The Great American Ale Trail: The Craft Beer Lover’s Guide to the Best Watering Holes in the Nation

369 Pages·2011·95.644 MB·English

by  Christian DeBenedetti

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BEER/TRAVEL
T “A roadmap for taste-bud adventure. . . anyone who prizes good beer need never go thirsty again.”
FOR BEER PILGRIMS EVERYWHERE! H
E —Jane & Michael Stern, authors of ROADFOOD

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AMERICANS HAVE DISCOVERED A PASSIONATE NEW LOVE FOR CRAFT BEER, R
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and it’s taking them across the nation to microbreweries, beer-focused restaurants and bars, beer fes- A
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tivals, and even beer-focused vacations. The Great American Ale Trail is a discriminating guide that

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will answer the most important question for travelers: Where to go to get a great beer?
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Beer expert and journalist Christian DeBenedetti has identified the worthiest places to enjoy great
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craft beers, from major breweries to farmhouse startups. Featuring more than 400 establishments
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throughout all regions of the United States, The Great American Ale Trail is THE definitive guide that I
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will inspire anyone to embark on a beer pilgrimage.
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“The perfect companion for your next road trip!”
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—Charlie Papazian, author of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing L
andMicrobrewed Adventures; founder of the Great American Beer Festival E

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“Great beers are about places, not just where they're made, but where we get to drink them, and R
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there's no better tour guide than Christian, who's picked the best breweries, best bars, and best
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bar snacks for the thirsty wanderer in all of us. His book is the best answer yet to that eternal L
question, as old as travel itself: Where can I get a drink around here?”
—William Bostwick, author of Beer Craft: A Simple Guide to Making Great Beer
"Christian has been an evangelist for and card-carrying member of the craft brewing community
for many years. And now, with this book, his encyclopedic knowledge of American brewery
geography and mythology is right at your fingertips.” C
—Sam Calagione, President & Founder, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery h
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“From sea to foaming sea, we've become a great Beer Hoisting Nation. And Christian DeBenedetti t
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is our convivial, savvy, and good-humored guide. The result of his dedicated wanderings is a tangy
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compendium that's part travelogue, part practical handbook, and part cultural history, giving us
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fresh perspective on the Hop Revolution that has quietly overtaken our land, one pint at a time.
Carry this book with you on your own cross-continental travels, and bring it home stained and e
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sour—a field manual soaked with happy memories."
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— Hampton Sides, editor-at-large for Outsidemagazine and author of n
Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier e
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CHRISTIAN DeBENEDETTI’S
food and travel articles have appeared in The
NN New York Times, Food & Wine, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure,
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F Outside, and other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit him at
N
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G www.christiandebenedetti.com.
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©
ISBN 978-0-7624-4375-8
$20.00 in U.S.A.
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For Mom and Chuck—the “Traveling Companions,” and Dad.
© 2011 by Christian DeBenedetti
Published by Running Press,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions.
Printed in the United States.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
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please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut
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[email protected].
ISBN 978-0-7624-4375-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931109
E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4476-2
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing
Cover design by Ryan Hayes
Interior design and illustration by Ryan Hayes
Edited by Jennifer Kasius
