One perk of taking long road trips is the ability to visit friends you don’t often get a chance to see. A side effect of having a beer blog is that those friends are eager to share their local breweries with you. Not many complaints here! After a respectable amount of driving we rolled into our friends’ driveway, stretched our muscles in the balmy air, took a quick tour of their new home, said hello to our old friend Roxy (a Great Dane we knew as a puppy), and then hopped in their truck. A short drive through endless pine forests and we arrived at Southern Pines Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Frothy Beard Brewing Company
July 25, 2017
I awoke on our last full day in Charleston to a quiet condo with six people asleep. After stumbling out of bed, I made my way to the balcony overlooking the ocean. The early morning sunlight warmed my face and a moment of sadness crept in as I thought about the cold that awaited us back home. I’d sent some feelers out for any breweries that would be open on Easter Sunday just in case we were looking for something to fill time. A response in my inbox let me know that Frothy Beard Brewing Company would be happy to provide a place to eat and drink.
Frothy Beard is located northwest of downtown Charleston in a neighborhood called West Ashley. There was a bit of a struggle locating the building, but when we were greeted by a large mural adoring the name and logo of the brewery we were fairly certain we were in the right spot. With the midday sun beating down on us we took our obligatory photos and entered Charleston’s largest taproom.
Continue Reading…Revelry Brewing Co.
July 23, 2017
With our first full day in South Carolina behind us, we sat at Charleston’s Prohibition trading stories about our day. Some of our group had spent the day collecting sun on the beach outside our condo in an attempt to forget their Michigan weather at home. The others, ourselves included, had taken the day to tour Charleston, visit the Charleston Tea Plantation, and gaze in wonder at the Angel Oak. The next order of business was the question of which brewery we’d be visiting that night. The answer, Revelry Brewing Co.
Continue Reading…Twin Leaf Brewery
July 22, 2017
With one Asheville brewery under our belt, we turned our eyes to one other. From my research I knew there were several in the immediate vicinity. After realizing a few had recently closed for the evening, we settled on a taproom a couple of blocks north of Burial Beer. With a decision made we entered the quiet taproom of Twin Leaf Brewery.
Continue Reading…Burial Beer Co.
July 16, 2017
After a late night of drinking, an early rise, and a heck of a long drive the destination on our GPS finally seemed attainable. As we transitioned into the hills of Tennessee and headed across the border to North Carolina the last episode of S-Town came to an end (absolutely fantastic). I had done some scouting and knew that we’d be crossing the Appalachian Trail. We were running late so we only had a short window of time to jump out of the car, stretch our legs, take a short walk on the trail, and enjoy the amazing weather. We had planned to meet our friends Nicole and Eric in Asheville to share a hotel for the night as well as hit up a pair of breweries. So we jumped back into the car and made an incredibly windy path through the mountains to our first stop: Burial Beer Co.
Continue Reading…Bent River Brewing Company
June 20, 2017
Late on a Tuesday evening in April, Samantha and I spotted the twinkling lights of the Quad Cities. This would be the end of the first leg of our road trip to Charleston, SC. After checking in at our hotel we made our way under cover of night to downtown Rock Island, IL. Our stop was then in sight: Bent River Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Wild Mind Artisan Ales
May 9, 2017
Flipping through my Instagram feed on a late March day I happened upon a post from Wild Mind Artisan Ales. It described their first bottle release event for their Golden Ho/rye/zon American Wild Ale. I made a mental note but promptly forgot about it. The day of the event I was grumbling at work about being cooped up during the unseasonably warm weather and searching for any excuse to get outside. Just like that the event popped back into my head and, after a quick call to my wife, we were off.
Continue Reading…Four Stacks Brewing Company
April 24, 2017
With a week in Florida under our belts we wistfully left our rental home behind. Since our flight wasn’t departing until the following day we got a hotel room in nearby Apollo Beach. With my in-laws car jammed to the literal brim, we made a few last stops on Anna Maria Island and then hit the road. We had an hour or two before check-in, and what better way to kill the time than to visit the local craft brewery: Four Stacks Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Motorworks Brewing
April 12, 2017
This March we were given a rare chance to start patio season a little early. My wife’s family had rented a house on Anna Maria Island. We went down for a week, and my parents visited the week prior. Since we arrived on a Friday night and my parents weren’t leaving until Saturday afternoon, they wanted to take us to lunch before they hit the road for the long drive home. It didn’t take too much to convince my father that a brewery was a good idea, and as long as there was food my mother was happy. I’d done a little pre-trip research so I figured what better way to kick off our trip than a visit to Motorworks Brewing, Bradenton’s first craft brewery.
Continue Reading…Giesinger Bräu
March 20, 2017
We ascended the steps of the Silberhornstraße U-Bahn station on a crisp winter evening in Munich. The sun had long set on our merry band of down coated travelers. We’d braved brisk February days and nights by jumping from biergarten to bierstube drinking refreshing Helles (bright) and malty Dunkles (dark) in the homeland of the famous Bavarian potation. On this night, as the warm glow of the underground station disappeared behind us, the neon glow of our destination appeared: Giesinger Bräu.
Continue Reading…