A Brewery A Day

Bikes and Beer seem to go together these days like Laverne & Shirley. So it’s no wonder that when I was trying to find a way to get around Eugene, Oregon on my day trip there by train from Portland, I found myself on a bike from a brewery. Falling Sky Brewing dons clouds in their logo and “let it pour” as a slogan, a nod to Eugene’s notoriety of being one of the nation’s cloudiest cities. I felt in my element riding around on a coaster bike with brewery branding all over it on a fall day with light drizzle. It came from their free bike share program: stop by their pub, put down a deposit, and get the bike -- complete with a helmet and lock -- for 24 hours. I felt a teeny bit guilty riding around to other breweries in town with it, but then again, it’s a service for the community, and I was a riding advertisement for Falling Sky all day long.

Falling Sky is trying to distinguish itself in a city that’s spawned some pretty well-known breweries. Ninkasi is among the fifty largest in the country. Oakshire is celebrating ten years of brewing and has expanded into some East Coast markets. Hop Valley was recently purchased by MillerCoors. But Falling Sky is something unique on its own -- part brewery, part delicatessen, part homebrew shop, part pizzeria (they now operate out of four different locations). The brewery has created a small empire in Eugene in the span of just four years, and established their role in the community with efforts like charitable beers, the bike share program, and even a collaborative beer to promote mass transit. You might say that it’s all very... Oregon. And it is.

The beer here is also very Oregon. That is, a salute to the land around the brewery. Eugene is in the Willamette Valley, one of the biggest hop growing regions in the world. So it’s no wonder that they make their share of hop-forward beers, like the double dry-hopped Exposure IPA or the Polar Melt Pale Ale. But they also delve into a variety of styles from overseas, from English Bitters to German Hefeweizens, Czech Pilsners to Belgian Pale Ales. They’ve brewed well over 200 different beers, and that innovation means a visit one time may be far different from the next. But each visit is worth biking back for... lest you lose your $150 bike share deposit.

When you're a fan of a brewery for a while, you feel a sense of pride when you see them all grown up. That’s how I felt when I walked into 21st Amendment’s new taproom in San Leandro, California for the first time. Opened in 2015, the sprawling new facility is just a few miles from the original brewpub in San Francisco that introduced me to the brewery for the first time. On my first visit, they were known almost exclusively to beer geeks in the Bay Area, but 21A would soon embark on an expansion beyond the walls of the pub in SoMa. A couple years after my first visit, I started to see their cans -- brewed under contract at Cold Spring in Minnesota -- at home in New York. They continued to grow over the next seven years, cracking the list of the 50 largest craft breweries in the US in 2013, and jumping to the 35th largest in 2015. The new facility has unleashed big opportunities for the brewery -- the same way its namesake amendment unleashed beer on a dry nation.

It’s practically a tired old trope these days, but I was talking about Hell or High Watermelon to every beer geek that I knew for months after my first trip to 21st Amendment’s brewpub in the mid-2000s. “Watermelon?! In BEER,” friends would react, with either a look of interest or complete disdain. Today, the beer that 21A is best known for elicits the same reactions. But it barely scratches the surface of their offerings. Brew Free or Die IPA is a long-time best-seller, and they were canning Back in Black back before Black IPA was a widely-accepted term. Bitter American was a long-time favorite of mine, and evolved into the Down to Earth Session IPA with a little less biscuit and a little more hop character. And this past year, 21A took a gamble on two new year-round beers: El Sully, a Mexican-style Lager, and Toaster Pastry, a bold Amber Ale in a tallboy can that’s a nod to the San Leandro brewery’s previous life as a Kellogg’s factory that made Pop-Tarts. 

I sampled a little of everything when I visited the massive new building in San Leandro for the first time, and as I stood around, sipped, and watched the hustle and bustle of a big industrial brewery around me, I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time, I was drinking 21st Amendment beer at the source, and it wasn’t in a cramped restaurant before a Giants game at AT&T Park. Instead, I had room to walk around, see the brewery, play bocce, and sip in the sunshine outside. I’ve watched beer geeks get bothered when one of their favorite breweries gets big, but this is a sure sign of success for Nico Freccia and Sean O’Sullivan, who started that little brewpub in 2000 across the bay. Sometimes, bigger is better.

I’ve known Sam Masotto for seven years. Back in 2009, he was pouring me beers at The Pony Bar in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City on a regular clip. I had gotten into homebrewing at the time, and he was giving me tips. “Man, you should open your own brewery,” I said to him at the time, before I knew better than to assume not all homebrewers had aspirations of going pro. But he told me he was actually planning on it. I sort of laughed, but he was determined to make it work, learning the tricks of the commercial trade while working at Newburgh Brewing in the Hudson Valley in between bartending stints, until last year, when he announced he had landed on a space for a brewery. In July, Bonn Place Brewing Co. opened its doors in a small brick building on the south side of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, fulfilling his dream.

Let’s not glamorize this, though -- opening a brewery is a pain in the ass. Finding equipment, dealing with legal entanglements, and navigating getting approval to open from the federal, state, and local levels are all hurdles Sam had to clear. That’s what made opening day at the brewery such a raucous celebration. There was a packed house there to drink pints of the four beers he had on tap: Mooey, a Bitter; Pig Tale, a Pale Ale; Opus, an Amber Ale; and Scottish Breakfast, a Wee Heavy. People were elbow-to-elbow drinking in the cozy taproom that houses an L-shaped bar and a larger standing area that overlooks the brewery. The brewhouse almost looks like it’s in some sort of beer prison, behind bars that separate it from the drinking area. Never shall the two mix, which is probably for the best.

When Sam saw me on opening day, he came out from behind the bar to hug me. He knew I had been following along for a while and wanted to see his dream become reality. He was sweaty and exhausted from an hour of pouring beer nonstop even with a full staff, but I could tell he was happy, relieved, and ready for the new challenges that lie ahead as a commercial brewer.

When I walked into The Actual Brewing Company on a hot Sunday afternoon, I found an empty taproom. No customers, no bartenders... in fact, I wondered if I had misread their hours and they weren't actually open. I saddled up to the bar for a couple minutes before co-founder and brewer Jonathan Carroll emerged from the brewing space to greet me. "Not many people want to spend their Sunday in an industrial park by the airport," he joked about the slow day. It's true that the small brewery is tucked away in a row of single-story buildings (my Uber driver was unsure that he was dropping me off in a safe location) and there's no sign in front of the brewery -- just a set of tables and chairs on the pavement in front that vaguely suggests it's a place where people might sit and drink beer. I started to wonder why I myself had come out to an industrial park by the airport. Then I tried the beer.

The taproom has the charm of a carpeted basement rec room, with loud music, a few tables and chairs, some board games, a TV equipped with video game consoles, and a small but very tall bar with a pair of short stools. Actual prefers function over form when it comes to the taproom, but when it comes to the beer, it's a perfect balance of both. I tried the Eccentricity, a French Ale with a pleasant malty sweetness and notes of peppercorn brewed with a Biere de Garde yeast, and the Luxon, a light and crisp saison. Actual also makes some bolder, yet still straightforward beers, like an Irish Red called Resistor, an Abbey Ale called Temporal, and a well-regarded Imperial Stout called Fat Julian. I took home cans of their Photon Light Lager, which was impressively flavorful for a low-alcohol, low-calorie beer. 96 calories, to be precise, and precision is something Actual is known for, as Carroll showed me the brewery’s full-scale laboratory that offers analysis of alcohol content, yeast health, alpha acid levels, pH, bitterness, and various other measurements. It’s something that Actual doesn’t just do on its own beers; they offer their services to other local breweries, who can save a bundle on shipping off beer to labs across the country for the same information. Knowing all this, the brewery’s motto is clever and accurate: “brewed with tender loving science.” 

Business eventually picked up that afternoon at the taproom, and groups of two, four, and six people came in to share some beers. They may not have come for the ambiance, but people rarely do when it comes to brewery taprooms in industrial parks. The beer is the star of the show at Actual, with science as a strong supporting actor.

I visited Seventh Son twice on my visit to Columbus this summer, but my second visit was far more unique than my first. I happened to stumble upon the weekend of the brewery's hosting of a massive flea market in its parking lot and back room that drew hundreds of people to its space in the Short North area of the city. It was a testament to how they've transformed the brewery into a community gathering space -- a place where people want to spend time socializing and meeting with neighbors, not just a dingy tap room where a few people drink beer.

Indeed, the taproom itself is a polished, well-appointed space with old bottles and fresh flowers lining the bar. There are comfortable sitting areas with couches, a patio with a separate bar, and a large back room that on one visit was hosting a company's summer outing (current and future employers, please take note). Food trucks take shifts outside and deliver to the bar for ease of service. It's a well-oiled operation, to say nothing of the beards and mustaches of the staff.

Oh, and the beer? That keeps people coming back, too. There’s an ever-rotating selection of beers on tap. Their Stone Fort Oat was the biggest standout for my taste buds, smooth and roasty and just what I’d expect from a Brown Ale. The Humulus Nimbus is their year-round American Pale Ale that drinks closer to an IPA. For the hot summer days I visited, the Hadron’s Collider, a 2.8% ABV Table Beer, and the Oast Session IPA were both refreshing. And on the day of the flea market, it was a bit warm, so the beer also paired nicely with pies, used records, tacos, vintage athletic wear, fresh vegetables, healing stones, chicken salad sandwiches on challah, jewelry, cheddar scallion biscuits, and yoga mats. 

I’ve come across my fair share of breweries in strip malls in my travels, and they seem so out of place on first glance. But while Lineage Brewing’s home may look like a generic brick building with a couple of chain businesses (a Bonchon Chicken and a Valvoline Oil Change shop, to be precise), it’s actually a repurposing of an old car wash. Plenty of breweries operate in industrial buildings that are large enough to drive a car through, but Lineage’s brewery literally had cars driving through it in a previous life. Today, the space, in the Clintonville section of Columbus, has traded one type of suds for another -- and it’s much more consumable and high-minded.

The 70-seat taproom is next door to the brewery space and at the end of the oblong building. A big garage door lets light and a breeze into the space, containing has lots of wood, from the bar to the walls to the tables and even the chairs, which are mismatched but all painted the same shade of white for a modern feel. It’s one of those breweries that might make you forget the stereotype that beer is for tailgates and cookouts. But this doesn’t mean it’s a fancy place -- the service is still genuinely friendly, and the crowd is still a mix of beer geeks who already swear by this one-year old brewery and novices who want to know what a Belgian Blonde is.

14 beers on draft run the gamut of styles. Lineage launched their first Belgian-style beers this summer, including the Strunk & Witte Witbier with orange peel, lemon zest, and coriander, and boozy Tripel named Zimmer. Their flagship beer, the Spaceship #6, is an exemplary American IPA. The brewery released over three dozen different beers in their first year -- innovating by experimenting with different hop varietals (an American Pale Ale made with Idaho 7 hops) or fruits (a Raspberry Berliner Weisse). On a busy Friday afternoon visit, these beers seemed to fly out of the taps faster than a jetwash.

My first visit to Four String was to its former production facility in the Grandview area of Columbus, which is now functioning as a taproom. It's now a sprawling space that seats dozens of beer drinkers comfortably, but it once sat roughly a single dozen, as brewing equipment culled together from old dairy tanks was crammed into the low-slung brick building. Today, the brewery has moved to greener pastures, quite literally. A large lawn lines the front of their production facility about four miles west, with a massive logo painted on the wall facing the road it lines, proclaiming it "Ohio's Killer Beer." Behind that wall is a brewery poised for big growth. The small dairy tanks are now flanked by a 30-barrel brewhouse and 120-barrel fermenters, a shiny new canning line, and lots of room to expand. There's a lab for quality control and assurance, and a warehouse lined with pallets upon pallets of cans ready to be filled and shipped across Ohio (and soon Kentucky). The cavernous tasting room here has no windows, so it's good that it's only open two days a week for three hours, since it would be easy to lose track of time. It’s clear that a lot of time and money went into this new space, and that a lot of beer will come out of it for years to come. But back over on Sixth Avenue in their original space, Four String maintains a lot of the authenticity that founder Dan Cochran intended back when it opened in 2011. A musician by trade, Cochran hand-built the place on a shoestring budget. It's still a little rough around the edges, but it's an enjoyable, dimly-lit place to listen to music, strike up conversation with a bartender, and sip beers like their flagship Brass Knuckle Pale Ale, summer seasonal Suncaster Wheat, and the crisp Payback Pilsner. The production brewery itself is impressive, shiny and new and ready to rock; the tasting room is a constant reminder of Four String’s humble beginnings.

It’s Columbus Week here at A Brewery A Day! All this week, you’ll read about breweries along the Columbus Ale Trail.