Typography: Garage Gothic, Fenway Park Gotham, and Chronicle
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Contents
Preface by Garrett Oliver 4
Introduction 6
Chapter 1: The Pacific Northwest and Alaska 8
Chapter 2: California and Hawaii 64
Chapter 3: Colorado, Montana, and the Rocky Mountains 100
Chapter 4: Texas and the Southwest 160
Chapter 5: The Midwest 180
Chapter 6: The Northeast 208
Chapter 7: The Mid-Atlantic 264
Chapter 8: The Southeast 296
The Top Tens 336
Postscript 340
Acknowledgments 342
Glossary 346
Index 354
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Preface
WHEN THE BOARDING PASS EMERGED FROM THE WHIRRING MACHINE AT
Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, I had to admit that I was relieved. I hadn’t intended things to turn
out this way, but this is what always happens, and I really should have known better. Only
seven hours previously, I’d been at the pub—St. Urho’s Pub, to be precise—a slightly grubby
watering hole in one of lesser-known districts of Helsinki, Finland. Finns speak a language
intelligible to no one else on Earth, but that has never slowed them down, especially when
it comes to socializing. So now here I was, with Markku, Jussi, Kari, and a few others, telling
improbable stories. I pinged my pal Matt on Facebook and told him I was drinking his beer
in Helsinki. He picked up in England and pinged me back within minutes, asking how it was
holding up. The beer was beautiful, and it was a fine evening—all about the ebullient com-
pany, and the company was all about the beer. St. Urho’s has more than a dozen taps, all flow-
ing with excellent beers, lovingly kept. I didn’t mean to stay until 3:00 A.M., but that’s what
you do, and the reindeer pizza really wasexcellent.
I’ve been lucky enough to experience many evenings like this over the years. I started in
the early 1980s in London, where I first fell in love with cask-conditioned British ale. I con-
tinued across Europe, racking up epic evenings in Germany, Belgium, and the Czech Repub-
lic. In those days, there was one country where great beer was not to be found, and that was
the United States. I got back home from a year abroad in 1984 and found that we Americans
had nothing to drink. Somehow the United States—once home to 4,000 breweries and the
most exciting and varied beer culture in the world—had lost its way among the great brew-
ing nations. Our breweries fell prey to a form of “progress” that involved removing all the
flavor from one of the world’s diverse and fascinating drinks. Like many future craft brew-
ers, I started making my own beer at home—not because I wanted to makebeer, but because
I wanted to drinkbeer. Slowly but inevitably, beer took over my life, the slope became slip-
pery, and I slid into the mash tun. I bobbed to the surface and never looked back.
Today, out of nothing, we have built everything. The United States is now the undisputed
beer capital of the world, home to the most vibrant beer culture anywhere. It is difficult to
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overstate how unlikely this seemed twenty years ago. A newly minted craft brewer, I trav-
eled to Europe frequently, and when I told people that I was an American brewer, the scorn
was palpable. Yes, we’ve heard of your American beer, they sneered. I protested that Americans
were making very flavorful beers now, but heads shook with disbelief. Slowly, however, over
the late 1990s and into the 2000s, it dawned on the rest of the world that Americans had
woken up to beer, and once awake we’d gotten mighty busy.
While some built breweries, others built restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, and movie the-
aters around great beer. Not only did we have our own beer—we had everyone else’s beer too.
The complex beers of Belgium, the fruity ales of England, the malty, bracing lagers of
Bavaria, all began to flow from America’s taps. Great restaurants, once content with lengthy
fine wine lists and dismissive gas-station beer lists, started to realize that industrial beer was
an insult to their food and to their beer-savvy patrons. Today I can find the best beers of Bel-
gium faster in a twenty-minute walk from my front door in Brooklyn than I could walking
from Grande Place in Brussels.
Do you know beer places and beer people? You should, because beer brings on a sort of
fellowship that wine rarely inspires. When you get off a plane and head into an American
town, do you know where to find the best of everything, places where people speak your lan-
guage? Frankly, despite having been all over the world, I can’t say that I do. But that’s okay,
because we have Christian DeBenedetti to show the way. I’ve read many beer books, of
course, but none that capture the spirit, the philosophy, the people, and the feeling of the
American beer scene the way that The Great American Ale Traildoes. This book will tell you
what you really want to know—where to go, why you want to go there, how the place came to
be, what kind of food they serve, what types of beers you can enjoy with it, and who’s going
