A buddy of mine put me onto an interesting source, a top-100 brewery tour in the US. The author created an algorithm such that you could drive, using the most economical route (time wise) to visit all of them.
Of course, whose list of top 100 one uses is somewhat individualistic, but if you look at the map here: Top Brewery Road Trip, Routed Algorithmically you'll see that there's an interesting concentration in the northeast:
Well. My son recently took a job in Boston; we decided that we'd fly out to visit him, get a rental car, and tour as many breweries as we reasonably could in the week we were there.
It was a fabulous trip. We didn't go for the fall foliage--we went for the beer!--but as it happens the colors were unbelievable.
We managed to visit the following:
1. Tree House Brewing Company
2. Jack's Abby Brewing
3. Maine Beer Company
4. Liquid Riot Bottling Company
5. Gritty McDuffs
6. Rising Tide Brewing Company
7. Allagash Brewing Company
8. Hill Farmstead Brewery
9. The Alchemist
10. Zero Gravity Craft Brewery
11. Burlington Beer Company
12. Trillium Brewing Company
A few comments:
1. This is worth doing if you ever can manage it. We're retired, so that works in our favor. We like beer, I brew it, and so it seemed a reasonable thing to do. My buddy went over 1000 beers rated on RateBeer, so he had a good time, too.
2. Most every place had great offerings. The one that surprised us in a positive way was Rising TIde Brewing in Portland Maine. Brad had a 4-beer flight, and I did as well. We didn't overlap on any of them, and all were excellent. Great bar staff, I'd be there a lot if I lived in Portland.
3. The other one that surprised me was Hill Farmstead. Supposed to be number 1 in the nation according to several ratings, and of those above, I'd have rated it Number 11. Not in the nation, but in the list above. It struck me as a bush-league operation. You had to take gravel-type roads to get there, which would have been just fine if the experience rated it. But no. No indoor restrooms (!), but they did provide two porta-potties. They only had 5 beers on tap. I had three, and none stood out as exceptional. It was a huge letdown.
4. That said, Tree House is beyond exceptional. THE most amazing facility I've ever seen. Perhaps my impression is clouded by being there on a day with temps in the low 60s, little wind, and the colors were changing. Nothing better than enjoying a great beer in an Adirondack chair talking to a local about Tree House, what we might do next, and things in general.
5. My second favorite is probably Maine Brewing Company. It's a little hard to rate them all because we went at different times, the weather was different (see below), they didn't always have much beer (Alchemist is in the midst of renovations and had only two beers available, in cans, which we understood. Yet the place was jammed).
Perhaps Maine Brewing stands out because it had one of the top two beers I've ever drunk: Peeper Ale. A pale ale, and it was beyond amazing. Shockingly so. (BTW, the other in my top two is Assassin from Toppling Goliath, a barrel-aged stout).
Jacks Abby also stood out with the lagers. You don't expect a place to be known for lagers, but theirs were terrific. Yum!
6. I don't expect to learn much on a tour like this--I know how to brew, I have a great setup, the learning curve leveled off a couple years ago. Most breweries and brewers are pretty cagey about what they do and how. BUT....when we went to Zero Gravity I had a pale ale that looked good, called Little Wolf. I didn't even check to see what it had in it, and my first few pulls on it were GREAT. Then I looked at the beer menu and...it has Mosaic Hops in it.
I absolutely HATE Mosaic hops. It is known that how people perceive hops can vary, and it just happens that Mosaic destroys any beer for me. Sort of like how some people taste soapy water when they eat Cilantro. It just doesn't work for me, but I get that others like it.
But Little Wolf was great! So I had to try to track someone down to ask about it. It was Sunday so I wasn't encouraged, but the manager Sydney and another guy who works in the back (name escapes me) told me that they use an enzyme which turns it in to a virtually gluten-free beer. They didn't set out to make it gluten-free--they were trying to adjust the mouthfeel--but it just turned out that way.
