Eastern U.S. 2019

The Beer Renegade


This was my longest driving trip ever, more than twice as long as my West Coast trip. I spent many months planning it. The biggest challenge in planning a brewery trip is the fact that each brewery has its own unique days and hours of operation, so you can't just leave on any given day and expect each brewery to be open whenever you arrive because choosing a particular day for one brewery has a future "chain effect". For example, let's say that you want to visit Brewery A one day, Breweries B and C the following day (in that order because B is on the way to C), and Brewery D the day after that. Brewery A is open Wednesday-Sunday, so your departure days are limited to those 5 days of the week. Brewery B is open every day, but it doesn't open until 4 PM on Monday-Thursday, and arriving that late would cause you to arrive too late at Brewery C, which is 4 hours down the road and closes at 8 PM. So, you must arrive at Brewery B before 2 PM on Friday-Sunday (to allow an hour at each brewery), which means that you must leave for Brewery A on Thursday-Saturday (3 possible days). Brewery D is closed on Mondays, which means that you must go to breweries B and C on Friday or Saturday, so you must go to Brewery A on Thursday or Friday. Now you're down to 2 possible departure days. Well, imagine planning a trip with dozens of breweries along thousands of miles of road.

By the way, Google Maps is a great resource for getting driving directions, although it's not always accurate in estimating travel times because its estimates are done according to traffic at the time you do your research, so if you research at off hours and then travel during trafficky times or inclement weather, it will take longer to reach your destination than your research tells you. For this reason it is a good idea to check the best route just before you leave; it might differ from the route you've planned.

I wanted to start my trip on Wednesday February 20 with a visit to Adroit Theory, but the brewery was closed that day due to snow. It wouldn't have been considered a storm where I come from (Massachusetts), but because I live in the Mid-Atlantic, the 5 inches we got was a "storm" that caused locals to stock up on milk and toilet paper. Why do people do that? What is it about snow that causes people to suddenly develop osteoporosis and diarrhea?

This day turned out great anyway because I walked to some friends' house and drank all afternoon/evening with neighborhood friends. (Note that the photo on the left is not me - it's a meme that I found on the Internet. The photo on the right was taken at my friends' house.)


Thursday February 21. I could have left the day before the "storm", but Adroit Theory is closed on Tuesdays. And of course if I'd gone to there today, it would have messed up plans several days down the road due to the chain effect. So I skipped that brewery and drove directly to Richmond VA in order to follow my original plan. In the late morning I arrived at the home of my friend Chuck, who maintains the Belgian Beer Specialist website and as of this writing has visited 175 Belgian breweries. We walked over to ZZQ and had some amazing turkey and brisket. I asked one of the employees how they got their meats so tasty and succulent. She said that they use only wood in the smoker (no other fuel source) and instead of checking internal temperature to determine when the meats are done, they do it by "feel". The place is very popular.


Chuck had to work so I Lyfted to The Answer, which I'd been to a year and a half earlier. The name is a play on the first name of the owner, An Bui. They had 20 house beers and 39 guest beers on tap. They infuse their stouts with various things via their "Andall", which is a play on Dogfish Head's "Randall". They also have many sour/fruity beers that they call "Joose". I ordered a plate of their Viet Brussels Sprouts, which was quite good; and tried 8 of their house beers, including 2 Andalls and 4 Jooses:

Cardboard cut-out of An.


Next door is a large Vietnamese restaurant called Mekong that An opened in 1995. The two are not connected, however; you enter Mekong in the front, but to enter The Answer you have to go around back. Mekong had 4 house beers and 48 guest beers on tap, and they were all different from the ones at the Answer. They don't do flights at Mekong but my server gave me small samples of the house beers, 2 stouts and 2 jooses, all of which were Andallized. They were all good but not as good as those from The Answer.


On a tip from Chuck I Lyfted to Bingo Beer Company. It has a kitchen, pool tables, air hockey, video games, and pinball machines, and the atmosphere is quite festive. It opened on November 1, 2018. All the beers were well made.


I walked to Black Heath Meadery, which is owned by Bill Cavender, a friend of both mine and Chuck's, who I've known for many years through a homebrew club called BURP. The place opened in March 2015. Chuck finished work and walked over to meet us. Bill gave us samples of some of his meads, all of which were good.


Chuck and I Lyfted to Triple Crossing's Fulton location, which I'd visited a year and a half earlier. We sampled:


Next we Lyfted to Tabol, which had just opened earlier in the month. Two friends of mine, Mike and Glenn, met us there. We sampled all of Tabol's beers, most of which were good.


Glenn had to attend to family matters, so Mike, Chuck, and I Ubered to The Veil. By this time I was pretty drunk. The place was crowded and we had to wait in line for beer. We sampled:


By the time we left I was crocked so it's a good thing Chuck and Mike took care of me. I don't remember anything after this point. Thanks to the photos I took and the voice recordings I made, I can tell you that we walked to Väsen and sampled:


Then I suppose Mike went home and Chuck and I walked back to his place, but I don't remember.


