As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

If you're like me and simply do not believe the timeline of human development as Big Archaeology wants us to believe, you will gravitate to stories that support your viewpoint.  The best part is, in the past decade there have been zero stories to support Big Archaeology and thousands that support everything they told us wasn't true.  I've even become such a big skeptic of their views that there is part of me that believes we've been lied to, not just misinformed.  The lies are from things that "they" do not want us to know.  Your average archaeologist just does their work and tries their best to come up with the answers, so not all of them are liars or wrong, but they are some of the most arrogant and strident people you will ever encounter.  They hate people that challenge their views, especially people who aren't in their fraternity.  Unfortunately, they've been wrong so much and still stick to their views that the more we find, the more they are wrong.  The best of us have to admit when we're wrong and science is not a science if it is proven wrong.  So, you're wrong, deal with it.  Enough of the rant.  The reason it comes up is because Big Archaeology ignores every single hypothesis when it comes to things they cannot fathom.  Sumerian texts, written in cuneiform, and the Indian texts, and dozens of other texts and scrolls all talk about the Annunaki.  Big Archaeology says they are all myths.  They actually believe that when people first began to write things that they would make up fake stories.  They also think all of the reliefs and etchings found in Sumer and Egypt just depict lies or made up mischaracterizations of their gods.  There have been no giants or aliens found, so they say it was just a myth, even though there have been thousands of giant skeletons found and even alien bodies, which they refuse to test, see Queen Puabi.  Queen Puabi was the first queen of the First Dynasty in Sumer whose tomb was found in the city of Ur in the 1920's.  Her skull was very elongated and it had hair still on it.   Head binding was not a thing in Sumer and she had no orbital suture on her skull.  She is most likely Annunaki or a hybrid, but "they" refuse to test her DNA.  They, the black hidden governments, who put archaeologists on their payrolls, mock, ridicule and deny of these things we've found around the world.  Those things soon disappear or like with Queen Puabi, are kept from us.  Why?  My guess is, they already know.  

I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't already been said about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but I feel compelled to.  Many people have expressed that this murder is different and most cannot quantify why.  I feel the same.  This is different and I feel like a tidal wave is coming.  

Most historians write that the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, maybe more commonly known as the Battle of Long Island, was just another disaster for the Continental Army.   To be sure, as a military engagement it was, but it is so much more, in my opinion.  It was August of 1776, having lost most major engagements, barely escaping, the colonial army forced the British to leave the Boston area in March because they fortified Dorchester Heights with the cannon they seized from Fort Ticonderoga.  It was an untenable situation for the British.  Guessing correctly, the newly minted commander of the Continental Army, George Washington, supposed that the next logical place for the British to go was New York City.  He marched his army to New York in hopes of engaging the British to keep them from getting a foothold in New York.  Outnumber 2 to 1, Washington had around 20,000 troops, while the British mustered more than 30,000 plus a large naval contingent.  It would be the largest battle of the entire war.  

Wow, one day after my last post on China's latest subversion of the US, another story drops.  Two Chinese nationals were arrested for recruiting members of the US Navy to spy for China and collect information on other Navy recruits and bases.  Yuance Chen, from Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren Lai, who traveled to Houston on a tourist visa in April, were arrested on Friday. Both face charges of overseeing and carrying out various clandestine intelligence tasks in the U.S. on behalf of the Ministry of State Security.  As I've repeatedly said, every single Chinese national in the US and abroad is a spy.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!” “The fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the East – I mean in the West.”

Minnesota sure knows how to pick political turds.  Some of the most inept, corrupt and just plain terrible politicians in the country seem to find their way up the toilet wall and out of the bowl to serve in Minnesota.  Just think about it...Tim Walz, Ilhan Omar, Mark Dayton, Al Franken, Jesse Ventura and Keith Ellison.  You may not know Keith Ellison if you're not from the Midwest.  Keith Ellison doesn't deserve to be serving the people of Minnesota, but like all the other political turds I mentioned earlier, the people of Minnesota deserve Keith Ellison because they keep voting for him.  It does make one wonder why, with other choices at their disposal, would voters champion someone so devoid of character and utterly riddled with personal issues?  Minnesota is hopelessly Democrat to the core.  It suffers from hundreds of thousands of white voters who vote the way their parents always did forty years ago, for the DFL, and they can't see past the failures of the left to change their ways.  The large urban areas are the only places left that vote consistently Democrat and they carry the state in each and every election.  The pointy-headed white, educated, psuedo-intellectuals in Minneapolis, St Paul, Duluth and Rochester are really the ones that make Minnesota the perennial embarrassing political joke that it maintains itself as.  Remember 1984?  This is the Keith Ellison base; guilt-ridden white voters and minorities that have bought into the long, failed lies of the left.  It's just proof positive that no matter how scandal plagued you are, if you have a D behind your name, you'll win.  Decades of failure also makes for a weak Republican bench.

