New England Report 13:2008-07-24 (Greenfield -- Amherst)

We left Greenfield in the morning and first decided to have some sightseeing outside the normal beer tracking events.

So we had a short drive outside Greenfield and went to the beatiful area of Shelburne Falls. The place is famous for its falls and also the so called "Bridge of flowers", a former trolley bridge over the Deerfield River that is now maintained by the Shelburne Falls Women's Club as a floral display from April through October.

It was raining quite much during the staty but we enjoyed the short stay and checked out the bridge plus the nearby falls with its famous glacial potholes that has been formed by the Deerfield River.

After this it was time to continue our beer trip so we started the GPS again and went south towards the city of South Deerfield and the "Berkshire Brewing Company" brewery.

As it was not much to see and it seems they had nothing opened for public we simply took some pictures to have it counted (all counts, :-)) and then continued south again.

Northampton (MA) and the "Northampton Brewery" was the next stop. This is a centrally located brewpub in Northampton and it was opened for business. It was opened for lunch we had not the time to test anything of their food. Instead we ordered in the samplers and even got a new beer from the brewer himself. The beer was not on but it was being prepared so we got a chance to sample his new brew, it turned out to be a very nice red ale that we really enjoyed.

The rest of the samplers included;

133. Blue Boots IPA

134. Raspberry Brown

135. Old Brown Dog

136. Blackberry Stout

137. Redheaded Stepchild Red Ale (the new one)

138. Sandshovel ESB

They do quite decent beers here and something to recommend. The ESB was really good and I also enjoyed the IPA. The place is quite large and they also have a outside terrace that you should check out. We sat as we normally do in the bar but I think a lunch at the outside terrace is also a great experience.

The place is located in downtown Northampton and suitably located on "11 Brewster Court", yes it is true the place is called brewster. Northampton has been around for quite a while, they opened up the doors already in 1987. They have a large variety of beers and it seems a very popular outdoor, rooftop beer garden.

Very friendly staff and having a conversation with the brewer regarding our visit to the Vermont brewers festival (that he had also visited) is always fun, and a free beer is always great. Great experience and something we can recommend.


Crossed the connecticut river and went east to the city of Amherst where we in downtown visited the "Amherst Brewing Company". It was pouring down with heavy rain so we had to walk in the rain from the parking lot. Time for lunch and some more beers was on the list. We had a great lunch and sampled the following beers;

139. Cascade IPA

140. North Pleasant Pale Ale

141. Seeing Double IPA (amarillo/cascade)

Very tasty beers and beers that was really big in hops, something that is mostly popular among us hopheads. Everything that has loads of hops in it is most often a hit for us.

The food is also great, an excellent pub menu with many daily specials. Both the Cascade and the Seeing IPA is normally available on cask and it seems they do it very well. A good place to hang out and have some beers in Amherst.

After lunch we decided to stick in Amherst for a while longer as we went down the street towards the bar "Moan and Dove". But that needs its own entry completely, so lets continue with Moan later on.

New England Report 12:2008-07-23 (New London -- Greenfield)

The next day started south in New Hampshire and the city of Manchester. Fun to see that so many cities are influenced with English cities and you get names as Manchester, Dover, Gloucester etc, even more interesting that we just before New London came from West Lebanon, wonder where that name comes from. The goal for Manchester, which is pretty large town, was "Millys Tavern" and to sample some of their beers.

Millys is located in a large brick building at the river front (merrimack river) in central Manchester.

The place does their own handcraftet beers on site and most often has up to 9 different styles on tap plus a couple of seasonals. They have a 15 barrel DME system install and uses water from Massabesic with northwestern hops.

We came early and did not have time for lunch, otherwise it seems they had a good choice in food.

Decided to have the sampler and came up with the following result;

113. Manch Vegas IPA
114. Mt. Uncanoonus Golden Cream Ale
115. Tashas Red Ale Tail Ale

116. Hells Bells Belgian Strong Dark Ale

117. General John Stark Dark Porter

118. Millyes Oatmeal Stout

119. Bo's Scotch Ale

Good quality beers, not worldclass. What I remember is that I really liked the Hells Bells ale which was really a kick in the ass strong ale that made you warm inside out.

