I've only spent a handful of nights at home so far this year. So a quick rundown of just the new breweries I've visited.
Corpus - Knocked out the new hometown spot, Nueces Brewing. It's fine, there's potential there.
Lorelei is still the best in the Coastal Bend (with Lazy Beach behind them).Charleston (roughly in order of preference):
- Westbrook lived up to the expectations - IPAs, sours, stouts were all great. Their barrel program is tremendous.
- Edmund's Oast is such a cool place. Huge variety of beers with no losers.
- Charles Towne Fermentory had some really killer NEIPAs.
- The Hold is Revelry's barrel aged program. They had some really cool barrel aged ales. Nothing absolutely blew my mind, but I liked the creativity and they were all solid.
- Two Blokes had some good hazys and it's a cool place. Worth combining with Westbrook.
- Revelry had a decent selection of middle of the road beers. Their rooftop bar was a great spot at sunset.
- Baker & Brewer didn't blow me away. Part of that might be the poor service, but I was underwhelmed.
Durango (also in rough order):
- Carver Brewing Co - They had all the typical styles and they all beat expectations.
- Steamworks Brewing Co - Cool place with some unique beers. I loved the creativity and the fact that they were well executed.
- Ska Brewing - Your typical brewery, but with slightly above average beers and much better distribution. BUT WHY WEREN'T THEY PLAYING SKA MUSIC?????
- Animas Brewing Company - Just a generic brewery with generic beers.
Aztec, NM - Hit 550 Brewing for the first time because I'm usually only in Aztec during the day. It was garbage.
For the record: Three Rivers in Farmington is probably the best in that area. Though it would be an afterthought elsewhere. Lauterbrew is such a cool place. They're heavy on the German stuff and didn't have any IPAs or sours on tap this week. Their IPAs aren't that good anyway. It's still fun.