Yet another egregious assault on the United States by the communists in China was divulged this week.  Daily now, we get stories of traitors spying for China and even Chinese spies being caught, but in the last week we have had an admission by the Chi Coms that they were behind cyber attacks on US infrastructure in reaction to our support for Taiwan and now something I'm sure they didn't want to admit.  We've caught them giving the Houthi's real-time satellite data in hopes that the Houthi's would sink a US warship.

Most people my age have at least heard of Gilgamesh.  The youth of today, robbed of true education, have no idea who he was.  A lot of you might need a refresher.  We've been told that Gilgamesh, sometimes known as Nimrod, was a mythical king in ancient Mesopotamia.  I believe there are even cartoons made of Gilgamesh and perhaps this was your introduction to him.  For those a little more learned, the Epic of Gilgamesh is panned as an ancient poem about a Sumerian King of the City of Uruk, which is in modern day Iraq.  He happens to be a giant who descended from the gods and is almost always depicted in sculptures as holding a lion in one hand and a snake in the other.  He goes on a journey with a friend to try to find immortality.  The story is fraught with danger, combat, gods and demi-gods.  His friend, Enkidu, is killed as punishment by the gods and the person he seeks to discover the story of the flood and immortality from is called, Utnapishtim, but is really Noah.  Gilgamesh is a hybrid human, with a mother that is a god and a father who was human.  Because he was not a true god, he could not be immortal and he dies in the end.  The Epic of Gilgamesh is considered the first book in humanity as it was written around 1800 BCE.  Written is wrong, it was etched in cuneiform onto a clay tablet, which remains today in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  The tablets were derived from 5 poems written about Gilgamesh several hundred years prior and combined into the epic we now know.  You should read the book because the story is much more involved than the less-than Cliff Note version I just gave you.  I've been thinking about rereading it because I'm positive the version I read as a kid was not the book version written by historians.  Nevertheless, Gilgamesh is intriguing for many reasons.  

 Last week perhaps the biggest story of human history was revealed.  Not that you'd know.  The information must be peer reviewed and verified, but the machinery of deception has been hard at work since the March 15 press conference to deny everything.  The usual suspects are all working hard to suppress the story.  The mainstream media is not picking it up, but it is everywhere if you watch any podcasts and listen to bloggers.  

Canada has become ground zero for our adversaries making inroads into destroying democracy from within.  It is really stunning how much Canada and it's Liberal Party has eroded trust in the US and its own citizens by slipping into control of the socialist globalist movement.  China, of course, is the leader in this movement.  It has quietly, but uber successfully managed to get the fools in the West to buy into globalism and the one world governance idea.  Its done this through the lies of climate change, social justice, DEI and undermining the ideas of freedom.  China, however, believes in none of this and doesn't implement any of these things in their own country.   They realized a long time ago that they can weaken democracies by fostering these ideas, all of which bankrupt the West both economically and morally. Canada is a full blown utopia of all of these false ideas.  They over tax their citizens and push all of these things, but it's far worse than that.  They have allowed international criminal drug cartels, led by China and Iran to influence policy, use their financial institutions to launder money and corrupt their politics.  Trudeau and Mark Carney, the illegally installed temporary prime minister, are true globalists, pushing for zero personal car ownership, censorship, refusing to use Canada's resources to enrich the country and worst of all, have compromised the country's security.

Canadians just voted for their own demise.  Mark Carney or Mark Carnage as he's known in England, is a freedom destroying, country wrecking, elitists of the highest order.  It is worse than I'm making it sound.  Good Lord is this guy bad.  He's a Bilderberg, a great friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, Blackrock's Bankruptcy Trustee, worked for Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the architect of the great swindle of personal wealth during the 2008 crisis, leading a campaign for a "green" digital cryptocurrency to replace the US dollar, a member of the Group of Thirty, he's on the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and was the leading voice in punishing the truckers during the trucker protest, which also froze Canadians bank accounts.  He was the man behind the curtain during Trudeau's entire tenure, literally running everything in Canada straight into the ground.  In case you don't know, Canada is near economic collapse and the reason why Canadians were so happy, for a brief moment, when Trump got Trudeau to resign.  However, Canada's parliament was abolished after Trudeau announced his resignation, leaving him a de facto dictator as their was no checks and balances.  

