Offhand I see about fivish clusters (2ish hours or less) there. No surprise at all that I've been to everything in both California clusters multiple, if not dozens of times. Clusters: Western Michigan: Founders, Bells, HopCat NorCal: Russian River, Toronado, Lagunitas SoCal: Stone, The Bruery Vermont: Hill Farmstead, Prohibition Pig Eastern PA: Monk's, Victory, Troegs Islands: 3F (Indiana) Cigar City (Tampa) Treehouse (Boston) Wicked Weed (Ashville) Great Lakes (Cleveland) New Glarus (Wisconsin) Dogfish Head (Delaware)
Outside or the NorCal, SoCal, and Eastern Pa clusters, if you're into beer, there's no reason not to check off any of these places if you're on BA and in the area. There's other stuff to check out in those areas. My reasons for not visiting Bell's and Troegs despite having lived in GR and Philly? Kalamazoo sucks otherwise and I'd be going there just to visit Bell's, and I've never been much of a fan of Troegs. Victory, Stoudt's, and Weyerbacher seemed like much better day trips. For folks that missed out on Stoudt's, it was everything you wanted from an old school, Michael Jackson wrote about them, brewery in Amish country. The antique mall and "Continental" cuisine brewpub attached, the friendliness and hands on ownership, it all added up to what I wanted from them. It was perfect. My biggest memory of Founder's is from back when they were in the Brassworks building, one of my GF's coworker's drank a pitcher of Double Dirty and puked black bile on the discarded peanut shells and popcorn on the floor.
For the SoCal cluster I would put those two pretty low on my list outside of history. Both perfectly enjoyable but you could just go to Stone Liberty which is not in fucking Escondido, near a lot of other great spots, and near the water. If you’re going to the Bruery, you may as well just go to BL, Monkish, GC all within a five mile radius and maybe hit them up if you really wanna. Not gonna argue much with the NorCal bunch outside of Lagunitas being a hard maybe. Think I have been once since they sold. It is on the way to Russian River which I would say should be on every beer fan’s bucketlist, but there’s a lot of better spots like Moonlight, Old Caz and Cooperage I would opt for if hitting more than one place. Obviously Toronado is a given, just bring some grimy singles, a clothespin for your nose and check your Karen “omg they was rude to me” tendencies at the door.
I was talking more about how there's cool shit to do outside of visiting these breweries, or really any brewery, if you're in the area, but I agree with this assessment. I didn't go to Stone when I was in SD a few years ago, just because it was a bit further out than I wanted to drive, but the World Bistro seems like it would be a cool place. I don't think the Liberty Station location was on my radar at the time. Did stop by the Terminal 2 location on the flight out, it was fine, as is the Richmond brewery. Never been a fan of The Bruery, so I wouldn't go if in the area. Worked a block or so away from the shuttered DC location for a few years and never stopped by then. Not sure I'd visit Lagunitas, used to love them back in the day, but now, not so much. I've been to enough great beer bars that I don't know that I'd have to go to Toronado if ever in the bay area. Cleveland actually has a lot of pretty cool little breweries that are worth checking out, but Great Lakes is a must. Historic building, great service, great food. If I'm ever near Rehoboth Beach (harvesting horseshoe crab blood to sell on the black market?), I'd make sure to stop by DFH for old time's sake and hope that they have some of the beers that are no longer distro available. I hope to never have to set foot in the Indiana suburbs of Chicago, so 3 Floyds is out. It's bad enough driving over them on 94. Working in cheese again, so it's probably only a matter of time before I hit up New Glarus. I don't know that I'll ever have a reason to visit Tampa or Boston again. I do want to make it down to Asheville one of these days, but not so sure how high on the list Wicked Weed will be on the things to do will be. So much other cool stuff, beer and non-beer, in the area.
No doubt there's things to do outside beer, but we are on beeradvocate not touchinggrassadvocate here. I'm probably gonna hit up DFH one of these times I'm traversing through BWI one of these times. Wicked Weed like several on this list really are the 'legacy' breweries that have largely sold out and moved on at this point. Not all, but most. Depends also on how you'd define selling out I guess. I don't view DFH the same way I view Lagunitas or Wicked Weed. That said, it's all still beer and a lot of these spots are why there's all the "you're better off going to ..." around them. Nearly all those spots immediately around the Bruery have ties or very deep ties to what was built there. Same for San Diego, though there I would argue that Pizza Port really was the granddaddy of most of the scene that everyone is tied to, including Stone.
