Around the World Beer Trip...where would you go?

[Bytowner]

Wurzburg (to do Franconia)
Salzburg
London
Edinburgh
Vancouver
Brussels

More about the best beer experiences (including ones I'd like to repeat) than the most exciting beers.

[iguenard]

1 - Payottenland, Belgium
2 - Franconia, Germany
3 - Northern California, USA
4 - Rome, Italy
5 - Chicago, USA
6 - Burlington, VT, USA
7 - San Diego, CA, USA
8 - Buenos Ares, Brazil
9 - Tokyo, Japan
10 - London, England

[iguenard]

The DEAL with Tokyo

http://lescoureursdesboires.blogspot.ca ... re-de.html

http://lescoureursdesboires.blogspot.ca ... es-de.html

http://lescoureursdesboires.blogspot.ca ... tokyo.html

[Cass]

I'm surprised nobody has Denver on their list.

San Diego and Portland are significantly ahead of Denver in my books.

Denver is a good beer city but not an appealing travel destination. IMO.

[Tapsucker]

Can someone explain what the big deal with Tokyo is? It wouldn't even make my top 25 list.

I have a friend who, while not a beer geek, has experienced great beer around the world. He spends a lot of time in Tokyo and tells me the beer scene scares the crap out of him. That's enough for me to want to check it out.

[Tapsucker]

Dublin
Antwerp
Tel Aviv
Tokyo
Mexico City
Chicago

I was in Israel years back. At the time the beer options were terrible. Even the wine sucked as we constantly had kosher (boiled) wine thrust upon us.

One day I was in a restaurant in Jerusalem and noticed a beer on tap I had never seen. The Palestinian owner explained that it was made by his family on the West Bank and had been for generations. He was quick to point out he had no issue with alcohol and he believed prohibition was not God's work but cultural.

The beer was excellent. When I asked him about where they sell it, he said they had to smuggle it into Israel and distribute it to bars themselves to survive since their local market was too small to sustain business. It was one of many results of the economic exclusion I witnessed there. Sad.

I wish I could remember the brewery's name. That's sad too.

[cratez]

By the end of this year I'll have visited almost every east coast and midwest U.S. destination that interests me (minus North Carolina), and I'm still of the view that most Canadian cities are "getting there" in terms of beer culture, so my list would be identical to Liam's with a couple exceptions:

1. Portland, Oregon (+ Bend), United States
2. San Diego (+ surrounding municipalities), California, United States
3. Asheville, North Carolina (once Sierra Nevada opens), United States
4. London, England (higher on my list)
5. Brussels/Brugge, Belgium
6. Berlin, Germany (+ Dusseldorf, Bamberg, Munich, Koln)

[icemachine]

1) London & Kent
2) Bavaria
3) San Diego
4) Portland
5) Christchurch

[lister]

The beer. I assume that people would answer this question in a 50/50 weighting of (1) cool city to visit and (2) good beer culture. Japan definitely get the 'tick' on the first point but nothing about a good beer culture there has ever registered for me.

When it comes to beer in Asia, you're likely not going to get anything better than Tokyo by a long shot. Club Popeye, when we were there, had 50-60 beers on tap with most of them being Japanese micros. There were a few American micros that I've never had on tap. On our visit to Tokyo which was three days, we spent two nights at Club Popeye and our hotel was across the city. The subway closes early and cab fares are murder. That should tell you something. At the time there were a couple of other okay beer bars but nothing else like Club Popeye.

The cocktail scene there apparently is quite cool if you're into that. If you're a foodie you'll do well too. And if you've never been to Asia then that's the perfect place to start.

[Belgian]

Me personally, I'd never do an around the world trip in a month. Far too much hustle and bustle going here and there. Too much time is spent traveling. It doesn't feel like a vacation....

People never 'do the math' - just traveling and checking in & out all the time is exhausting, not to mention a wasted opportunity. Better to minimize the agenda as you say, leaving other things open to a change of mind or a future trip so you can absorb a country like Italy in manageable chunks each time.

You want to 'set up roots' in a city like Munich or Florence, to stay and explore as long as it feels like you'd like to stay before city-hopping to Leipzig or Venice. That's how to do it. PRE planning the whole thing too rigidly kils it. And I only fucking care about the world-class beer if I really have idle time to wander and/or it's readily available - really not always the top thing for me or something to base traveling around. Again - wasted opportunity just from all the running around and not seeing where you actually are VS having the beer-shopping goggles on. Each his own though, just my 2¢. I don't discourage beer travel entirely! It should add to the experience not limit it.

