Ben Keene - The Great Northeast Brewery Tour: Tap into the Best Craft Breweries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic

TAP INTO THE BEST CRAFT BREWERIES IN NEW ENGLAND AND THE MID-ATLANTIC

BEN KEENE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETHANY BANDERA

First published in 2014 by Voyageur Press, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

2014 Voyageur Press
Text 2014 Ben Keene
Photography 2014 Bethany Bandera

All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purposes of review, no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the Publisher.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the author or Publisher, who also disclaims any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

We recognize, further, that some words, model names, and designations mentioned herein are the property of the trademark holder. We use them for identification purposes only. This is not an official publication.

Voyageur Press titles are also available at discounts in bulk quantity for industrial or sales-promotional use. For details write to Special Sales Manager at MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA.

To find out more about our books, visit us online at www.voyageurpress.com.

Digital edition: 978-1-6105-8885-0
Softcover edition: 978-0-7603-4448-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Keene, Ben, 1978

The great northeast brewery tour : tap into the best craft breweries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic / Ben Keene ; photography, Bethany Bandera.

pages cm

Summary: A full-color illustrated travel guide to notable craft breweries of the northeast and mid-Atlantic states-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-7603-4448-4 (pbk.)

1. Microbreweries--Northeastern States. 2. Microbreweries--Middle Atlantic States. I. Title.

TP573.U6K44 2014

663.420974--dc23

2013024671

Acquisitions Editor: Grace Labatt
Design Manager: James Kegley
Cover Design: Gavin Duffy
Layout: Kim Winscher

To Ali, my first and favorite beer touring companion.

This book is for you.

B ack in the day, when I was a college student in Boston in the early 1980s, we had no beer. And we had neither bread nor cheese, but we didnt know that. We thought we had all of these thingssurely we drank something called beer, didnt we? And did we not peel the cheese from between the panes of plastic? But heres the strange secretwe didnt really like beer. In those days the legal drinking age was eighteen, and like many college students, we drank whatever we could afford. When beer was good, it tasted like fizzy water at best, and when it was bad, it brought a swampy new meaning to the word.

A word we never applied to beer was beautiful. I discovered beautiful while living in London after graduating from film school. When I wasnt stage-managing rock bands, I was at the pub, learning some of the most important lessons of my life. Real beer could be beautiful, fascinating, transporting, even magical. And it mattered a lot where you drank your beer and with whom you drank it. As I traveled through Europe, I reveled in wonderful beer in almost every country, but when I returned home to the States, I found the same barren beer shelves and taps that Id left behind. The only answer lay in my own pot, a six-gallon glass jar, bags of barley malt, cans of elixirs, little packets of living powders, and a quest for beauty. Its taken decades, but out of thousands of pots in thousands of kitchens, the American craft beer movement emerged, and what a wonderment it is to behold.

Today, thirty years later, beautiful resides in the American beer glass, we have real bread and real cheese to accompany it, and we have brilliant places to drink it. This is a book about some of those places, places you want to know about, places you should end up. Within several hours drive of my home in Brooklyn, there are more than 60 million people, and some of these people have created dozens of great places to enjoy beer. Our guide is Ben Keene, and Mr. Keene knows his beer. More importantly, he is a map enthusiast and a Master of Creative Wandering, a skill that he now brings to bear on our behalf. The Great Northeast Brewery Tour wheedles its way in a suitably relaxed manner through some of the finest breweries of the northeastern United States, tells us the stories of the people who built them, tastes some of their excellent beers, and then wanders off to check out all sorts of cool things nearby. Out of all of these meanderings rises something more than mere entertainment. To say that this book shows us beer enthusiasts a design for living may sound all too grand, but read it and I think you might agree.

I have a few questions. When the sun begins to set on the gorgeous beaches at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, where might you go? Do you know your way to The Chubby Pickle? Have you had the tasty, summery Boat Beer from Carton Brewing? While driving though rural Maine, will you find your way to Baxter Brewing? Might you ride the ten-mile bicycle loop around Lake Auburn? In The Great Northeast Brewery Tour, you will find a lot more than breweries and their beersyoull find people that you want to meet and days that you want to have. Youll find that many Northeastern breweries have themselves become beautiful. Many Northeastern craft breweries were once well-loved but grubby affairs cobbled together out of dented old dairy tanks and rolls of duct tape. Today, the beauty isnt just in the beerhere youll find handsome spaces where you can happily bring not only friends, but your whole family. Breweries have once again taken their rightful places at the centers of their communities, and if that isnt beautiful, I dont know what is. Get this book, turn off your computer, walk out the door, and wander off into the great Northeast. There are people out there waiting to brew a pint for you and to have a pint with you. Go. Live a little. No, actually, live a lot.

Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn, New York

A sk any brewer or student of Americas beverage history and youll hear a similar refrain: The craft beer movement as we know it started on the West Coast. Some people will correctly point to Jack McAuliffe and his New Albion Brewing Company in Californias wine country as the pioneer whose ales launched a thousand breweries. The year was 1976. Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada soon followed, launching his now iconic brand and setting off a domino effect of sorts that spread from coast to coast. Then in 1981, William S. Newman founded the first microbrewery in the East, but like McAuliffe, he only managed to stay in business for six short years.

Today, the United States has more than 2,400 breweries scattered across its fifty states, more than at any other time since the 1880s. And while California and the Pacific Northwest continue to innovate and push the envelope, the Northeast, which includes several beer companies that opened their doors in the 1980s, has seen a remarkable amount of change, too. New York alone has more than one hundred companies brewing beer within its borders, and even the tiny District of Columbia now has upward of ten breweries and brewpubs. In fact, by the time you finish reading this book, another enterprising individual will probably have received federal approval for the next hot brewery.