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 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 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.

Spring US Beer Festival 08: The result

I reported earlier (What about a beer festival in 08?) that we were planning a spring beer festival somewhere in the US. It was a bit difficult but mainly due to the exact timing and a reasonable distance from Europe during a extended weekend we finally came up with a suitable place. Yes, I know there are plenty of great beer and breweries on the west coast (like Portland that has been mentioned in some of the comments I got) and other places in the country but this year the journey will take us to;

The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 + that we are also planning a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea that I just stumbled upon a few days ago.

This will be great, a couple of beer festival and then the rest of the time heading for some beer journeys to my favorite places like;

1. Barcade, at 388 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, ******

2. Blind Tiger Ale House, at 281 Bleecker Street, *****

3. Mugs Ale House, at 125 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, ****

4. Ginger Man, The, 11 East 36th Street, ****

5. CB Six, at 252 East 51st Street, ***

6. Spuyten Duyvil, at 359 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn ***

Sadly the earlier number 3 spot; The Collins Bar, at 735 8th Ave. @ 46th St., as I earlier reported is no more so we can not start the trail anymore over at this amazing little place close to Times square.

But I guess we can live with House Of Brews - W. 51st Street close to the hotel. And hopefully some other places can be included that we have not visited in NY before.

My Own Beer Resolutions for 08

Just read a nice little entry over at "The Beer Retard" regarding his resolutions for the new year. And inspired by this I had to create my own.

2007 was also I great beer year for me. I finally got myself together and actually started to write at least something here at my blog. I visited all the major beer festival that I got the change to attend, meaning Copenhagen, GBBF, Stockholm Beer and finally GABF in Denver. I will not forget those experiences.

Plus that a few smaller festivals or happenings like a small real ale fest in London in april and the Swedish\Danish challange in June. Even visited New York over the weekend and visited the favorites pubs plus a few new ones, among the amazing Barcade bar that is now on my top 5 list of favorite pub all categories.

Continued my stupid habit of taking a photo of each beer I drink and publish it on the web!, yes I know it is very geeky stuff.

I had amazing beers and really got stuck with all the IPAs, IIPAS, Imperial Stouts etc that I sampled both in the US, but also got the opportunity to drink them back home over at Oliver Twist (thanks Jugge). Discovered new breweries like Green Flash, Moylan, The Tap, Laughing Dog, Oggis.

Best beer experience all categories;

"Drinking a draught Oak Aged Gordon in Lyons and OB during a very sunny day and the GABF week, we never wanted to leave!".

To add something to that experience it was also the same day that they released "Ten FIDY Imperial Stout" on a can!


Anyway based on that, how about 2008?, well here is my own Beer Resolutions for 2008:

1. Continue to buy a read more beer books and to learn more.

2. Several beer trips but this will hopefully be the smaller festivals year and I will not focus only on the big ones. The smaller are often more pleasant and you have the possibility to actually enjoy the beers and the breweries.

3. Plan and hopefully also get to New England for a longer beer travel experience during the summer.

4. Continue with the blog and trying to expand my thoughts and writing, meaning not just about all the beer I drink.

5. Pay more attention to less hoppy styles of beer (copied from the beer retard)

6. Try more beer styles and find new beer countries that I have not experienced so much before, has been the case before but the last 2 years I have been stuck so much with US beers. This years I recon that I will give a new try with German beers, but also maybe check some beers from Argentina and even Japan. The German experience has already been started in smaller scale.

7. Try to actually drink beers from my beer collection that I bring home, and not just store them, that can be done by others, meaning pubs and other establishments.

8. And finally come back to Barcade!

Thats it.

What about a beer festival in 08?

UPDATED 08013

We have no fixed plans for a beer festival in the US next year. This year we visited the extreme beer fest in Boston and the GABF over at Denver. But next year is still blank.

So I have tried to find a bunch of festivals that sound OK and fits suitable days (spring or the fall). So far I have also created a shortlist.

But what do you think out there?
Am I missing something?
Do you recommend a certain festival?
Or is something definitely no idea to attend?

What we are looking for is a good local festival with a large amount of US-craft beers (does not mean huge like GABF) in a calm and civilized arrangement. Last year the extreme beer festival was definitely something we enjoyed and the type of festival we are looking for. So something that is different from for example the extreme big festivals as for example GABF represents. It is also a plus if it is located in a area where you can have some additional days to explore; meaning with breweries, pubs and other beer related activities.

So what do you think? What should it be?

Top 4:

1. The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 (*****) + a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea Brew Co.

2. Beer Summit April 2008, Boston; April 18 & 19 (***)

3. Philly Craft BeerFestival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; march 1 (*)

5. NY Brewfest, New York; September (**)

(*) Means what the current status looks like.


Outside the list:

5. American Beer Fest, Boston; June 15, 16 (*)

6. TAP newyork08 New Yorks Craft Brew Festival, Hunter, NY; April 26,27

7. 25th Annual San Francisco International Beer Festival, Fort Mason, San Francisco ; April 26

8. Great International Spring Beer Festival, Providence, RI; May 5

9. Brooklyn Pigfest; May 12
.