Friday February 22. Woke up very early and couldn't get back to sleep, which gave me time to work on this web page. Drove in the rain to Raleigh NC and arrived at the home of my friends Carmen and William, who I've known for decades and hadn't seen in years. Carmen had taken off work, so the two of us had lunch at Brewery Bhavana. It has a sort of contemporary decor, with lots of books that you can read. The beers were good and the food was excellent. They don't do beer flights but I asked for some small tastes and our server brought 4 substantial tastes that were just like ordering a flight. We tried:


By the way, Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks, due to the many oak trees. It has a giant acorn statue called Nutzilla.

Carmen works for my former employer at a facility on the NC State campus, so she drove me around the campus. It rained all day so we didn't walk much. We did go inside the Hunt Library, which is state-of-the-art. It has millions of books that are retrieved by a robotic delivery system called bookBot. Someone happened to be giving a tour, so we glommed onto it. The library is quite large. It has many computers, teaching labs, and spaces where students can collaborate. NC State has several libraries; this one is the science and technology library.

That evening Carmen cooked us a great dinner and we all got caught up on what's been going on in our lives.


Saturday February 23. Left shortly after 6 AM because I had close to 9 hours of driving ahead of me. It was dark, still raining, and 43 degrees. I didn't mind because I purposely chose the time of the year with the crappiest weather for this trip because the vast majority of my time would be spent inside buildings and my car. During the nice weather I want to be walking around outside.

There is lots of time to think on a long trip. Having just visited two old friends I got to thinking about how fortunate I've been to have some wonderful people in my life. I've got many friends, some for more than 30 years now. Sometimes we lose sight of our good fortune as we focus on whatever life issues we might have (financial, medical, familial). In the end, what is most important? Loved ones, and finding inner peace. (I will spare you a long dissertation on finding our true selves and inner peace. If you'd like to read my thoughts on this topic, click here.)

After about 4 hours I made it to the Angel Oak Tree, located near Charleston SC. It is a Southern live oak. (Apparently the Carolinas are festooned with oaks.) This is a whopper of a tree, with a trunk that measures 28 feet in circumference and many thick, long arms that touch the ground. It looks like a giant octopus sea monster. The gift shop prohibits cell phone use in order to prevent people from snapping photos of the prints that are for sale, which is silly because there are plenty of free photos of this tree on the Internet. Just Google "angel oak" and click on "Images".


Most of the highways south of Virginia had speed limits of 70. There were religious billboards in South Carolina and Georgia, indicating that Bible thumping is still big down there. Sometimes shortly after a religious billboard there'd be a billboard advertising an "adult" shop. As I entered Florida there were a bunch of palm trees along the side of the highway, but only for a while. Then there were no more, which indicates that they were planted by the State of Florida to create an effect. The drivers were the rudest of the day, especially those in pickup trucks.

By the time I made it to Jacksonville it was more than 80 degrees out and partly sunny. I stopped at Aardwolf Brewing, which opened in 2013, and sampled:


I bought a couple of 750s to go and then made it down to my friend Linda's place in St. Augustine. We have been friends since 2005 and she had just moved there from my neighborhood a few weeks earlier. We Ubered with another friend of mine, Jazs, who lives just minutes away and I've been friends with since 1995, to downtown St. Augustine. It is a happening place with many bars, restaurants, and shops. We started at Auggie's Draft Room, which had opened 4 months earlier. It has 24 self-serve taps of beer, wine, and cider where you pay by the ounce. We sampled many of the libations while listening to live reggae music.

Jazs's Taz.


We then ducked into a few places and watched some fireworks.


We stumbled upon Colonial Oak Music Park, a nice intimate park that is situated under a very large live oak tree. An excellent rock band was playing and drinks were being sold. I had a coconut porter from Ancient City Brewing. Hundreds of people of all ages were there. Several folks were dancing. The three of us danced in the rain toward the end of the concert.


We headed over to Milltop Tavern for more drinks and live music. I had Green Room Head High IPA.


Then we went to a popular place called Prohibition Kitchen for even more drinks and live music. We got Swamp Head Big Nose IPA and Lexington Bourbon Barrel Aged Ale.


Our last stop was Burrito Works Taco Shop for post-midnight tacos and beer. We drank some Coppertail Free Dive IPA and took home a can of Halyard Volcano Juice.


Sunday February 24. The three of us had a hearty breakfast at Linda's and drove down to the south side of St. Augustine Beach. Driving on the beach is allowed there, so...


Then we headed over to the St. Augustine Amphitheater for the St. Augustine Shrine Club Chowder Challenge for Children, a chowder festival that benefits the Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa, Florida. We sampled dozens of locally made chowders, several of which were great. As they say in the Boston area were I come from, wicked good chowdah!


Next we went to Ripley's to take their Red Train tour. First we hung out for a bit.

