Central PA Beer Tour of '04

Thursday was Veterans Day so I was off. It was perfect opportunity to head out to Eastern Pennsylvania and drink some beer. Unlike this part of the state, breweries and brewpubs actually thrive out there. They are close enough together that I would be able to visit 6 breweries in one day. It sounded like a challenge but it also sounded fun. Our first stop of the day was Appalachian Brewing in Harrisburg. We arrived in Harrisburg a little after 10 and had some time before the brewery opened. We went to the capitol building and took some photos. Outside the capitol building there are two statues of naked people doing god knows what, probably something biblical, but what was interesting was that it looked like the things covering up the men’s junk was not part of the original sculpture. After shooting some photos around the capital we went to Appalachian Brewing where the Brewmaster gave me a tour of the brewery. Their brewery was larger than I had expected. I was under the assumption that they were primarily a brewpub.After the tour I was able to sample some of the beers. My favorite beer was probably the Hefe Weizen and I also enjoyed the Barleywine. After Heather and I had lunch we stopped at Troegs which is just a few blocks away. Troegs is just a brewery and a gift shop. They were gracious enough to show me around even though they were having problems with their bottling line. I didn’t want to take much of their time so I just took a quick look, bought a few things at the gift shop and left.Next on our whirlwind tour of south central Pennsylvania was Bube’s Brewery (Boobies) in Mt. Joy. This place is the COOLEST BREWPUB EVER. It’s located in the same building that Alexander Bube ran his brewery out of in the late 19th century. They have an underground dining room in the catacombs which connected to natural caves where the beer used to be lagered. The brewery still has large wooden fermenters and conditioning barrels. There are a few pictures in the gallery but pictures really don’t do this place justice. As for their beer they had several decent offerings that I enjoyed, their Brown Ale and their Hefe Weizen were my two favorite. I guess I was just in a Hefe mood this day.We then landed at Lancaster Brewing Company. In the past I wasn’t too impressed with the beer that I’ve tasted from Lancaster. In the bottles both the Strawberry Wheat and the Milk Stout weren’t very good, at least the bottles that I tasted. But on tap both of these beers were very good. Lancaster had eleven beers on tap the day I was there, I ordered their sampler expecting that I would have to pick 5 beers or so, but not this time. The sampler tray contained all eleven beers! This is not good for someone who needs to get to two more breweries before he is too intoxicated to continue. I ended up finishing nearly all of the beers because they all tasted really good. I’m glad I visited this brewery, It will get me to try their stuff more in the future, I only hope that it is fresh.Next it was off to Stouts Brewery in Adamstown. Yahoo Maps wasn’t able to give me exact directions to the brewery so I was pretty happy that it was on the road we were traveling to get to the center of Adamstown. I ordered a sampler here and I screwed up. It was four beers and I picked two strong ones not thinking that the alcohol content would be a problem. The can’t miss beer that I had here was their Fat Dog Stout. It’s an Oatmeal Imperial Stout and boy is it yummy.We decided to check into our hotel in Downingtown before we went to Victory Brewing. By this time, my body had absorbed all the alcohol from those two strong beers from Stoudts and I wasn’t going to be able to drink any thing at Victory. We also had difficulty finding the brewery because I guess I can’t read a map when I’m drunk. We decided to just go back to the hotel and sleep it off. The next morning we found the brewery but it didn’t open until 11:30. I had to be back in Pittsburgh by 5 and wasn’t in the mood for drinking beer after the previous day so we just found the brewery as a moral victory, and then headed home.I had planned on stopping along the way for photographs, like in Amish Lancaster, etc. But it was raining and the rain didn’t stop until we got to New Stanton on the Turnpike. It kinda stunk that I didn’t get to the brewery that was the reason I planned the whole trip, but I certainly enjoyed myself. And I want to thank Heather for being my designated driver on this little journey.Since I missed Victory, I’ll just have to schedule another trip starting at Victory and heading East to say, Dog Fish Head in the spring.