There are plenty of very typical things about Sideswipe Brewing. It’s a brewery with a tasting room in an industrial park, after all. But the names of the beers and the brewery had an... aggressive theme to them. Fisticuffs IPA. Punch-Out Pale Ale. A series of beers called Sparring Rounds. A boxing theme, perhaps? “What’s the deal with the beer names,” I asked the taproom employee serving me the beers. 

“Oh, our founder is a martial artist,” he replied. That’s not your typical background of a brewery founder. Turns out Craig O’Herron got bit by the beer bug when he spent years in Asia learning the Muay Thai kickboxing. He was displeased with the quality of the beer in Thailand and opted to make his own IPAs and Stouts with ingredients shipped to him by mail. He honed his process even more once he came back to Ohio, and a few years later, Sideswipe Brewing was born.

The brewery taproom adjoins the brewery in a separate room, serving up beers in a communal atmosphere where strangers shared picnic tables and friends met to share a pint. It was a friendly, casual taproom that I enjoyed, apart from the oppressive heat on the day I visited -- I chose to sit by an oscillating fan. There were several one-off beers that helped to cool off visitors, though. The Sexy Weekend, an “American Table Beer,” was a real refresher. The Sparring Rounds Round 5 was a well-balanced biscuity English IPA. And The Pixelated Sun was a Pale Wheat with an aggressive hop bite -- aggressive enough that it took that last beer to get me to fully appreciate how a martial artist’s skills can translate to the brewhouse.

I came across a brewery in a non-descript low-rise brick building on a busy Saturday afternoon after trekking deep into an industrial park near a railroad trestle. There was a food vendor working under a tent out front, across from some picnic tables laid out by its open garage doors. Inside, an open taproom poured IPAs and Pale Ales, Sours and Stouts, while people shuffled around a crammed brewery on a brief tour. This description could describe just about any craft brewery in the US on a Saturday. But this brewery isn't in the US; it's in England.

Fourpure is the southernmost stop on what's known as the Bermondsey Beer Mile, a stretch of more than a half-dozen breweries with retail shops and taprooms on the south side of the Thames River in London. Many of them are recent additions to London’s beer scene, where drinkers are increasingly craving American (or Americanized) styles of beer. It’s why you’ll find their IPA described as a “West Coast IPA,” their sour beer dry-hopped, and their collaborations with US breweries like Ska and Bear Republic. Like most American breweries, there’s not much ambiance in the Fourpure taproom, which puts the focus squarely on the beer. There’s a handful of barstools, a cooler with cans to purchase for take-away, and some merchandise hanging on a wall. These things are not noted to diminish Fourpure; I was impressed with their beer, but I was more impressed with how they had embraced the American taproom aesthetic.

While all this may sound appealing to a visiting American beer drinker or a Brit that craves bolder flavors in their beer, these breweries are rankling some feathers. For one, UK’s beer purists (namely, members of CAMRA, an organization that promotes quality beer and community pubs) say brewery taprooms threaten their pub culture. They also claim kegged beer threatens the tradition of cask beer in the nation; at the Great British Beer Festival in 2015, I overheard two older gentlemen sneer that the winner of Champion Beer of Britain, Welsh brewery Tiny Rebel, was “too American.” Their arguments have merit, but at the moment I started sipping on an IPA at Fourpure, I felt far too at home to care.

Sometimes, a brewery taproom is polished and bright and looks well thought-out. The service and atmosphere are planned down to the last inch. This is not one of those places. But to understand why Bridge & Tunnel Brewery's taproom is what it is, you have to understand its roots: a one-man operation out of a residential garage in Queens. Today's taproom, off a main street in the borough's Ridgewood neighborhood, may not look like much, but it's a far cry from its humble beginnings. Rich Castagna somehow managed to get a micobrewery license in 2012 to operate out of his garage a couple miles away, brewing beer on a glorified homebrew system that he constructed himself. It got the job done, but it wasn't a full-time job; everything from brewing to keg filling to deliveries to keg collection was something he did on the side. Something had to change -- and in 2015, he opened a new, larger brewery that was cobbled together much like his original brewhouse. The ten-barrel brewhouse here -- six times bigger than Castagna’s first -- was self-built, but it gets the job done. The brewery churns out beers often named for figures from Castagna’s life in New York, like the Angry Amel Dunkweizen named for a mean childhood neighbor, Pickin’ Up The Change Chipotle Porter named for a slam dance move, and the Red Bird Express Belgian IPA named for the red-painted trains that ran on the 7 Line. The stories behind the names sometimes require a longer explanation than the beers themselves.