The official information tells you;

"Hell's Bell's is a Belgian-inspired Strong Dark Ale. You won't have to sell your soul for a taste of this devilish concoction of the finest imported malts and hops, Belgian Candi Sugars and spices. Fruity phenolics and a hint of vanilla enhance the flavor of this 9% ABV ale. Do Hell's Bells toll for you?O.G.: 1.083 F.G.: 1.018 ABV%: 9"

This beer was a seasonal so do not expect to see this so much in the future. From the standard choices I would recommend the outmeal stout. A rich beer in color, smell and taste and very traditional to the style.

We had earlier arranged at meeting with one of the brewers over at Pennichuck Brewery in Milford NH. We got some help from Jugge over at Oliver Twist in Stockholm as he had met the owner a couple of times. So through Jugges help we were invited to this tiny brewery located in a old workshop garage outside Milford.


As we finally found this place it was at start really difficult to understand that it was hiding a fullscale brewery. A brewery that is not much older that a couple of years, but already is making a name in the industry with big beers like belgian trippels or barley wines. When you talk about big you can also notice that they like to use large bottles influenced by Belgium, meaning 1 liter bottles. Nice to look at, but really a hell to get home in your bag, :-).

(Exterior of the brewery, what happened to this poor car??)

The owner Phil Jewett was not at the brewery when we entered the place arround 14, but we instead were helped by the new headbrewer Damase Olsson (yes he has some connection with Sweden). They were in middle of brewing so we got a nice quick tour of the brewery during the same time as Damase were brewing and putting stuff in the brew. Fun to see. The brewery is not large but they already have 4 different standard brews plus a bunch of special brews that they package on 1 liter bottles.

(Brewery interior)

(Damase the headbrewer giving us a quick tour of the brewery)

Asking if they also did their own botteling the answer was of course yes and we got to see the very tiny and very manual equipment where all the botteling was done. Not large but very effective it seems.

We got to sample all of the standard beers including;

120. Halligan IPA (my favorite)

121. Fireman Pale Ale

122. Feuerwehrmann Black Lager (Schwarzbier)

123. Big O Oktoberfest (which was the new oktober beer that we sampled directly from the brew, great experience)

The visit was short but exciting and we thanked for the visit and bought some beers to get home to Sweden. Hope to see more from this brewery in the future and it will interesting to see how it will grow from the current limited quantities. Maybe we can expect some beers to turn up in Stockholm in a near future?

Continued to Westminster in MA and the "Wachusett Brewing Company". Had the standard beer tour and also sampled some of the beers. Wachusett seems quite large and uninspring, it says quite much when the breweries large seller (arround 80%) is a very boring Blueberry Wheat. It is difficult to do a good wheat and sometimes you do not understand why american breweries like to do it so much when the result is so bleak.

Maybe it is has to do with sales and warm summer days. Anyway it is very rare that you find a good beer when you have to sample a seasonal wheat in the US. Some times it happens but then you need to try to do it much more traditional belgian or german and it is much more interesting if you do a hefe wheat instead, good examples include; ÜberSun and Hop Sun from Southern Tier.

Sampled beers;

124. IPA

125. Black Shack Porter

126. Blueberry Wheat

After the brewery visit we ended up in Greenfield and headed for the "Peoples Pint" bar. Not much to say about this place. Quite good beers but I do not really understand the hype.

127. Pied pIPA

128. ESB (cask)

129. Provider Pale Ale

130. Helles Bock

131. Oatmeal Stout

132. Farmers Brown

Maybe it was the town itself or maybe the peanut wok (I can understand pasta with some peanut, but not cold peanut with some pasta, :-), better to get the burger at this place, probably a much better choice) that made it bad place. I did not like it much but it seems to very popular arround this area and the beers get quite good rating over at beeradvocate.

As Greenfield did not offer any more beer experiences (at least good experiences) it was just to get home to the motel and recharge for a new day.

New England Report 11:2008-07-22 (Leaving Montreal)

The day after our short beer trail in Montreal started out with some more attempts to sample more beers from Quebec. This turned out to be very difficult and it seemed easier to just get back to the US and continue our New England beer adventure.

Through out the day we first went to Chambly and the Unibroue brewery. Famous for beers like "Trous Pistoles" and the my favorite "The Raftman". Great brewery but it seemed a bit big and closed for beer sampling visitors so we took a photo and then continued south to the US border. Seems that opened tap rooms is not discovered yet in Quebec, which is a bit sad for such a great brewery.

