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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Tröegs Brewing Company, Hershey, PA (July 1st, Brewery Stop #17)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Tröegs Brewing Company, Hershey, PA (July 1st, Brewery Stop #17) The 17th brewery we stopped at on our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was Tröegs Independent Brewing Company in Hershey, PA. After saying goodbye to our friends Sara and Rusty, we made our way out of Pittsburgh and headded east towards Hershey. The drive was pretty quick and painless, lots of toll roads and turnpikes to get you around the congested areas. The scenery on the drive was pretty spectacular, lots of foot-hills, mountains, trees and beautiful farm-country. Once we got close to Hershey, we discovered that the Tröegs brewing complex is just down the road from the Hershey’s Chocolate amusement park. And yes, it’s like Disneyland for chocolate lovers. We didn’t stop there, but I can imagine that it’s not somewhere a diabetic would want to go. As shown in the pictures, the tap-room/restaurant is located inside their main production facility. Lots of parking out front, a big entry area with multiple rooms including a swag store, tour room, meeting room, and main tap-room and restaurant area. We did poke around a bit and spent a little time in …

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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: The Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh, PA (June 30, Brewery Stop #16)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: The Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh, PA (June 30, Brewery Stop #16) The 16th brewery visited on our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was The Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh PA. After enjoying a wide range of great beers at East End, we stopped on our way to The Church at Caliente Pizza & Draft House for a few pints of local brews, as this was one of our hosts favorite bars/restaurants. I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of beers available at Caliente and the servers were really helpful in describing them and making recommendations. As it was quickly approaching dinner time so we finished up our pints and migrated to The Church, which was just a few minutes away by car. The neighborhoods we traveled through were really cool, historic, and obviously in the ‘up-in-coming’ category as one might say. I was sort of surprised that a brewery would be allowed to purchase and occupy a church, but it’s really there and quite awesome. Rusty shared with us that this is the only one in town, as the city caught a large backlash against churches being sold to private …

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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: East End Brewing Company, Pittsburgh, PA (June 30, Brewery Stop #15)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: East End Brewing Company, Pittsburgh, PA (June 30, Brewery Stop #15) The 15th brewery found on the cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was East End Brewing Company located in Pittsburgh, PA. After picking our friend Joel up in rural PA at his parents farm, we headed into town to hang out with our hosts for the night, Rusty and Sara. After unpacking the car and presenting Rusty with the cases of beer we brought for him from Oregon, we sampled a few of his favorite beers and then headed out to a couple of breweries and to get dinner. I had never been to Pittsburgh before, and didn’t realize it was so steep (hilly) and had so many bridges. I thought the west hills of Portland were bad, OMG, it’s incredibly challenging to travel around the east and north end of the city without GPS or a navigator that knows their way around. The first brewery we stopped at was in the central east part of the city, the East End Brewing production facility and taproom. It’s nessled in the back side of a larger industrial looking building and you …

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Review: Ghost Runners Brewery, Vancouver WA

Ghost Runners Brewery, Vancouver WA This last week on Friday night (Oct. 2nd) we stopped by the Ghost Runners Brewery in Vancouver WA on our way to drop off some friends. I’ve had a few chances to sample their beers over the past couple of years as they have been producing and distributing in the local area and was excited to check them out. We were really happy that they finally opened up a tap-room at their production facility off of NE Minnehaha in an industrial area of Vancouver, the local brewing scene is growing with a strong showing of brewers that have a clue. The brewery is located along the 2nd row of the building complex, not visible from the street. They have a 10 barrel system with a couple of storage tanks inside behind the bar area. If you ask one of the interns or bartenders, they will show you around and explain their setup. I’m really glad that they opened up the opportunity to visit their production site and try their beers on site. I would highly recommend visiting them if you’re in town and have a few extra minutes in the evening to give them a …

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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: The Saint Louis Brewery, Schlafly Bottleworks, St. Louis, MO (June 29, Brewery Stop #14)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: The Saint Louis Brewery, Schlafly Bottleworks, St. Louis, MO (June 29, Brewery Stop #14) The 14th brewery that we visited on the cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis MO. After a great KC BBQ lunch, we hit the road and headed to St. Louis. There was a little bit of traffic out of KC, and a whole bunch of traffic trying to get into St. Louis which pushed out travel time to over 5hrs. We ended up getting off the freeway and taking some side-roads into the SW part of town as their rush hour freeway traffic is horrible. The Schlafly Bottleworks location isn’t hard to find, just be ready to drive a bit through residential areas to get there. Note, that there are two locations, we went to the production facility to meet up with one of Gary’s former students that lives in the area in the suburbs and not the main downtown restaurant and bar. I had never heard of Schlafly before our trip, it was selected by Devin and I’m glad he picked it out for us to stop at. They have …

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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Boulevard Brewing Company, Kansas City, MO (June 29, Brewery Stop #13)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Boulevard Brewing Company, Kansas City, MO (June 29, Brewery Stop #13) The 13th brewery visited on our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City MO. This well known brewery is one of the oldest and largest micro-breweries in the mid-west and we were really looking forward to visiting the location. We left Lincoln on Sunday morning and headded south to KC. The trip wasn’t too bad, just about three hours with a bit of traffic and construction detours in KC itself. We timed it just right and got there as they opened on Monday before lunch. The brewery complex is located just south-west of the KC MO downtown area and is quite large as you can see. The main facility has a small-ish taproom next to their swag/sales area that has both stuff with their logo on it, lots of bottles, growlers, hats, local goods, t-shirts, etc. for sale. The taproom has 10 or so tables and a bar you can stand at. Typically people use this area for pre-post brewery tour sampling as it turns out, but we just wanted to do the tasting. …

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