Blue Mountain Brewery and Hop Farm

Type: Brewpub

Location: 9519 Critzers Shop Road

Afton, VA 22920

United States

Phone: (540) 456-8020

Website: www.bluemountainbrewery.com

Cost: Reasonably priced food and beer menu

Visit Date: 07/04/2010

Beers:            Blue Mountain Lager

                         Blido de Blanche (Belgian White)

                         RockFish Wheat

                         uberPils

                         Full Nelson

                         Nitro Ale (Imperial Porter)

Nearby: Shenandoah National Park

Notes:  All of the beers were pretty solid.  The Blido de Blanche stood out with their unique take on the style mashing at a higher temperature than usual and using half Belgian Wit Yeast and half Champagne yeast.  Recently, I've grown tired of Belgian style beers, but this one was quite good.  The Porter was outstanding as well.

The food was a real treat here.  I shared a pizza with my boyfriend--It was incredible.  Not a traditional pizza, it was freshly prepared with all sorts of vegetables and served on a wooden board, definitely worth trying! 

I enjoyed the artwork that lined the walls, all by local artists and available for sale.  It's nice to see businesses supporting local artists.

Pecan Grill and Brewery

Type: Brewpub

Location: 500 South Telshor

Las Cruces, NM 88011

United States

Phone: (575) 521-1099

After my first trip to Las Cruces, I had concluded that New Mexico is a food desert.  Nothing to eat here.  Even if there were palatable food, everything in town closes at 9, which was often about when we were driving back to town from work.  Mostly I ate carrot sticks for lunch and beer in my room for dinner.  I got home after my two weeks and good 5 course meals every night for my two weeks home.  Food!  Glorious food!  Before coming back, I went to Patel Brothers and bought a ton of prepackaged food.  Dammit, I was eating when I went back!  

Then we went to Pecan Grill.

Then we went back to Pecan Grill.

It's not cheap, especially for Las Cruces, but good god the food is delicious. 

There were plenty of options for everyone, including me, the Vegetarian sent to the land of Steak.  The stuffed squash was my favorite.  Dude.  So good.  The Portabella, the mushroom appetizer, everything I tried, I loved.  Though the mushroom appetizer was very cheesy, I don't want to know how many calories were in that!

The beer was pretty good too, though, not made onsite, their microbrewery is nearby.  They had twelve beers on tap, and two options for sampler trays, lights and darks.  Naturally, I got both.  I'm usually a dark beer fan, but overall the lights were much more impressive than the darks.  Nice, clean crisp, with strong malty, or hoppy tones.  The darks, overall, were kinda meh.  My coworkers liked the Pecan Ale.  It was too sweet for me, a taste was alright but I couldn't drink an entire pint of it.  I'm not a fan of sweet in my beer.  The green chili ale was a surprise.  I wasn't expecting to love it, but it was absolutely perfect.  Strong green chili nose, but not overwhelmingly spicy, on top of a nice solid golden base.  It could not have been better.  This was by far my favorite beer they had.

Pizzeria Uno Chicago Bar and Grill

Type: Brewpub

Location: 61 US Highway #1

Metuchen, NJ 08840

United States

Phone: (732) 548-7979

Website: http://www.unos.com/

Cost: Reasonably priced beers, $50 Beer Dinners 

Visit Date: 12/03/07 and many times after

Beers:         Bootlegger Blonde

                    Station House Red Ale

                    32 Inning Ale

                    Ike's India Pale Ale

                    Gust-N-Gale POrter

                    Seasonals:

                         ESB

                         Weizenbock

                         Scotch

Notes: Yes, this is Pizzeria Uno the chain, the Metuchen, NJ location has an onsite brewery with some of the finest session ales I have had.  All of the brews are solid and consistent if a bit predictable.   The food is Unos food, and not why I go there.

The best reason to come to Uno is the beer dinners.  Supposedly they aren't having them anymore, but they were a great night.  For $50, the chef went nuts with a multi course meal completely of his own imagining.  Each course was served with a different beer, from Unos as well as other breweries.  One month, Dave Hoffmann, my favorite brewer :) came as a guest brewery.  The Pubscout, Kurt Epps http://thepubscout.blogspot.com/ ran the night, introducing each course and running trivia contests, and Lenny always made sure, I, the lone vegetarian in the crowd was taken care of.  All in all a great time, I'm sad it's no more.

Krogh's Restaurant and Brewpub

Type: Brewpub

Location: 23 White Deer Plaza

Sparta, NJ 07871

United States

Phone: (973) 729-8428

Website: http://www.kroghs.com

Cost: A bit pricey for the location, but not unreasonable

Visit Date: 12/09/2012

Beers:     Three sister's golden wheat

               Krogh's Gold

              Alpine Glow Red Ale

              Brogden Meadow Pale Ale

              Log Cabin Nut Brown

              Old Crow Oatmeal Stout

              Celebration (Seasonal~Spicy Amber)

Nearby: Caching Through The Snow

Notes:  We come here annually for the geocaching event Caching Through the Snow.  It's a bit out of the way from where we live and play, but a worthwhile stop.  The food, for me, is decent though unremarkable, the Rarebit is a popular favorite, they made it for me once with a veggie burger, it was good, but fatty.

I'm transcribing this in 2012, and 2012 BrewTourist is predictable, the Stout or the Brown are clear winners!  Unfortunately, they are almost always out of at least two of their beers.

