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Beer Lovers — Book One of These 'Beercations' for Your Next Getaway

Fans of wine have vineyards , harvests, winery tasting rooms , tours, and destinations around the globe to indulge their love of the grape. Cruises , travel groups, and weekend getaways centered on wine have long been popular, taking travelers afar to explore their favorite beverage. Chatting with winemakers and tasting room staff is often as enjoyable as sipping the wine.

Beer also has plenty of fans, and craft breweries likewise have the appeal of small, independent producers anxious to talk about their brews. Craft beer sales are increasing, and the number of small breweries in the United States is growing. Further, a 2019 survey conducted on behalf of Visit Anaheim indicated that tasting tourism is increasing as "seven in 10 Americans have traveled to a destination specifically to sample the alcohol in the region." The same survey tells us that 72% of beer drinkers have spent vacation time going to a tasting at a local brewery. Vacations based on visiting breweries and doing beer-related activities even have a name: "beercations."

If this puts you in the mood to visit a brewery or two, we have some ideas for destinations with plenty of craft breweries and other features that make for a worthy beercation. Several of these cities are known for their beer production, but there are a few up-and-coming beer cities on this list. With this bit of inspiration and a little planning, you'll find your own favorite beercation destination.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

It seems only right to start with Grand Rapids, known as "Beer City" in recognition of its more than 80 breweries within an hour of downtown and its "Beer City Ale Trail." But Grand Rapids, set on the Grand River about 30 miles from Lake Michigan, has more to offer than beer. The Grand Rapids Art Museum , the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts , and the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives should all be on a visitor's itinerary. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum , also in Grand Rapids, displays memorabilia from the president's time in office and offers a holographic tour of the White House as it was during his presidency.The Grand Rapids Downtown Market houses more than twenty indoor food vendors, restaurants, a rooftop greenhouse, and an incubator kitchen for food startups and entrepreneurs. Founders Brewery , modeled after a German beer hall and set in a former truck depot, offers a wide selection of seasonal and year-round beers. City Built creates a wide range of brews and serves food with a Puerto Rican flavor. If you need a change from beer tasting, try some hard cider made from apples grown in the local area, another Grand Rapids specialty.

Denver, Colorado

The Mile High City, rich in history and diversity, is home to world-class museums, sporting events, and an extensive array of hotels from luxurious to historic to haunted. With the majestic Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, national park adventures are just a day trip away. Denver's approximately 150 breweries make it a major player in the craft brewing scene. Enjoy the extensive variety of breweries on your own, or choose from the many beer and brewery tours. The Lower Downtown Denver Craft Beer Tour includes a historical walking tour. The Denver Food and Craft Beer Tour explores Denver's culinary scene paired with local craft beers, and Rino Beer and Graffiti offers a glimpse of Denver's street art scene. With so many options to choose from, the biggest problem for beer enthusiasts will be deciding which to select. The Grateful Gnome is a casual brewery and sandwich shop featuring live music some nights (and the occasional Grateful Dead cover band). Odell Brewing Company in RiNo is family and employee-owned, and all tips are donated to local charities. Briar Common , a popular destination near Mile High Stadium, is as much about the food as the beer. Liberati Osteria serves a unique assortment of beer-wine hybrids called oenobeers—beer made from grapes.

Charleston, South Carolina

Taylor McIntyre/Travel + Leisure

Renowned for its southern charm and hospitality, the city of Charleston is rich in history, but it also offers incredible contemporary restaurants, shops, and art galleries. Chosen for its architecture, theaters, churches, and gardens, Charleston is home to the Spoleto Festival USA , one of America's most significant performing arts festivals. Visitors to this lovely city may enjoy a historic Charleston harbor cruise, horse-drawn carriage tour, or perhaps a spooky walking tour of the city's most haunted spots. Tucked into the landscape of cobblestone streets and centuries-old mansions is evidence of Charleston's expanding brewery industry. Commonhouse Aleworks serves a full menu to accompany a selection of craft beers. Rusty Bull Brewing Co. is family friendly with food trucks, live music, and craft beers ranging from pale ales to hearty stouts. For organic seasonal brews, visit the Freehouse Brewery located on the scenic banks of the Ashley River. Dog-friendly Munkle Brewing Company specializes in Belgian and German brews. Pool tables, TVs, outdoor tables, and cornhole add to the atmosphere. With a cool taproom and pub grub including coal-fired pizzas worthy of a fine Zagat review, Edmund's Oast Brewing Company is a must-visit brewery in Charleston. Pub and Brewery Tours offers intimate walking tours and a bus tour complete with tales of Charleston's colorful past and stops at three historic pubs. Charleston Brews Cruise is another bus tour option and includes samples of the unique brews at each stop.

Ithaca, New York

The Finger Lakes region has long been known for their vino (specifically, the rieslings and ice wine, though their lighter-bodied reds aren't to be overlooked). However, the beer scene just four hours from NYC is worth traveling for. The epicenter of the Finger Lakes beer scene is, of course, Ithaca Beer Co. Visitors love their indoor-outdoor taproom almost as much as they love the brewery's signature Flower Power IPA. The other heavy hitter in the area is Southern Tier Brewing Company , named for the southwestern part of New York state known as the Southern Tier. Southern Tier is now widely distributed in New York City and they have taprooms across the country — but it all started at their brewery in Lakewood, New York, which you can visit for a hefty pour of Pumpking in the fall (or the classic Southern Tier IPA at any time of year). Continue the tour de Finger Lakes beer at spots like Grist Iron Brewing Company (Burdett) and Bottomless Brewing (Geneva).

Flagstaff, Arizona

While Arizona may conjure up thoughts of a hot, dry desert, the town of Flagstaff, located in the northern mountains of the state, boasts four distinct seasons. With summer temperatures in the low 80s, breathtaking panoramic foliage in autumn, plentiful snow in winter, and a gorgeous assortment of spring blooms, adventures await all year long. The Historic Downtown and Railroad District is home to vintage buildings now transformed into shops, restaurants, galleries, and breweries. Located on Historic Route 66, the Mother Road and Dark Sky Brewing Co. both partner with neighbor, Pizzacletta , to serve excellent beer and Neapolitan-style wood-fired pizza. Historic Barrel and Bottle House offers upscale bar fare and a wide selection of craft beer on tap. Lumberyard Taproom and Grille is located in a former lumber yard with a taproom, eatery, and patio with a fire pit. These and others are all within walking distance of one another, and most are dog friendly. A short drive south will take you to Verde Brewing Company , That Brewery , and others. Perhaps you'll want to plan your next "beercation" around one of Flagstaff's festivals. Among other fests, Flagstaff Blues and Brews , an outdoor beer and music festival, is held every June, and Flagstaff Brew HaHa , a beer tasting event representing more than 60 local, regional, and national brewers, happens every January.

Portland, Maine

A stroll through this delightful peninsula city offers historic mansions, quaint shops, restaurants, and ocean views. The lobster is delectable, and there's that iconic lighthouse (the most-photographed lighthouse in the U.S.), dating back to the 1700s. In recent years, Portland has become popular for its large number of excellent breweries packed into a not-so-large area. In fact, the city tops the list with the most craft breweries per capita with 18 breweries per 50,000 people. One of the many notable stops is Foulmouthed Brewing , with its family-friendly atmosphere, delicious beer, and impressive menu. The dog-friendly Rising Tide Brewing Company has a cool layout to go along with excellent beer, a fun ambiance, and a selection of food trucks. For an informative tour with great samplings, try the Allagash , known for superb Belgian-inspired beers, games for the kids, and tasty food truck offerings. The close proximity of many of the brew bars allows visitors to pub crawl on their own, but there are tours guaranteed to heighten the experience. Maine Brew Bus Tours offers a variety of unique experiences including Bike and Brews , Walk, Talk, and Taste , Port City Running Brew Tour , and the Brews Cruise in addition to an assortment of bus tour options.

San Diego, California

The Golden State receives credit for starting the craft brewing movement in 1965 when a young man named Fritz Maytag took over the failing Anchor Steam Brewery and introduced new beers based on lost styles. With around 1,000 craft breweries today, the state is a top location for beer tourism. That made it a bit difficult to settle on one California city, but year-round, San Diego has much to offer visitors in addition to craft beer — nearly perfect weather, beaches, mountains, Balboa Park, San Diego Zoo, a vibrant downtown, wineries, and great food. With more than 140 breweries, it's easy to find one wherever you may be in the area. Take a tour in a vintage Swiss safari vehicle for a unique brewery experience downtown or in the north county area with Scavengers . Book a unique experience with the San Diego Beer Train Trolley Tour. At Mission Brewery in the East Village, you're welcome to bring your own food and book an hour-long tour that includes tastings. Little Italy's Ballast Point offers casual dining indoors or outside. Border X Brewing features Mexican-inspired beers including Abuelita's Chocolate Stout and Horchata Golden Stout, both rich with spicy aromas. So many breweries, so little time.

Stowe, Vermont

New Englanders have come to see Vermont as a beer mecca, and between the farm-to-table food paired with hop-filled brews and VT's après-ski culture, it's not hard to see why. Perhaps the most iconic brewery in Vermont is The Alchemist — their brew pub has been around since 2003 in Waterbury, Vermont. Known for their unfiltered IPAs, the must-try beer is Heady Topper, which you've almost certainly heard your New England friends rave about. In addition to their long-standing Waterbury brew pub, The Alchemist just debuted a beer garden in Stowe in summer 2021. While in Stowe, you can't miss von Trapp Brewery , Stowe Cider , and Idletyme Brewing . Plus, for a luxury stay — whether you're coming to Stowe for a ski-and-beer weekend or to enjoy the fall foliage — you can't do better than Topnotch Resort , right in the heart of Stowe.

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The Beer Travel Shop

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Welcome to The Beer Travel Guide! People often ask us where to drink craft beer when they visit various cities, so we decided to make a site that could hopefully help everyone looking for local craft when they travel.

You’ll find our detailed brewery hop recommendations for various American cities here. You’ll also find lists of breweries for a number of cities, lists which include valuable research like whether they serve food and what their hours of operation are. That way, you can make your own hop! If you don’t see the city you want to explore on there, contact us and let us know!

We also have pieces about beer festivals we’ve attended, wrapping up the experience and shouting out our favorite beers that were served. You can read our coverage of festivals we’ve covered in the past two years, including the Firestone Walker Invitational , Great American Beer Fest , Carnival of Caffeination , Sour Friends Fest , Extreme Beer Fest , and many more!

We’ve recently launched a TikTok account, posting daily funny and/or informative videos about craft beer. Please give us a follow there.

We have a list of every beer we’ve tried this year– we’ve already crossed 650 beers for the year, so see what we’ve had and what we recommend!

We’ll also post occasional blog entries, news stories, and more! Please check out our FAQ , and if you think our site is missing something or contains inaccurate information, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Closures and hour changes are happening rapidly, so before assuming our information is fully accurate, always be sure to double check on the breweries’ social media accounts.

Finally, please sign up for the newsletter below– we haven’t been updating as much during the pandemic for obvious reasons, but when regular updates begin again (and they will soon), signing up for the newsletter is the best way to make sure you don’t miss out.

Thanks so much for visiting– we hope you come back soon, and we hope beer travels return to normal as soon as the world will allow. Cheers!

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• Beercation Destination

A Beer Geek’s Travel Checklist

Whether it’s holiday travel or a summer trip to see the family, if you’re planning on traveling with beer or for beer, you’ll want to be prepared for anything. No one wants that “whale” you picked up in a beer store far from home to get busted in checked luggage. And you want to avoid the let down of arriving at a brewery you’ve been waiting months to try, only to find out they’re cash only — and you haven’t carried a bill in your wallet since 2003.

Here are 11 must-pack items to make traveling with beer smoother without missing a beer beat.

11. A Tool to Open Your Beer

While often your keychain bottle opener is more than enough to suffice, there are times during the holiday season you may not have your regular keys on you. Traveling to a different state and renting a car? Suddenly your “I always have my keys” mantra is singing a different tune. Grab an extra bottle opener, or even a corkscrew that can also handle bottle tops. This way you may earn a few extra style points for saving the day at that holiday gathering.

( SEASONALS:  Winter Beers are Here )

10. Take an Extra Beer Bag

Speaking of that party, you never want to show up empty-handed. Add a little cheer by bringing your beer gift in a festive gift bag. Plus, when someone shows up unexpectedly as the group is about to open presents, you can easily duck out of the room and throw an extra bottle into a gift bag. It takes up basically no room in your suitcase, yet makes you look like you were planning a gift all along.

