Atlanta Georgia is roughly 100 miles south of Chattanooga, and the drive through north Georgia is really quite nice. Until you hit Atlanta. Then all hell is liable to break loose! We’ve been known to avoid driving through Atlanta while pulling the camper, and my initial reaction to driving through is always – is there any other way to go? So… let’s say it’s not my favorite place to drive through. But, it is a great spot for craft beer, and has some really fantastic breweries! Recently, Jen had to be there for work, so I tagged along on the last day to visit a few new breweries. And I came away very impressed with what the Atlanta brewery scene has to offer these days!

On Saturday night, we were staying at an Air-BnB in the Hapeville area, and Jen had finished a long day at the “market,” so we decided to stay close to home. We chose Elsewhere Brewing as our destination, and set out after dinner. It is located on the south end of Grant Park, and offers pretty good parking – a major plus on a Saturday night in Atlanta! They have a nice outdoor patio area that is dog-friendly! On this particular occasion (rare) we did not have the dogs with us. Once inside, you know right away that this is a “fancy” brewery! Nothing wrong with that, but this isn’t very typical of the craft beer scene.

We ordered a few IPAs and took in the scenery. We got there a tad late, and the band was packing up their equipment but it felt like we’d probably just missed out on a pretty good show. The beers were excellent, and we noted the really nice beer taps that you don’t see everyday. I think they’re a European version but I’m not sure. I’ll have to look into that soon. We did manage to get a few pics, but it was late and we called it a night after 2 beers.

The next day, Jen had to man her booth at the market, and I decided to venture to a spot where 3+ breweries showed up on the map. While doing a little research, I found out that Wild Heaven West had a fried mushroom sandwich on the menu, so that settled that for me! I pulled in the parking lot of what looked like an old industrial site, and was a bit taken back at the sheer size of the place. Not only was Wild Heaven’s West location here, but the grounds also boast Monday Night’s Garage location, as well as a bottle shop with a bar upstairs, called Boxcar, serving up wine and mixed drinks! 2 Breweries and a full service bar in one location! The bartender made me aware that I could have my beer poured into a plastic cup, and there were permits in place to allow customers to move from place to place with beverage in hand! Great spot for meeting up with everyone – not just the beer folks – to gather in one place!

I ordered a beer and that fried mushroom sandwich, and enjoyed the sounds of the jazz trio that had just started playing as I walked in the door. The sandwich came quickly and did not disappoint! It was delicious! I might be willing to drive back down there just for the food!

Wild Heaven had plenty of space, and has been making good use of it! There is a concert venue in the back called the Garden Room, which on this particular Sunday morning was being used for a Yoga class. It also has a private room for hosting events, as well as a very large outdoor patio area complete with firepits and lots of bike parking. The whole place happens to be connected to the West Belt Line walking/biking trail.

After 2 beers and lunch, I walked around the complex and stopped in at Monday Night’s Garage! Also very impressive! I have been to their other location and love thier beer, but needed to get moving toward the market, so I did not have a beer on this occasion. I can say that the space was very fun and from what I could tell, they offered up delicious pizza cooked in a huge pizza oven – one of those rounded-top 900 degrees units!

Well, I arrived in Atlanta Saturday afternoon, and arrived back in Chattanooga on Sunday afternoon, but the beer and the food in Atlanta made the 2 hour drive each way well worth it! We will be back! Soon!

A fresh beginning. A new start. A time to reflect on the past year, and make plans for a new one! Looking back, 2022 was a great year for us! I’m very proud of all that we’ve accomplished in the last 365 days. To start the year out, we closed on our purchase of 10 acres of undeveloped land near Pikeville, Tennessee. Then, we wasted no time in starting to build our first tiny off-grid cabin. After many long weekends of very difficult work, we called the cabin complete in November, and have moved on to finish up a few small but critical projects around the property, and we’re now fully enjoying it! Buy property – check. Build off-grid cabin – check.

Below is a pic of the build site before we got started…

But this is a blog about travel and beer, so…

As far as travel goes, and given the fact that we were building a cabin, I think we did ok! We spent the last week of February in Port St Joe Florida. On the way down, we spent our first night at a Harvest Host brewery! We had been hearing good things about HH, but we’d never tried it out. We camped at Siluria Brewing, just south of Birmingham Alabama. The folks there were very nice, making sure that we knew where to park the camper and helping us get settled in. After making camp, we made a quick stop at a nearby brewery called Oversoul. We enjoyed the fun vibe there – lots of Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic posters (WSP has a song called Holden Oversoul, no idea if that has any connection or not) – and made our way back to Siluria for an evening of live music and a great food truck dinner, thanks Dock of the Bay (food truck)!