The taproom here is truly a DIY-er’s dream. Castagna furnished the place by finding items he recovered from streetsides and closed bars. There’s a reclaimed stained-glass window that sheds a warming hue on the bar. The tap system came from a former beer shop that went out of business last year. There’s an old barber chair that just kind of hangs out in the middle of the room. Even the bright red doors on the front of the brewery are hand-painted, greeting visitors with their first reminder that a lot of love went into the place. Much like the beer, the brewery itself is the result of a lot of grunt work done by hand. Bridge and Tunnel isn’t just a brewery; it’s a self-made dream-come-true for an amateur-turned-professional.

I always thought of Alaska as a rugged place that’s a little rough around the edges. But when I saddled up to the bar at Glacier Brewhouse in Anchorage, I realized I was sitting in what appeared to be the most upscale brewpub I’ve ever visited. The whole place was covered in polished wood, with high ceilings, a fireplace in the center of the room, an open kitchen, and well-dressed staff scurrying around. The slogan at Glacier is “Where Alaskans Meet Alaskans.” The Alaskans I met there were some of the most interesting people I’ve come across. In the span of two visits, I had conversations about weight of a 65-inch bull moose, the glycol systems in the stanchions of the Alaskan Oil Pipeline, the ideal weather conditions for snowmobiling, the cheapest means of travel on the Alaska Marine Highway, the status of oil exploration on the North Slope, and, naturally, some very opinionated discussions of beer.

I’m led to believe this is, in fact, where Alaskans meet Alaskans, and Alaskans therefore have good taste in beer. Going strong since 1996, Glacier Brewhouse place is the real deal. The house-brewed beer here ranges from standard pale ales and stouts to big, boozy brews like their Ukrainian Eisbock, a high-gravity beer aged in Ukrainian Oak Barrels, and the Big Woody, their highly popular barleywine often aged in a variety of different types of barrels that feature distinctive oaks. The brewery is heralded for its barrel aging program, which is on display in the restaurant through a window beneath their brewhouse -- the “Wall of Wood,” they call it. And why not? Anchorage can get cold and raw just about year-round, so a boozy, warming beer is appropriate at just about any time. Glacier is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, churning out close to five thousand barrels of beer a year -- quite high for a brewpub.

But the beer is only half the equation. The high-falutin’ comfort food left my head spinning, with Alaskan-inspired specialties like Bourbon Barbeque Salmon, Reindeer Sausage and Blue Cheese Pizza, and Alderwood-Grilled Ribeye on the menu. After finishing off with their famous Bread Pudding, I found myself in a food-and-beer coma that lasted until sunrise the next day. And given that I was visiting in January, that sunrise came quite late.

Say what you will about Magic Hat these days, but it still holds a very special place in my heart. In my formative beer-drinking years, #9, an amber-hued apricot-spiked ale, was one of my go-to beers. When I moved to Vermont, their smaller-batch beers broadened my beer horizons: Fat Angel introduced me to hoppy beers, Ravell brought me appreciation for Porters, Jinx opened my eyes to Scotch Ales. Living in a small town like Burlington, I befriended several brewery employees who often slipped me extra samples at the taproom and invited me to keg parties -- and taught me that playing beer pong with high-gravity beer is not a particularly responsible choice. While the brewery was sold off by founder Alan Newman by 2010 and its reputation among uber beer geeks has soured over the years as it struggled to innovate and match a changing national palate, I still have an appreciation for the place that made some of my gateway beers.

By the time I moved to Burlington over ten years ago, Magic Hat was a hit in Vermont. It, along with the likes Long Trail, Otter Creek, and Harpoon, made the state an early destination for beer tourists at a time when the phrase hadn’t been uttered in the US. Smaller outfits were making a mark on the Green Mountain State’s scene, too. Vermont Pub & Brewery (where the late Greg Noonan pioneered craft brewing in the 1980s), The Shed (where Hill Farmstead’s Shaun Hill got his start), and The Alchemist (where cult status was still years away) were favorite stops after a day on Lake Champlain or a day in the mountains. But out of sheer convenience, free samples, $6 growler fills, and a taproom that embodied the offbeat, imaginative brand, I kept coming back to Magic Hat.

