Aug 31, 2013

We began the day in Portsmouth, walking around, checking out the stores. It was a nice, quaint little town. It felt very New Hampshire, if that makes sense. We headed over to Smuttynose Brewing Co. in time for the first tour to begin. We didn't know you could make reservations, but we were able to get in anyway. Before the tour started they let us try a few beers. We had a great tour guide who was really funny. When referring to their hopping process he said, "Dry hopping: It's not as dirty as it sounds." It was a great first brewery tour for Joanna. One of the guys working there went to her high school too, so that was funny.

We got the full treatment, and saw some great little gems along the way including a sign saying, "Thing we need: New can opener. No lazy can openers or can't openers." The whole thing was just a fun tour. They had a lot of stuff aging in wine and bourbon barrels. Apparently they do a lot of barrel aging so I want to look into getting some of that or coming back. After a few more samples at the end, we headed out.

We went back to downtown Portsmouth to try out Portsmouth Brewery, Smuttynose's sister company. I like their logo. I also got a free beer ticket from Smuttynose so I had to use that. I tried the Bottle Rocket IPA and Murphy's Law Red. They were both pretty good. I felt like I got more beer than I really wanted/needed though. I had to work to finish them.

I thought of this while we were in the bar. I thought it was funny. You should too.

We headed up to Portland, Maine which is really close to Porstmouth, and went to Shipyard Brewing. Their tour is pretty basic: You watch a video, take a look over the railing at the brewing operation, and then come back to drink beer. They have fantastic beer. There really isn't anything they have that I don't like. I did learn that they contract brew for Sea Dog and a few other places. The Export and Chamberlain Pale Ale are probably my favorites they make. Their fruit beers are really good as well. They had a whiskey aged beer that was just way too boozy for me. Sometimes it goes too far. That was about it for our night. We headed back to NH to find a place to park and sleep for the night.