Here is a brief video of the photo on the right:


Then we boarded the "train", which is basically a street buggy. (I lifted the following photo from the Internet. It was actually cloudy today, and it rained halfway through the tour.)


The tour guide drove us around downtown St. Augustine. The city has a lot of history, which you can read about here. It is home to breweries, a winery, a distillery, a chocolate factory, several museums, Flagler College, and countless shops, bars, and restaurants. Here are some random photos I took.


Next we went to St. Augustine Distillery. The place was crowded, and we were lucky to find the last available parking spot. We got a tour with tastings, and it was free! They made us various drinks, including Florida Mule, Rum Tiki Cocktail, Grapefruit Hibiscus Spritz, and Old Fashioned. We also got to sample 5 of their spirits, including Florida Straight Bourbon, Port Finished Bourbon, New World Gin, Pot Distilled Rum, and Florida Cane Vodka.


Then we went upstairs to check out their bar/restaurant called Ice Plant. (Before refrigeration, ice was produced at the distillery. Ice was very important to the economy.)


Then Linda dropped Jazs and me off at Bog Brewing and went home for a bit to take care of her dog. We sampled:


Eventually Linda came back to get us and we all went to the Back 40 Urban Café. The food was great and the portions were huge. It was a nice ending to a fun day.


Monday February 25. Got up before 4 AM due to having turned in relatively early the night before. One might think that being retired would cause one to sleep later, but it doesn't if you're the sort of person who typically sleeps 5 hours a night. It gives me plenty of time to write triplogs when I travel and pursue hobbies when I'm home.

A beautiful, sunny day, although a bit chilly for Florida. Linda had to work, so Jazs and I spent the day together. First stop: Cafe Eleven. They serve food all day and also have craft beer and live music. We got smoothies.


Then we headed over to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park. You know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? It depends on whether you're gonna see it later or in a while. Anyway, in addition to many crocodilians...

Gomek.


...they had turtles, tortoises, birds, lemurs, snakes, and a couple of Komodo dragons.

Komodo dragon.


I shot this video of a tortoise (or is it a turtle?):


Then we went to Old Coast Ales. Next door is a taco place called Osprey Tacos, which delivers to Old Coast customers, so we got several tacos to have with our beers. We tried: They have a program where you can buy beers for friends ahead of time. Two boards display who bought them, for whom, and how many. We played ping pong for a while and also ran into Emily, the woman who had given us our distillery tour the previous day.
Sharing board.
Emily is next to Jazs.


Next we drove to downtown St. Augustine and walked around for a while.


We walked through the city hall building, which houses a museum, a hotel, nice greenery, and a koi pond.


Then we walked over to Castillo de San Marcos.


After that we walked to the touristy area that has many shops and restaurants.


We saw Flagler College.

Hammocks.


We also saw Casa Monica, which is a hotel and spa.


We retrieved Jazs's van and drove by the Old Senator Live Oak, which is estimated to be 600 years old.


We also drove by Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth, but it was closed for the day. I took this photo of the street it's on. That white thing in the road is a bride who was having photos taken.


Then we went to Beaches at Vilano, where Linda met us after work for drinks and to watch the sunset.


We all went to Jazs's house. Her boyfriend Jim was there, and the four of us spent the evening together. Beers included Bog Brewing Smoked Datil, Wild Range Brewing IPA, and Sweetwater IPA.


Tuesday February 26. Warmer today, but overcast. I left Linda's in the late morning and drove to Civil Society Brewing in Jupiter. Every beer was good.

Waking Reality is one of the beers sold in cans. The label is part of the 48 Beer Project, in which artist Heidi Geist is traveling around the country from September 2018 to September 2019 in a retrofitted school bus, visiting one brewery in a new state each week and designing an original label for it during her short time in town.


Afterwards I went to my mom's house in Delray Beach, where I would spend the next 3 nights. My sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner.


Wednesday February 27. Jogged (my first workout in 8 days), napped, and hung out with my mom. What a rough day.

View from my mom's front door.


Thursday February 28. Pretty much the same as yesterday. By the way, my allergies had been kicking up since St. Augustine. The pollen count was pretty high because spring comes early in Florida. Anyway, that night the four of us went out for Chinese food at Kingsburg.


Friday March 1. Left beautiful Delray Beach...

...and drove to Tampa. Many motorists exhibited the same selfishness and recklessness that I'd seen several days earlier. One sign on the turnpike said, "Florida Turnpike. The Less Stressway." Apparently they have no idea how their residents drive. Maybe the motorists aren't so selfish. Maybe speeding and cutting people off is the accepted norm in Florida. What do I know? I'm from up north. It's interesting that you have two kinds of dangerous drivers in Florida. You have the reckless folks that I mentioned; but you also have lots of old people who have slow reflexes, can hardly see, and/or take various medications that make them drowsy. They're not jerks - they're just inept. You tend to see the older folks on the local roads, whereas the young jerks are everywhere.

I arrived at Angry Chair Brewing when they opened at noon and tried:

The bar stools were interesting.