These days, the growler fills are a bit pricier, but I felt like I was attending a homecoming when I visited the “Artifactory” last winter. Some very familiar beers remain on tap -- some that I hadn’t tried in years, like the Feast of Fools Raspberry Stout or the Single Chair Ale. There are test batches of new beers, like a Single Malt, Single Hop beer, a Session IPA, and a Wee Heavy. The change in my palate be damned, these are still well-executed beers that gave me a blast of nostalgia for my years as a Flatlander living in Vermont. I’m relieved to see they still support local causes in the state like I remember, from the annual South End Art Hop to the raucous, offbeat Mardi Gras parade in Burlington. I looked around me as I saw other visitors and wondered: had they just come from Fiddlehead or Switchback down the road? Was this their first brewery visit? Did they visit for ol’ times’ sake like me? However they got here, they still do steady business, even in the dead of a Vermont winter. Sure, the brewery is a bit bigger than before its 2008 expansion, and the gift shop-heavy tasting area has a more corporate vibe than it used to, but Magic Hat hasn’t shed the inventive spirit it had when I first walked through its doors twelve years ago.

As a native Rhode Islander who embraced good beer in the early aughts, it was hard for me to find pride in my home state's beer scene. From the time I came of age until 2011, there was just one production brewery in Rhode Island, and it wasn't exactly winning accolades or earning praise from beer geeks. When I heard that Grey Sail Brewing of Rhode Island was opening in late 2011, I became hopeful that this was the start of a beer boom in Rhode Island. Indeed it was, and Grey Sail led the trend by setting the bar high.

First, a little something about that convoluted name. It was the result of a legal dispute that followed a cease-and-desist order from Oregon's Full Sail in 2012. A layman would be hard-pressed to see why there would ever been brand confusion between two breweries with pretty distinct names on opposite coasts, but hey, there's no harm in throwing the name of a state in there to plant a flag for its beer scene. Rhode Islanders have embraced Grey Sail -- as have beer geeks across their northeastern distribution footprint -- particularly for their Captain's Daughter double IPA, which has a cult-like status. Heck, it's nearly the first thing every person asked for when they stepped into their new taproom when I visited in June.

That taproom, which sits across a driveway from the physical brewery, is in a beautiful colonial house that was purchased by Grey Sail and renovated to be used to feature its beers. It sits on a well-manicured plot with a bocce court, fountain, and grassy yard for sitting and enjoying beer. The pristine house has several rooms on the first floor lined with beautiful hand-painted murals that date back to the 1930s. Combine this with little nooks and crannies for seating to escape and enjoy a beer, and it’s one of the more unique taprooms we’ve come across -- a far cry from the impersonal, open-air spaces in industrial parks. Those beers include the Flying Jenny Pale Ale, Pour Judgment IPA, and the Leaning Chimney Smoked Porter -- named for the crooked brick smokestack in the center of their brewery space. They also pour guest taps that would make most beer geeks blush. That's an unusual feature in Rhode Island, but Grey Sail's taproom is actually by definition a bar, owned by a separate entity to avoid the state's restrictions on serving beer at a brewery. But that’s more of a technicality than something consumers notice; to visitors of Grey Sail, the house is just a spot where they can enjoy all their beer in one place. 

Now with the taproom in place, Grey Sail looks toward the future. They set the table for a beer boom in Rhode Island; since their opening, nine more breweries have debuted in the state with more on the way, buoying the entire beer scene in the Ocean State. The increasing support for local beer in the state has fueled their own expansion. Grey Sail has made it through their long-term business plan in less than five years and they’ve had to pull beer back from some markets just to meet demand in others. Expansion of their brewery can’t come soon enough... for them, or their adoring fans.

