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Category: Pennsylvania

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: 2nd Story Brewing Company, Philadelphia, PA (July 1st, Brewery Stop #18)

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: 2nd Story Brewing Company, Philadelphia, PA (July 1st, Brewery Stop #18) The 18th brewery we visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was 2nd Story Brewing Company in Philadelphia, PA. We left the beautiful countryside of rural PA after lunch and samples at Tröegs and headed east to Philly. We got into town and checked into our hotel on the north end of downtown after a few hours of driving without much delay and met up with our great friend Michael whom joined us for some site seeing around downtown. We lucked out with nice weather (not too hot or humid) but after a few hours of walking around on cobble-stone streets and sidewalks, we were ready for a beer. The nearest brewery to us was 2nd Story Brewing which is located just a few blocks in from the river near the popular “Penns Landing” area of downtown. The brewery is fairly inconspicuous along the block with just a hanging sign out front, so you need to keep an eye out for them as you are looking for them. I do need to note that a few years ago, …

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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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2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR, Portland OR to Portland ME and back… 24 June-9 July, 2015

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR, Portland OR to Portland ME and back…7800 miles later… From late June to early July 2015 I was lucky enough to go on a cross country road trip with Gary and our nephew Devin. We drove my car from Portland Oregon to Portland Maine in just about three weeks. We took a ‘central US’ path East and came back taking a more northern passage. Regarding where we went each day, we made it to about 40 breweries and a handful of tap-houses, bars, and brewpubs to find local beers and food along the way. While the long distance driving was challenging some days (10+ hrs at a time), we really enjoyed the trip with it’s the ever-changing scenery and wonderful cities, towns, and people we met. Before leaving on the trip, we gathered and then took a couple of cases of local specialty beers for our friend Rusty in Pittsburgh. The sucky part was that while we wanted the beers to not get ruined by the heat, we ended up unloading and reloading it a LOT as we stopped each night. This is a valuable learning experience, to stick to mailing stuff like beer and wine, …

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