JJ Bitting

Type: Brewpub

Location: 33 Main Street

Woodbridge, NJ 07095

United States

See map: Google Maps

Website: http://www.njbrewpubs.com/

Cost: Reasonable

Visit Date: 12/03/2007 and many times since

Beers:         Victoria's Golden Ale

                   Raspberry Wheat Ale

                   Black Jack Stout

                   Bitting's Best Bitter

                   Avenel Amber

                   Bitting's Bad Boy

                  Hopgarden Pale Ale

                  Woodbridge Winter Warmer

                  Rat Pack Pilsener

                  Whales Imperial IPA

Notes: JJ's is the go-to place when we're in Central Jersey.  Over the past couple of years, they've gone through a few brewers, and the consistency at times was unpredictable.  From talking with people, the management doesn't seem to treat employees very well, and specials are misrepresented in advertisements, but we do keep coming back.  The food is above average for bar food, and the beers are usually pretty solid.  Their dunkelweizen caused a bit of an obsession in me for awhile.  It was actually the inspiration for my very first, all-grain homebrew.   If you're feeling like overeating, the butterfly fries, oh man.  The restaurant is in a cool old historic train building, and well decorated.

Harvest Moon Brewery/Cafe

Type:Brewpub

Location:392 George Street

New Brunswick, NJ 08901

United States

Phone: (732) 249-6666

See map: Google Maps

Website: www.harvestmoonbrewery.com

Cost: Reasonable menu

Visit Date: 12/3/2007

Beers:  British Nut Brown

            Moonlight Ale

            Hops² Double IPA

            Elmes' Mild Manner

            Belgian Blonde

            Jimmy D's Firehouse Red

            Oatmeal Stout

Notes: We were reasonably pleased with our first visit, parking is easy on the weekend because the municipal garages are free, but getting a table can be a little trickier.  They had decent food and sufficient vegetarian options, the bathroom was a little dirty.  Elmes' Mild Manner ESB was my favorite of their brews, the Oatmeal Stout was my least favorite, too sweet..

We came here a few times before having any bad experiences, but after the last time, I don't think we'll be back.  We came with a large group and spent quite a bit of money to be treated like crap.  We were still eating when it was decided we needed to leave because it was saturday night and time to turn the restaurant into a bar and remove all of the tables, so a beefy bouncer came over and started moving the table from under us and  removing chairs.  While there was still food on our plates.  I don't think the waiter had even brought the check yet.  George had the metal footing of the table jammed into his foot, and when he yelped out in pain, the bouncer began treating him like a belligerant drunk and threatening to forcibly remove him from the bar.  We were not drunk.  This was the worst bar/restaurant/brewpub experience I have ever had.  George sent an email to the owner and never received a response.  The beer was decent but not good enough to bring us back after a night like that.

12 Jan 2013 Edit while migrating:  To be 100% fair, the bouncer was a jerk, but George is a belligerent ass sober.

Artisan's Brewery and Italian Grill

Type: Brewpub

Location: 1171 Hooper Avenue

Tom's River, NJ 08753

United States

Phone: (732) 244-7566

Website:  http://www.artisanstomsriver.com

Cost: Varied Price Menu, possible to have a very cheap or very expensive meal

Visit Date: 12/18/2011

Beers:   Artisan's Light

             West Coast IPA

             Red Ale

              Various Seasonals (usually 6 beers on tap)

Nearby: The New Jersey PInelands: Double Touble SP, Lebanon SF, Wharton SF.  Island Beach State Park, Mulica River. 

Notes: We come here pretty regularly because we like to come down to South Jersey for biking, kayaking, and geocaching.  Wharton, Double Trouble and Lebanon have miles and miles of sand trails and hundreds of caches, and the Mullica is a nice scenic paddle.  After a long day in the sun, we're ready for some refreshments and a big dinner.  I must say the food here seems to have gotten a lot worse over the years.  Not the quality per se, I don't know that I'd be able to tell you that, but rather my options have dwindled over the years.  An expensive steak may be your thing, and that's fine, but the veggie options have gone from decent to "meh, should we just stop at wawa on the way?"  This last time we were there we sat in the bar, because George wanted wings which aren't served in the dining room, I had a salad and we shared a pizza, I forgot to ask for dressing on the side.  It's good we biked so much because it came drenched.  They have tasty balsamic, but very creamy.  The pizza was....odd.   I think we concluded in the end that we liked it, but it took some warming up to.  We got the salad pizza and that's pretty much what it was.  Pizza bread with a salad--a lot like the one on my plate- dumped on top.  I miss the old eggplant and mushroom pizzas.  They list eggplant and mushrooms as options for toppings to "make your own" but who knows if it'll be the same?  The mushroom pie used to have several types of mushrooms, perfectly cooked and covering the whole pie.  I doubt it would be the same.  

But the food isn't why we keep coming back to Artisan's.  Dave Hoffman is a genius.  There isn't really much else to say, the man knows what he is doing, and does it well, and I am ever so glad he went into his chosen profession.  He's a real good guy too.  He doesn't make anything that's bad.  On this last visit we had a pitcher of the Seasonal Oatmeal stout.  It should be a regular offering.  That's all I'll say.  Great, highly recommended, if you're not in the area, look for Climax Beer in a store, Dave also runs his own brewery and brews there.  He always bottled in Growlers, but had recently (finally!) gotten a 12oz bottling line. 

They do an annual Mug Club dinner that's very good, they'll have a bufftet of fresh good food, usually different from the Menu.  There was an amazing polenta one year.  Dave comes and hangs out, and the beer is all you can drink.  It usually runs around ~$30 which is a great deal.