9. Growlers and a Cooler

If you are traveling by car, it’s always a good idea to throw a few extra growlers in the back. This way, if you do encounter some amazing brew along the way, you might be able to bring a few pours back with you to the home base. If you have enough room, it is also a great idea to put a cooler in the trunk too. This way, it doesn’t matter when you find that beer along the journey. You can keep it cold until you are able to get it into a real fridge.

( READ:  Advice on Hosting a Bottle Share )

8. Extra Large Sealable Plastic Bags and Bubble Wrap

If traveling by plane, you can still take some beer that you can’t find at home back with you. Here are the TSA’s rules about beer in checked luggage . It does take a little extra planning. Fill extra space in your luggage, fill it with bubble wrap and a box of the biggest size sealable plastic bag you can find. Then when you find a bottle you want to take back, wrap it in the bubbles and individually place it in one of the bags, trying to get much of the air out when you close it. This, wrapped in your dirty clothes and placed in the center of your bag, will usually survive the trip without incident. But in case one bottle does break, all the liquid stays in the plastic bag instead of soaking your suitcase.

7. CraftBeer.com Brewery Finder

For most of us beer geeks, the best part of traveling for the holidays will be experiencing new breweries. Let us guide you to your next adventure. The CraftBeer.com Brewery Finder is the most comprehensive list of small and independent breweries you can ask for. Even if you forget to check it out before arriving to a new city, don’t worry — it works great on your phone when you use the “Breweries Near Me” button.

( BEER TRAVEL: Ideas for Your Next Beercation )

6. A Way to Keep Beer Notes

Keeping notes on what you like is crucial. It’s not as easy to remember what you liked when you only stepped into a place once. If you have gone all digital and use an app such as Untappd, make sure it’s installed, ready to go and your phone has power (or even an extra battery source). If you stay old school, pack your beer journal, some blank paper or those “borrowed” cocktail napkins. In fact, extra pen or paper is always a good idea in case you wind up with no phone signal — the horror!

I know, I know — what is this “cash” thing we speak of?! Believe it or not, some small businesses still take paper money. Plus, some food trucks, snacks, or merchandise may be cash only. So make yourself feel like a big spender and bring some Benjamins along when you travel.

( LEARN: Beer 101 Online Course )

4. Prepare for Airport Delays

It’s going to happen at some point during the holidays. Whether by too much volume or nasty weather, the plane schedule is going to be thrown out the window. Make sure you’re ready to kill a few hours. First, know the best places to find indie beer at your airport. Then, load up on your beer knowledge by making sure your phone has some of your favorite beer audio downloaded and ready to go. This could include The PorchCast , “ Help the Pour ,” or Beer Guys Radio.

3. Your Favorite Local Brewery T-Shirt

If you are heading to a new area, turn yourself into a walking billboard for your favorite hometown seller of suds. That t-shirt will often be a great icebreaker if you are hanging out in a far away brewery. Plus, it’s always nice to have a little reminder of home when traveling.

( TRAVEL: 5 Epic Craft Beer Road Trips )

2. Cards and Games

Maybe you found a great brewery and you want to bring the whole family along. If you bring some cards and portable tabletop games with you, you may actually convince them that this is good old-fashioned family time. Keeping the family entertained can dramatically increase the amount of time you have to sample the beers.

1. Patience

I know it’s cliche to say that you must pack your patience, but you need to do it anyway. The holidays can be awesome, but they can also be really freaking stressful. Try to just smile and nod the tough parts away, and back away slowly towards the craft beer you stashed in the corner or that cooler in the trunk of your car. Open one up, and then nothing will seem so bad. Cheers!

Mark Elliot

Mark Elliot is a craft beer fan and meteorologist for The Weather Channel, so extreme weather and extremely awesome beer are two of his favorite things. He enjoys spending time with his wife, his daughter (who is named after a brewery), and their two lovable shelter dogs.

CraftBeer.com is fully dedicated to small and independent U.S. breweries. We are published by the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers. Stories and opinions shared on CraftBeer.com do not imply endorsement by or positions taken by the Brewers Association or its members.

CITY BREW TOURS SHOP

A CURATED BREW BOX, FROM AMERICA’S FINEST CITIES.

Other Stops Along the Way

The only beer tour that takes you on a virtual road trip around the USA, discovering hyper-local craft breweries from a new under-the-radar beer city every month!

Each box showcases EIGHT of our favorite beers from three to four of the best breweries in that month’s city. Also in the box, you’ll find a guided tasting sheet, a postcard, and a local visitor’s guide.

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We get it! New things can be scary. Click around on the photo to see all the goodies that come with every beer box subscription from City Brew Tours:

HOPPY HOLIDAY BEER BOXES

GRAB A BEER WITH US.

We really enjoy the club.

If not mistaken, I've been in the club for over a year. In all, the variety has been superb, and there has only been one beverage that I didn't find to my liking. Looking forward to next month!

Simply love it, my favorite beer box by far.

The only thing I have ever had a problem with is when there's a rescheduling. I just can't keep all the beers in my fridge at once. So I normally don't put them in until the night before. This has caused me to have the wrong beers ready because I don't receive the email until I am already at work, and sometimes don't even have a chance to read it. So maybe change the heading or put a huge notice at the top of the email that there's been a schedule change. I know those can happen last minute, but even getting it out earlier when there's a change would be helpful.

Still the best beer box subscription.

We have belonged to several “beer clubs” over the years. This one is far and away the very, very best! We recommend it to all our friends.

Keep up the good work! I really enjoy being a member.

I really enjoyed getting the variety of beers and beers that I cannot get locally.

I mostly enjoyed the getting a shipment for a single city along with the various pieces of local paraphernalia.

This concept is amazing which is why I tried it out. I love traveling and finding new beer that we don't have at home so this is a good way to plan the next random road trip. If the price was a bit lower I'd be in every month.

I could not follow the livestreams in December because my box arrived too late (it arrived in January). I asked for the January box to be cancelled, but it was sent anyway. Brews Less Traveled was kind enough to make up for it by giving me an extra month though. Hopefully from here it will be smooth sailing.

Great concept and it's a positive experience when the live stream is centered around the beer we’re currently drinking and explained by the brewers who made it. And no more chili lagers please!

Good luck. This was an expensive subscription for me to buy as a gift. The recipient was delighted with his first box.

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19 Craft Breweries Worth Going Out of Your Way For

Whether they're a significant journey from any major city or just in a quieter part of town, these road-trip worthy breweries are destinations in their own right and deserve a spot on your summer itinerary.

Andrew Parks is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and editor who covers topics ranging from food, drink, dining, and travel to arts and culture.

Whether you're vacationing in Vancouver, a couple European countries, or just about any corner of Colorado, it doesn't take much effort to find a decent brewery these days. In a lot of ways, the craft beer contingent is where breakout indie rock bands were in the '90s—flirting with major labels and the mainstream while trying not to alienate their old fans or (god forbid!) 'sell out.'

One way some brewers have set themselves apart is by not even bothering with a state's busiest cities. Or at the very least, breaking ground in a quieter part of town—areas you have to actually seek out, deftly pouring drinks that feel like a destination. Take Fonta Flora in Morganton, North Carolina, for instance. It's hidden in plain sight an hour east of Asheville , a bucket list bullet point for tourists whose itineraries revolve around taprooms. So, no, you can't build it into a catch-all bar crawl or a woefully embarrassing party bike package. But you can spend a few hours there, soaking up the sun and appreciating the finer points of a mixed culture saison aged with dandelion flowers.

"In some ways, opening a brewery in Asheville would have been the easy path," says head brewer Todd Boera. "We have certainly struggled in certain aspects—being in a very small town—but in a lot of ways, it has been a breath of fresh air to carve our own path and not directly be part of the Asheville brewing scene."

They're not alone. Do a little digging and you'll find unforgettable craft beer where you least expect it throughout this beautiful country. Here are 19 old and new spots worth a road or day trip this spring, summer, and fall….

California: Russian River , Santa Rosa

Russian River's Pliny the Younger triple IPA is kinda like the Pappy's of the craft-beer scene — often discussed, yet rarely sipped or seen. That's because it's only available on-tap (growlers be damned!) for a few weeks at double R's main taproom and a select group of like-minded draft lines throughout California. And while you may have missed this year's batch, the company already announced next year's release date — February 1st — so mark your calendar, kids!

In the meantime, folks from San Francisco and Sacramento are encouraged to make the less than two-hour trek out to Santa Rosa, where they'll find absurdly fresh pours of Pliny the Elder (an iconic double IPA in its own right) and Vinnie Cilurzo's other critically acclaimed creations, including a brown ale that's been aged in Pinot Noir barrels for a year and clobbered with sour cherries (Supplication) and a strong golden ale that tastes like it was bottled at a Belgian abbey last week (Damnation).

Connecticut: OEC , Oxford

The headline on a Pastestory pretty much says it all: "Every Beer OEC Brews Is Absolutely Bonkers." So bonkers, in fact, the Oxford brewery has been known to ask newbies "you like sours right?" Ya better, because the Ordinem Eccentrici Coctores (someone took Latin!) crew lets all of its cult offerings cool on its custom koelschip for at least an hour before the aging process begins, soaking up wild yeast strains and getting funkier than a Parliament LP. Infusing every batch with choice ingredients ensures that everything is actually tasty, too, especially a limited Experimentalis line that " must utilize fresh fruit… grown on the OEC Brewing property."

Here's a shortlist of what owner/head brewer Ben Neidhart has used since opening in the summer of 2014: gooseberries, red and white raspberries, sour oranges, peaches, limes, kumquats, Meyer lemons, and a wide array of herbs and spices. (Get your hyssop — wild, bitter mint — here!)

If you're from the New England area and want to see what the Order of Eccentric Boilers is all about, be sure to book one of the four extensive tours assistant brewer Tony Pellino runs every year. The three-hour affairs are so popular they're already sold out this year, but other "specialized tour-like classes" are now being offered for $50 a pop, so if you've always wondered what really goes into barrel-aging and blending, this is the place to do it.

Delaware: Dogfish Head , Milton

Yes, Dogfish Head was big enough to warrant its own short-lived TV show ( Brew Masters ) back in 2010, but founder/brewmaster Sam Calagione earned that role by rocking his "off-centered ales for off-centered people" rule for nearly 25 years now. (Seriously; try and name another brewery that's made its very own version of Chicha , a Peruvian recipe involving purple corn and sterilized co-worker spit.) The other truly unique thing about Dogfish Head is its remote location: Milton, a tiny, riverside town that brings new meaning to the Wayne's World line "imagine being magically whisked away to Delaware; hi, I'm in… Delaware ."

You can now make a weekend of exploring Calagione's beachside empire by staying at its newly renovated inn (salvaged from the '70s and designed by a former brand manager from Ace Hotel); tasting the exclusive taps on the brewery's R&D lines; and grabbing dinner at the expanded version of Dogfish's original brewpub (Brewings & Eats) and the seafood-centric Chesapeake & Maine, the bar program of which was longlisted for a James Beard Award last year. (It didn't make the final cut, but Calagione did take home a medal for Outstanding Wine, Beer or Spirits Professional after being nominated for seven year straight, so there you go; even food critics dig what he's done here!)

Georgia: Creature Comforts , Athens

While it was nice to see Georgia loosen its ludicrous blue laws last fall — before that long overdue piece of legislation , you had to buy 'tour' tickets to sample anyone's wares onsite — the damage was already done. Years of not being able to buy local beer direct from taprooms (a major source of income for small businesses who don't want to deal with distributors) meant having to hunt the hottest releases down at bottle shops instead. Folks in Atlanta found that out the hard way when the word-of-mouth buzz around Creature Comforts' Tropicália IPA led to repeated shortages and rumors of employees stashing its six-packs behind the counter for close friends and themselves.

Some of that insanity — Thrillist devoted an entire story to it — has died down, as Atlanta's own breweries earn their own accolades, but that doesn't mean Creature Comforts isn't worth a road trip. If anything, it's still the state's top brewery, churning out more than just IPAs for people who didn't know they liked IPAs. Swing by its 13,000-square-foot space (a former Chevy dealership and auto repair shop) to try everything from its Subtle Alchemy series of limited blends to welcome variations on its Berliner Weisse (Athena Paradiso) that have included a refreshing vanilla, green tea, and mint combo and a holy trinity of tart cherries, raspberries, and cranberries.