I had no idea what I was walking into when I stumbled upon Raleigh Brewing Company after a nearby beer festival back in April. I overheard cheering and shouting from a couple blocks away and just assumed the post-festival crowd had gotten rowdy. But I was mistaken. I had accidentally shown up for a friendly competition among Raleigh, North Carolina's area breweries: The Brewers Olympics. It had many of the elements of the Rio Olympics: a torch (actually a cauldron made of kegs), a medal count (which seemed to be very casually scored), and many events of differing skill levels (though every one somehow invoking beer). Teams from the host brewery and four other local breweries dressed in ridiculous costumes (think velour jumpsuits, Donald Trump wigs, and an entire team dressed as The Village People) competed in eight different events over the course of the afternoon to a loud, well-lubricated crowd of well over a hundred people cheering on their favorite breweries. Among the events: a tug-o-war, a race around a keg course on tricycles, blindfolded grain bag stacking, pitcher hoisting, and a yeast bomb toss. Ultimately, the team from Neuse River Brewing was victorious at this year’s Brewers Olympics, leaving the host brewery’s team with a very short walk of shame.

Seemingly off the radar even within North Carolina (Asheville gets most of the attention), the state capital that’s the namesake for this brewery has close to a dozen breweries, and over fifty populate the metro area called “The Triangle” that includes Chapel Hill and Durham. Raleigh Brewing, which opened in 2013, intrigued me from the start when I noted that they offer six core beers and not one of them is an unadulterated IPA. Instead, they toy with less American styles, like the Moravian Rhapsody Czech Pils (named to highlight the area’s Moravian history), the City of Blokes English-Style Bitter (named as a play on Raleigh’s nickname, City of Oaks), and the Hell Yes Ma’am Belgian Golden Strong (a little bit Southern Grit, a little bit Southern Charm). There are always one-offs and seasonals that stray into more traditional American tastes, but it was refreshing to enjoy a Pilsner or Scotch Ale after a beer fest full of IPAs poured to self-professed hop heads.

The taproom, despite being separated from the brewery by a wall, feels like an extension of the high-ceilinged industrial space, with exposed cinder-block walls and concrete floors. But while plenty come into the space for the beer, some visit Raleigh Brewing for the ingredients: Atlantic Brew Supply, their homebrew shop, offers everything someone needs to whip up their own batches back home. Personally, I think some things are better left to the professionals. Although when those professionals are wearing tights and short shorts and running through an obstacle course, I might question that belief.

"Last Call @ 8pm." That's listed on web page with the hours of Bridger Brewing. You wouldn't guess that last call was in an hour when my friend and I walked into the taproom on a Saturday at 7pm. It was packed with people watching baseball and college football, eating pizza, and throwing back pints of their beer -- no more than three pints per person per day, mind you. It's the law. So is the 8pm last call. Montana has some obscene restrictions on brewery taprooms. And despite the best efforts of their state regulators (and bar owners and restauranteurs, who aggressively push back against reform each time it comes up), Montana's breweries manage to make their taprooms welcoming places. Bridger in Bozeman is among the state's best examples. Bridger is more brewpub than brewery, with a kitchen that churns out some delicious pizza with toppings like bison pepperoni, chicken sausage with fig jam, and chorizo with roasted chiles. The pizzas sell like hotcakes, which is not surprising, as Bridger is steps from the Montana State University campus. The pizza seemed like the main attraction, with families seated across the taproom enjoying some large pies, but we were there for the beer -- and with the clock inching ever closer to 8pm, we had no time to spare to try it. We opted for a sampler, served on a swiveling lazy susan-like device, and quickly found ourselves taking a liking to the Lee Metcalf Pale Ale, one of the better American Pale Ales we had in Big Sky Country. The McTavish Scotch Ale -- a wildly-popular style in Montana that virtually every brewery there makes -- was another standout on a trip when we tried many Scotch Ales. The Ghost Town Coffee Stout perked us up after a long day visiting breweries. Bridger seems to know what works and their customers know what they like -- the three-year old brewery sticks to their core lineup and usually only strays once or twice seasonally to brew something new. Why mess with what works? 

Bridger’s employees also seem to embrace the community in which they live and work -- the bartender knew everyone who came in, encouraged customers coming in for a growler fill to stay a while, as though they were in someone’s home. The brewery gives back, too, with a weekly “Pints with a Purpose” night that gives a dollar from each pint sold to a local non-profit. It’s the friendly touches that can make a good brewery great, lousy beer laws be damned.