Then it was on to Tallahassee. At one point I stopped to take a leak, and it took 15 minutes because I had to exit the highway, wait at a few traffic lights, pull into a fast food joint, do my business, then wait in more traffic lights to get back on the highway. It is much quicker to use rest areas. Or pee in a jug. Anyway, the temperature got close to 90, but mid-afternoon thunderstorms dropped it by 25 degrees. Eventually I got to Proof Brewing. The parking lot was filled because it was Friday at 5:00. The place was quite crowded. There is foosball, air hockey, and a back yard with artificial turf and cornhole. There were 19 house beers plus a guest cider on tap. I enjoyed every beer I sampled:

They sold crowlers of several of their beers but unfortunately not their stouts.


On a tip from one of the bartenders I went to a nearby store called Beer Stop that had a nice craft beer selection. I spent more than an hour using Beer Advocate to look up beers' ratings and spent almost $100 on beers. Then I checked into the local Motel 6, which had wooden floors with a layer of filth. This was the first night in more than a week of traveling that I did not stay with friends or family.


Saturday March 2. Up by 3:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep due to turning in early the night before. The morning was overcast and dark when I left at 6:45. Drove west, entering the Central time zone. It was dark, gray, and dismal for most of the Florida panhandle, with lots of rain that was quite heavy at times. But when you're on your way to beer, it's always sunny!

Went across Alabama and Mississippi, into Louisiana. My allergies subsided. Stopped at Calandro's Supermarket in Baton Rouge because I'd read that it had a great beer selection. Well, it does -- hundreds of both foreign and domestic craft beers, not to mention about as many wines. It was worth the detour. Bought some local stuff (using Beer Advocate to help me choose) and went on my way. A little over an hour later I checked into La Quinta Inn and ate some food. (I never eat at restaurants when I travel alone. I get food at supermarkets and eat in the car and motel rooms.)

Lyfted to Parish Brewing (Lyft is usually cheaper than Uber). I was impressed with the beers:

I got mighty toasted as you might imagine from so many high-octane beers. Bought 4-packs of Ghost in the Machine and Rêve Coffee Stout. Talked with an older couple named Whitey and Janie, who live locally in a geodesic dome home. After the place closed at 7 PM, they offered me a ride back to the hotel.


Sunday March 3. Got up even earlier than the previous morning due to an early bedtime. The hotel had free breakfast. Normally I don't eat anything until I get to my first brewery because the only purpose of food is to slow alcohol absorption, but it was free, so I ate some. I also took some with me because hey, free.

Left at the same time as the previous day, on a gray, foggy, drizzly morning, with temperatures in the high 60s. When I reached Texas two hours later, it was 10 degrees cooler, and still cloudy. The traffic lights were horizontal rather than vertical. Stopped in Houston at Spindletap Brewery, whose hazy IPAs got great ratings on Beer Advocate. It's a modern-looking place and they played classic rock music.

I wanted to buy some Houston Haze to go, but it was sold only in 6-packs. However, one of the servers went back into the brewery and gave me two short-fill cans for free.
Nice sticker. It should be - they charged $2 for it.


As I was putting the beers in my trunk with my stash, a guy who was also leaving struck up a conversation with me. He said he was heading to a new brewery in nearby Humble called Ingenious Brewing. I decided to follow him. The place opened in March 2018. We pooled our resources and tried:


Then I went west to visit my friends Neb and Kim in Round Rock. They'd just moved there from Maryland a few months earlier. Round Rock is near Austin, and at the time I was visiting, the entire Austin area was experiencing an explosion of new businesses and people moving there, so there was a lot of traffic. It was 43 degrees when I arrived. They drove me down to Jester King, whose sour ales I'd thoroughly enjoyed in years past. When we got there it was cold and windy. The brewery is located on a large farm.


There is an outdoor pavilion.


There is also a building where they make pizza and serve beer.


We went to the main bar and tried all their beers.

Neb and Kim


They gave a tour while we were there, so we joined it. Unlike most breweries, they get their water from a spring and they do not treat it. Their brewery is reminiscent of Cantillon and other Belgian sour ale breweries, with many barrels and a koelschip where hot wort is transferred for inoculation with yeast and bacteria that naturally occur in the air.


We went back to Round Rock and stopped at Pinthouse Pizza. This is their third location (the other two are in Austin) and it had just opened weeks earlier. It's a festive place with foosball, table hockey, and tiki toss. They make good beer and even better pizza, and they also have guest beers. We all got pizzas and sampled:


Monday March 4. A 28-degree morning. Drove to Hewitt, where my friends Loyd and Anne, who used to live in my neighborhood, had moved a year and a half earlier. During the drive I got to thinking: I won't date anyone who lives more than 30 minutes from me, but I'll drive thousands of miles for beer. This shows where my priorities are. Women have lied to me, stolen from me, criticized me, and tried to change me. Beer has never done any of those things.