Idaho: Grand Teton , Victor

The savvy entrepreneur/ bearded charlatan selling "raw water" to Silicon Valley types with way too much money oughta sneak onto the grounds of Grand Teton Brewing at night and tap their H20 hook-up just down the street. Gleaned from glacial runoff and naturally filtered by granite and limestone, it pairs rather perfectly with the region's world-class barley crops and fragrant hop farms. More importantly, it's about 45 minutes from Jackson Hole — close enough to hit the area's pristine National Park, and far enough to escape its egregious tourists afterwards. To give you an idea of just how 'local' the Grand Teton Brewing crowd leans comparatively, someone actually pulled up in a horse when we were there. And none of GT's regulars even batted an eyelash; hell, someone may have even gotten the horse a water bowl.

Illinois: Scratch , Ava

"When we're brewing a beer," Scratch co-founder Marika Josephson recently told Men's Journal , "we might just grab a couple of buckets, walk outside, and start pulling leaves, flowers, or mushrooms."

No kidding; turns out its tucked-away location — just five miles from the Shawnee National Forest—is rife for foraging and capturing Southern Illinois' rich terroir. Josephon and her compatriots (Aaron Kleidon and Ryan Tockstein) even wrote a well-received book on the subject: The Homebrewer's Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to Making Your Own Beer From Scratch .

Thrill seekers from St. Louis should plan on camping around these parts and stocking up on bottle-conditioned mind blowers like a "single tree" sour that swipes out hops entirely for hickory leaves, nuts, hulls and bark harvested from Scratch's own grounds and fermented with a wild house mixed culture. We're pretty sure we've never tasted anything like Roots before, either — a magical farmhouse ale mix of locally sourced ginger, turmeric, carrot, clover, and burdock. Not getting a $10 sample flight of four beers here is simply a crime against all that is good in the world.

Indiana: 3 Floyds , Munster

You don't have to be a heavy-metal fan to hang out at 3 Floyds, but it certainly doesn't hurt. That way you can mosey right up to the bar — headbanging in time to the tectonic rhythms and riffs of the new Sleep record — and order a piquant imperial pint of Zombie Dust or Lazersnake with confidence.

As for why you wanna be here, there's a reason this family-run business is planning a massive expansion in suburban Indiana, over the next few years. (They're currently the big draw near a dreary hospital, White Castle, and funeral home.) And that is its peerless status as a pilgrimage site for serious hop heads and Chicagoans who'd like a break from the hustle and flow of the nearby city. (It's about 45 minutes away, and a major source of 3 Floyds' foot traffic.)

Not just on Dark Lord Day , either, one of the industry's most infamous annual releases despite costing nearly $200 to attend. Everything on 3 Floyds' tap list is tasty, and quite hard to find if you don't live in its cozy little corner of the Midwest, so the pro move here is to try as much as you can on draft and then ransack its well-stocked to-go counter.

Iowa: Toppling Goliath , Decorah

"I find it amazing how many people come to visit us," Toppling Goliath founder Clark Lewey told the Chicago Tribune a few years ago. "I try to be there as much as I can and share a beer with them and find out what makes them tick."

The answer's simple: What makes them tick are the Top Whatever lists on RateBeer and BeerAdvocate — reader-sourced rankings this runaway Northeastern Iowa hit has ruled for several years now. (As of the reporting for this story, Toppling Goliath's beloved Kentucky Brunch imperial stout was sitting pretty at the No. 1 spot on both sites.)

Never mind the fact that Lewey had only started home brewing about a decade ago, mostly because he got sick of having to hit the road to find the beer he liked. Toppling Goliath is the epitome of what it's like running a craft brewery in 2018, and how online chatter can turn a person's hobby into a full-blown business .

"Starting out in a small taproom," explains its director of hospitality, Josh White, "we were very fortunate to have customers who believed in our product and returned to our taproom week after week. As popularity and distribution grew more out of town, out-of-state and international guests started to visit Decorah. Now, our new two-story taproom can hold over 500 guests and features two interior bars, one outdoor bar, an outdoor patio, a gift shop, a fireplace, brewery tours, and we'll have a full kitchen soon."

Louisiana: Parish , Broussard

While Abita is the one craft brewery that always comes up in conversations about Louisiana's still-nascent beer scene — this is cocktail and Cajun country, after all — Broussard's Parish Brewing Company draws a devoted following to an otherwise nondescript stretch of warehouses just outside Lafayette. Canebrake was, and still is, Parish's crossover hit, a simple-yet-satisfying wheat ale newbies order to show the rest of the world it is not, in fact, Miller Time.

You can find it at most decent New Orleans bars now, though; the reason you wanna visit a town with a 10K population is Parish's new "Sour Sips" series. It's jammy, fruity greatness is only up for grabs here, and you won't find a fresher source for Ghost in the Machine, a here-today, gone-tomorrow double IPA brewed with an "obscene quantities of hand-selected Citra hops from [Parish's] favorite farm in [the] Yakima Valley."

Michigan: Schramm’s , Ferndale

Mead wasn't even remotely cool in 2003, but that didn't keep Mazer Cup co-founder Ken Schramm from writing the definitive book on it. He didn't open his own meadery in metro Detroit until a decade later, but let's be real here; that was probably a good thing. Game of Thrones didn't make Renaissance fairs and heavy chalices of fermented honey seem cool until around 2015 or so. And by then, Schramm's was recognized as the real deal, toeing the delicate line between tartness and sweetness thanks to its use of high-quality fruit (everything from locally sourced Balaton cherries to the heady blackberry/raspberry hybrid that is loganberries).

Definitely grab a wax-sealed Heart of Darkness bottle if they have it. As Schramm's own site puts it, "production is extremely limited, as the amount of care and labor which go into each batch is substantial."

New Jersey: Kane , Ocean

Springsteen would approve of Michael Kane's tireless efforts to put the Jersey Shore — the Asbury Park area, in particular — on the map for something other than beaches and boardwalks, let alone a certain MTV show. Believe it or not, the president/founder of Kane Brewing Company got his start on Wall Street, but that limited engagement had one end goal in mind: learning the business side of things and saving enough money to sign a lease on the sort of Belgian/German-style brewery he'd fallen in love with during a college trip to Europe.

The natural born entrepreneur nailed it, too, converting a former casket factory into a cross between the Netherlands and New England, Chimay and Magic Hat. And while Kane's sun-baked location could probably sell nothing but left-field lagers, he's slayed a dizzying amount of styles since opening in 2011. Aside from an airtight "Mysterioso" lineup of short-lived experiments that never leave his taproom (there's been 27 so far), Kane is constantly switching things up with his multi-faceted Tidal Series. Standouts include a Deep Rooted imperial pale ale made with more than 145 pounds of fresh-picked Jersey hops (hey, they're good at tomatoes!); a low-gravity counterpart (Civil Twilight) to Kane's barrel-aged A Night to End All Dawns beast; and an imperial butternut squash counterpoint to all the awful pumpkin beers that plague shelves every September (Fall Saints).

New York: Old Klaverack , Hudson

With craft-beer companies growing at a feverish clip these days — some new-schoolers have been around for less than a decade and already enjoyed significant expansions — it's becoming harder and harder to find a true nano brewery. In case you're not a total nerd like us, that's someone who literally works in small batches, 2,000 barrels a year, tops. Erik Bell and Tom Folster follow that quality-not-quantity model to a T at Old Klaverack, a welcome, wood-paneled respite from Hudson's red-hot row of restaurants, galleries, and shops. (It's located about 20 minutes away from the town's popular Amtrak station, and sources most of its hops and malts from nearby farms.)

Definitely pick up a tall bottle or two while you're there; Old Klaverack is strictly an Upstate NY thing, and its Spookrock IPA will floor anyone who's fallen for hazy IPAs over the past year. (Elsewhere in New York, Woodland Farm in Marcy, located right across the Mohawk River from Utica, and within driving distance of Albany and Syracuse, is the place to go if you're looking for one beer craze that's merely a matter of time on the craft circuit: cask ales, or "real ale" if you're from the UK.)

North Carolina: Mystery , Hillsborough

What puts the "Mystery" in Mystery Brewing, you ask? Well, unlike the sane individuals who keep a solid year-round lineup of familiar styles in rotation, owner Erik Lars Myers has just two permanent residents on his tap list: a pale ale (The Golden Hind) and a Belgian white (The Orbiter) that make the most of seasonal hops and spices. Seasonality plays a starring role here, actually; it's why this six-year-old Hillsborough standby (near Durham and Duke University) has an encyclopedic list of limited releases on its website. It's all a tease, really, as the odds of seeing 90% of them — a clementine rosemary sour here, a salted caramel gose (with peaches!) there — again are not in your favor.

One thing's for certain, however; Myers will always exhibit a welcome sense of humor. After all, this is the guy that gleefully made a "ridiculously patriotic extra pale ale" (adorned with bald eagles and called America, of course) when Budweiser announced its own Belgium-brewed bottle of national pride.

Ohio: Hoppin' Frog , Akron

Hometown heroes The Black Keys may have flown the coop years ago, but Hopping Frog ain't going anywhere. It's so ingrained in Akron's cultural makeup — hitting the highest marks on RateBeer for more than a decade — that its Cleveland neighbors often make the one-hour drive there. Swing by for Hoppy Hour (that's not a typo, people; it's an inevitable pun) and do your best damage to a draft list that's 24 taps deep. Aside from many variations of owner Fred Karm's award-winning imperial stouts (the oatmeal-heavy B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher is often called one of the world's best), there's a rogue's gallery of seasonal and specialty beer, including a Turbo Shandy that's been aged in either bourbon or tequila barrels, an unfiltered Wild Frog wheat ale torn straight from the German playbook, and a not-so-delicate double IPA with the doubly memorable name of Mean Manalishi.

Oregon: de Garde , Tillamook

Portland has long been recognized as an epicenter of experimental beer and heaven-sent hops. So here's what you need to do: Book a week (48 hours? As if!) in one of the country's best food cities, and be sure to tack on at least a couple days in Tillamook. It's located just 90 minutes west of Portland, right along the Oregon coast. The region's not just for nature lovers , Goonies fans , and cheeseheads , either; de Garde is the state's welterweight champion when it comes to spontaneous wild ales and sours. To-go bottles change all the time due to their limited runs (less than 1,000 each), but you can expect cellar-ready exclusives using everything from plush Oregon peaches to oak barrels spiked with sea salt, coriander, and citrus peel. Kegs rarely leave the taproom, too, so you'd be remiss to not partake in a few six-ounce pours as well.

South Carolina: Westbrook , Mount Pleasant

Everyone adores Charleston—us included. But before you get too swept up in making reservations at revelatory Lowcountry restaurants, set aside a few hours to check out Westbrook Brewing Company's tasting room. Its Mount Pleasant location appears far, far away on a map—blame the blue Cooper River that separates Charleston from its suburban neighbor—but it's actually reachable in 20 minutes by car.

Much of what co-owner Edward Westbrook makes is inspired by his German grandmother Oma, from a smoked wheat ale that's rarely seen in the States (Grätzer) to a salty-sour Gose that goes light on the alcohol and IBUs. Westbrook was one of the latter's early adopters—it's gotten a little more trendy in the six years since his first batch—because of how it complements South Carolina's balmy climate. Also worth a sip when you're looking for something refreshing: the White Thai witbier that swipes coriander and orange peel out for fresh lemongrass, ginger root, and Sorachi Ace hops. It'll leave you craving a plate of chili-bombed shrimp curry.

Texas: Jester King , Austin

It's kind of hard to believe that Jester King's solar-powered farm complex is part of Austin, but that's more of a city limits matter on a map than anything that has to do with downtown or South By Southwest. Speaking of, Jester King is exactly where you want to be when that festival gets a little too irritating. Aside from being a beautiful example of what Texas' Hill Country has to offer ( Argus Cidery is also nearby, and a growing number of sorely overlooked wineries aren't too far away either), Jester King is highly respected within the wild ale community. Their limited bottle releases have been known to sell out within their first weekend despite costing as much as a decent bottle of wine.