Next place on the list was a place called; BroueMont Pub & Brewery in bromont. Seemed to be a cool place but it turned out to be my worst visit ever. Ok it seemed they had some beers to sample, but it also seemed that the girl working (I am not sure if she really was working) at the place totally ignored us during 10 minutes. 4 people gets into a pub, gets to the bar and checks out the beers as we normally do as beer geeks.

What happens, well nothing, this girl simply goes around from bar to the table area and back and just talks in the phone with a friend or similar. She does not even blink to us and just continues to talk in the phone until we simply gives up.

For me this place should either decide to get rid of such awful people or consider closing down and do other stuff with their lives. Ok if the place maybe was closed, but could you not just get of the phone and simply inform us about that. If a place is opened and you can actually get to the bar my thought is that it is opened for business, or I am wrong?

This was one more example of the very bad attitudes we experienced arround Montreal. Do not understand the problem but it simply did not give any welcome feeling and you just wanted to leave.

Anyway enough talking about BroueMont, they might have beers but did not want to sell any of them, so I wish them good luck. Ever arround Bromont, just remember to forget this place and continue your journey, it is not worth the trip and you just waste valuable hours being totally ignored, simply crap.

We had a couple of more places in Quebec but decided after the bromont experience that we should give up and get back to the US instead, we had being travelling for hours and did not succeed in getting a single beer. Seems that Montreal and the actual city is the best choice for sampling beers from the area. If you go, you should probably have more time in Montreal and if you go you should not miss the amazing beers from DDC, they are at least worth the trip to Montreal.

Passed the border to Vermont and continued south to the "Trout River Brewing Company". Located in the beutiful area of Lyndonville this brewery has been on my beer map for a while. Unfortunately it was also closed for visitors and it turned out only to be opened for a couple of hours and on other days.

Nice place but sorry to say, we had not luck in getting beers at Trout either. Getting a bit desparate we decided to go for a safe place, so we header south and went down to the Long Trail Brewing company instead. This place was at least safe and we knew that it should be opened for business.

As for the rest of vermont this brewery is also located in a very nice area with surrounding mountains.

Long Trail Brewing Company is located in a place called Bridgewaters Corners and they have a large number of beers to offer. Both the IPA and the standard Long Trail Ale is great craft beers. Maybe not the most exiting brews, but they are well done and traditional to the style. The place is a large building similar to a winery of similar. They have a large bar area and with a complementary self brewery tour. We finally sampled some beers and went through the following beers;

96. Blackberry Wheat
97. Belgian White
98. Hefeweizen
99. Long Trail Ale
100. Double Bag
101. IPA

Where the Long Trail Ale (altbier) is probably my favorite beer. It has a very deep red color and a nice white head. Minor smell of hops and simply a very drinkable beer, not too much, but still a hoppy and bitter beer.

Crosed the border and went to New Hampshire again and the very famous "Seven Barrel Brewery" in West Lebanon. We sampled the following beers;

102. Quechee Cream Ale
103. Ice Rock Canadian
104. New Dublin Brown
105. The Red #7
106. Champion Reserve IPA
107. RIP Stout

Ended up in New London and after a short visit to our motel we walked up to the "Flying Goose Brewpub & Grill". A great place to end the beer day. The place is located so that you have a look a very beatiful view out over the mountains. It started to rain just after we came to the place so that it was really nice to sit inside and check out the rain during our dinner with beers.

Sampled beers included;

108. Crocketts Corner Oatmeal Stout
109. Perley Town IPA
110. Hedgehog Brown Ale
111. Flying Goose Pale Ale
112. Potter Place Porter

New England Report 10:2008-07-21 (Short trip to Montreal)

After Burlington it was time to head north and our very short and limited beer trip to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

We had first a short stop and a local beer shop outside Burlington and extended the beer storage. Concentrated on Vermont beers so we only managed to get a couple beers from our new favorite brewery of Rock Art (link to the brewery). Rock art is new for us, but turned out to be a brewery that just turned 10 years this year. They do a couple of great beers inluding the amazing IIPA and the funky Jasmine Pale Ale (spiced with herbs), plus the barley monster of "Vermonster".

Also saw some local beers from Sweden that had travelled all the way to Vermont. Nice to see that Oppigårds is concenquring the world now days. One of my favorite breweries in Sweden, great to see.

After the stop at the beer shop it was just to program the GPS once again and head for Montreal, Quebec.