After a very enjoyable evening south of B’ham, we made the drive down to a lavender farm, also a Harvest Host, for our second night of the trip. From there, we went into Panama City, Florida and had some terrific food truck tacos and an equally terrific brewery, History Class!

For us, and for me particularly, the intersection of great food truck tacos, with a dog-friendly brewery such as History Class is the “trifecta” of brewery touring. Good food, good beer, good vibes!! I think the food truck was called El Weirdo, but anyway, they had killer veggie tacos!

Before we left PCB, we did make one more stop at Salty Oak Brewing. The beertender was super nice, and the beer was really good as well. As usual, we met some interesting folks and swapped a few stories before heading back to the lavendar farm for the night.

On day 3 of the trip, we pulled into our destination in Port St Joe, and got the camper set up for the week ahead. It’s time for some fun in the sun!

Our week in PSJ, as we call it, was wonderful! We’ve been visiting that area of Florida for around 10 years, and we just love it down there. As we always do, we made the half-hour drive over to Apalachicola several times. Not sure how many visits we paid to Oyster City Brewing while there, but suffice it to say that it was more than one. We also paid a couple of visits to East Point Brewing, in where else, East Point Florida. Once again, we met tons of interesting locals, as well as some fellow visitors. You really can’t beat the views…

In addition to visiting our normal haunts, we were very pleasantly surprised to learn that PSJ had added a new craft beer tap room, and we paid it a visit or two as well. Love the classic old Florida mural that was a work in progress on our last trip. I’ll get a completed pic of it when we visit there in March 2023.

We capped off the week by participating in the annual Apalachicola Barkus Parade, benefiting the Animals of the Forgotten Coast. They always have a fun theme, but we could not miss the “Pirates of Mardi Gras!” We had an absolute blast!

Early April found us in north Georgia yet again for a 50th birthday celebration. As we do, we managed to find a new brewery down there, and it was pretty good! Welcome Angry Hops to the fold!

Early May would find us making a very special trip down to St. Augustine to witness the culmination of 4 years of hard work, determination, and sheer will. The graduation, from college, of our youngest daughter! We could not be prouder of both of our girls (our oldest daughter’s graduation was cancelled due to covid, but we’re equally as proud)! But again, this is a blog about beer tourism, so let’s move on to the beer! For us, no trip to St Augustine is complete without a stop at Old Coast Ales and the fantastic taco shop next door, Osprey Tacos! The beauty of this little arrangement is that we can sip cold beer, in the air conditioning, with the dogs, and have tacos delivered from right next door! I mentioned the trifecta once before, and this is another terrific example! Good food, good beer, good vibes (and a/c)!

We spent the remainder of May, as well as June and July toiling away on the cabin build project. The arrival of August provided us with an opportunity to visit one of our all-time favorite vacation destinations… Asheville North Carolina! If you are a beer enthusiast, and you’ve never been to Asheville, then you need to add it to your short list of “must dos!” Eventually, Asheville will likely get its own “spotlight” page on this blog, but for now, I’ll share my thoughts on what was, yet again, a totally enlightening brewery tourist experience in Asheville – and this was at least our 8th time there! We started the trip with yet another Harvest Host brewery location – Knoxville’s Crafty Bastard – West! It was terrific! The beer is exceptional, and we had some damn good pizza too! Not even sure how they pull it off, but they are dog-friendly inside! You do have to go get your own food order, but that’s a small price to pay to have the fur babies inside while you sip great beer and dine on great pizza! Thanks Hole in the Wall!

The drive from Knoxville to Asheville is always an adventure pulling a 3 ton camper, as I-40 is rather windy, but it is worth the effort. Plus, the drive is gorgeous! On our way to the camping spot, we made a stop at a brewery that had been wiped out by flooding in the area a year or so before. Our expectations were honestly rather low, but the progress made since the last time we drove through Canton North Carolina was nothing short of amazing. Lunch at Bearwaters Brewing was so much fun! Sitting right along the banks of the Pigeon River, this brewery has paddling vibes! Add in good beer and good food, and that’s what we’re looking for in a brewery stop!

After lunch, we made camp and promptly headed for Asheville! We had been doing some research and had developed a short list of new (to us, at least) breweries to explore in this beer-lovers mecca, and we quickly found ourselves once again in awe of the beer scene in A’ville! Absolutely top notch in every way! Our first stop would be the new outpost run by the amazing folks at Burial Brewing – – Forestry Camp. It is located in what was an actual US Forest Service training facility. As expected, great beer and great vibes! Dog friendly in multiple outdoor seating areas! Fast, friendly service. Unusually long beer names (like “A Guide To Safely Stewarding The Contents of One’s Consciousness Imperial IPA”) . Can’t. Go. Wrong.