Maybe that's because head brewer Averie Swanson is often outdoing herself, and everything else in the Lone Star State's bottle shops, for that matter. Just take a look at their current offerings: a barrel-aged Bruery Terreux collab spliced with JK's own rosemary strands and "foot-stomped" California grapes (Sacred Vessel); a Fonta Flora duet fermented with fennel, nettle, and false pennyroyal flowers (Wanderflora); and a deceivingly simple ale brewed strictly with Texas-grown malts (Part & Parcel).

Sign. Us. Up.

Vermont: Hill Farmstead , Greensboro

The legacy of Hill Farmstead is right there in its logo, which is taken from a tavern sign that once belonged to the great-great-great grandfather of founder Shaun Hill. He learned how to whip up batches of barely legal beer in high school thanks to a science fair project involving fermentation, but you'd never know about those humble beginnings now that his rural brewery is world-renowned. (Literally—RateBeer voters ranked it No. 1 nearly six years in a row, including 2017.)

This despite only being open five hours a day Wednesday through Saturday. But hey, what do you expect from a place that big-ups Nietzsche in its barrel-aged maple imperial sweet stout (Beyond Good and Evil), and devotes an entire series of acclaimed beer to members of its extended family, ensuring they will outlive all of us?

Wisconsin: The Brewing Projekt , Eau Claire

It’s no secret that Wisconsin’s obsession with beer is second only to its status as masterful cheesemakers. Madison gets most of the attention on that front thanks to its proximity to New Glarus Brewing , but we've gotta be honest with you; its sprawling campus feels like a glorified gift shop. Pretty and quite picturesque, yes, but the far more compelling Funk Factory Geuzeria in Madison proper feels considerably less theme park-y.

Which leads us to The Brewing Projekt . It's situated in the cozy environs of Eau Claire, a rising West Central Wisconsin city best known for its ongoing ties to Bon Iver . If you ask anyone in the area—or Minneapolis, for that matter—who's pushing everyone's palates here, the answer will most certainly lead back to William Glass' scrappy outlet for "damn good beer."

"Not beer that everyone will like," says their mission statement, "rather beer that many will love. Boring just isn't our style. If that's what you want… go somewhere else."

Well alright then. The thing is, lots of people love Glass' more coveted offerings, like the hop-highlighting Dare Mighty Things series, a West Coast-style IPA laced with a vegetal layer of green tea (Gunpowder), and a milkshake IPA (RESIST) "brewed with lactose and a boatload of hops, then aged on vanilla." That last one's a little heavy-handed with its Banksy-esque label; depending on the four-pack's varying flavor profiles, its street art star is tossing hops, mangos, or pineapples like freshly lit molotov cocktails.

There's a reason for this; Glass has been going up against "Wisconsin's antiquated liquor laws" ever since he came up with a business plan five years ago. They set the Brewing Projket's current location back a couple years, and are currently muddying the waters of a massive expansion in a 50,000-square-foot mixed-use space that's housed such long-shuttered tenants as a furniture factory and a meat-processing facility.

And what better way to fight the power than artful, stubbornly crafted beer?

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Published on March 25, 2024

Beer Travel: How to Plan a Craft Beer Vacation

Craft beer has evolved from a niche hobby to a global phenomenon, with enthusiasts flocking to breweries to savor specialty flavors and experience local culture. The concept of a craft beer vacation is no longer limited to a pub crawl. It’s now a full-fledged travel experience, combining the love of beer with the joy of exploration. Beer-centric vacations offer a taste of the world’s finest brews, along with a deep dive into the art of brewing. 

Beyond the allure of trying new beers, craft beer vacations also provide a glimpse into the heart and soul of a destination. Breweries often reflect the local culture, history, and traditions, offering visitors a perspective on the city and neighborhood. Small family-owned breweries tell a different story than inner city urban breweries, and both help travelers get a feel – and taste – to complement their journey. 

With a thriving craft beer scene, there’s never been a better time to embark on beer-centric travel. Whether you’re a seasoned beer aficionado or a casual drinker looking for a new adventure, these destinations promise to tantalize your taste buds and expand your beer horizons, one pint at a time.

Take a look at this round-up of 15 of the best places to visit for beer lovers. You’ll find some great ideas to start planning your next craft beer vacation.

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6 Virginia Hike and Beer Day Trips Near Washington DC

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9 Best Breweries In Gainesville You Should Visit

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• Destinations

Craft Beer Destinations in the United States

The popularity of craft beers is on the rise, leading to more and more travel centered on beer lovers. From stouts to pilsners, there is a brew for everyone, so why not incorporate one of these luxury craft beer destinations into your next vacation?

Asheville, NC

They don’t call Asheville “Beer City, USA” for no reason! It’s been named one of Forbes Travel Guide’s 5 Beer Cities To Hit This Summer and CNN’s 8 Best Beer Towns in the USA as well. This North Carolina town boasts 11 different breweries and over 30 beer pubs, with more opening each year, all set in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. From nanobreweries to large national brands, it’s easy to plan a beer vacation in Asheville. Local hotels like the Hotel Indigo even offer special vacation packages with brewery tours included. To top off your luxury retreat in Asheville, you should also arrange for a tour of the nearby Biltmore House. This modern-day castle is America’s largest private residence and was built by the Vanderbilt family. The Grove Park Inn is another grand luxury hotel nearby worth a visit. Its distinct Arts and Crafts style construction makes it a top attraction in Asheville and a great addition to our list of craft beer destinations.

Finger Lakes, New York

The Finger Lakes region of New York has 14 microbreweries with tasting rooms, 10 brewpubs, and 3 distribution-only brewers. This firmly establishes it as the center of the New York’s thriving craft brewery scene. Follow one of the many itineraries on the Finger Lakes Beer Trail  to explore the region then return to The Inn on the Lake  in Canandaigua. Relax in one of their eight luxurious lakefront jacuzzi suites while sipping on your favorite finds of the day. If visiting in the summer, enjoy the many local lake cruises and beaches. Winter visitors should make time to hit the slopes at the nearby  Bristol Mountain Ski Resort .

Nashville, Tennessee

America’s Music City is making a new name for itself as one of the top craft beer destinations in recent years. Now a major “beercation” destination, Nashville offers plenty of local breweries to visit and beers to taste. To make the most of your trip hop on one of the Nashville Brew Bus  tours.

Each tour includes a Brewing Basics lesson as well as brewery tours and tastings, and time to relax and grab a pint at every stop. All tours include transportation (coach bus), beer at every stop, water and snacks on the bus, a knowledgeable and fun-loving guide/drinking buddy, and the opportunity to meet the folks behind Nashville’s Craft Beer culture.

After a hard day tasting craft brews, you will want to relax at the centrally located The Hermitage Hotel . This Nashville 5-star hotel has been in operation since 1910.

Denver, Colorado

When discussing craft beer destinations, you can’t leave out The Mile High City where more than 50 breweries call home. This makes Denver the king of craft beers in a state with over 300 small breweries. Most every neighborhood in Denver hosts its own brewery, and it would take months to visit them all. The town offers numerous guided beer tours to help you navigate the extensive beer scene. Some tours even include a visit to the Coors brewery in nearby Golden. Choose from walking tours or opt for a van or bus ride tour to see a larger area of Denver. Base your explorations at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Denver for a stay that guarantees the ultimate in luxury. Be sure to grab a steak at the famous Elway’s on-site at the hotel and relax after all those tastings with a massage at the hotel’s spa.

All across the United States, you’ll find new craft breweries popping up each and every day. So your next vacation should definitely include at least one of these craft beer destinations. For even more beer-centered fun, explore these  Craft Beers to Bring Oktoberfest Home.

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A Road Trip for the Love of Craft Beer

A recap of craft beer breweries visited on our “consolation corona-cation” usa road trip in 2020.

This article may contain affiliate/compensated links. For full information, please see our disclaimer  here .

Table of Contents

A road trip

In the year of 2020, there were so many up and down moments including cancelling and rescheduling a very anticipated trip overseas to Italy. My husband and I try to go to Europe at least once a year if we can make it work and lets just say after everything we had already been through with the Corona pandemic, we really just needed a change of scenery! We weren’t ready to get on a plane yet, but we had some vacation time to burn and lets just say that we were watching (ahem binging) wayyyyyy too much Beach Front Bargain Hunt . So, alas we decided to take a completely random road trip to hit up some craft beer breweries that have been on our list and make our way out to the ocean on the east coast.

Planning for a road trip

As we started to plan for a road trip it had been years since both of us had gone on a legit road trip. If I said we didn’t learn a lot about what to do and what not to do, I would be lying! We learned a lot about the top tips for an enjoyable road trip . This road trip we had a few too many long driving days stacked next to each other. One of the most important things in having an enjoyable road trip is driving for a bit, stopping and doing some things then driving some more so it doesn’t feel like you’re in the car for-ev-errr!

Disclaimer : some parts of the route were completely influenced by breweries. But, hey it was a brewery road trip so that makes complete sense! Otherwise, there would be a lot more straightforward routes that could be taken. But, we were in the business of checking out the brews in the not so popular spots. (And some popular spots too!)

Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota to Eau Claire, Wisconsin

We set out on our adventure after a full day of work road tripping to Eau Claire, Wisconsin for the night. From our house in the north western Minneapolis suburbs it took just under 2 hours to travel there. Once we arrived, we headed to a few breweries to have some drinks that evening. Details listed below in the specific brewery sections.

Click here for places to stay in Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Eau claire, wi through madison, wi to columbus, indiana.

We spent the night in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and woke up the next day to make the trek to Columbus, Indiana. Why Columbus, Indiana? You guessed it! a bucket list brewery I’ve always wanted to visit! I’ll get into details about the breweries we visited later on.

Click here for places to stay in Columbus, Indiana

Columbus, indiana to virginia beach.

This was a hike! In other words, it was a very long driving segment. I don’t recommend it when you’re planning a brewery road trip to have very long driving days. But, after it was over Virginia Beach was one of the places we spent a majority of our time in. So, we had a break from driving days. Aside from brewery hopping we enjoyed some great food, golfed and took our dog to the beach. He had only ever been to lakes in Minnesota and he actually really loved the ocean. (Which I was so surprised by!)

Click here for places to stay in Virginia Beach

Virginia beach to obx (outer banks of north carolina).

This segment of our trip wasn’t a very far drive and it was 100 percent fueled by binge watching entirely too much beach front bargain hunt during the early 2020 lockdown in the United States. We decided to stay in Kill Devil Hills, NC but also considered staying in Nags Head.

Click here for places to stay in the Outer Banks of North Carolina

Kill devil hills obx to asheville, north carolina.

The drive from the OBX to Asheville wasn’t too bad. Especially after spending a few days on the beaches we were really excited to get to Asheville one of the best craft beer cities in the United States!

Click here for places to stay in Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville, north carolina to decorah, iowa.

After spending a few days in Asheville and hopping to our fair share of breweries. (I mean it literally is a brewery road trip so I don’t know what you expect?) More on the breweries soon. (I promise!) We were ready to head back. I really wish we would have spent some time in Knoxville or Pigeon Forge area but we can always return! I really would like to go back to Asheville as I feel like we barely scratched the surface. But, when I really like a destination I usually always want to return.

From Asheville, we made a pit stop in Nashville which has one of my favorite breweries. The tap room wasn’t reopened yet so it was strictly a curbside beer pickup situation. The last time I was in Nashville I visited multiple locations.

Click here for places to stay in Decorah, Iowa

Decorah, iowa to rochester, minnesota.

Honestly, Decorah was all for specific breweries. Surprise, surprise right? I mean it was 2020 and we had been cooped up at home for so long so we were truly making the number of breweries we visited on this trip worth our while!

After our time in Decorah we headed to our last stop of Rochester, MN which is only a little under a two hour drive from home. But, since we were going to breweries we stayed one night before heading back the next morning.

Click here for places to stay in Rochester, Minnesota

The most important part: the breweries, eau claire, wisconsin: lazy monk brewery.

This is what I like to consider a “bonus” brewery. We were on our way to our main brewery we wanted to go to and we stopped in here. They were very hospitable and it had such a German beer hall vibe it was a really fun place!

Eau Claire, Wisconsin: The Brewing Projekt

The main reason why we chose to stop in Eau Claire to kick off our 2020 brewery road trip was to make the trek to The Brewing Projekt. Living in the Twin Cities, we have access to these beers in many liquor stores and they have come to be some of our favorites to try out. But, it always hits a little different actually have the beers you’re fond of in the tap room. I’m sure our experience was a little different given there were a lot of covid restrictions still. But, we were super happy to have taken a good chunk of time off and be at one of our bucket list breweries that the trip was really centered around. Cheers to that! My favorite beers they put out definitely are their Resist Milkshake IPA’s, Puff Tart, Puff Tart XL variants.