I could write a new story of betrayal, espionage and failure just about every day.  The US is in a cold war with China and is on the verge of a hot war with them at any time.  China has been working day and night to subvert the US in every way possible.  In eras gone by, espionage and subversion were usually constrained to military targets, but China is attacking in every facet of your life, so much so, that you probably wouldn't believe it.  This latest example is military-related, but you and I are in the databases in China and if you're unimaginative, you'll say so what?  They can't do anything to me.  Hmmm, don't be stupid.

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.  

As an advocate and lover of the craft beer scene, I have become alarmed at the sign of the times in the industry.  It has been known for some time that people, in general, are drinking less beer.  In fact, I just read something today that says even the younger generation of Germans have gone away from beer.  Scheisse!  That same trend is at work here in the US too.  My own son and his friends are proof of this trend.  Craft beer is about 13.3% of the beer market, which is a dent in the big boring brewers, but not enough apparently.  Production has been down and a decrease in the number of breweries has shaped the business for the past two years.  2024 saw a 4% decrease in beer volume and 2025 is on pace for a 5%+ decrease over 2024.  Last year 529 breweries went out of business and the numbers for this year might be sobering when it is all said and done.  I suppose that economics says this was inevitable.  The microbrew craze had been going strong for 40 years and downturns happen.  Perhaps, in some places, microbreweries were overdone, not sure on that, but it seems possible.  If you look at my outdated pictures above, these are from www.vinepair.com and show the huge growth in breweries from 250 in 1990 to 7,190 in 2016.  Today it has grown to 9,269, but declining daily.  Other economic factors have played a role too.

It was a beautiful weekend to head up to the North Shore of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The leaves were at peak color and the weather was cool, but not cold.  I had a board meeting up that way and after the meeting, like I usually do, while everyone else headed to dinner, I hit a brewery.  I had spied Warrior Brewing on my phone while looking for a new place to try before the meeting and it was directly on the way to dinner.  

Camden Town was a bit of a surprise.  When you get off the underground and come to the surface, you may think Camden Town is run down and a b it sketchy.  In reality, it is an older part of town, but has a vibrant artistic side and is known for its street markets, music and shops.  The Camden Market is a cool area of small, mostly independent shops and eateries that is a must-see and do when you go there.  It stretches across the street in two sections, where it follows along a canal and it is here you will find 3 Locks Brewing.  We were there very early as my son was looking for anime merch, which the area is full of and even though I had searched ahead of time, I really didn't look where the brewery was exactly.  We kind of stumbled upon it a few minutes before they opened.  Their taproom over looks the canal and has outside seating along it.  It really is a great setting for a brewery.  As you can see, I took a terribly blurry picture, so no, you aren't drunk.  Are you?  

I recently visited the UK for vacation and took my opportunity to try many beers, among other things.  The last time I was there the UK was in a bit of a sea change in the pub business.  There were about 58,000 pubs in the UK in 2000.  That number has declined to around 47,000 now.  Big breweries had stepped in and bought a huge chunk of the pubs in order to control beer sales.  I've seen some different numbers, but the six biggest owned about 75% of all the pubs.  In fact, Fuller, a well known brewery, sold it's beer making operation to the Asahi Group in 2019 so it could focus on it's pub operations.  Fuller made one of the best known British beers, London Pride, that it had brewed in London since 1958.  Asahi is a Japanese beer company, which you can easily find here in the states and I drank a lot when I was in Japan a few years ago.  There were marketing agreements in place, as part of the deal, but it shows you how the pubs is where the money is.  For awhile, there were laws put in place to limit the number of pubs the big brewers could own, but that has since been repealed.  For me, the drawback is that you can only find a small selection of beers available at any pub and the food choices were the same at all of them I visited.  There are about 3,800 pubs in London and I was in only about 8, but they were either owned by Greene King or Fuller.  The beers were good, but the choices were nil.

As I left Milwaukee after going to a con with my son, I decided to hit a brew pub.  The one I chose was closed for rebranding upon reaching the property.  Google Maps, which I despise, lied to us again.  It mentioned nothing about being closed and said it was moderately busy.  First they track your every move, then openly lie to you.  I hate Google, but that is for another time.  I chose a different brewery not too far away and we were starving, so it had to have food.  When you get to the building Brewfinity is in, you ,might just think they are out of business too as it looked like a shutdown warehouse out front, but a sign directs you to the left, so I drove around the building and found the brewery.  It is tucked away, but was a nice little space for a tap room.  There were just five other people in there on a very hot Saturday, so we grabbed a spot near the front.  The bartender came right over and gave us some menus.  Since I hadn't been there before, he asked me what kind of beer I like and directed me to their flagship beer, the Sailor's Delight, which is an American Amber.  I probably would've chose this beer anyway, so it was a good call.  Biscuity and malty, just like I like it.  The beer was a nice amber color and was really good.  It finished well, not too hoppy, and smelled  just right.  American Ambers are unique in that they use American hops and derive their sweetness from the malts they use.  They are fermented in a cleaner way than their British cousins and are distinct by their balance.  I get the feeling that the hey day of IPA's is over and that vacuum will be filled by amber ales.  They are far more drinkable, yet may struggle to earn their keep as a summer beer.  Perhaps less refreshing to some drinkers as a number of IPA's can be, but I tend to think they appeal to a far broader audience of beer enthusiasts.  Every brewery makes one, they just don't experiment as deeply and wrongly, in my opinion, as they did with a rash of IPA's.  

