Beer Forum

Hey everyone,
I'm going to be spending two weeks in the states this spring (end of March- beginning of April, so actually late winter in NE).
About ten days of the trip is going to be devoted to beer in New England (then on to 2 days in the bay area). I'm trying to make a list of the places I have to hit. From past experience and looking at previous older posts the short list looks like:

The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, White Birch, Allagash, Portsmouth Brewery

Any comments? Anything to add? Anything in Massachusetts?

Catfish

Cisco, maybe? It's on Nantucket, which might be a fun place to visit if it's not too cold.

Berkshire Brewing. Good, solid beers. Used to get them in growlers many years ago when I was in school up there in N.W. Mass.

If you are only looking for breweries you have a pretty good list but two things:

You are going to get to try more things you don't have access to by going to some bars, I recommend Ebenezer's then you can try many beers in one spot.

If you want to try and brew or have some homebrew while over her PM me and you are more than welcome to join me for a beer either here at my home or at my partners where we brew. If you are in the right part of NH at the right time, I brew every week, I would love to have you join my brew session.

NHB

If your heading out to The Alchemist, I would recommend heading 30 min. west to Burlington. Vermont Pub and Brewery, American Flatbread/Zero Gravity, and 3 Needs are all within 2 blocks and Magic Hat is 5 mins. south of town. They are all interesting and satisfying. Rock Art is about 30 min. north of The Alchemist and 30 min. west of Hill Farmstead but has limited tasting hours. Burlington would be a great place to setup shop for a day.

Stay a day or two in Portland, Maine. Up on Industrial Way, there are several breweries. Allagash, Rising Tide, Maine Brewing, and Bull Jagger. You'll have to check each for tour time since some are limited.

Then go to Old Port downtown and hit Gritty McDuff's, $3 Dewey's, Novre Res, and Great Lost Bear ( not downtown but on they way from the other breweries ). Shipyard is also down in Old Port but nothing special in the regular tour.

Also, the Alchemist is just the cannery now, but Heady Topper is great. I'm not sure if they will or have other stuff brewing there yet.

That's right, The Alchemist was wrecked by TS Irene flooding back in Aug '11. I second Portsmouth and Portland. I don't know about tours but I highly recommend getting your hands on the Smuttynose portfolio if you haven't done so already.

If you are going to be within 500 miles it will be worth your time to check out Ebenezer's Pub and The Lion's Pride (Both owned by the same guy).

Ebenezer's has won best beer bar in the world, and is worth the trek. Chris and his wife are the greatest hosts you could imagine, and are complete beer geeks. I visited both pubs last weekend, and had some beers that you will likely not find at any other pub in the US. Thre are 30+ Belgian beers on tap and enough bottles to drink a different beer every day for several years!

Keep this in mind....I live 5 hours away, and I decided I had to go for lunch on a Saturday, and would do it every weekend if finances allowed.