Loyd and I went for lunch and beers at Cricket's Draft House + Grill in Waco (they also have a location in Lubbock). It's not a brewery but it has about 100 taps and great food. We got samples of:


After that we visited Brotherwell Brewing, which opened in early 2018. It's open only on Saturdays, but Loyd knows the owner/brewmaster Jacob, who happened to be there, so he let us in and gave us samples of all the beers he had on tap. All of them were good.

He also gave us a sample of a lager that was still in the conditioning tank. He was very gracious in taking the time to entertain us, and he didn't even charge us for the samples.

Jacob.


We stopped by Cameron Park and saw Lovers' Leap. It was cold and windy so we didn't walk around.

We went over to Dancing Bear Pub, which is a bar with about 16 taps and 40 cans of mostly local brews. Anne met us there after work. We tried:


Our last stop was Texas Roadhouse, a chain restaurant that serves great steaks. They didn't have any craft beer but I got some excellent filet.

Loyd and Anne.


Tuesday March 5. Woke up a little after 1 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I lay in bed feeling the energy in my body. We are beings of energy. Whether we are ghosts in the machine, or just the machine, we are all energy.

Okay, back to Earth. The temperature dropped to 21 degrees overnight. I left Loyd and Anne's at about 8:45 and drove up to Oklahoma. There is lots of open land / prairie / farms, and there were many trucks on the road. Apparently Oklahoma is too cheap to build overpasses because the speed limit is 70-75 for most of the way, but then you'll come to a small town and have to stop at a traffic light. I saw a sign that said, "Do not drive into smoke." This is a warning about prairie fires. It was a nice sunny day, but because it was still winter the grass was yellow and the trees were still bare. Gas was a little more expensive than in Texas, and you have to be careful about where you get it if you're on a budget because some of the smaller places gouge you; stick with the big places that display their prices. The drivers were much better than in all the other states I'd driven in. I guess it has to do with population density. Much like rats will become hostile when their population density gets high, so will people. The population density in Oklahoma is fairly low.

I arrived at Prairie Artisan Ales in Tulsa shortly after 2 PM. They have 3 locations; I went to their Prairie Pub. Sampled 4 of their imperial stouts and a guest beer, and all were good.

Origami dollars made by customers.


Checked into a nearby Airbnb, which is a loft in the back of a historic building. I brought in my beer and water so they wouldn't freeze overnight.

This American Pie poster was on the wall.
Faux fireplace.


I chose this particular Airbnb because it is a 3-minute walk from American Solera's SoBo location (SoBo refers to Tulsa's South Boston Avenue district). Their brewery and another tasting room are located 4 miles away. They opened in 2017, and their brewer used to brew at Prairie Artisan Ales. They make several styles of beer. Their IPAs/DIPAs are really NEIPAs/NEDIPAs, because they're cloudy and contain lactose, but they're not labeled as such. I sampled:


The PartySub and Terpy Galaxy were so great that I bought some cans to go. They had just released cans of Terpy Citra, which wasn't on tap so I couldn't try it, but I bought some anyway because it will probably be great.

Note that the Terpy Galaxy label was put on upside down.


I talked with a young couple named Keith and Candace at the bar about my beer journey, and they drove me to a party at The Rookery, which is a DoubleShot Coffee Company location that had just opened that day. There were hundreds of people there. A beer called Cavern Hymn from local brewery Heirloom Rustic Ales was served. It was the cloudiest kolsch I'd ever seen. After a while Keith and Candace drove me back to the Airbnb.

This is a kolsch?
Candace and Keith.


Wednesday March 6. Up in the wee hours again. Worked on this triplog for a while, as I'd been doing every morning. Temperature was in the low 20s. Left around 6:45 AM. Drove 4 hours, mostly through Kansas on a sparsely traveled highway. There is no such thing as "rush hour" where I was. The scenery left much to be desired; at this time of year the trees are bare and the grass is yellow, and much of the land is farmland anyway, which is ugly in the off season.

Arrived at Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, Missouri 15 minutes before they opened at 11 AM. Ate some food and went in. It's a big place. There is a big production brewery, and a big tasting room about a block away. They give tours. There is educational stuff on the walls, including this historical video:

There is a better video on YouTube:


Anyway, I sampled:

The first two beers were in their regular line-up, and the latter 5 were test batches. Since I was driving I bought samples of only the first two. The test beers are sold only in 8-ounce pours, but my server gave me small splashes of them. I wanted to give him a big tip but they don't take tips here. Before I left I bought a bottle of Terra Vox to go.


Drove almost 4 hours across Missouri to St. Louis. Got pulled over on the way, not for speeding but for not using my turn signal when I changed lanes (there was no one near me except the cop on the side of the road). Since it was such a minor infraction he just checked my registration and insurance information and let me go. The 15-minute delay made no difference because I still got to the next brewery 20 minutes before it opened, which gave me plenty of time to lay a food base.