Next, we headed in the direction of a brewery that a local (Chattanooga) beertender had recommended, called Cursus Keme. On our way there, we stopped an New Origin, as that made sense when we were studying the map and trying to figure out how we’d approach Cursus Keme. New Origin had some very tasty beer, and was laid back and well worth the stop!

We wandered a little further down the street and stepped through what basically amounts to an opening in a fence, and found ourselves in what I’ve called the “beer shangri-la!” A wide open space of foliage and plants in every direction. We instantly felt like we’d entered a whole new world, one that we were very happy to be experiencing. The inside area was filled with greenery in every available corner, and the steel beams that support the roof had all been graffiti’d in what appears to be ancient script. Or something like that… Long story short, we had a great time. Met some people. Drank some amazing beer. Stood in awe of the place, and most definitly plan to return soon!

Excellent first day in A’ville! Day two started off great too! We made our first stop at Zillicoah, we’d been here several times before and if the weather is nice, it is always worth the 5 minute drive north. Wide open outdoor area along the banks of the French Broad River – which flows into Knoxville, meets up with the Holston, forms the Tennesee River, and eventually flows through our hometown of Chattanooga! But anyway, back to the beer…

And a taco truck! What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good food truck. Park it at a great brewery and count me in! After lunch, our quest to find a few breweries in A’ville that we’d never been to continued. We decided to try out a place called the Cellarest Beer Project, and that turned out to be one hell of a good decision. Fantastic beer, a really great atmosphere inside and out, a Gus Cutty mural, live music and friendly folks! We thought we’d pop in and have a beer and be on our way, but we wound up staying a few hours. The owner introduced himself and snapped a few pics of the pups! We will be back to Cellarest before long!

We rounded out the afternoon with visits to One World – West, which was recovering from what must have been a huge Sunday brunch crowd, Upcountry and a new one called All Sevens Brewing! Looking back, it is hard to believe that we toured 8 “new to us” breweries in a beer town that we visit a few times every year, but we did! As previously mentioned, a future post will certainly feature A’ville in all its glory!

We ushered in September with anxious anticipation of our 25th wedding anniversary trip to the US Virgin Islands! After 7 months of cabin building, we were ready for some fun in the island sun! I will spare you the logistical challenges we faced getting to and from, but let’s just say it involved hurricane Fiona! Our first day in Red Hook, on St. Thomas, we found a little brewery called Rock City Brewing. Little did we know that we’d spend several hours there on our final day, when we had to check out of our condo at 11 am, but our flight had been delayed until 6 pm… but back to the beer!

On our third day of the trip, we took the ferry over to St John, the home of the US Virgin Islands National Park! We took a very nice hike to a private beach and enjoyed swimming in the gorgeous waters of Salomon Bay.

After our hike and swim, we headed into Cruz Bay, where we found St John Brewers, a fun local brewery with pretty good beer! After chatting with a few interesting locals, we grabbed dinner and caught the ferry back over to St. Thomas to prepare for hurricane Fiona! Needless to say, the rest of the trip was spent hunkered down at our condo!

We did make it home, safe and sound, after quite the travel adventure leaving St. Thomas! Next time, we’ll avoid hurricane season, without a doubt. October was spent working on the cabin, but as soon as November rolled in, we were headed down to Florida for a combo work/play trip. I had a conference in Orlando, and we made the rounds to see our youngest daughter in St Augustine, and to spend some time with Jen’s uncle near Crystal River. Sadly, we didn’t time it very well, as we spent Monday night in St. Augustine, and the breweries were closed! But the next day, we headed toward Orlando, and made a stop at Persimmon Hollow Brewing for lunch. And that was a good call! They had a side porch that was dog friendly, and great beer and pizza! From the outside I wasn’t sure if this one was “our type,” but a good example to not judge a brewery by its cover!

We paid toll after toll for the privilege of driving through central Flori-duh, and made our arrival at the conference center in Orlando. I attended a few meetings while Jen and the pups got comfy in our super fancy hotel. We were now in the land of heated toilet seats and self-driving taxis! And… a brewery! While I would not say that Park Pizza & Brewery was our type of place (a tad too contrived, but it did fit right in, in that neighborhood), I can say that they had a pretty solid IPA, which they had appropriately named “IPA.” We had already eaten, so we did not try the pizza, but it did look and smell great!

I wrapped up things at the conference, and we departed for the “Nature Coast.” Heading west out of Orlando, we made a stop at Ellipsis Brewing. The beer was very good, and the beertender was very nice as well. Jen had a cola sour!

We spent a few days in the Crystal River area, and returned home having gone to 3 more “new to us” breweries in Florida. Little did we know that Ellipsis would be the last new brewery of 2022. In all, we visited 24 new breweries in 6 different states or territories! As we look ahead to 2023, we already have our second major road trip planned for September – Maine here we come! Oh, and here’s that cabin we built…