We arrived in the city after a few hours drive and very quick stop at the Canadian border control. We managed to find our hotel outside the airport and started our beer trail in Montreal.

The first and only big stop planned was the "Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel". We first heard about this place and brewery when Oliver Twist and Jugge served their beers at the Stockholm Beer Festival last year. So we knew that they do big beers compared to most other beers in Canada. The beers they have is a big mixture of beer traditions from US and Europe with a extra touch, something like mixing belgian beers with influences from the US.

They had a impressive list of own brewed beers, I think it included at least 15 different beers all on tap including a cask version.

Sampled beers included;

81. Voyageur Des Brunes (ESB) (Cask)

82. Grand Messe Ale (rousse)

83. Corne Du Diable (American IPA)

84. Mea Culpa India Cream Ale

85. Desse Nocturne Stout

86. Aphrodisiaque Stout (Cacao Et Vanille) (American Stout)

All great beers including the amazing Aphro beer that we also sampled in Stockholm last year. A jet black stout with very strong milky chocolate aromas plus the touch of vanilla on the top. A excellent stout.

After the visit to DDC we had accomplished the best of Montreal and probably Canada so did not expect much of the next couple of places. Walking south from DDC we visited the following places.

"La'mere a boine"

87. Hefe Weizen (should not call it hefe, awful beer)

88. Odense Porter (even worse, should get 1 from me)

89. Fin De Sieghe (red ale)

Nice place, but awful beers.

"Le Saint-Bock Brasserie Artisanale"

Much better place with comfortable couches that you can spend hours in. A good mix of local Quebec beers including their own. Also influenced by American and Belgian breweries and beer styles.

90. Route Des Indes maitre brasserie IPA

91. Du Chaudron Cobra IPA

92. Barberie Bitter (Cask)

93. 3M American Pale

94. Porter a Lerable Hopfenstark

"The Keg"

Last bar we found, not part of the plan and no more comments.

95. Rickards Red Ale

This beer is from the large Molson brewery, but is quite decent for a macro beer.

That’s it for Montreal and Quebec for now.

I guess you appreciate the city a bit more if you stay longer, but right now it was mostly an unfriendly place where people do not want to speak English and try to be so much French as possible.

Compared to a US brewery or brewpub the difference is quite big, meaning if you talk about customer service, or simply being friendly and appreciating the customer being at your establishment.

I am maybe a bit harsh, but the difference is so great compared to the US so being in Quebec 24 hours you simply long for getting back to the US.

At least DDC is world class place and the beers and even the atmosphere over at Le Saint-Bock was great for sampling Quebec beers. To summarize it, the beers were great, but the city probably needed more time for showing its better sides.

New England Report 9:2008-07-20 (Burlington, Vermont)

We had planned a slower phase of the trip so the next day was a full day in Burlington and the same hotel as the day before. Burlington is a great city to stay at when you want craft beers from Vermont and you do not even need to leave central Burlington to find a couple of great local breweries and brewpubs.

After some shopping we started the first couple of beers over at "Magic Hat" in south burlington. We managed to get to the brewery tour at 13.00 and started with some samples in their temporary beer tent outside the brewery. Here I got to sample the following beers before the tour started;

68. Magic Hat Lucky Kat
69. Orlio Brewery IPA
70. Notion (sour beer)

The tour started and it turned out to be very popular so it got really crowded when got into the brewery. With the help of a great dude from the brewery we got to see the whole brewery from start to end and got loads of information from our cool guide. Magic Hat is quite big brewery and they are constantily growing.

As a brewery they are fun with a large number of beers each year. Not my favorite brewery but they do decent drinkable beers and sometimes they show that they can do big beers. If have nothing else to choose from it is always a great choice to pick up the Magic Hat #9 or a Lucky Kat.

We learned the story and history of the brewery and it was one of the better beers tours so far, simply quick and loads of information (sometimes these tours can be so long and boring, meaning that a brewery works in the same way, so you have listened about how you do beers many times).

After the tour and Magic Hat we programmed the GPS and went outside the city to Waterbury and the very popular "Alchemist Pub & Brewery". Popular was very easy to see as it was the longest queue ever in the history of beer samples (at least what I have experienced) at the vermont brewers festival.

As we did not have the time and strenght to stand in the queue during the festival we simply figured out that it must be much easier to actually get to the place. It turned out that we were early as they did not open until 15.00 plus that it started to rain. So 4 beer geeks were standing outside in the rain for at least 15 minutes until they let us in, must have looked quite fun as it seems that Waterbury is not a big city to do much more in.

