Remember when beer tours used to be expensive? It’d involve a shuttle full of people, a tour guide, stops at 3 breweries or so, maybe 4 beers worth of drinks, and cost around $70 a person. They were fun, but sort of on the pricey side, and there was rarely any option to customize your own brewery route without paying exorbitant amounts of money.
But now, there’s Uber. Aside from coming pretty close to solving the problem of drunk driving, Uber has also made brewery tours much cheaper and more convenient.
A few weekends ago, we got together a group and decided to make our own brewery tour. We hit up Arcana first. Arcana was formerly Fezziwig’s Brewing a few years ago, until Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) threatened them with legal action. Boston Beer Company has an annual seasonal beer they put out called Old Fezziwig Ale, which isn’t bad. I’ve done some trademark work in the past, and I’m sure Samuel Adam’s lawyers know what they’re doing, but as an ethical matter, I’m not sure why Samuel Adams is entitled to some brand monopoly on the name of a Charles Dickens character. Their behavior in picking on a small brewery is more apt for comparison to Scrooge than Fezziwig. Bah humbug to that.
Arcana makes some great beers. I think I probably liked every single one I tried (pictured above).
Next, we hit up On-The-Tracks, which was not initially on the route we planned. However, it was in the same complex, so the thought was – might as well. In hindsight, maybe might as well not have. I’d been here before and had a relatively decent experience, but this time was somewhat different. An order was mixed up. There might have been an overcharge. The man at the bar did not seem very pleased with our existence, and this was surely before anyone was really drunk, so I don’t think it was us. But here’s a picture of us being pleasant despite leaving a somewhat unpleasant beer experience:
Our last stop was Barrel Harbor. After that, we Ubered home for a night cap(s) and some pizza. Total Uber fare split between 8 people was minimal, and we had the flexibility of picking out all the breweries we wanted to visit.