Perennial Artisan Ales opened in September 2011. I sampled:


Checked into an Airbnb in nearby Maplewood. Schlepped my stuff, including the beer, upstairs to my room. At the previous night's Airbnb the bed was up in a loft so I had to navigate stairs to/from it every time I went to the bathroom. Lesson learned: Airbnbs can save you money, but they can be inconvenient. Parking might be tight, or there might be stairs with no elevator. Often the proprietors won't greet you, but will leave a key in a designated location. The room might be small, or the bathroom might be down the hall instead of adjacent to your bedroom. Sometimes the bathroom is shared. With hotels/motels there is someone there to greet you 24/7 and hand you a room key, there is off-street parking, there are elevators, and you get your own bathroom.

Ubered to Side Project Cellar. This Belgian-inspired beer bar is a tasting room for Side Project Brewing, which is located nearby and open only on Saturdays. Since it was Wednesday I went to the Cellar. I liked the vibe. In addition to their own beers they serve select beers from around the world, as well as many whiskies and a few wines. Their sour ales were quite good, with a smooth lactic sourness and no vinegary notes, but they have gotten such high ratings on Beer Advocate that they could barely match them. Note that in the list below, some say "Side Project" and some say "Shared". The Shared beers are experimental, and different from their normal sour, wood-aged beers (click here for details).

Surprisingly, the Skip & Whistle was murkier than the iTap Lineage, and it wasn't billed as New England-style. It was the only beer they sold in cans, and since I liked it so much I bought a 4-pack.


Walked to Schlafly Bottleworks. (Schlafly also has a tap room 7 miles away in downtown St. Louis.) It's a large venue containing a brewhouse, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a bar. I very much liked the bar's ambience, and thoroughly enjoyed the 1920s/1930s hot jazz music by a group called Miss Jubilee. I'd had Schlafly beers before and enjoyed them, but the ones they had here were not at all to my liking. It seemed that the focus was on fun, and the beers were just an afterthought. The place had the worst set of beers and the best vibe of my entire trip. I tried:

Beers when they were served...
...and what I didn't drink.


Ubered back to the Airbnb and crashed after 11:30.


Thursday March 7. Woke up around 3:30. It wasn't as cold out as was predicted so schlepping all that beer up and down the stairs wasn't necessary. But it gave me some exercise. Left at 7:00. Drove northward. Went through a snowstorm for a while that made the highway slippery so I had to go slow for a while.


At exactly noon I arrived at Big Grove Brewing in Solon, Iowa. (They have another location in Iowa City.) An air raid siren went off just as I got there. It reminded me of my childhood, when my elementary school would sound an air raid siren every Friday at noon. Solon had had below-zero temperatures earlier in the week. Right now it was a balmy 23 degrees. The staff were very nice and friendly. They let me go into the brewhouse so I could snap some photos and meet the brewer, and they gave me a few gratis samples in addition to what I ordered (the tiny glasses pictured below). They also gave me a wooden token that's good for a free pint (shown in the same photo below). Big Grove opened in 2013. Their beers were all fairly good, not great.


I left at exactly 1:00 and drove past lots of snow-covered farmland...


... to Leytze's Corner Historical Bed & Bath in Decorah, Iowa (which had also had below-zero temperatures earlier that week). It took 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there from Solon, which is exactly what Google maps had told me. Leytze's is located in a historical house that was built in the late 1800s. The exterior will give you an idea of what the weather was like.


My room was upstairs, but one of the proprietors, Frank, let me keep the beer downstairs to save me some work. There are several rooms but I happened to be the only guest that day. The place is very pretty.

This room was pretty until I moved in.


The room I stayed in had all sorts of Wizard of Oz stuff in it.


I walked over to Pulpit Rock Brewing, which started in 2015. The place was crowded. All their beers were good.


My next brewery, Toppling Goliath, which opened in 2009, used to be located a block down the street, but they moved to a much larger space about 4 miles away in February 2018. The old brewery is now a bar called Dixie's Biergarten, which is owned by a relative of Toppling Goliath's owner.

I walked back to Leytze's and Frank, who had never been to Toppling Goliath's new location, drove me there. He doesn't drink but he enjoyed hanging out and listening to me prattle on about my beer travels and beer production. Toppling Goliath's beers get great ratings on Beer Advocate, and for the most part they lived up to them. Frank told me that he often gets guests who come into town for Toppling Goliath's beer releases. As of this writing, Toppling Goliath distributes to about half of the U.S. states (and unfortunately Maryland isn't one of them).


We returned to Leytze's and I hit the hay by 9:00.


Friday March 8. Woke up around 2:30 AM. Left around 7:15. Incidentally, everyone I met in Iowa was very nice. Also, gas was more expensive here than down south.

Drove eastward and crossed the frozen Mississippi River into Wisconsin. I saw a horse pulling an Amish buggy, so I suppose there's an Amish community around there.

