Brewery Tours

Whilst in the UK over the Christmas holiday period I had the chance to meet up with a brewer from my hometown area in the North-East of England. Andrew Smith is the owner of The Gainford Beer Cooperative which began life in 2013.

During the summer of 2011 we visited Southern Tier Brewing Company who are located in Jamestown, NY, near Lake Chautauqua as we have always been big fans of their beers such as 2XStout, Crème Brûlée, Mokah, Choklat, and Pumking. We knew they were due to expand their operation shortly after our visit so decided what better way to follow-up Thanksgiving than a long weekend back to western New York.

At the weekend we stayed in Detroit for a few days so took the opportunity to check out a couple of breweries in the Downtown area. We visited Detroit Beer Co. and Atwater Brewery.

Recently I was fortunate enough to spend the day with a fellow homebrewer from my local club, the Black Hops Unit of Centre County, at a commercial brewery located 90 minutes due east of State College in the town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Turkey Hill Brewing is located next to the Inn at Turkey Hill and the Brewmaster is Donny Abraczinskas.

As our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin started to draw to a close, we departed from Milwaukee and headed south around Chicago and onto Interstate 80 to head due east through Indiana towards Cleveland, Ohio.

We continued our stay in the city of Milwaukee, as part of our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin, by spending our last day checking out a couple of breweries to the south of our downtown hotel.

Our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin began with a visit to Madison, then the small town of New Glarus, next it was time to move on to one of the USA's original major brewing cities, Milwaukee, which has seen the likes of Leinenkugel, Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, as well as many others.

The second destination on our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin, following our first stop in Madison, was to visit the brewery which initiated the whole idea of making this trip - namely New Glarus Brewing Company. Whilst at the GABF 2013 we had tasted their fruit beers and were so impressed that we just had to visit the producers of these fabulous beers.

We embarked upon our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin by starting out from our home town of State College (Pennsylvania) and stopping overnight in Cleveland (Ohio), a mere 4 hour drive away, before making the 8 hour journey to our first brewery destination city of Madison.

This summer we are about to embark on a Brewery Tour to the State of Wisconsin as a follow-up to our Michigan brewery tour during the summer of 2013. The original inspiration for this trip was tasting a fantastic beer called Serendipity by New Glarus Brewing at GABF 2013 last October.