No kidding! I pop into a small place in my neck of the woods and nearly every time, Willie has reviewed it.
I agree! Can anyone tell me if it's the same in Tewksbury and Deerfield? I find this to be borderline astonishing considering their level of stature. Edit: OK, looking at user-posted pics on Google reviews it seems like they serve in glassware at Tewksbury and Deerfield. Phew. When I went to Trillium at Fenway, they switch to plastic when it gets to be very busy which I totally get, but to have that be the norm at one of the most renowned breweries in the US, again, I would find to be borderline outrageous
Lol, yep, if you're referring to the fact that there's not much to do in Rehoboth, you are correct. I grew up in that area and, while it's gotten better over the years (including a slowly growing brewery scene outside of DFH), growing up there in the 90s was boring AF. And even so, now the traffic is totally out of control during the busy season, not to mention all the prices going up since so many folks from the MD/DC/PA/NJ area and beyond are retiring there. I only ever go back to visit family and friends If you do, hit me up!
The timeline went: 1. COVID hits: temporary closed just like everyone 2. May 2020: they announce they are indefinitely closed, this was right after Indiana allowed in-person dining again starting May 11, 2020. 3. December 2020: they announce the brewpub is permanently closed (which also allows them to drop any future obligations to the original brewpub investors): https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sig...wpub-commits-to-growth-as-a-regional-producer 4. October 2023: they announce plans to reopen the brewpub with some major renovations, and also handing off the food portion to the Fifty 50 restaurant group: https://chicago.eater.com/2023/10/1...brewpub-plans-fifty-50-group-comeback-munster Since then there have been no official updates or announcements. Though word is the deal with Fifty 50 fell through. So it seems in limbo currently. As for the complaints about service, I honestly always had great service there. However it is true that some of the hosts working the door could be quite rude. I think this was largely an issue because you have this brewpub in the middle of an industrial park with a long line outside of people waiting to get in. There was no waiting area inside the brewpub. Also, their brewpub license did not allow any standing room customers, so you were not allowed to order a beer at the bar while you waited. I think 99% of complainants did not realize this restriction was by law and not just some arbitrary rule they had to piss people off. The hostess dealt with people whining about this all the time and developed an attitude. Almost all of the complaints about service were related to: 1.) waiting for a table 2.) wanting to order a beer while they wanted 3.) rude staff at the door. Once you got seated the service was great. They did eventually add an outdoor area where you could order a beer while you waited for a table, around late 2017 or early 2018 IIRC.
It was great, but kind of a pain in the ass to get to I thought. I would drive by the brewery in Adamstown on my way to and from the Philly area from Baltimore (lots of trips up to the Drafting Room, TJs Everyday, and Capones), and was often tempted to stop. However, it just never seemed like a good idea after hitting a couple of spots in SE Pa first. That being said, I did stop off on occasion of course... really nice beer selection and their German style food was legit. It would have been great if there were a couple other spots nearby (so I could combine visits), but there really wasn't. Regardless, it was a very sad day I thought when they went out of business.
I've been going to the Tree House Charlton location fairly regularly (about once a month or so) for the past 3 - 4 years and they have been using glassware. This has been mostly on Thursday late afternoons, and a few times Friday afternoon and Saturday at 11:00 am opening. It's possible they revert to plastic cups when they are slammed on busy weekends. Edit: I have only been to South Deerfield once, this was on the Friday afternoon in between Christmas and New Years. They were very busy but were serving beer in glassware.
Late response but Pro Pig's position makes sense to me as for a long time they were the only place outside of the samples in The Alchemist Waterbury tasting room that you could find Heady Topper on tap (in part I imagine cause it was the original location of The Alchemist Pub). Also prior to becoming a brewery their tap lists were often just as good as or better than The Blackback and The Reservoir.
I’ve still run into some brewery tasting rooms which can’t be rated. I guess I’ll try to report these in the future.