I approached New Glarus Brewing shortly before 10:00 AM when they opened. Less than a quarter of a mile from their road, the highway was blocked off. Y'ever have that happen? You're so close to a destination, or perhaps an accomplishment, and something impedes you. I could see police lights in the distance. A sign detoured me, so I drove around for a few miles to get on the highway on the other side of New Glarus, and it was blocked from that direction too. I called the brewery and they told me to go back where I came from and drive around the barrier; since their road was before the traffic accident, I'd be able to get in. So I backtracked on the detour route and made my way in.

They don't have a bar per se. Instead, tastings are held in the gift shop. You get 3 samples for $8 and keep the taster glass. There is a self-guided tour so you can see the brewery. They give guided tours on Fridays. The original (smaller) brewery is a few miles away, and is where they brew their Thumbprint Series beers. The brewery opened for business in 1993. I sampled:

After walking around I went down to their "Beer Depot" and bought three 6-packs. It is much cheaper to buy their 12-ounce than their 750-ml bottles. Several of their beers cost $12.50 for 750 ml (almost 50 cents per ounce), while a 12-ounce bottle is $3.75 (just over 31 cents per ounce) and a 6-pack of 12-ounce bottles is $17.50 (less than 25 cents per ounce).


Here is a brief video of their bottling line in operation:


Drove about 3 hours to 18th Street Brewery in Hammond, Indiana (they also have another location in Gary). It has a death metal theme. No sours here but they do have barrels. A guy at the bar saw me taking pictures and talking into my recorder, so he asked me what was up. I told him about my beer trip and this website. Turns out he's the general manager. He's a great guy and his name is Ed. He gave me a tour of the brewery. The building also houses their distillery, called, oddly enough, 18th Street Distillery. I sampled:

Distilling equipment.


Ed told me about The Sour Note Brewing a block up the street, which is owned by the same person who owns 18th Street. I walked over there but it was closed. There were no signs on the doors, just this paint job on the upper part of the dilapidated-looking bulding.


Then I checked into an Airbnb just across the state line in Illinois. It was the best Airbnb of the trip. I had an entire floor of someone's house to myself. It had a large living room with a huge sofa (which I didn't use), a very comfortable bed, and very soft pillows and linens.


Lyfted back into Indiana to 3 Floyds Brewing. The place has a good vibe. They play heavy metal music, especially from a band called High on Fire, who is considered their house band. In fact, the band and the brewery did a collaboration beer called Razorhoof. They serve food that is supposedly great, but I had already eaten. They have a distillery next door but it wasn't open yet. At the time they were planning to expand the brewery and install a canning line. They had 16 house and 4 guest drafts, as well as many guest bottles. They also had Pabst Blue Ribbon (the only beer that won a blue ribbon at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair). Their beers tend to get very good ratings on Beer Advocate. I wasn't impressed. Some of their beers were pretty good, others were a bit bland, and none of them were great. To be fair, they do make some great stouts, but they didn't have any on tap. One particular stout, called Dark Lord, is so popular that once a year they have Dark Lord Day, where you have to get tickets in advance to be able to buy any. They have a website dedicated to this event. The beers I tried were:


Saturday March 9. Up around 3 AM. On a tip from someone at 18th Street, I decided to call an audible. Arclight Brewing is located on the way to the other breweries I'd planned to visit today, so I researched it and got directions. I would be entering the Eastern time zone, which meant that I'd lose an hour, so I left by 8:30 to get there when they opened at 11:00. The further east I drove, the more rude the drivers were. Tailgating seems to be a pastime in that part of the country.

Arclight opened in summer 2014. The beer hall is fairly big, with a few video games and lots of board games. There is outdoor seating too. They have a line of fruit sours called Soursmith, which are all barrel-aged and a little more sour than I like.

When I told the bartender (an assistant manager named Brad) about my website he gave me not only several free samples but also a bomber of the Bourbon Barrel-Aged Berrien County Stout. I'm glad I decided to stop here.

Snickerdoodle.


Two hours later I was at Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. Jolly Pumpkin has 7 locations in Michigan and Illinois. I stopped at Jolly Pumpkin Café & Brewery in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The funky beers are made under the Jolly Pumpkin name. They also have breweries called North Peak, Tortuga Ale Company, and Golden Manatee, which make their non-funky beers (I didn't research the details). I sampled:


Just 5 minutes away in the same town is HOMES Brewery. It has a nice bar, a few rooms, and a patio, and it serves food. It opened in 2017.

They had one beer for sale in bottles to go: an oak-aged fruited wild ale called Composition 3. I was going to buy a bottle but by the time I finished my beers there were a dozen people in line so I didn't wait.


Headed about an hour south to visit my friends James and Alexandra (Alex) in Toledo, Ohio. We had a nice taco dinner with their son Chris and two high school exchange students that they were hosting. I also got to meet their dog, Dash.


Went with James, Alex, and Chris to a couple of local breweries. First was Patron Saints Brewery, which is a small place that had just opened the previous summer. We tried all 12 of their beers.

James, Alex, Chris, and me.


Then we went to Earnest Brew Works, which opened in 2016, and sampled:


We closed the place down and returned shortly before midnight.


