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Just rolled into town to stay at the local Harvest Host. This is a nice place in the historic downtown with a dozen good-looking beers. We had the Pilsner Urkel in honor of our late Erky and the Ambermatic amber ale.

We haven’t hit any new breweries in a while and we are on a 1-month road trip up north so we swung into this place just 10 minutes from our campsite at the Moose. What a pleasant surprise! Lots of beer, cool decor and friendly staff. There is a restored Toyota Land Cruiser parked in the tap room! We had a Red Right Hand oktoberfest and a Rebel Spacecraft west coast IPA. Both beers were great.

After an afternoon at Epcot with family, we decide to swing into this brewery on our way home. They were having “music bingo” so they were pretty busy but we managed to land the last table and grab a Lakeside Lager amber ale and On Pointe Pils. Both beers were “on point” for flavor & finish!

So, a new brewery popped up while we were gone for the summer just 20 minutes from our winter campsite, so we met up with our friends Brian & Melissa to check it out. It’s a spacious place located in the sketchy part of town but nice none the less. There was a food truck parked outside that offered some Polish goodies, so we had their Sebos Festbier and a Beachfoam cream ale along with some Farmer Cheese & Sour Kraut pierogi’s. Very tasty!

We weren’t planning on hitting any breweries today but we found one just 8 minutes from our camp spot at the Love’s. Upon entry, we thought oh no, not another restaurant calling itself a brewery but we were wrong. Although it looks like a restaurant, they do brew small batches in the back and it is great beer. We had the Puddle Jumper light lager and the Fishtoberfest marzen along with the chips & beer cheese. We were surprized with the lager since it was only 4.0% but had great flavor and full body. We stuck around for dinner and tasted the If This Windmill Is Rockin….. oat beer and it tasted like a shandy so we ordered a Drunken Fish west coast IPA and the Hop Lobstah Hazy which turned out to be two solid choices. Oh, and if you ever see Red Argentina shrimp on the menu, get it – its awesome!

This cool little brewery used to be a bank and they actually cut out the back wall of the safe to build a back game room and bathrooms. We drank the Death Machine belgian tripel and the Combat Honey ale and they were both delicious. It was a little early for a tripel but the beertender convinced me it was the right thing to do even at 9.0 percent AVB

Dog friendly (and goat friendly) brewery located next to a train track offering 10 beers. Named after one of the original founders Tim, who’s nick name was “fainting goat” due to his medical condition of passing out during a hard laugh. We sipped on the Butthead brown ale and Alexa……Hop My Pilsner west coast pils while listening to some classic pop music from the house sound system.

Our final stop for the day brings us to more of a restaurant than a brewery. It’s a crazy busy atmosphere with servers and wait staff running around with food orders. They offer 9 decent looking beers, so we tried their Kolsch and Vienna Lager long with their $38 lobster roll. What a joke. Beer was decent but discovered they don’t actually make their own beer. They make “the recipes” then have a local brewer make it for them. I guess anyone can call themselves a brewery as long as they have “an idea” on a beer. Funny thing is we sat next to a guy named Cody who was at the last brewery and gave us the lowdown on this place.

We picked this brewery to celebrate our 800th brewery because they had merch and looked like a pretty cool place. It just happened to be our beertender Lauren’s last day before moving to Washington state we she signed a hat and gave us some beers glasses to memorialize the milestone event. We also met the brewer/owner who sponsored the #62 ARCA series driver Toni Breidinger and had a wrecked hood mounted on the wall to prove it. We sipped on a Vienna Lager and a Fred Lager reflecting back on our long journey in pursuit of the perfect pint……..

Our 2nd stop on this Friday night brings us to our next brewery along the Rappahannock River that runs right through downtown. This simple tap room was decorated much like the many others except our chatty beertender gave us some excellent advice on local and VA beers. We had a Blue Stone kolsch and Dalifornia Creamin’ cream ale which were both great.