Well. The mosaic is dry hopped. Is that why it's not offensive to me? Or is it the enzyme they're using? I don't know, but I do know the next beer I brew will be a pale ale dry-hopped with Mosaic. As they say, Enquiring minds want to know!
7. I mentioned the weather above. One day we hit a lot of rain. We were at the Maine Maritime Museum and there was a heck of a blow that went through. Things finally settled down enough for us to leave and get lunch, then down back to Portland for a visit to Allegash. But it was still raining pretty hard. The place was jammed. We finally found a table under a sort of awning thing, and enjoyed the beers. Funny though, my memories of Allegash are mostly the rain. The beer was fine.
8. Funny but sad thing about the trip; we'd reserved a cabin on Crystal Lake near Gray Maine for 3 days as a home base while we explored the area. Sadly, the owner called us 3 days before we left to inform us the water was out. The water table had dropped below the level of the well pump, so no water. We scrambled to find an alternative, finally getting a Holiday Inn Express in South Portland. I'd had visions of sitting on the deck overlooking the lake at sunset drinking craft beers; alas, maybe another time.
9. We got to Boston on Tuesday morning, left the following Tuesday morning. During those 7 days we put 1121 miles on our rental car. We visited some GREAT breweries, and drank a lot of beer (41 different kinds if memory serves).
A few pics:
Not very often one gets a flight and, when finished, considers just ordering the same thing again.
I had a guy in Trillium recognize my Third Space shirt; he's from Milwaukee, home of TS.
There are few more beautiful settings than we were treated to at Tree House. Interestingly, they had a 3-beer limit, 2 on Fridays and Saturdays. It's not clear why, if it's to limit severe intoxication or simply to get more people through. It was surprising to see people come in to Tree House to buy beer and they needed 2-wheel carts to carry it out, several cases at a time.
There were, if memory serves, something like 24 of those big fermenters you see behind us in this pic. I asked how large they are; 250 barrels. Makes my 10-gallon Spike look pitiful. They do a business there, and deservedly so.
Of course, whose list of top 100 one uses is somewhat individualistic, but if you look at the map here: Top Brewery Road Trip, Routed Algorithmically you'll see that there's an interesting concentration in the northeast:
Well. My son recently took a job in Boston; we decided that we'd fly out to visit him, get a rental car, and tour as many breweries as we reasonably could in the week we were there.
It was a fabulous trip. We didn't go for the fall foliage--we went for the beer!--but as it happens the colors were unbelievable.
We managed to visit the following:
1. Tree House Brewing Company
2. Jack's Abby Brewing
3. Maine Beer Company
4. Liquid Riot Bottling Company
5. Gritty McDuffs
6. Rising Tide Brewing Company
7. Allagash Brewing Company
8. Hill Farmstead Brewery
9. The Alchemist
10. Zero Gravity Craft Brewery
11. Burlington Beer Company
12. Trillium Brewing Company
A few comments:
1. This is worth doing if you ever can manage it. We're retired, so that works in our favor. We like beer, I brew it, and so it seemed a reasonable thing to do. My buddy went over 1000 beers rated on RateBeer, so he had a good time, too.
2. Most every place had great offerings. The one that surprised us in a positive way was Rising TIde Brewing in Portland Maine. Brad had a 4-beer flight, and I did as well. We didn't overlap on any of them, and all were excellent. Great bar staff, I'd be there a lot if I lived in Portland.
3. The other one that surprised me was Hill Farmstead. Supposed to be number 1 in the nation according to several ratings, and of those above, I'd have rated it Number 11. Not in the nation, but in the list above. It struck me as a bush-league operation. You had to take gravel-type roads to get there, which would have been just fine if the experience rated it. But no. No indoor restrooms (!), but they did provide two porta-potties. They only had 5 beers on tap. I had three, and none stood out as exceptional. It was a huge letdown.