It was a sweltering weekend in Minnesota and a stop at a local brewery was definitely in the offing.  I wanted something different so I chose Waldmann's Brewery.  It was a good choice.  Nestled in a neighborhood of houses off the main road, you'll literally stumble upon an old stone house.  It was in the fall of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state, and before the Civil War, when Waldmann's was established.  It is in the oldest surviving commercial building in St Paul to be exact, so the history here is remarkable.  To be fair, there was a long 154 year break between when Waldmann's saloon came alive again in 2017 as Waldmann's Brewery, but that doesn't matter.  

It only took me three trips here to write a blog about it.  I was always out with co-workers and forgot or just didn't have time to take a pic or two.  This time it was just me and a vendor, so I remembered and got the job done.  When in Sioux City, I've always stayed at the hotel right across the street, so going to Marto was just a no-brainer.

Being a fan of the old Hartford Whalers, I had always wanted to go to Hartford.  The fact that there was a brewery on the old Colt firearms complex in Hartford was a win for everyone.  I would've loved to tour the Colt facility during its hayday.  Samuel Colt was born in Hartford in 1814 and began making guns in 1836.  He founded Colt firearms in 1855.  As it is for gun-makers it was feast or famine.  During wartime, Colt did great, but suffered in the aftermath.  Known for innovation, Colt was the first manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts for its guns and used powerful steam engines in its plants before others were doing it.  He also was the first to build a tenement for his workers with housing, daycare, churches and food.  He established a ten hour work day with a required one hour lunch break. 

On Memorial Day weekend I took my annual trip with my brothers.  This time is was the East Coast.  We hit six states during this trip and one of the better experiences was at East Regiment Beer Company in Salem.   It is nestled in the middle of downtown and was a welcome site for my hungry stomach.  

I rarely critique a non-brewery establishment, but I was duped by Google Maps.  I despise Google for hundreds of reasons, but I digress.  So, I searched for breweries and The Flying Saucer showed up.  Great!  I love flying saucers and they served food.  I ventured into downtown Raleigh and suffered the frustration of one way streets, traffic, masses of people and having to pay for stupid parking.  The place was on a corner with an outside and covered patio.  It was 80 degrees and my son wanted to sit inside, where it was dark and cooler.  We sat ourselves in the back and I did my best old guy routine of using the flashlight on my phone to view the menu.  Did I mention it was dark in there?  I looked closely and could not find any of their own beers, which I must try, if it was a brewery.  So, I asked and was unhappy to hear they were not a brewery.  I felt stupid for a second.  Then, just dealt with it.  

After spending some time at the Wright Brothers Memorial and Visitor Center, an absolute must-see in Kill Devil Hills, I knew where my next stop was.  I flew to Outer Banks Brewing Station.   Established in 1992, the building represents a turn-of-the-century Lifesaving Station from the beaches of the Outer Banks and the bar is a lifesaving boat.   I believe it is one of only two breweries on the OBX, a number far below what it should be.  That's my opinion, but I'm never wrong. 

I finally got out on the road and did some traveling.  I has been a long cold winter.  My son and I were in North Carolina, which is a hotbed for breweries.  Since the trip wasn't about breweries, I have just a few reviews, but my kid is pretty forgiving for my penchant to try beer here and there.  On a long drive we were on, we stopped in Zebulon.  My son says Zebulon sounds like either an alien race or the planet they are from.  I can't disagree with that.  Zebulon was born out of a railroad land purchase in 1906.  It is  named after Zebulon Baird Vance, the Governor of North Carolina during the Civil War.  Zebulon is a beecentric city with a host of beekeepers.  Also of note, it is the home to the only bagpipe manufacturer in North America.  Who knew?  For being a small town, the traffic there was annoyingly bad.  We hit the city at lunch time and I was immediately drawn to a brewery named Norse Brewing Longhouse.  It was right on the main street and unfortunately, not in a longhouse.