Hi Gents, The missus and I are looking at heading to the US in March for 3 weeks. (Its my first time to the US.)
What are some breweries that are worth visiting whilst we are there in the following locations we will be visiting.
NYC
DC (Driving to Nashville so anything on the way)
Nashville
LA
SD
The criteria is they must serve decent beers including stouts or dark beers as thats all the missus usually drinks. And have a decent food menu (Or food trucks)
Thanks guys.
Not directly on your route, but out of NYC head south along the Atlantic Coast to Delaware to visit Dog Fish Head. Good tour, great beer, interesting backstory of how a small time home brewer made it BIG.
Then head westward through Pennsylvania to Hershey, PA, home of Hershey Chocolate of course, and tour Troeg's Brewing a few miles east of Chocolate World. Once again, good tour, great beer and a neat backstory. Plan on spending at least a day in Hershey. Lots to do.
From there head south to Frederick, MD, to Flying Dog Brewery where every beer is theme-named after something "K-9". My favorites are "Doggie Style" and "Raging *****". (Beers, that is). Frederick is about 1 hour from the Capitol Beltway that circles D.C. Lots of really good brews in and around the DC/Baltimore area, if you have a few months to visit. Heading to Nashville, however, I'd recommend driving from the Frederick area down Interstate Highway I-81 through Virginia to I-64 to I-26 to Asheville, NC. The drive is one of the prettier in the eastern U.S.
Asheville is a once-sleepy little rural mountain town made famous by Cornelius Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estates, which is really worth doing. Plan on spending at least a day touring the mansion and grounds. Asheville itself is an artistic and cultural oasis in the heart of Hillbilly 'Merica. A number of national craft breweries have either relocated or opened second eastern seaboard breweries in Asheville. Definitely should put this on your itinerary.
From Asheville you're about a three-hour drive to Nashville, which is the site and host city for HomeBrewCon 2020. Also, Country Music Capital of the World.
I guessing you're then flying to the West Coast. Too bad. There's lots to see and do along the way, but I understand the limitations on time only too well. SWMBO'd and I have spent much of the past 6 years traveling the highways and back roads of the U.S., having visited all 48 of the contiguous states as well as 5 Canadian Provinces. Just for the record, that's a LOT of wineries and breweries.
In San Diego you can't miss Ballast Point and Stone Brewing. L.A., I wouldn't know where to start. Pick one, it'll be great. But my favs have been south of LAX a few miles at Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach. I've lost more than a few brain cells at Redondo Beach Brewing Company over the years.
By stopping at L.A., you're really selling yourself short on a Brew Tour of the U.S. You need to visit the Napa/Sonoma area north of San Francisco to stop at Russian River Brewing to taste Vinnie's "Pliny the Elder", which (to my tastes) is still the undisputed and never-to-be-equalled American IPA. And you MUST drink it at the brewery if you want it to count towards your 'brew cred'.
I haven't even begun to mention Oregon and Washington. Suffice it to say it's Brew-topia.
Like anywhere else in the world there are great breweries, good ones, average and terrible ones. Believe me I seen a lot of each category. But the ones I mentioned are some of the more memorable great ones, at least along the travel route you laid out. I'm sure there are countless others that folks on this thread will point out, which just underscores my great lament: "So many breweries....so little time."
Brooo Brother