The Alchemist is a pub and brewery and they simply do BIG beers in all type of categories, some might thing they are simply to extreme but that actually do great beers with a extra touch. Most of the beers include different american styled pales, IPAs and IIPAs but they also experiment with styles as Dopplebock and Saison (american style). As we had to wait for the chef to get to work we sampled some beers before "lunch" including;

71. Pappys Porter
72. The Crusher Imperial Pale Ale (cask)
73. Holy Cow (IIPA)

I like this place, both as place to get great food and seconday get the opportunity to drink some amazing IPAs and IIPAs.

I must say that when they finally got the Holy Cow on a free tap it turned out to be one of the best beers of the beer trail and definately the best beer from Vermont. It was a amazing experience and the Holy Cow should be on my beer list, only problem is that you need to get to Vermont, through that it will probably not make it. But its is something to check for next time you get the opportunity.

Bought a cool T-shirt and also managed to meet the brewer over at Cape Ann in Glouchester, MA. This was a really nice guy that had also been to the festival the day before. He did not remember and neither did we, but we actually met him over at his brewery a couple of days earlier (so I have their bus in a picture both in Glouchester and Waterbury, Vermont).

To summarize, if you ever go to norhern Vermont, you simply have to get to the Alchemist and try out these amazing brews, it is worth the trip and it is once in a life time beer experiences.

After a quick trip up to Stowe and Ben'&'Jerry ice-cream factory we turned the car back to Burlington and night out in the city.

Visits during the evening was concentrated on the breweries and places we did not have time to visit after the festival.

"Three Needs Brewery and Taproom":

74. IPA

A fun place were we met both the brewmaster of "3" and a brewmaster from "MOUT Brewery" in North Conway, NH. Moat Mountain is a brewery that I liked to visit but simply did not have the time, at least very nice people and we talked a bit about beers and other stuff about brewing in both US and Sweden.

"American Flatbread" (Zero Gravity)":

75. T.L.A India Pale Ale (American Flatbread Burlington Hearth)
76. Rock Art I.P.A (cask)
77. Trout River Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
78. Orlio Organic IPA (bottle)
79. Magic Hat Chaotic Chemistry (plus 5)
80. Zero Gravity Boognish Brown

American Flatbread is both a restaurant and brewery (Zero Gravity), so that both have their own beers here but also a large amount of other Vermont based breweries. So this was a good place to stay a couple of hours, you did not need to travel all over Vermont to get the beers, instead you could sit in the bar and enjoy everything that beers is about in Vermont. Great place.

Due to the nice bar at American Flatbread it turned out that we did not get further in Burlington and the beer storage was full for us. What can you do, it must simply end and it was time to get home to our hotel again.

The area arround Burlington was great and the day included loads of great beers where the 2 winners went to the Holy Cow from the Alchemist and the Chaotic Chemistry from Magic Hat.

What more can you wish for.

New England Report VIII:2008-07-19

The report from our New England Beer Trail now continues, the trip is already finished, but I need this for the future, so lets continue.

The day after the festival in Burlington ended up in central Burlington with a visit to "Nectars".

Recommended by BeerAdvocates that we often turn to when you need a good place. This time it maybe turned out a bit wrong as the place was a club that describes it self as; "the club is a sultry, down home juke joint providing cocktails, dancing, live Blues, Boogie, Groove, Soul, and straight up Rock SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK!".

As we are not the club-people anymore (probably never been, :-)) we sort of did not like the place too much.

They have a impressive amount of craft-beers (probably why BeerAdvocate had it on the list) but that does not matter if it takes ages to actually get the beer and had to sit in a extremelly loud environment. We had some food and at least got a local craft beer, but then left the place in a hurry.

67. Magic Hat Circus Boy

After that it was just to get home and have some rest so that you could load your batteries for a new day in burlington.

New England Beer Trail: "The Result in pictures and locations"

More information will come and as usual it seems I had the normal problem with the internet so my goal to update everything during the trip failed.

Anyway I think we achieved most of the things we planned for a added some new fun stuff a long the way, when the original plan proved to be impossible to follow (you are always so optimistic back home, but often forget that you also need to spend some time at each place, not only travel between them, :-)) and we had to change a few things.