[Bytowner]

That's how to do it. PRE planning the whole thing too rigidly kils it. And I only fucking care about the world-class beer if I really have idle time to wander and/or it's readily available - really not always the top thing for me or something to base traveling around. Again - wasted opportunity just from all the running around and not seeing where you actually are VS having the beer-shopping goggles on. Each his own though, just my 2¢.

Yeah, my brewery based trips are behind me. Whale hunting doesn't really do it for me. Much rather drink a Urquell on Castle Hill, or a Tofino on a beech on Vancouver Island than hit up tasting bars in Portland. Drinking experiences is where it's at. To each his own though.

[TheSevenDuffs]

Yeah, my brewery based trips are behind me. Whale hunting doesn't really do it for me. Much rather drink a Urquell on Castle Hill, or a Tofino on a beech on Vancouver Island than hit up tasting bars in Portland. Drinking experiences is where it's at. To each his own though.

... and to me one of the experiences I most look forward to is finally visiting Portland and sitting all afternoon in Hair of the Dog drinking ... and then Decshutes the next day and Cascade the day after that.

But like you said, to each his own.

[Craig]

Me personally, I'd never do an around the world trip in a month. Far too much hustle and bustle going here and there. Too much time is spent traveling. It doesn't feel like a vacation....

People never 'do the math' - just traveling and checking in & out all the time is exhausting, not to mention a wasted opportunity. Better to minimize the agenda as you say, leaving other things open to a change of mind or a future trip so you can absorb a country like Italy in manageable chunks each time.

You want to 'set up roots' in a city like Munich or Florence, to stay and explore as long as it feels like you'd like to stay before city-hopping to Leipzig or Venice. That's how to do it. PRE planning the whole thing too rigidly kils it. And I only fucking care about the world-class beer if I really have idle time to wander and/or it's readily available - really not always the top thing for me or something to base traveling around. Again - wasted opportunity just from all the running around and not seeing where you actually are VS having the beer-shopping goggles on. Each his own though, just my 2¢. I don't discourage beer travel entirely! It should add to the experience not limit it.

I normally book hotels before I leave, because I don't want to have to hassle with that while on vacation. Plus it locks in prices, which is nice. But otherwise, I agree. Large cities I allot at least a week to properly visit. Smaller towns about half that, depending on specifics. I did Rome-Florence-Venice in 15 or 16 days and that was about my limit for moving around.

I'll seek out good beer, within reason. Like if I'm going to Brussels, I'll definitely take the time to hit up Cantillon. But I'm not going to Brussels just for Cantillon. The wife and I enjoy road trips around North America. We've done one from Toronto going East to the Maritimes and one starting in Vancouver going in a big circle hitting Calgary, Yellowstone and Portland. On those trips I'll slip a brewery or two in as part of the drive, partly because you need stops to break up the driving and partly because I want to go. Especially the one we left from Toronto, I made a point to hit up Allagash, Maine Beer Co., Hill Farmstead, Alchemist and a few others, because I could bring bottles home. From Vancouver we mostly just hit the occasional brew pub in the Rockies and a couple of places in Portland. In Italy we went to one beer bar, only because we were out wandering before dinner in Trastevere and stumbled on it.

I've also done road trips from Toronto with beer nerd friends where the whole point is beer. But a weekend driving through Michigan is a totally different thing.

[cratez]

...and to me one of the experiences I most look forward to is finally visiting Portland and sitting all afternoon in Hair of the Dog drinking...and then Decshutes the next day and Cascade the day after that. But like you said, to each his own.

+1

[radiopolitic]

Dublin
Antwerp
Tel Aviv
Tokyo
Mexico City
Chicago

I was in Israel years back. At the time the beer options were terrible. Even the wine sucked as we constantly had kosher (boiled) wine thrust upon us.

One day I was in a restaurant in Jerusalem and noticed a beer on tap I had never seen. The Palestinian owner explained that it was made by his family on the West Bank and had been for generations. He was quick to point out he had no issue with alcohol and he believed prohibition was not God's work but cultural.

The beer was excellent. When I asked him about where they sell it, he said they had to smuggle it into Israel and distribute it to bars themselves to survive since their local market was too small to sustain business. It was one of many results of the economic exclusion I witnessed there. Sad.

I wish I could remember the brewery's name. That's sad too.

I think you're referring to Taybeh.

The Israeli wine/beer scene is much better right now. It's improved immensely in the past decade. I was just there in December/January and in Tel Aviv found two stores that used to be affiliated selling every single craft beer in Israel - about 90-100 beers. Picking a random six pack was easy and there were some tasty finds!