Columbus, Indiana: 450N Brewing

450 North Brewing Company really was one of the first breweries to make beers in the smoothie sour style. (Which I’m very much a fan of!) I feel like this brewery is a common stop on any brewery road trip. Because, the other kicker is they’re literally out in the middle of nowhere and do not distribute their beers at all. Because of these facts, the beers have become a hot commodity in the craft beer community. If you’re lucky enough to know someone that had access to their releases or if you could go to the taproom that’s the only way you could try out this brewery.

We ended up eating dinner here and having a few beers. It was a pretty relaxing vibe out on the patio while staring across the road at literal corn fields.

Virginia Beach, Virginia: Vibrant Shore Brewing Company

Virginia Beach was one of our longer stops during our brewery road trip. So naturally, we fit in some brews! This brewery was a pit stop in between the beach front where we spent most of our day and our hotel. It was nice to stop here to have a few brews while in Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach, Virginia: Young Veterans Brewery Company

We stopped here after playing a round of golf. It was a smaller more intimate taproom and most of the clientele was locals. Compared to a lot of the places we went closer to Virginia Beach, that wasn’t always the case.

Virginia Beach, Virginia: New Realm Brewing

This was another brewery we visited post golf round. Their restaurant, beer and space were all amazing. There was a large outdoor area including plenty of space inside at tables as well as the bar.

Virginia Beach, Virginia: Commonwealth Brewing Company

This brewery really wasn’t on my radar until a friend of mine from a beer group realized I was in Virginia Beach. She recommended it highly so I knew we had to check it out. It ended up being our favorite brewery in Virginia Beach that we visited. Sometimes, the best plans are the last minute reccs you decide to jump on!

Norfolk, Virginia: The Veil

I had heard such great things about this brewery, although the location we visited was a second location for The Veil, the beer and food we had was worth the trek. We sat in an outdoor space as it’s dog friendly. At the time their menu was an elevated version of some Taco Bell favorites. (I had an amazing fancy crunchwrap supreme.) Their tap list was also equally amazing. It was a perfect late afternoon and evening although it was somewhat out of our way from where we were staying in Virginia Beach.

OBX, North Carolina: Weeping Radish Farm Brewery

Although we stayed for several days in the OBX on our brewery road trip there aren’t as many craft beer spots to hit up here. But while we were enroute to the Outer Banks, we stopped at the oldest micro brewery in North Carolina, Weeping Radish Farm Brewery. They have outdoor space and indoor where you can enjoy pub food and their German inspired brews.

Asheville, North Carolina: Wicked Weed

After leaving the outer banks, we spent what wasn’t long enough in Asheville, North Carolina. We definitely made it worth our time and went to a few too many breweries. But, I regret nothing! It actually really made me want to go back for an extended trip.

The name Wicked Weed was inspired by a quote from Henry the VIII “Hops are a wicked and pernicious weed”. They really had a lot of different beers to choose from on the tap list. We had many flights and also enjoyed lunch there. The patio area where we were seated was well covered from the sun and dog friendly. Barkley our little brewery pup loved his time there.

Asheville, North Carolina: Wicked Weed Funkatorium

Located close to the original Wicked Weed brew pub is the funkatorium. Truly, the name is not lying their sours are very funky! If that’s your thing you will absolutely enjoy this brewery. But, if you’re into more sweet and fruit forward sour beers I would skip this stop. Again, their space for both indoor and outdoor seating was amazing and they also offered food. The outdoor areas again, the same as the brew pub were dog friendly.

Asheville, North Carolina: Catawaba

We visited the location in the south slope of Asheville. (Many breweries are located in this area of the city.) They had many mainstays on their tap list at the time, however I was the most bummed out that they didn’t have one of their peanut butter jelly time brown ale’s available. They always do the different variants switching up the jelly flavor. Hopefully the next time I visit they’ll have it.

Asheville, North Carolina: Burial

I don’t even know where to start in talking about Burial. This was one of the breweries that I was looking forward to visiting the most and it was everything and more. We started out one of our days here and the tap list had soooooo many delicious pastry imperial stout bangers. Sadly, I was semi responsible and didn’t get to try them all because it would have made for a realllly long day! We also ate lunch here and the food was amazing as well. Their outdoor space is really quirky and eclectic.

It would be tough, but if I had to choose only one brewery in Asheville to return to the next time we go, it would 500% be Burial.

Asheville, North Carolina: Hi-Wire

Despite their colorful and fun aesthetic, this taproom experience was one of the breweries we didn’t stay at too long while in Asheville. There was limited seating available due to COVID restrictions so we actually spent more time waiting in line to get a table and snag a few tasters than we actually did enjoying said brews. They have many different locations in the USA so, I’d personally skip it while in Asheville if I were you. There are a lot better spots to hit up (in my opinion!)

Asheville, North Carolina: Bhramari

The beers here were good and it was so busy! We waited awhile and then finally got a table out on the patio. We were extremely unlucky to have an uncovered table and then it started raining. Just given that fact we didn’t stay here super long as we were really uncomfortable. But, the beers I had before it starting down pouring were definitely enjoyable.

Asheville, North Carolina: DSSOLVR

This brewery when we visited was newer so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But, we really enjoyed both their space and the beers that they offered on tap. The beer that really surprised me the most was a fruited sour beer that also had chocolate flavor to it. It really reminded me of my absolute favorite brewery in the midwest. I definitely will be returning the next time I’m in Asheville, that’s for sure!

Nashville, Tennessee : Southern Grist

Stopping at Southern Grist really was just a stop. At the time none of their taprooms were open but since it’s one of my favorite breweries, we had to stop to get some curbside goodies to bring home! You can read more about beer and things to do in Nashville here .

Decorah, Iowa: Toppling Goliath

Toppling Goliath is another Midwest banger brewery that we just hadn’t made the time to visit. So, on the way back home of course we made the stop. We’re able to get some of TG’s brews in the Twin Cities but some are only available from the brewery. My absolute favorite that I tried was their Cherry Fandango. We also ate here and the food was definitely tasty as well.

Decorah, Iowa: Pulpit Rock

Since we were in Decorah, we had to also check out Pulpit Rock. I’ll be honest I was somewhat disappointed in the beers that they had available at the time. That coupled with the fact that we had bees pretty much swarming us on the patio I’m not in a rush to go back! I have had some beers friends have gotten from Pulpit Rock and I really enjoyed them so it may have just been the luck of the draw. I always try to keep that in mind when visiting new breweries because so many places always have rotating availability of beers. I still really want to try the muffin man beer they offer!

Rochester, Minnesota: Forager

This definitely is a restaurant and brewery destination in Rochester. So, naturally we ate lunch here….I mean are you even a little surprised? Somewhat similar to Pulpit Rock, I had had some amazing release takeaway beers by Forager in the past. I mean think thick delicious smoothie sours with literal vanilla bean flecks visible in the beer. Swoooon! But, these beers typically are release only and only on tap close to the release date. Given that we visited not close to one of these releases their tap list was only so so at the time (in my opinion.) But, it’s definitely a great place to stop if you’re in Rochester.

Rochester, Minnesota: Little Thistle

Little Thistle has such a great indoor/outdoor space. They refer to the outdoor space as their outdoor beer garden. At the time we visited they had a pumpkin flavored latte (PSL) inspired beer that was an imperial stout. So of course that was right up my alley! The name was even better, Live Laugh Ugg making a jab at those basic B’s that love their PSL’s, fall foilage and Ugg boots. But i mean if the Ugg boot fits you might as well own it and have a pint, am I right?

We drove over 48 hours, 3,000 miles, passed through 10 states and hit up 20 Breweries to round out our very first brewery road trip!

Brewery Road Trip Best Practices

If you’re planning on going on a road trip where the focus is breweries, be very thoughtful about it. For example, if you’re planning on going to a brewery or two do not get in the car and continue your road trip. Make that destination where you are staying for the night and be responsible, take a taxi or uber/lyft (mobile rideshare app) to and from your accommodation. I cannot stress this enough!

Brewery Road trip & beyond: Beer Travel

Where ever I travel, it’s my goal to drink local. Taste the local craft beer (and sometimes local wineries/craft cocktails.) I have more articles on Beer & Travel listed below:

Guide to Craft Beer in Italy

The Best European Beer Experiences

The Best Breweries in the Twin Cities (of Minnesota)

Where are you going on your next brewery road trip? I know I have several breweries that I am definitely willing to travel for! Of course, I’ll write all about it so stay tuned and be sure to follow my blog and accounts on social media.

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The 13 Best Craft Beers to Drink in 2022

From classic pilsners to new craft IPAs, we've got you covered.

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more .

Modern beer thrives on restless innovation. Each year, the nation’s swelling ranks of breweries–more than 8,000 and counting–release thousands of fresh IPAs, stouts , pilsners and other flavorful formulations. You could spend each day drinking a couple of new beers and never come close to trying them all, another new IPA tapped before you finish your last one. 

To help you make the most of your beer drinking, we asked experts to help select the best craft beers across a variety of categories. Whether you pucker up for sour ales or pine for an old-school West Coast IPA, we’ve got your bases covered with the best ales and lagers. 

Here are our favorite craft beers to drink right now.

Best Overall

Weathered souls black is beautiful imperial stout.

 Courtesy of Drizly.com

Aimed at raising awareness on racial injustice, Marcus Baskerville, the head brewer and a founder of Weathered Souls in San Antonio, created the collaborative Black Is Beautiful beer project. Breweries around the world make a version of Baskerville’s rich and roasty recipe, then donate the proceeds to organizations promoting police reform, equality, inclusion and similar initiatives.

“This is the best beer of the year,” says Joel Suarez, a founder of  Uptown Beer Society in the Bronx, New York City. “Breweries from all around the states began to follow this challenge in support of great causes.” To date, more than 1,100 breweries and counting have made versions of the imperial stout. Visit the initiative’s website to find breweries by you.

Read Next: The Best Beer Fridges

Deschutes Obsidian Stout

Dessert-inspired imperial stouts might be all the (cavity-causing) rage, but we’re big fans of balanced stouts that you can sink your teeth into all night long. Chief among them is Obsidian Stout, a dark gem from the Bend, Ore. brewery .

“It delivers the perfect blend of roasty, chocolatey, espresso-like malts, with a healthy dose of bittering hops,” says Aaron Gore, a certified cicerone (beer expert) and the founder of Fresh Pitch Beverage Consulting . The stout’s moderate alcohol content—6.4% ABV—“makes it surprisingly easy to throw back several in a row,” says Gore, who sees Obsidian as “more substantial and interesting than a Guinness.”

Allagash White

For a quarter-century, the Portland, Maine brewery’s Belgian-inspired witbier has been America’s standard-bearer for the style. “White will forever be the perfect wheat beer,” says Mandy Naglich , a food and beverage writer and advanced cicerone.

The seafood-friendly beer is spiced with coriander and orange peel, and the slight heaviness on the palate “really allows the complex spiciness of the yeast character to shine,” Naglich says, adding that Allagash White is her “favorite beer to introduce new craft drinkers to any time of year.”

Best Pale Ale

Half acre daisy cutter pale ale.

Since Chicago’s Half Acre debuted Daisy Cutter in 2009, the beer has become one of the Midwest’s most essential pale ales, worthy of a pilgrimage in its own right. “When I’m in Chicago I’m pretty sure I go straight to Half Acre’s taproom for a pint of Daisy Cutter,” says Em Sauter, an advanced cicerone and the founder and cartoonist behind Pints and Panels .

The beer’s biscuit-y base serves as a stage for fragrances that flit from a Pacific Northwest pine forest to ripe tropical fruit, creating a beer that’s “wonderfully drinkable with a pleasant tangerine-peel taste,” says Sauter. “I would fill a fridge with this beer.”

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Best Summer

Stillwater artisanal ales extra dry.

Sake is the inspiration for Extra Dry, a super-crisp saison that’s suited for snacking on sushi and summer  anything. Like its muse, the beer is made with rice that serves to enhance its feather-light body. “The flavors mirror a floral sake but the ABV clocks in much lower at 4.2%,” says Naglich. She finds the Stillwater Extra Dry to be the perfect beer when the temperatures stretch toward triple digits. “It’s a great beer for a picnic or the beach and will add variety to a cooler full of light lager,” she says. “I’ve yet to meet a dish at any barbeque or tailgate that doesn’t benefit from a light and effervescent farmhouse ale alongside it.”

