Michael Roberts wakes up on a strange couch in a city he has known for all of eight hours, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and starts looking over his to-do list for the day: Vintage Brewing Co., Ale Asylum, Great Dane Brewery, and One Barrel Brewing Co. He wanders over to the adjacent couch and rouses his friend and travel partner, Brandon Wurtz. “Let’s get going. We have a busy day.”
Welcome to the life of Brews Travelers 365, an epic road trip through craft beer that took the duo to 789 breweries in forty-eight states and three countries over the span of 365 days.
The two homebrewers had come to enjoy the camaraderie and cooperative spirit of their local North Texas beer scene so much that they wanted to see what else was out there. So they spent the year before the trip planning and saving “to leave our jobs, take an extended vacation, travel the country, and experience the more localized offerings of craft beer.”
To keep themselves focused, they gave themselves a goal to “help promote smaller, more localized craft breweries through free marketing for them by posting photos and interviews through our social media and website.”
After so many interviews, they confirmed their previous notions that beer was ultimately secondary to the great people who make up the industry.
Their year in beer exposed them to every type of brewery imaginable, from technical marvels of stainless steel (Bluejacket Brewery, Washington, D.C.) to vast farm-based breweries with beautiful views (Dave’s Brew Farm in Wisconsin) to DIY garage breweries pieced together by grit and ingenuity. Everyone did things their own way, from the water—which some took straight from the tap while others had to strip it down to its core and rebuild from scratch—to the way the beers were filtered and packaged. It was a whirlwind of driving, interviewing, and—of course—responsible drinking.
So if you are looking for a change, remember that the next brewery is only a town away.
