It’s been a busy year. We started this as a humble Wordpress blog and expanded to our own website. We traveled up and down the East Coast — covering Maine to North Carolina. We’ve eaten jelly fish, ramps, duck fat fries and lobster fresh from the boat. And we’ve had a beer (or two) in every stop along the way. Here’s a recap of the best and worst of our first year.

The Best Bars

Novare Res Bier Cafe and The Great Lost Bear in Portland, Me.: With the help of the guys from Portland Taps, we found these two amazing beer bars. Great selection, great atmosphere (Novare Res had a cellar quality; The Great Lost Beer bar was like a log cabin in the Great North Woods).  See our post here.

Brewer’s Art in Baltimore:  I don’t understand why Baltimore gets a bad rap with Washingtonians. Bar hopping there makes for a riotous, and affordable, night out.  This bar in particular is great. Its is in the cellar of a Victorian townhouse and on tap are the bar’s own Belgian-style microbrews. Even Esquire magazine noticed; it named Brewer’s Art the best bar in the US this April. Wow!  See our post here.

Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Md.: While this is not actually a bar – and we did visit many great bars this year – it comes in 3^rd. Flying Dog has an excellent spread of beers of which you can enjoy limitless samples.  The atmosphere at one of these Saturday afternoon tasting is that of a well-behaved college house party – strangers chatting and spilling out on to the back porch. And, did I mention, its $5. See our post here.

The Best Surprises

Yeah, of course Maine was gorgeous and New York City was a captivating metropolis filled with excellent food.  These places/events were just as amazing – in ways we never expected.  

Davis-Elkins loop – Although I’ve been singing West Virginia’s praises since this blog began, I have yet to influence anyone to actually go there. I don’t give up easily.  Follow this route for a road trip, a mellow escape from DC insanity and a getaway that’s great in the winter.  There’s skiing, burritos and beer. Just do it! See our post here.

Kinetic Sculpture Race – I heard about this race from a blogger meet-up. I mentioned that we cover quirky travel, and this event sprung to everyone there’s mind. For the Kinetic Sculpture Race, groups of friends, classmates and coworkers make human-powered parade floats that can float in the bay, push through sand and coast down bumpy brick roads. It’s amazingly odd. Next year, I’ll be bringing a bike so I can better follow along with the race. See our post here.

Ohio Brew Week –The word “festival” (and its cousin “fair”) often makes me shudder. It usually means high prices, hoards of people and lots of vendors pushing useless junk (used laser disks, anyone?) However, this beer festival was the complete opposite. It was festively crowded and reasonably priced. We heard some great music and tried beers I’ll never see elsewhere. And there was a beer choo-choo. See our post here.

The Biggest Disappointments

We really wanted to love to these popular destinations, but they just fell short.

Assateague  – Although camping on the beach sounds romantic and relaxing – think: falling asleep to the sound of the waves and taking an early morning swim — the reality is that you are camping in a hostile environment. Sand is everywhere, mosquitoes swarm and the sun beats down without mercy.  I wanted to love Assateague. But Assateague didn’t love me.  After a weekend of being eaten, burnt and drenched, I submitted. See our post here.

Asheville – Maybe it was the rain, but this southern city let us down. It wasn’t nearly as outdoorsy or hippified as I hoped it would be. Although, West Asheville had a food co-op, coffee shops and dive bars, downtown was too upscale. How many boutiques does one tiny town need?  I think we missed Asheville’s heyday.  See our post.

Best beers

Saison Dupont from Brasserie Dupont: This is a truly world class beer.  If you want an introduction to the style called Saison, this is the beer to try.  My favorite brew, at my favorite restaurants with my favorite person; it doesn’t get better than that. Find it at Annabell Lee Tavern, Baltimore MD

Grand Wazoo Batch 2 at Jackie O’s Brewery: A bourbon barrel-aged sour dark ale with raspberries, definitely a one-of-a-kind beer.  This brew really showed off the range and diversity of the beverage.  It’s flavors are probably more in line with a wine than any beer most people have tasted. Had at: Jackie O’s Brewpub, Athens OH

Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues:  Our go-to summer beer.  Dale’s is a very tasty IPA that comes in a can.  Naturally, makes it perfect for camping, tubing, and backyard barbeques.   Had at: just about every trip that involved a cooler.

Bar hopping in Portland

We arrived in Portland in the afternoon on the last day of the trip. This harbor town’s compact size makes it perfect for bar hopping. A few hours later, we had to pull ourselves away from the bar stools and make a mad dash to the airport — cramming random camping supplies into our bags (only to have them searched by confused security guards).

Here’s where we went:

The Great Lost Bear
While driving through the outskirts of downtown Portland, I glimpsed a mural of a bear painted on the outside of a building. The painting promised beer — 60+ taps worth of it. We pulled into the parking lot. This, I soon discovered, was the Great Lost Bear bar, proclaimed one of the top ten US beer bars by Forbes and voted #4 on BeerAdvocate.com’s Top 50 Places to Have a Pint 2003. It’s rotating tap list and a menu of beers broken down by style, present an amazing array of choices. The bar also has five-ounce taster glasses are available for a buck apiece.

Novare Res Bier Cafe
At the Great Lost Bear, we met two guys responsible for local beer site Portland Taps. While, I thought we had already hit upon the local mecca of beer bars at Lost Bear, they directed us to another bar in the middle of downtown: Novare Res.

It took us 45 mintues of wandering around in the extreme afternoon heat to find the beer garden and bar, which was tucked behind some downtown boutiques. But it was worth it. Novare Res boasts more than 250 bottles of beer and 25 rotating taps from around the world. It’s cellar-like atmosphere makes you feel like you’re drinking in some Medievel catacomb. While it doesn’t match Lost Beer in quanity of taps, it like a fine restaurant, limits its menu to the outstanding.

Maine’s Blueberry Beer

Lobster is not the only food that is everywhere in Maine. Walk into any coffee shop, bakery or supermarket and you will see wild blueberries. Mainers put blueberries in everything from the standards, pies and tarts, to the unusual, beer and sodas.

Most beer snobs quickly turn their noses up at any beer containing fruit –unless it comes from Belgium. But I really enjoyed trying different versions of theblueberry beer. During our five days in Maine, we sampled several blueberry beers. The two that stood out were the Sea Dog Blue Paw Wheat Ale and Atlantic Brewing Company’s Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale.

Blue Paw:
This brew had a lot of blueberry both in its aroma and initially taste. But I was left wanting in the end because of it’s thin body and watery aftertaste. Since it is a wheat beer, I suppose it is intended to be light and refreshing, but with so much blueberry flavor packed in this beer, I was really expecting something a little more substantial.

Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale:
This was almost the exact opposite of Sea Dog’s Blue Paw. It’s a solid ale with a good malt backbone and a nice medium body, but with only a subtle hint of blueberry. I should note however, that I later had this brew on tap at the Atlantic brewery and it had a lot more blueberry flavor.

Here’s a list of stores in Northern Virginia where you should be able to find Maine’s blueberry beers.