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Best Red Ale

Karl strauss red trolley irish red.

 Courtesy of Minibar

In a beer world overrun with flashy double IPAs and cake-inspired imperial stouts, humble amber and red ales are often overlooked. Don’t make that mistake. The approachable, food-friendly style offers “balanced deliciousness,” says Jordan Gardenhire, the founder of  Baja Brewing Company . “If I had my way, every brewer would have a red ale in their lineup.” He’s a fan of the award-winning Red Trolley Ale, from San Diego’s long-running Karl Strauss Brewing, founded in 1989. The brewery uses 1,000 pounds of caramelized malts in each batch of Red Trolley, which has a mahogany hue and flavors of raisins and rich toffee.

Odell Sippin' Pretty

In late 2018, the venerable Fort Collins, Colo. brewery released this ruby-hued sour ale that’s seasoned with Himalayan pink sea salt, plus a fruit trio including guava, açai and elderberry. “It’s like drinking a tropical punch out of a beer can,” says Gardenhire. The tart, fruity beer is a “fine summer’s day choice,” he adds, noting that he likes to sip a can while sauntering around the dog park. The 4.5% ABV means you can easily crush a couple of cans during any afternoon.

Westbrook Brewing Co. Gose

The German beer style gose (goes-uh) is one of modern brewing’s greatest revival stories. A couple of decades ago, the salt-laced sour ale was all but extinct, a casualty of passing time and changing tastes. Now the style is experiencing a massive comeback, led in part by the South Carolina brewery Westbrook.

The usage of sea salt and coriander “sounds bizarre, but it makes the bright flavors of the beer pop without becoming overpowering,” says Gore. The seasonings give the beer “an almost citrusy, spicy quality that lets it hold your attention from the first sip to the last,” he says, noting that it’s the “perfect beer for warm weather and easy living.”

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Best Hazy IPA

Sierra nevada brewing company hazy little thing.

One of America’s fastest-growing IPAs is Hazy Little Thing, Sierra Nevada Brewing’s impeccable take on the hugely popular style. The airtight recipe features oats and wheat , which contribute a smooth body and foggy hue, and a blend of six hops, including tropical citra and el dorado. This beer drinks smooth and fruity, the juiciness balanced by just a bit of bitterness. No matter if you buy it at gas stations, grocery stores or your favorite beer bar, Hazy Little Thing is guaranteed to be a winner.  

Best West Coast IPA

Green flash brewing co. west coast ipa.

Courtesy of Drizly.com 

Clean drinking, generously bittered and as golden as Southern California sunshine, the West Coast IPA helped usher in an aggressively delicious era of modern beer drinking. If you’re looking for a throwback that still tastes thrillingly fresh, grab a four-pack of this style-defining IPA from Green Flash.

“This beer is a great balance between old-school and new-world IPAs,” says Gardenhire, who praises the beer’s “complex hop and malt combo.” West Coast IPA deploys a quintet of hops to create a pungent scent of citrus and pine. “There’s a reason it’s famous.”

Best Pumpkin

Cigar city brewing good gourd.

Courtesy of Drizly.com

Pumpkin beers have hit a rough patch in recent years. The fall ales went from wildly popular to kind of passé, victims of overexposure–and way too much allspice. “Many pumpkin beers are too, well, pumpkin-forward,” says Naglich. She gives two thumbs up to the strong and balanced Good Gourd from Tampa brewery Cigar City. Like a good pumpkin pie, this beer is sensibly seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla and more. Good Gourd is “not too sweet and tastes like the first cool fall day: a reminder that you’re easing into a new season.”

Best Light Lager

Five boroughs brewing co. city light.

The phrase “light lager” used to symbolize a beer that was low in calories, alcohol and taste, too. Five Boroughs, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., refuses to compromise, creating an unfiltered light lager that’s loaded with flavor. It’s made with German malts, spicy and herbal saaz hops, and prime NYC water, creating a “crushable” lager with a “clean bitterness,” says Suarez. “City Light dominates the light lager category without surrendering its definition.”

Best Nonalcoholic

Athletic brewing co. upside dawn.

Athletic Brewing is overhauling the nonalcoholic beer category with its lineup of alcohol-free sour ales, IPAs, stouts and other styles of craft beer. Gore is a big fan of the 50-calorie golden ale, made with organic malts and a blend of English and American hops. Upside Dawn is an “everyday beer that’s perfect for those looking to cut out alcohol completely,” says Suarez.

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Why Trust Liquor.com?

Joshua M. Bernstein  is a veteran journalist specializing in beer, spirits, food, travel and other thrilling ways of the world. He regularly writes for The New York Times, Men’s Journal, New York magazine, Wine Enthusiast and Imbibe, where he’s a contributing editor in charge of beer coverage. Bernstein is also the author of five books: "Brewed Awakening," "The Complete Beer Course," "Complete IPA," "Homebrew World" and "Drink Better Beer." He loves drinking crisp pilsners and all things lager. 

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3 Craft Beer Road Trips for Craft Beer Enthusiasts

The craft beer scene is booming across the country, with thousands of microbreweries and breweries. What better way to sample some of these breweries’ products than a craft beer road trip? Check out these road trip ideas for you and your craft beer enthusiast friends!

Portland, Maine to Charlton, Massachusetts

New England is home to some of the best beer in America, with everything from hazy IPAs to light organic lagers. To experience some of the region’s best brews, take a New England brewery road trip starting at Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine. Allagash is known for its full spectrum of Belgian brewing, from classic brews to unique creations.

Make your way through southern Maine and New Hampshire, stopping in Portsmouth. Start at Earth Eagle Brewings for housemade gruit ales and other unique creations in a cozy atmosphere. Be sure to add Portsmouth Brewery to your itinerary as well. It’s one of the oldest brewpubs in New England, with several brews on tap and great food pairings!

As you head down New England’s east coast, be sure to stop in Boston, Massachusetts for some incredible taprooms, including Trillium Brewing Company, Samuel Adams and Harpoon. Finish your craft beer road trip through New England in Charlton, Massachusetts at Tree House Brewing Company.

Bemidji, Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri

For the ultimate Midwest brewery road trip with your crew, travel through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. Start at Bemidji Brewing, where there’s always at least a dozen brews on tap to choose from, as well as craft sodas. Travel south to the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, where you’ll find dozens of noteworthy breweries, like Dangerous Man and Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery.

As you continue to head south, be sure to stop in Madison, Wisconsin to try some cozy small-batch microbreweries. Next Door Brewing and One Barrel Brewing both offer great craft beer and a tasty food menu. Iowa’s east border is home to plenty of impressive craft breweries, including Catfish Charlie’s Brew Pub, Galena Brewing Company and Bent River Brewing.

Travel south on the west side of the Mississippi River, where you’ll find plenty of smaller breweries on your way to St. Louis, a brewery mecca. Finish your trip in downtown St. Louis, where you’ll find a wide variety of brews and taprooms. Be sure to try 4 Hands Brewing for a good mix of standards and seasonals.

Chico, California to Half Moon Bay, California

California is overflowing with trendsetting craft breweries. Take a Northern California brewery road trip to discover some of the delicious craft beer the state has to offer. Start in Chico at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, one of America’s first modern microbreweries, where you can choose from over 20 draft beers and try seasonal farm-to-table dishes from their menu.

Next, hit Fort Bragg to try North Coast Brewing Company’s hoppy IPAs and iconic Russian Imperial Stout, along with other unique brews at smaller craft breweries. On your way to San Francisco, make a pit stop in Santa Rosa to visit Russian River Brewing Company, with a variety of clean beers and sour barrel-aged beers, as well as a beautiful outdoor beer garden.

Head south along the west coast to San Francisco, where you’ll find a large cluster of microbreweries, including 21st Amendment Brewery, Cellarmaker Brewing Company and Black Hammer Brewing. End your craft beer excursion at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, just south of San Francisco, for award-winning beer and food!

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City Brew Tours Phoenix

Review Highlights

“ Got to tour & taste at Fate Brewing , Walter Station, and Shop Beer Co. ” in 2 reviews

“ Matt did a great job showing us behind the scenes and how the beer is made. ” in 3 reviews

“ Holly was a wonderful guide, and we learned so much about the breweries and how beer is made. ” in 2 reviews

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City Brew Tours Phoenix is an entertaining and educational craft beer experience. Learn about how beer is made, drink local craft beers from the best Phoenix breweries, and make new friends! …

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Excellent experience, good beers hand selected by our guide and a great way to spend the day!

This month I had the unique opportunity to try City Brew Tours, the nation's #1 Brewery Tour, founded in 2008. Holly Pigeon, local franchise owner, officially started operations on June 15th of this year in Phoenix. Offering public and private tours for craft beer lovers or those seeking an education in beer, City Brew Tours blend together the history of beer, beer knowledge, and great food and beer tasting. The tour will be led by local beer experts, who will guide guests through each brewery, providing behind-the-scenes access, and share their beer knowledge. The tours include transportation, beer tastings, and customized meals, and education in beer-making. Included is a lanyard with cards featuring the brewing process, flavor profiles of beer, flavor wheels, food and beer pairings. On our tour, we visited Phoenix Beer Co., where we went behind the scenes for a tour of the brewery while sipping on signature and seasonal beers. I loved the White Chocolate Lager and picked up some 6-packs, which the team stored in their cooler on the van until the end of the tour. Our next stop was Fate Brewing, where we enjoyed some truly unique beers such as the Hatch Chile Gatos, a classic golden ale aged on fresh-roasted hatch chiles, paired with a wood-fired pizza, The Jess, with Garlic oil, mozzarella, parm, ricotta, baby spinach, crispy bacon, and roasted garlic. The tours will run from Thursdays to Sundays. The Original Brew Tour is priced at $110/person, offering four stops in five hours, including up to 16 beer samples, a beer- paired lunch, and round-trip transportation. Meanwhile, the Sip of Phoenix Tour is priced at $85/person, providing three stops in three and a half hours, including up to 12 beer samples, locally curated snacks, and round-trip transportation. With over a decade of experience, City Brew Tours has created the ultimate craft beer experience that blends history, beer knowledge, transportation, and great food!

See all photos from Jacqueline H. for City Brew Tours Phoenix

Such a fun experience! It made for the perfect group date night. Van rides between breweries were comfortable and went by very quickly. Matt, our tour guide, was awesome and very knowledgeable about beer brewing and the breweries we visited. Got to tour & taste at Fate Brewing, Walter Station, and Shop Beer Co. Would definitely recommend for a fun and different date night or group outing.

Walter Station Brewery (So cool, it used to be a fire station!)

This was a great night. I always have so many places I want to try and it's hard to hit them all. This tour was a great way to check a few places off the list at once. It was great but worrying about driving from place to place, didn't have to worry how busy the brewery would be, and made me branch out to try beers I never would have ordered and was surprised how many of them I liked. This was a great night out for date night or group of friends. Matt did a great job showing us behind the scenes and how the beer is made. He also helped the group get to know each other on the van instantly creating a fun and welcoming environment. I loved the popcorn with the sip tour but I can't wait to go back and do the full tour and have a meal with it too!

What a fun time! Matt was a great tour guide. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable! My husband, daughter and I had a great time tasting new beers, getting a look behind the scenes and meeting new people. We toured three great local breweries! Having a driver and a super comfortable ride in the van was a plus. We will definitely be gathering more friends to do another tour with @citybrewtoursphx.

This company parked their van at the exit of a parking garage blocking everyone in. we called the company and no one answered. It took them 35 mins to move the van. The cars were finally able to leave. They called us back after we left

This is an awesome experience. From the beer selections to the breweries, the guide provided a knowledgeable but fun environment. Highly recommend

My tour was so much fun! We went to three breweries where we learned about how beer is made. I tried new styles of beers including a tasty chocolate one that I bought a full size of to enjoy later at home. We also got a popcorn snack to eat at the last brewery which I loved! Highly recommend and will be back for another tour soon.

I had so much fun at City Brew Tours Phoenix. I really enjoyed being driven around town tasting great beer and learning something behind the scenes of beer brewing. We stopped at some very popular beer breweries like San Tan Gardens and Phoenix Beer Company. Had some yummy food at 12 West. The Van was comfortable and we have lots of laughs with the beer guide David. It was a no stress afternoon not having to drive around or spend a fortune ubering around to all these places. I'll be giving them more business soon, sign up, you won't be sorry! Thanks City Brew Tours!