Sunday March 10. Slept until 5:45, which seemed late for me until I remembered that:

  1. It was daylight saving time, so I'd lost an hour.
  2. I had lost another hour by entering the Eastern time zone the previous day.
Oh well, I felt rested, and that's all that mattered. Left around 8:45 AM on a gray, cold, windy day. Arrived at Fat Head’s Brewery, Beer Hall and Restaurant in Middleburg Heights, one of Fat Head's three Ohio locations (they also have a pub in Pittsburgh). I got there a half hour before it opened at 11:00. About 10 more people showed up while I was waiting. It's a big beer hall, and it opened on August 29, 2018. Like New Glarus, you can take a self-guided tour of the brewery. I sampled only 2 beers because I'd be visiting 4 breweries today and I had a good amount of driving to do. As usual, I used Beer Advocate to help me decide what to order. I went to the gift shop to buy both beers to go. They were out of Hop Juju (a common occurrence because it's so popular) but I was able to get a 6-pack of Head Hunter.


Two hours east, in Meadville PA, is Voodoo Brewery, one of Voodoo's six locations. It's in a cool-looking old building. Upstairs they have a small stage where musicians and comedians sometimes perform. I sampled:

I liked the Gran Met enough to buy a 4-pack.


Headed southward. Lots of tailgaters in that area. The speed limit is 70 but people want to go 90. An hour and a half later I arrived at Dancing Gnome Brewery in Pittsburgh. It was very busy. The smallest size beer you can order is 9 ounces, so I got only two.

They sold growlers so I got some Warm Hand Splash. In order to save the $5 charge for the growler itself, I used an empty growler that I always keep in my trunk for just such an occasion.


Went to an Airbnb in a neighborhood called Swissvale which, like much of Pittsburgh, is very hilly. The proprietor was not there, and since he had turned his phone off he didn't answer my calls and texts. This is another advantage that motels have over Airbnbs - they answer when you call. I ate some food and ordered an Uber for my final brewery of the day. Then the Airbnb owner called me. He told me the lockbox combination and I got the house key.

The Uber arrived shortly thereafter and took me to Brew Gentlemen in nearby Braddock. The driver said to be careful because it's a rough part of town. The pub has a sort of cave look to it, and it had a lively crowd. There were dogs too. I talked with a young guy named Chris about my beer journey. He coined the term "beer renegade". Somehow we got to talking about the sport of wrestling, which he did as a kid and I did until I was 53. He said he had tickets to the NCAA Division I wrestling tournament, which would be held later that month in Pittsburgh. Anyway, I sampled:

Chris and me.


While I was there I called Fat Head's Saloon, which is located in Pittsburgh, to see whether they had any Hop Juju to go. They didn't. I left Brew Gentlemen shortly after it closed at 8:00, Ubered back to the Airbnb, and brought my stuff inside. I had to climb a lot of stairs because my car was parked well below the house, plus my room was on the second floor. It wasn't a problem since I'm able-bodied, but if I ever stay in an Airbnb again I will ask about stairs first.


Monday March 11. Woke up around 4. Left at 8:45. Drove 3 hours eastward to Pizza Boy Brewing, which has a restaurant called Al's of Hampden that serves pizza and other stuff. They have 99 taps, according to their website. About one-third of the beers were theirs and the rest were guest beers. The smallest size you can order is 8 ounces. I checked Beer Advocate and only one of their beers got a great rating. It wasn't great to my palate but it was good:

They have a good selection of cans and bottles to go. You can make your own six-pack for $15, so that's what I did.


I returned to Maryland and stopped at B.C. Brewery. They're closed on Mondays but the head brewer is my old friend Jim, who I've known through homebrewing since 1995. He was an award-winning homebrewer throughout the 90s and was the head brewer at DuClaw Brewing for 18 years until he took the position at B.C. Brewery when they opened in April 2018. He was working today and let me in. The place is a big beer hall; I didn't take photos of it because all the stools were on top of the tables. It has about 30 normal taps and 24 self-serve taps where you insert a credit card and pay by the ounce (like Auggie's in St. Augustine). The brewery has a canning line that fills 16-ounce cans that are sold on-site only. Jim and I sampled the following:

The final beer in the list was a can of collaboration beer that Jim did with Manor Hill Brewing. Manor Hill's main brewers, Kurt and Milhouse, were assistant brewers under Jim at DuClaw. Milhouse was also head brewer at 3 Stars Brewing for a few years before going to Manor Hill in 2018. Kurt did the can's art work, which has caricatures of the three of them dressed like the Blues Brothers.

Self-serve taps.


After that I returned home, where it was 63 degrees - the warmest weather I'd seen since Louisiana.

What a great adventure. Traveled more than 4500 miles through 20 states, went to 43 breweries (plus a meadery and a distillery), tried 300+ beers, ate some tasty food, saw the Angel Oak Tree and St. Augustine, and visited more than a dozen friends and family. It was beer that moved me to take this trip, but there was so much more.