downtown to Industrial Way for Foundation, Austin St. and Allagash, and to Thompson Point for Bissell is much more reasonable.

This thing is too long, so I am going to leave it up to someone else to explain the pros and cons of taking a train to Vermont to hunt for Heady and SoS.