Me and my wife (left) had such a fun time trying out some unique beers. The food was provided by the tour from 12 West, Tacos and apps.

I was fortunate to be on their "launch night" this past Thursday, June 1st. Had an amazing time with Isaac talking about beer styles and how to properly taste and enjoy beers, and going behind the scenes to look at the brewery equipment and hear about the process. Holly was an amazing host and I look forward to doing this again!

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The Bitter Truth? Some Craft Brewers Just Aren’t Built for This Market

words: Dave Infante

illustration: Danielle Grinberg

Published: May 24, 2024

Sometimes, I worry I’m too hard on the craft brewing industry. With infrequent exception, the folks who own and run the nation’s ~10,000 small and independent breweries are doing their best to make high-quality beer for their customers and contribute positively to their communities. Unfortunately, operating in good faith isn’t the same as operating a good business, and as the American thirst for craft beer has plateaued in recent years, that distinction has become painfully clear.

Squaring that circle means facing hard truths about the brewing business writ large, and individual breweries’ businesses writ small. That’s no mean feat. If “D2: The Mighty Ducks” taught us anything , it’s that people don’t tend to respond well when you tell them their best isn’t good enough anymore. The industry has heard plenty of that from yours truly. But last month in Las Vegas, Scott Metzger of Craft ‘Ohana (the parent company of Maui Brewing Co. and Modern Times Beer, and the 26th-largest craft brewer by volume last year, per the Brewers Association’s data and segment definition, skated along that line about as well as anybody I’ve yet seen.

The occasion was the BA’s 2024 Craft Brewers Conference, which took place in late April in Sin City. Your humble Hop Take columnist was on location for VinePair, and the mood was mostly buoyant. The presentation from Craft ‘Ohana’s president and chief operating officer was a refreshing deviation from that at-times-surprising norm, but slotted as it unfortunately was for the final afternoon of the four-day conference, the crowd in attendance was far less than the Venetian Expo ballroom’s capacity.

More brewers ought to have heard Metzger’s gimlet-eyed takes on the myriad challenges facing craft brewers. “Our whole category can be replaced,” he said that day. “We don’t have to have a pity party about this, but every single day and every single moment, we have to continue to earn our place in this industry, earn our place in the minds of our customers.”

Even now, with brewery closures roughly matching the pace of openings, flatlining sales, and more competition than ever for America’s beer money, the craft brewing industry still hasn’t reached full consensus on this wisdom. There’s still plenty of “Field of Dreams”-style wishcasting underpinning the business — if you brew it, they will come. It’s a hopeful sentiment, and it might work for some breweries. But this is not a particularly hopeful moment for the U.S. beer business, and besides, hope is not a strategy. So I called up Metzger a couple weeks after CBC 2024 to discuss his tough-love talk in more detail, in hopes of amplifying his take to more of his colleagues (and selfishly, to let somebody else be hard on the craft brewing industry for a change).

“As I approach 18 years in the industry, I’ve seen kind of a common thread, and that is the ‘cool factor’ or appeal of our industry tends to attract people to it that do not have a business background,” he told Hop Take by phone earlier this month. “That’s not to cast aspersions … but maybe they got a little false bravado or confidence from the ‘rising tide lifting all boats’ atmosphere we saw for so long.” Metzger first remembers noticing this lackadaisical attitude among peers around 2019, when he was still working at Massachusetts’ Wormtown Brewery. “I just found myself talking about our business in the jargon and vernacular that is appropriate [for a manufacturing discipline like brewing] and seeing blank stares,” he recalls. “That, to me, was that canary” — in the coal mine, that is.

That timing is conspicuous in hindsight. The sales tide was still rising toward the end of last decade, albeit slowly. Macrobrewers were still buying craft outfits; interest rates were still low; 10-year commercial leases signed during the salad days still hadn’t turned over. Now, all those tailwinds have turned to headwinds, and we’re watching sales ebb: the BA has tracked volume declines in the overall U.S. beer business for four of the past five years (and a scant 1 percent increase in 2021), and after scrapping its way through the pandemic years with some single-digit positive percentages, the craft brewing segment’s volumes were slightly down in 2023 as well. As the tide has gone out, it’s revealed some industry rot lurking beneath the waterline.

“A lot of the struggles that I hear people asking questions about… they almost catch me off guard. Why do we have to think about our supply chain?’ Oh, what a travesty,” Metzger scoffs, pantomiming indignant gripes about the legitimate headaches that dogged the U.S. brewing industry (among so many others) during the first couple years of the pandemic as an example of the exceptionalism he’s encountered among some brewers. Challenges around black-swan-event logistics, or basic product-market fit, or anything in between, are not “unique, woe-is-us kind of things,” he argues, correctly. Craft brewers that grapple with them on that footing are wasting time and resources reinventing the wheel at a pivotal juncture for their businesses.

To emphasize this point, in Vegas, Metzger presented a reading list of management books that contain frameworks and systems that he and the Craft ‘Ohana team have found helpful, including “ The Great Game of Business ,” “ The 12 Principles of Manufacturing Excellence ,” and “ The Toyota Way .” If craft brewing’s cool factor was a ZIRP-induced indulgence (it was, at least partially), those breweries that make it through this downturn will need to get a little more studious — and flexible.

As someone who often hectors craft breweries to expand their own narrow imaginations about their portfolios , their taproom experiences , and their labor relations , I get occasional guff from industry types who got into craft beer to focus tightly on, y’know, making beer . I think it’s an understandable frustration! On the phone, I asked Metzger whether he could appreciate the dismay of brewers who entered the industry during the boom out of genuine passion for its artisanal, anti-corporate, and community-oriented aspects rather than professional vanity or money-grabbing impulse, only to be told after years of honing that craft that they needed to get schooled on Six Sigma just to survive.

“I think there’s room for both things to exist simultaneously,” he responds, arguing that breweries that marry objective and subjective forms of excellence (i.e., logistical precision in the fulfillment department, and creative inspiration on the brewhouse floor) are not forsaking the latter for the former. The American drinking public has long since tired of merely exploring the sheer variety of beers on offer at a taproom or supermarket; consistent execution on coherent value propositions and experiences has superseded rote novelty as the industry’s new table stakes. Those are problems that manufacturing, managing, and marketing can solve, but only if brewers embrace those disciplines rather than lamenting the “cultural shift” that has made them necessary.

“The customer is always right,” says Metzger, but “they are completely unpredictable.” The Other Halfs and Treehouses of the world can abide by the “Field of Dreams” dogma: If they brew it, they will come, and in not insignificant numbers, too. The thousands of small, independent breweries that compose the industry’s “long tail” may be able to count on their owned-and-operated sales at low volumes, but if growth is the goal, the hype-brewery model is hope, not a strategy. Breweries like Craft ‘Ohana that rely in part on a distribution model that exposes them to intra- and inter-category competition at third-party retailers can still win growth in tough conditions (Maui’s hard seltzer is bucking that segment’s slump and posting terrific year-over-year sales growth), but not if they expect SKUs and strategies that worked in the past to work in the future. Those that do are practically daring drinkers to lose interest in their brands — and maybe in craft beer generally, too.

That’s something everyone in the industry should be worried about.

🤯 Hop-ocalypse Now

Less than a year after Sapporo USA unceremoniously shuttered its first American craft-brewing acquisition, Anchor Brewing Co. , it now claims to be “fully integrated” with Stone Brewing Co. , its second purchase in the segment. That integration includes a new name for the entity (Sapporo-Stone Brewing Co., naturally) as well as a $60 million expansion plan to nearly double the barrelage coming out of the firm’s plants in San Diego County and Richmond, Va . The upgrades, $20 million of which the company says are already done, are in service of a targeted 700,000 barrels annually, and a place among the top 10 brewers by volume nationally. This, at a time when something like half the collective brewing capacity in the U.S. is slack. The boom times are… back?

Pabst Brewing Co. is bringing back Not Your Father’s Hard Soda Pop for another shot, sure why not… The Teamsters are claiming victory after a three-month strike against Molson Coors in Fort Worth , though details are scarce on the just-ratified contract … Buffalo Wild Wings , one of the biggest sellers of draft beer in the country, grew overall sales 5.9 percent in 2022, just outpacing the industry… Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sold Anheuser-Busch InBev stock and bought Molson Coors stock at a key moment in last year’s Bud Light fiasco (woof), but at least he probably took a loss on that trade (lol)…

📉 …and downs

Heineken USA is closing Lagunitas’ taproom and production brewery in Chicago … A new study outta Carnegie Mellon University suggests cannabis users consume the drug more frequently than drinkers drink… In its suit against the $24.6 billion Kroger-Albertsons deal, the Federal Trade Commission now alleges that execs at the latter firm illegally deleted text messages … Rumors about Boston Beer Co. selling to a macrobrewer have swirled for virtually as long as I can remember, and are once again swirling…

This story is a part of VP Pro , our free platform and newsletter for drinks industry professionals, covering wine, beer, liquor, and beyond. Sign up for VP Pro now!

• The Bitter Truth? Some Craft Brewers Just Aren’t Built for This Market | VinePair
• https://vinepair.com/articles/hop-take-craft-brewing-path-forward/
• opinion_editorial
• wbs_cat Beer, beer, beer industry, craft brewer, Hop Take, opinion
• The VinePair Podcast: The Future of Tequila With GALLO’s Britt West | VinePair
• https://vinepair.com/articles/the-vinepair-podcast-the-future-of-tequila-with-britt-west/
• VinePair Staff
• wbs_cat Spirit, wbs_type Tequila, wbs_brand Gallo, Don Fulano, Spirit of Gallo, tequila, Tequila Komos, The VinePair Podcast

Craft beer's economic impact in all 50 states (plus D.C.)

Posted: May 25, 2024 | Last updated: May 26, 2024

On the decline?

File 13 has been filled to the brim with craft breweries recently, an unexpected trend from over a decade of consistent surges—IPAs for everyone!—that's impacted beer makers from coast to coast.

But the production statistics for each state and D.C. tell a different tale, one that shows growth from 2021 to 2023 which includes decent monetary impacts across the land.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 52.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 56.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 29th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 53.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 61.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 47th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 121.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 133.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 20th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 46.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 37th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 931.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 987.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 1st.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 428.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 468.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 9th.

Connecticut

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 119.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 125.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 28th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 35.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 37.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 41st.

Washington, D.C.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 15.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 14.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 50th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 374.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 404.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 4th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 155.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 181.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 12th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 27.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 29.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 43rd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 83.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 94.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 40th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 299.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 305.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 7th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 203.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 204.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 18th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 108.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 128.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 23rd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 66.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 77.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 32nd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 82.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 96.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 27th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 44.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 53.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 26th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 143.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 156.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 30th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 125.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 143.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 24th.

Massachusetts

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 194.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 224.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 19th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 408.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 418.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 13th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 226.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 237.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 11th.

Mississippi

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 18.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 19.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 46th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 157.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 165.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 22nd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 105.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 106.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 36th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 63.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 64.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 31st.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 51.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 33rd.

New Hampshire

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 98.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 108.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 38th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 141.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 171.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 16th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 100.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 109.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 42nd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 485.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 539.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 5th.

North Carolina

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 364.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 407.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 10th.

North Dakota

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 23.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 24.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 45th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 365.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 419.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 6th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 76.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 80.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 34th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 310.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 318.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 14th.

Pennsylvania

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 486.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 530.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 2nd.

Rhode Island

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 37.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 41.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 49th.

South Carolina

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 129.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 134.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 25th.

South Dakota

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 42.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 42.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 44th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 152.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 21st.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 406.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 445.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 3rd.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 40.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 50.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 35th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 74.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 74.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 39th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 314.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 352.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 17th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 437.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 459.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 15th.

West Virginia

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 29.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 32.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 230.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 266.

Economic Impact Rank in U.S.: 8th.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2021: 45.

Number of craft breweries operating in 2023: 45.

Data courtesy of Brewers Association .

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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More From Forbes

A native ‘takeover’ at baltimore museum of art.

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Julie Buffalohead (Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma), 'The Noble Savage,' 2022. Courtesy of Jessica Silverman ... [+] and Sarah Thornton, San Francisco, CA.

“A Native takeover.”

