I am in the process of planning a new brewpub business in a small town in Minnesota. The town has a population of about 200 with a lot of seasonal traffic and is on the Mississippi River. I am looking for other brewpubs in small towns away from large metropolitan areas. If you know of a nice brewpub, list the name and what you like about the place. I would like to get a list of other businesses together and contact them to see how manage in a small market.
If you know of a cool brew-on-premise place, list them and give them a little free pub!
When I was in Nederland, CO a few years ago, I went to a small smokehouse and brewpub called Wild Mountain. They had pretty decent BBQ and the beer was excellent. It was a small place, but had a pleasant, mountain lodge-like atmosphere. Here’s a link to their site: http://www.wildmountainsb.com/.
Other than that, I haven’t really encountered too many truly memorable brewpubs in small towns (at least in the U.S. – there are plenty that I’ve been to overseas that I’ve loved).
The Wellhead Pub in Artesia NM is a great one. The beer and food are good, and as a homebrewer I’ve been able to meet and become friends with each brewer that’s worked there.
Love these guys, they provide me refuge one day on a misadventure of mine that saw me driving back to LA from Firestone Walker with a used barrel hanging out in the back of an open Mustang convertible while it was raining.
Waterbury, VT (pop. ~5,000) has one of the best I’ve ever visited - The Alchemist Pub & Brewery. The beer is awesome and the food is pretty darn good as well!
Two you might want to check would be Blue Mountain in Afton, VA and Devils Backbone further down the road in Wintergreen. Not sure what you consider a major metropolitan area, but Blue Mountain is 20-30 miles outside of Charlottesville and Devils Backbone is a little over 10 miles past that.
Spent some time in Michigan and found this place called Short Brewery. A nice micro with good selection. Live music on the weekends, they sponsor a lot of events too.
There were a few good brewpubs that we visited in Astoria, OR last year before NHC. The town isn’t 200 people, but it was small and seems like it would have seasonal tourism.
I would maybe look into breweries in ouray, silverton, and telluride, Colorado. They are all pretty small towns with a lot of tourism. Colorado boy is in ridgeway which has a population of 900. I haven’t been there yet though
As soon as I read the thread title, I was going to post about this very brewpub. The name of the brewpub is Old Man River http://oldmanriverbrewery.com/. They are not open year-round, so if you attempt to contact them, they may not respond right away. I definitely agree with Thirsty Monk in regards to the beer being excellent. I didn’t eat while there, so I can’t comment on the food.
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