The town of New Paltz, New York, ends quickly once you cross the Wallkill River on its Main Street. Shops and businesses disappear in favor of farms. And more farms. And once you drive about three miles northwest, you come across a farm that also happens to host a Pull Brewery. Kurt Schlachter knows that drive very well. A Brooklyn-based brewer, who most recently brewed in the borough at Greenpoint Beer Works making beer for Empire, drives two hours each way to brew here, watching the landscape change from the concrete jungle of New York City to the relative tranquility of the Hudson Valley. And while you'd think that drive and brewing would sap him of energy, he passionately described each of the beers to us and other visitors who walked into the hundred-year old red barn surrounded by fields and pastures that houses the brewery. He was enthusiastic in telling the story behind the brewery, Pull Brewing truly embraces the concept of the "farm brewery," which is a legal term in New York, where the state gives special designations to places that utilize in-state ingredients to make beer. Some of those ingredients at Pull come from the farm it stands on. And that farm is owned by Ray Bradley, a chef whose contemporaries included Thomas Keller and Daniel Bouloud, who left cooking to start this organic farm on 27 acres back in 2000. After years of selling produce at New York City Farmers Markets and hosting farm-to-table dinners at his farm, he felt that a brewery would be an appropriate addition to the space. A few years ago, at one of those farmers markets, Schlachter offered spent grain from his homebrewing operation to Bradley to use as animal feed. But Bradley wanted the beer. The relationship grew, and last fall along with fellow brewer Eric Knapp, Pull Brewing officially launched on the farm with a 3 1/2-barrel brewhouse.

The Farmhouse Ale, the flagship beer and their first, is brewed with hops and honey from the farm. Its name might suggest a style different than it is, but it’s a straightforward, mildly sweet, mildly hoppy amber-hued ale. The Sour Outage, a sour mash beer made with local honey, grain, and hops, imparts a subtle tartness that’s refreshing on a hot day at the farm. Other styles include an IPA that’s literally All The Rage (it’s the name), a Coconut-spiked Wheat Ale called The Professor, and a Rye Porter. The small brewery has a handful of accounts locally and in New York City where the beer can be enjoyed without being surrounded by giant bins of fragrant garlic for sale in the barn. But that adds to the experience. For New Yorkers used to the bustle of the big city, drinking beer on a farm 80 miles from the George Washington Bridge can feel otherworldly. While it may just be a commute for Schlachter, for us, it was a welcome escape from reality.

This story starts with a hangover. Not mine, though. Fort Myers’ head brewer KJ Lynch was supposed to meet me at the brewery on a sunny afternoon in March, but he partied a bit too hard the night before. He was celebrating the brewery’s award as Best Large Brewery in Florida at the Best Florida Beer Championships’ Brewers Ball. On top of that, they took home five medals for their beers, including two golds. The hangover was completely justified, but it lasted well into the afternoon. Thankfully, KJ had co-owner Rob Whyte to stand in and greet me. I arrived just after a reporter and photographer had visited to cover the news of their victories. And Rob got down to business right away, pouring me a beer and talking shop.

Southwest Florida is not exactly a place known for its craft breweries -- its heat and humidity make it more of a Corona-and-Bud-Light-swigging kind of place. But chat with the brewers in this area and you’ll see just how rapid the growth in craft beer has been in the region. “We’re the oldest brewery south of Tampa,” Rob told me as we sat at the bar. I asked him how long they had been open. “We’re celebrating our third anniversary later this month.” That astounded me, since I had already visited four other breweries in a 10-mile radius on my trip, and all of them seemed well-established. But it’s true: when other Florida breweries like Cigar City and Funky Buddha started expanding their distribution in Fort Myers, they were very well-received, and that opened the floodgates. Today, there are well over a dozen breweries in the region. At just three years old, Fort Myers Brewing Company is part of the old guard.

Their beers run the gamut from breezy, warm-weather beers like their Gateway Gold to their heavy, aggressive Russian Imperial Stout. They boast of their Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter that had some of the best head retention I’ve seen in a beer made with peanut butter and a roasty, toasty, and boozy Incognito Black Imperial IPA. Being the only game in town for a while, FMBC had to be versatile when it came to styles. The smaller, newer breweries nearby are starting to establish their niches. But this beer pioneer keeps going strong -- and continues to expand with new equipment and a taproom that’s about three times larger than when they first opened.

And while the trophies and medals may make him feel a big dog among Florida breweries, Rob’s stays humble about it. After all, his son Jake, who brews at Ballast Point in San Diego, made more beer in his first few days on the job there than Fort Myers has in its first three years.