That’s how Dare Turner (Yurok Tribe), Curator of Indigenous Art at the Brooklyn Museum and former Baltimore Museum of Art Assistant Curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas, describes the Baltimore museum’s “Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum” initiative launched April 21, 2024.

“Preoccupied” includes nine solo and thematic exhibitions, a film series, a publication guided by Native methodologies, museum-wide education for staff related to Native American history and colonization, and a broad array of public programs through February 2025.

“It also includes audio tour stops where indigenous community members have gone into the galleries and selected any artwork they're interested in, which most of the time is not an artwork made by a Native person, and they speak about it from their perspective,” Turner told Forbes.com. “We also rewrote (wall) labels that had privileged white artists when they were depicting Native subjects. We flipped the script on that so the Native subjects were privileged.”

Nearly 100 individuals contributed to or are represented across the initiative, transforming not only who tells stories in museums like the BMA, but also what stories get told and how.

“We wanted to make a big statement with Indigenous art in the museum, but we wanted to go much further than simply putting an exhibition on view and congratulating ourselves as job well done,” Baltimore Museum of Art Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Leila Grothe, a collaborator on the project, told Forbes.com. “We thought together about how could we thread through perspectives, stories, truths, and histories in the museum in as many ways as possible, how can we surface these voices in as many places as possible to go further and do something that to us felt like a significant statement and a significant presence.”

“Preoccupied” debuted with “Dyani White Hawk: Bodies of Water,” a presentation of new and recent works from the artist’s ongoing “Carry” series. White Hawk (b. 1976; Sičáŋǧu Lakota) adorns large copper buckets and ladles with glass beads and long fringe suggesting arboreal root structures. These works upend long-held boundaries between fine art and craft traditions in museum practice and center Native perspectives on the significance of both functionality and artistry in material culture.

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James Luna (Luiseno/Puyukitchum, Ipai, and Mexican-American), 'End of the Frail,' 1993. © Estate of ... [+] the artist. Courtesy of Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM.

Museums in America aren’t responsible for the nation’s genocide against its indigenous inhabitants. Museums didn’t draft the Indian Removal Act or initiate the Navajo Long Walk . They’re not to blame for broken treaties, boarding schools , the near extinction of the buffalo , or the Sand Creek Massacre . They have, however, been complicit in forwarding white supremacy and a flattening and erasure of Native American people, culture and artwork through their historic–and, in cases, ongoing–collecting and display practices related to Native items.

“There are many instances historically where institutions have come to (Indigenous) communities and either taken or coerced objects out. Sometimes they have paid for them, sometimes they have not, but even in the instances when they have paid for these belongings, they have sometimes taken things that were not an individual's to give,” Grothe cites as one example of how museums have harmed Native Americans. “They call that cultural patrimony where it actually belonged to the community and not an individual, but there was a sort of colonial misunderstanding–and that might be being generous–whether or not that individual owned it and could sell it to the person. There's an exploitation right in the sort of economic status potentially of whoever it is making these sales, and trades are sometimes outright theft, sometimes grave robbing, all of these things have happened.”

Placing Contemporary Native Art In The Past

American museums have traditionally relegated Indigenous items to their “ethnographic” sections or placed Native artwork in natural history museums instead of art museums, sending a subconscious, but not at all subtle message to their mostly white visitors.

“Museums have spoken about Native communities, Native artists in the past tense, not positioning Native communities as vibrant and living and thriving today,” Turner explained.

Putting Native American material on view alongside wooly mammoth bones tells museum guests Indigenous people are of the past. That Native histories and stories and truths and futures needn’t be considered in modern society.

“A lot of Native artists feel frustrated that one of their contemporary pieces will be put in a historical gallery of Native art, contextualized in a narrow way, not brought into conversation with larger stories of contemporary art,” Turner said.

From a non-Native perspective, this museological practice has been so subtle and pervasive, guests don’t even recognize how they’ve been hoodwinked.

“(A visitor) stopped me recently to say they hadn't realized the very fact that we installed this exhibition in the contemporary wing completely reversed a lens they were accustomed to viewing these works in,” Grothe said. “They were so accustomed to seeing (Native American) work in specific settings with specific lighting and gallery colors–it felt radical to see (Native artwork in the contemporary wing). They said they even saw the historic artworks they were familiar with for the first time (in a new way), simply appreciating (their) beauty. That is exactly what we're trying to do. There are subtle shifts an institution can do to change the way people see these things.”

And by changing the way visitors see the items, museums will change the way visitors see the people who made them.

“By bringing in contemporary artists, contemporary voices, and commingling historical art with contemporary art, we're showing the continuity of narratives of artistic practices in a way that embraces the realities for Native people,” Turner added.

Additionally reminding museum visitors that Native art, people and culture are contemporary, dynamic, and ongoing.

Fine Art > Craft

Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota), Lasso,' 2018. Courtesy the artist and Vancouver Art Gallery

Museums must also acknowledge how their hierarchies have dismissed and marginalized Indigenous artistic talent.

“Dyani White Hawk, one of her big statements as an artist is to talk about the ways Indigenous artworks have often been relegated as less than fine art and labeled as craft in collecting institutions,” Grothe explains.

Craft–material objects (pottery, weavings, beadwork)–has always been considered “lesser than” fine art–paintings, sculpture, photography–in the historical perspective of museums who act as the ultimate arbiters and gatekeepers of taste and culture in America. An opinion founded in patriarchy, white supremacy, and Western exceptionalism.

“Preoccupied’s” breadth and its takeover of the museum all at once helps visitors recognize how these various museum practices injurious to Native people, taking place at thousands of institutions across the country since the 19 th century, have combined in contributing to disempowering, oppressing and excluding Native people from mainstream American culture.

Baltimore Is Native Land

In addition to “Preoccupied’s” scale and scope, its location is significant. If this were taking place at a museum in New Mexico or Oklahoma or Arizona or Montana–where Native artwork and people are more visible–it would still matter, but in Baltimore, in Maryland, it hits a different way.

“We find that on the East Coast in particular–this is true everywhere, but here because colonialism is so much older, it happened hundreds of years before it happened with my (Yurock) people (in California)–there is a different understanding in non-Native communities about the history of the (Native) people in the region,” Turner said. “They think that Native people were genocided and that was the end, they welcomed the Pilgrims and then went away. There's a lot of education that needs to happen and museums are uniquely positioned to reach many different audiences.”

Ten months of a Native “takeover” at the Baltimore Museum of Art, or any museum, can’t make up for 100 years of institutional contempt, but it’s a meaningful start.

Preoccupied solo and thematic exhibitions organized by opening date:

Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), 'My Soul Remainer,' 2017. The Baltimore Museum of Art: ... [+] Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

“Dyani White Hawk: Bodies of Water” (April 21–December 1, 2024)

“Finding Home” (May 12–December 1, 2024)

“Enduring Buffalo” (May 12–December 1, 2024)

“Illustrating Agency” (May 12–December 1, 2024)

“Don’t wait for me, just tell me where you’re going” (May 12–December 1, 2024)

“Caroline Monnet: River Flows Through Bent Trees” (May 12–December 1, 2024)

“Nicholas Galanin: Exist in the Width of a Knife’s Edge” (July 14, 2024–February 16, 2025)

“Laura Ortman: Wood that Sings” (July 17, 2024 – January 5, 2025)

“Dana Claxton: Spark” (August 4, 2024–January 5, 2025)

General admission to the Baltimore Museum of Art is free.

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Observe Memorial Day with these events in southern Maine

Tons of towns have parades and ceremonies happening Monday.

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Kids and adults gather at a Memorial Day parade to honor and celebrate veterans in South Portland. Sofia Aldinio/ Staff Photographer

BATH 10 a.m. Monday. Parade begins at 200 Congress Ave. and concludes at Library Park and will be followed by a wreath-laying service at 11 a.m.

BERWICK 11 a.m. Monday. Parade begins at Berwick Town Hall/Sullivan Square and proceeds to Lord’s Cemetery by way of Wilson and Allen streets. After a ceremony there, the parade will continue down Saw Mill Hill Street with a pause at the Somersworth-Berwick Bridge for a brief memorial service for those lost at sea. The parade ends at Sullivan Square with a memorial service honoring area veterans.

BIDDEFORD-SACO Opening ceremony at 9:55 a.m. Monday at Saco City Hall. Parade starts at 10 a.m. from Saco City Hall and proceeds along Main Street and down York Hill into Biddeford, continues along Main Street, onto Alfred Street and finishes at Veteran’s Memorial Park with a closing ceremony at 10:45 a.m.

BRUNSWICK-TOPSHAM 9 a.m. Monday. Parade proceeds from Topsham Town Hall, pauses for observances while crossing the Brunswick-Topsham bridge, and concludes at the Brunswick Mall.

CAPE ELIZABETH 9 a.m. Monday. Parade begins at the middle school parking lot, turns right on Scott Dyer Road, right onto Route 77 and ends at the village green adjacent to the town hall. A brief ceremony and laying of the wreath will be held at the Village Green after the parade.

CUMBERLAND 8 a.m. Monday. Kids run at Greely High School followed by 5K Run and Remember race at 8:30 a.m. Parade starts at 10 a.m. at Mabel I. Wilson School and ends at the veterans’ monument in Moss Side Cemetery in Cumberland Center, where a ceremony will be held at 10:30 a.m. Advertisement

FALMOUTH 10 a.m. Monday. Parade proceeds from 65 Depot Road (Falmouth American Legion) to Pine Grove Park, where a ceremony will be held.

FREEPORT 9:30 a.m. Monday. Parade proceeds from Holbrook Street, heads north on Main and makes a right onto School Street, then right onto Park Street, ending in Memorial Park. There will be a small ceremony in Memorial Park starting at 10 a.m.

GORHAM 11 a.m. Monday. Parade starts at Village School (12 Robie St.) and ends at Eastern Cemetery on Johnson Road.

GRAY 11:30 a.m. Monday. Parade leaves the Russell School (8 Gray Park), proceeds to Shaker Road and continues to the Soldiers Monument at the intersection of Routes 26 and 3 for a wreath-laying ceremony. Parade continues north to the American Legion Post (15 Lewiston Road) for a closing ceremony.

LYMAN 1 p.m. Monday. Parade starts at Waterhouse Road/Mill Pond in Goodwins Mills and ends at the Lyman Town Hall on South Waterboro Road.

NEW GLOUCESTER 9 a.m. Monday. Parade leaves from Memorial Elementary School (86 Intervale Road) and heads down Intervale Road to Route 100/202 to Veterans Park for a memorial service. The parade will reconvene and go down Peacock Hill Road, then take a left on Gilmore Road. Advertisement

OLD ORCHARD BEACH 1 p.m. Monday. Parade starts at the corner of Ballpark Way and E. Emerson Cumming Boulevard and proceeds down Saco Avenue, Old Orchard Beach Street to First Street and ends at Veteran’s Memorial Park.

PORTLAND 2 p.m. Monday. The procession starts at Longfellow School (432 Stevens Ave.) and ends at Evergreen Cemetery for a commemoration ceremony.

SANFORD 10 a.m. Monday. The parade starts at the Sanford Armory (88 William Oscar Emery Drive), proceeds up Gowen Park Drive and ends at Central Park.

SCARBOROUGH 10 a.m. Monday. Parade starts at Scarborough High School, turns onto Route 114 and then Route 1, past town offices to the Maine Veterans Home and concludes with a ceremony there.

SOUTH PORTLAND 10:30 a.m. Monday. Parade starts at Southern Maine Community College parking lot, proceeds down Broadway to the Veterans Monument for a short Memorial Day recognition service.

WELLS 9 a.m. Monday. Parade starts at Wells High School (200 Sanford Road) and proceeds to Ocean View Cemetery for a ceremony and musical performances. Advertisement

WESTBROOK 10 a.m. Monday. Parade proceeds down Main Street and will be followed by a ceremony in Riverbank Park.

WINDHAM 9 a.m. Monday. Parade starts at Windham Town Hall and proceeds onto Route 202 toward Windham High School. At 10 a.m., there will be a ceremony in front of Windham’s Veterans Memorial Flagpole at Windham High School.

YARMOUTH 10 a.m. Monday. Parade leaves from Yarmouth High School (286 West Elm St.) and proceeds to the Memorial Green at Town Hall for a ceremony.

YORK 10 a.m. Monday. Parade starts near St. Christopher’s Church (4 Barrell Lane) and proceeds down York Street to York Town Hall.

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