I am taking an East Coast Fall colors trip in late September. I am trying to find some good beers, breweries or bars to convince my wife that we must try. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Hey, we just did that last October. There’s a nice brewpub in Portsmouth, N.H. and it’s a quaint New Egland town with a lot of history. Try to go to Ebenezer’s Pub out in central Maine, but call first for off-season hours. The Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington is Greg Noonan’s original brew pub and worth the trip. We went to Redhook, Shipyard, Long Trail and Magic Hat. All were interesting, but we didn’t spend a whole lot of time at any of them. It will be a nice time to be driving in that part of the country.
Cape Ann Brewing in Gloucester, MA is good and might be on your way. There are many places in Burlington that make great, unique beers. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them. I also like Moat Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery near North Conway (moatmountain.com).
Portland:
Gritty’s Pub
Novare Res
Great Lost Bear ( Maine Brewing Supply right next door )
Allagash Brewery
Maine Brewing ( limited tour schedule - call first )
Ebenezer’s Pub ( Lovell, ME - not too far on the trip from Portland to N. Conway )
North Conway:
Moat Mountain
Burlington VT:
VT Pub and Brewery
American Flatbread
Magic Hat Brewery ( don’t care much for their beer but they have a nice brewery )
On the way from N. Conway to Burlington, you can find these places
Hill Farmstead, Greensboro, VT ( make sure you have a map…GPS has a hard time finding it )
Rock Art Brewery, Morrisville, VT
The Alchemist, Waterbury, VT
On your way to Portland, if you happen to be going through Portsmouth:
Portsmouth Brewery
Smuttynose Brewery
Redhook Brewery
And finally, if you are going through the Manchester, NH area:
White Birch Brewing - Hooksett - his new brewery should be opening this week.
My brother lives in Maine, and I was at the Great Lost Bear and Gritty’s (the Freeport one) last month. Gritty’s is kinda standard, but the food is pretty good. The great lost bear is really cool, however. The amount of Craft brew taps they have is truly mind boggling. We drank a pils from Dogfishhead. I think Mondays are big beer for little beer price.
I havn’t been there in a while but it was my bar for so long I have to kick in a recomendation for The 3 Needs on college street in Burlington VT. It’s a total dive bar and the brewer changes from time to time so the beer isn’t always the same but there are times when it is amazing.
Longtrail Brewery in Bridgewater Corners, VT
I visited there in October 2001 on a Fall Colors tour and thought the beer was great. Of course that was a long time ago, but I did like the IPA, Double Bag, and Harvest enough at the time to take a case of each with me for the rest of my trip. ;D If I remember correctly, they have a nice pub with a deck right on the creek. Hard to beat that setting.
Sadly the Alchemist in Waterbury is no more. The pub was destroyed by Hurricane Irene on 28 October 2011. While the owners tried very hard to re-open and received huge amounts of volunteer help in cleaning the building, the legal obstacles were too much and the pub and brewery will not reopen. They do however have a cannery and are still making a wonderful double IPA (Heady Topper) and may be planning to expand the line.
If you can get to the Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro - get there. Their beer is fantastic. Although the Alchemist pub had to close you can go and visit their new cannery which is right off exit 10 in Waterbury. Not a big fan of Majic Hat nor the VT pub and brewery but the zero gravity brewery at flatbread and the 3 needs brewery/bar, both in Burlington, are both awesome. Also, although not a brewery, the Farmhouse in Burlington has a fantastic beer list on tap and bottles. They have a lot of locals including Hill Farmstead and Lawson’s finest liquids. All of these are minutes away from eachother. Enjoy a walk down our beautiful Church Street too! Okay, not a member of the Burlington tourist board… sorry but beer brings it out in me.
Glad to hear that Glen is still making (or at least paying to make) great beer. The Needs started me off on this obession back when JT was the brewer. dropped alot of money in that place. Played alot of pool. many many drunken stumbles home at 2:30 am in the middle of winter. ahh good times.