When we got to Flying Fish Brewing in Cherry Hill, NJ, we knocked on the door, to which somebody answered “Are you Jeff Wharton?” Luckily, I was! We got a tour from John Berardino, the Director of Brewery Operations, and got to talk to Casey Hughes, the Head Brewer.
John showed us the warehouse (where we saw more cases of beer and kegs than Devon and I saw in college combined) and the brewing facility, where we saw the end of the mash beer they were brewing that day. We ended up tasting a few of their choice drafts, and picked up a good variety of their beer, as you can’t get it up here in Boston.
We’ve known for a while that people in the beer scene are nice, but it was right around now that it was starting to hit me just how cool this crowd really is! Jay did a favor and made a phone call to get us into another brewery, where John and Casey took time out of their busy days to give us a private tour. And that’s not the end of it for the tour… I love this stuff!
Monday, we arrived at Triumph brewing in New Hope, PA… And I mean “arrived” in the loosest of manners, as River Horse and Triumph are, oh, about half of a mile apart. It’s not like we had far to go. Jeff had contacted Jay Misson, the head of brewing operations for Triumph, ahead of time and we were lucky enough that he was able to give us a private tour of the facilities.
We saw the whole shebang, including their walk-in storage refrigerator where Jay gave us a few choice gifts to remember the visit by. We can’t wait for a cool autumn night to crack those open! (UPDATE: We recieved a bottle of the Imperial Russian Stout and the Winter Bock, 750's each... We opened the IRS when I moved into a new apartment and threw a party for my friends. WOW! Triumph produces one of the best IRS's I have ever had. When we travelled to Sly Fox IPA Fest in December, we actually made sure to stop at Triumph to try the IRS on tap and were NOT disappointed. Devon and I were accompanied by our friend, Brian. The IRS was on Nitro tap, and it was as phenomenal as we remembered. If you're ever in town for the winter months, definitely stop in and try this beer!)
Anyway, after the tour we went to grab seats, some lunch, and a sampler of their beers which included: honey wheat, Irish red ale, German pilsner, Irish dry stout, IPA, saison, mild ale, and Irish red ale on cask. I know this is getting repetitive, but we were lucky as once again everything was great, and we even got a growler of the wheat and saison, our personal favorites! Also, while talking with Jay, he asked if we were planning to hit up Flying Fish Brewery. We said we would, but they weren’t doing tours that day. It turns out he knows the owner, and put in a phone call for us. 
We walked into the brewpub, and sidled right up to the bar. It was time for some good dinner, and better beer. We each order a beer sampler… supposed to be any 6 types I believe. The bartender took one look at the shirts, knew exactly what we were there for, and gave us the full line-up of all 8 beers… Time for some tasting! We had: golden ale, hefeweizen, zomerbier, lambic, blueberry currant beer, ESB, brown ale, and oatmeal stout.
Sunday morning found us in Lambertville, NJ at River Horse Brewing. We met Christi, the owner’s wife, who was taking care of the gift shop and doing samples when we arrived. We threw in our dollar for 4 samples of their beer on tap (not a bad deal, might I add). We really enjoyed their winter ale, Belgian Frostbite, and picked up two cases at a sweet deal! We then had a self-guided tour around their whole facility. Very cool place.
We got here in time for the last tour of the day. They have a full-on bar area, with 10 Brooklyn brews on tap and seating for you and a couple hundred of your closest friends. It was pretty well attended as well… Easy to see that they are, in fact, one of the bigger craft breweries on the scene. We both got a Brooklyn Blanche (part of the on-premise only Brewer’s Reserve Collection), which tasted a lot like their Weisse, so we both enjoyed it!
