Booze Booze Booze

One of the highlights of the trip was to visit the various breweries, distilleries, and wineries along the way. Besides the obvious enjoyment of drinking, we felt that this really allowed us to connect to local culture in most cases.

As we traveled around the country, one of the most disappointing things was seeing how each city and town was losing its individual identity. Each seemed to be a carbon copy of the last with the same fast-food restaurants and retail stores. The downtowns were full of closed stores while the outskirts were full of Walmarts and McDonalds,

Though there are various brands of beer, two conglomerates have over a 75% market share in the United States: Anheuser-Busch Inbev (48.8%) and MillerCoors, LLC (29.4%). Since the late 1970s, the emergence of local breweries has bucked this trend.  Now you can find local breweries in just about every city where you can enjoy locally made brews in an environment that reflected the culture of the area (well, at least the millennial culture). 

The people that go to these breweries seem to enjoy that they are small, independent, and especially, local. Often these breweries strive to support and connect their local communities and they attract patrons that feel better buying from a company that gives back to society instead of just making a profit.

We have found that these breweries strive for uniqueness and fun. The decor is always very relaxed. Some were in large warehouses and had lawn games inside. Others had a small bandstand and brought in local talent. Most did not have their own kitchen, so they partnered with various food trucks to set up in their parking lots They always gave us an opportunity for a free taste of any of their beers, and loved talking about their beer. Free tours of breweries seemed to be available at all the ones we visited,

We tended to buy a flight of their beers at each of the breweries we visited.  If they had a lot, we had to read their menu and choose among those that sounded interesting and/or close to beers we had enjoyed before elsewhere.  We found that the menu descriptions of the beer often reflected what we tasted, but sometimes they didn’t. Overall we both enjoyed the lagers; Lisa tended to like the ales more than I did; I enjoyed the stouts more than she did. We both stayed away from most of the hoppy beers like IPAs. BUT we often found that the same type and style of beer in another brewery tasted completely different. In the end, though, there was always one of us that volunteered to finish up the beer that the other one did not enjoy as much.

Breweries:

When we traveled through Kentucky, we also went to several Bourbon Distilleries. We were usually given a tour that included some history, the bourbon distilling process, and an explanation of why their bourbon was unique. This was followed by a tasting where we were given instruction on the proper way to drink bourbon and treated to a selection of their various products. We were primarily beer drinkers, and if we drank bourbon, it would probably have been mixed with Coke, so this was a unique experience for us.

Distillers:

While we were in Tennessee we also had to try some moonshine. All were flavored with various flavors and generally recommended to be further mixed. For example one of our favorites was a Maple and Bacon flavored moonshine that was recommended to be used to make Bloody Mary’s.

Moonshine tastings we attended:

Wineries:

Wine Tastings: