Our final destination of the trip was Stoudt’s Brewing in Adamstown, PA. Basically, we’re talking right near Amish Country. This isn’t so much a brewery as a village! There is a huge complex that includes a banquet hall, antique shops, a bakery and a whole bunch of houses we didn’t have time to check out. But don’t let any of this fool you, there is also a top-notch restaurant and brewery on premises! We grabbed lunch and each had a Scarlet Lady ESB, which we’d never seen before. Beth met up with us again right about now and, while waiting for the tour, we went to the banquet hall and had some blonde double maibock. It was a bold brew! We went to the tour where we had the pleasure of getting shown around by the owner, Eddie Stoudt, a lively man who loves the craft beer scene, thinks you should drink local beer and is totally committed to putting out a quality product.

We got to talk with him for a few minutes after the tour and it was a great experience! At this point, we had to call it a wrap. We picked up some six packs of Scarlet Lady ESB and Blonde Double MaiBock and headed for Boston…

Later that afternoon we made the trip to Victory Brewing in Downingtown, PA with Jeff’s friend Field. Jeff’s friend, Beth, who had recommended SlyFox, was to meet us up there. Unfortunately, she was late and missed the tour.

We saw the brewing equipment, the warehouse, their walk in freezer, the fermentation tanks…basically the whole thing. Then it was back out to the restaurant where we finally met up with Beth and sampled a bunch of their beer. We each got several samples, as they were $1 a piece for a 4 or 5 ounce glass. The Mad King’s Weiss was amazing! Devon actually grabbed a growler of this in the most badass growler ever!

Now, as sad as it is, click here to go on to Stoudt's Brewing, our last stop of the tour!

Saturday we were to go to Victory. We had a lot of spare time, though, as we only had one brewery on Saturday and one of Sunday. It turns out Iron Hill Brewpub is very close to Field’s house, so we went for lunch. I was feeling the effects of the trip and being out all night back in Atlanta and, while I didn’t look happy, I powered through another round of beer samples. They were delicious, and we got some tasty food. We also had a great waitress there, Weezy I believe it was, who was very knowledgeable about their beer, which was extra cool! Thanks a ton!

Now come to Victory Brewing with us!

After 14 hours in the car we reached Aaron’s place at 6am on Thursday (Aaron is Jeff's friend from college). Just as he was getting up to go to work, we pulled in to fall asleep with a vengeance! We woke up 4 or 5 hours later, and it was time to begin again. We called up the owners of Terrapin Beer, first and foremost, to find out where we could grab a few pints of their tasty brew and pick up some to bring home. We were after their Monster Beer series, and we had traveled far for it! With this information in hand, we took off for the liquor store where we found Imperial Pilsner and Rye Squared, as well as their flagship offering, Rye Pale Ale.

Aaron had no idea what type of beer store was right around the corner! I saw things you just can’t get up in MA (so as not to offend our good friends who run beer departments up here, I’m going to add the note that it was for distribution reasons, not because you guys lack anything… We can get stuff up here that is unavailable down there as well).

We then headed off to Sweetwater Brewing. It turns out their tours are, well, more like parties really. I was basically walking into a bar where $8 gets you a pint glass (to keep) and 6 drink tickets to try their beer. Obviously a great deal!

After sampling a few, we took the tour. They have a great setup and the people working there were really into it.


Unfortunately for us, the 6 tickets proved too much as we still had to drive, (never drink craft beer and drive) we gave away the balance of our drink tickets to some guys we’d been talking about our trip and home brewing with. They were psyched!

We went straight to Taco Mac, which had been recommended to us by the guys from Terrapin. This place was amazing; it had the tap selection of Sunset Grill in Allston, but had beer that is unavailable on our home turf. Aaron met up and we grabbed some pints of Terrapin Imperial Pilsner, Gordon Double IPA from Oskar Blues and some other stuff with dinner. Then it was time to go out to the Atlanta bars…which is a story for a different time.

We woke around 10 on Friday morning to go to Pennsylvania and Field’s house (Field is one of Jeff’s college roommates). We showed up around 1 in the morning and went to bed.

The next day we went to Iron Hill Brewpub for lunch, check it out now!