4. That said, Tree House is beyond exceptional. THE most amazing facility I've ever seen. Perhaps my impression is clouded by being there on a day with temps in the low 60s, little wind, and the colors were changing. Nothing better than enjoying a great beer in an Adirondack chair talking to a local about Tree House, what we might do next, and things in general.
5. My second favorite is probably Maine Brewing Company. It's a little hard to rate them all because we went at different times, the weather was different (see below), they didn't always have much beer (Alchemist is in the midst of renovations and had only two beers available, in cans, which we understood. Yet the place was jammed).
Perhaps Maine Brewing stands out because it had one of the top two beers I've ever drunk: Peeper Ale. A pale ale, and it was beyond amazing. Shockingly so. (BTW, the other in my top two is Assassin from Toppling Goliath, a barrel-aged stout).
Jacks Abby also stood out with the lagers. You don't expect a place to be known for lagers, but theirs were terrific. Yum!
6. I don't expect to learn much on a tour like this--I know how to brew, I have a great setup, the learning curve leveled off a couple years ago. Most breweries and brewers are pretty cagey about what they do and how. BUT....when we went to Zero Gravity I had a pale ale that looked good, called Little Wolf. I didn't even check to see what it had in it, and my first few pulls on it were GREAT. Then I looked at the beer menu and...it has Mosaic Hops in it.
I absolutely HATE Mosaic hops. It is known that how people perceive hops can vary, and it just happens that Mosaic destroys any beer for me. Sort of like how some people taste soapy water when they eat Cilantro. It just doesn't work for me, but I get that others like it.
But Little Wolf was great! So I had to try to track someone down to ask about it. It was Sunday so I wasn't encouraged, but the manager Sydney and another guy who works in the back (name escapes me) told me that they use an enzyme which turns it in to a virtually gluten-free beer. They didn't set out to make it gluten-free--they were trying to adjust the mouthfeel--but it just turned out that way.
Well. The mosaic is dry hopped. Is that why it's not offensive to me? Or is it the enzyme they're using? I don't know, but I do know the next beer I brew will be a pale ale dry-hopped with Mosaic. As they say, Enquiring minds want to know!
7. I mentioned the weather above. One day we hit a lot of rain. We were at the Maine Maritime Museum and there was a heck of a blow that went through. Things finally settled down enough for us to leave and get lunch, then down back to Portland for a visit to Allegash. But it was still raining pretty hard. The place was jammed. We finally found a table under a sort of awning thing, and enjoyed the beers. Funny though, my memories of Allegash are mostly the rain. The beer was fine.
8. Funny but sad thing about the trip; we'd reserved a cabin on Crystal Lake near Gray Maine for 3 days as a home base while we explored the area. Sadly, the owner called us 3 days before we left to inform us the water was out. The water table had dropped below the level of the well pump, so no water. We scrambled to find an alternative, finally getting a Holiday Inn Express in South Portland. I'd had visions of sitting on the deck overlooking the lake at sunset drinking craft beers; alas, maybe another time.
9. We got to Boston on Tuesday morning, left the following Tuesday morning. During those 7 days we put 1121 miles on our rental car. We visited some GREAT breweries, and drank a lot of beer (41 different kinds if memory serves).
A few pics:
Not very often one gets a flight and, when finished, considers just ordering the same thing again.
I had a guy in Trillium recognize my Third Space shirt; he's from Milwaukee, home of TS.
There are few more beautiful settings than we were treated to at Tree House. Interestingly, they had a 3-beer limit, 2 on Fridays and Saturdays. It's not clear why, if it's to limit severe intoxication or simply to get more people through. It was surprising to see people come in to Tree House to buy beer and they needed 2-wheel carts to carry it out, several cases at a time.
There were, if memory serves, something like 24 of those big fermenters you see behind us in this pic. I asked how large they are; 250 barrels. Makes my 10-gallon Spike look pitiful. They do a business there, and deservedly so.