to be sitting next to you at the bar. At the same time, you’ll read the stories of men and
women who turned their backs on lucrative careers, mortgaged their houses, and put every-
thing on the line to follow their passions and build the kinds of places where they’d want to
spend their time. Occasionally, just occasionally, until 3:00 am. So read this book, follow
Christian’s well-laid path, and build your own ale trail. You’ll have your own epic evenings
with good people and the world’s most exciting beverage. And if you should miss your plane,
don’t worry. Another one will leave soon, and in the meantime, there is some awfully nice
beer at the airport bar.
—Garrett Oliver
Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery and the author of the award-winning
book, The Brewmaster’s Table. He is also editor-in-chief ofThe Oxford Companion to Beer
(2011), and has hosted more than seven hundred beer events in ten countries.
PREFACE 5
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Introduction
THE MOUNTAINS AHEAD ARE BRUSHED WITH CALIFORNIA CHAPARRAL
and piñon juniper, bathed in low angle sunlight, but I’m pulling over in the quiet little town
of Alpine, California—a forty-minute drive into the Coast Range foothills outside of San
Diego-to visit Alpine Brewing Company. Now the sweet, earthy smells of steeping grains and
the tang of hops envelop me. There Pat McIlhenney, a former full-time fire captain with a
handlebar mustache, is leading a tour of his handmade brewhouse built in an old TV-repair
shop. His operation has been racking up accolades in global competitions. “I cannot make
beer fast enough,” he says, handing out samples.
Those beers are among the finest I’ve tasted anywhere: his balanced but tangy “Duet” is
full of the fresh, citrusy flavors of Simcoe and Amarillo hops and a grainy, toasty backbone.
Even without a bar or taproom, a stream of visitors—beer pilgrims—comes in to meet McIl-
henney and buy fresh-brewed beers to go. It’s a scene I find again and again across the
United States, in cozy beer bars and small-batch breweries, even anodyne cul-de-sacs. I have
to wonder: Where are they going next?
There’s a genuine revolution happening in America, and I have just spent a year travel-
ing through America to document it. Sure, the big breweries still dominate the cooler aisle,
but make no mistake: small-batch “craft” beer (a term related to a brewery’s modest size and
independent ownership) is roaring back. After The Great Mistake ended in 1933, only the
most aggressive, consolidated companies were able to survive; beer drinkers paid the price
in flavor and selection. But from the nadir of just 44 breweries by the end of the 1970s, there
are now more than 1,700 from Anchorage to the Big Apple, Kona to Kentucky, approaching
half the 4,000 breweries of one hundred twenty-five years ago. Meanwhile beer bars from
coast to coast are bursting with selections and seasonally driven food to go with them. Bot-
tle shops and groceries are stocking 1,000-strong lists. Simply put, we’re in the midst of a
new golden age of American beer.
There’s a simple reason for this comeback: good beer is part of a good life. The late
British beer writer Michael Jackson once said, “You wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and
order ‘a plate of food,’ so why would you do the same with your beer?” Craft beer is about
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originality, flavor, and complexity derived from the many malts, hop varieties, yeast strains,
water sources, even oak barrels a brewer can use, no matter where they live.
A wonderful thing happens when you travel with beer in mind: the world opens up in a
more friendly way. During my travels, I met hundreds of dedicated, inspiring American
brewers, barkeeps, chefs, and beer lovers, every one in love with the art and science of brew-
ing. There’s a bit of luck and joy in all this, but a lotof hard work: it’s impossible to keep up,
because new kettles are boiling in almost every single state.
Think of this book as a mere starting point, a preview of what’s out there for you to dis-
cover. Wander, but bring a map, too: in this book, spots are organized in clusters, generally
speaking, but not always. And talk to people: in every single one of the places in this book,
you’re going to meet pilgrims hitting the road for the love of beer. You’re not likely to meet
warmer and more friendly people. And along the way, I hope The Great American Ale Trailwill
help posit a new definition of craft beer: The growing love of artisan-made brews isn’t
because beer is becoming more like wine. It’s becoming more beer-like. Brewing goes back
to our Founding Fathers, and eons earlier, when Sumerians recorded beer batches as prayers
in clay tablets. We’re tapping into something ancient, something necessary. To the lucky
ones who know, it makes perfect sense. And I hope that with this book, you’ll begin your own
search. The only question is: Where to go first?
—Christian DeBenedetti
Portland, OR, 2011
INTRODUCTION 7
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