New England 2026


Saturday July 18. We left at 8:30 on a cloudy, muggy day and arrived at Esker Hart Artisan Ales about 15 minutes before it opened at noon. The place has been in business since 2024. We sampled:


We liked the Tinfoil Forest so much that we paid $28 for a 4-pack of it before driving in heavy rain to Oakflower Brewing, arriving shortly before 1:00. This place opened in November 2022. All the beers were pretty good.


A few hours north of there is Twelve Percent Beer Project, a collaborative brewing facility and taproom that in addition to brewing its own beers also has various craft brands brewed there, such as Hoof Hearted, Abomination, Evil Twin, Eredita, Little House, Fat Orange Cat, Tox, Timber Ales, False Hope, Skygazer, Brix City, and others. (It also used to host Stillwater, but Stillwater was later acquired by Louisville Brands.) They don't do flights but our server let us try several beers before ordering our favorites.


We arrived at Counter Weight Brewing, which opened in 2017, at 5:12. It has bars on two levels, with pinball and other games upstairs. We tried:


Exactly an hour after arriving at Counter Weight we got to New Park Brewing, our final brewery of the day, and sampled:


We spent the night at the Economy Inn in East Hartford CT.


Sunday July 19. A nice sunny day. We left a little after 9:00 and drove up to Trillium Brewing's location in Canton MA (it has two more locations in Boston). We arrived shortly before it opened at 11:00. When I visited in 2019 it was in a different building. The following year it moved to a huge building that used to be Reebok's headquarters. It now has a pilot brewery, a distillery where it makes several different spirits, two pizza ovens, and many foudres and barrels in which it ages wild ales and stouts. Unfortunately the wild ales and stouts are available in bottle only, so all we tasted were IPAs. Melissa also got an espresso martini. In addition to its well-known IPAs it also makes imperial stouts and wild ales.

Distilling equipment.


On the way out I bought a bottle of their Stroka.


Twenty minutes away is Vitamin Sea Brewing's taproom in Weymouth, which opened in 2019 (they have another taproom in Plymouth). We arrived just after it opened at noon.


At 12:45 we arrived at Widowmaker Brewing, which started in September 2017. I met the general manager, Keith, who let me take photos of the brewery. He used to work at Trillium. This place doesn't do flights so we sampled:


At 2:00 we arrived at the Arnold Arboretum, a botanical research institution and free public park affiliated with Harvard University. It has some nice greenery but not many flowers (perhaps there are more flowers in the spring).


Then we went to the neighborhood I grew up in, Oak Hill Park, and walked around. We saw the house that replaced the one I grew up in (many houses in Oak Hill Park have been razed and replaced with large, expensive homes)...


...and my old elementary school (formerly Memorial Elementary, now Solomon Shechter Day School).


Here is the old mailbox that I used to mail letters in.


We also went to a nearby campus that used to be Mount Ida College (which was acquired by UMass Amherst in 2018) to see Longfellow Pond, where I used to go in my youth to catch catfish off the dock. In 1973 or 1974 I released a baby snapping turtle there; I had caught it at Easton Country Club (where my father played golf). In the early 1990s I was visiting my mom, who still lived in Oak Hill Park (my father was deceased by then). I jogged to the pond, stood on the dock, and saw a huge snapping turtle swimming under the water. To this day I wonder whether that was the one I had released more than a decade and a half earlier. The old wooden dock has been replaced with a metal one.


Next we drove by my old high school (Newton South) and junior high school (formerly Meadowbrook, now Charles E. Brown Middle School). Then we drove over to Watertown, checked in at The Inn on Arsenal a little after 5:00, and walked to Demos, a Greek restaurant that my family used to eat at more than 50 years earlier. The food was still great. My old high school friend and wrestling buddy Ethan met us.

Me, Melissa, and Ethan.


We parted ways with Ethan, then picked up a few craft tall boys (19.2 ounces) at a liquor store and walked back to the hotel. We drank a can of Fiddlehead Imperial IPA, which neither of us had ever had before. It was quite good.


Monday July 20. We left at 8:50, drove to Riverside station, and rode the MBTA (nicknamed "The T") to the Hynes Convention Center. We arrived around 10:20, walked down to the Charles River Esplanade, and walked along it for about a mile.


At 11:25 we arrived at Cheers Beacon Hill, the exterior of which was shown on the TV show Cheers. Founded in 1969 as the Bull & Finch Pub, the interior looks nothing like the set of Cheers. The place is rather large, with several rooms.


Then we walked through Public Garden.


Next to Public Garden is Boston Common, where the Freedom Trail starts. We walked most of it.


Near Faneuil Hall Marketplace is Democracy Brewing's City Hall Beer Garden. It wouldn't open until later, which was just as well since it's a low-rated brewery.


Also near there is this tall building, where my father worked as a stock broker in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


We had lunch at Union Oyster House, which opened in 1826 and is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the United States. (The oldest overall restaurant is the White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, which originally opened in 1673, but it has changed hands and closed periodically over the centuries.) The place was very busy and we had to wait for a table. We opted to sit outside, which made our wait shorter. In the meantime we walked around the large interior and took photos.


We got lobsters because, well, that's what you do when you visit New England.


After lunch we went to the Freedom Trail's most visited spot, Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It consists of four buildings. Faneuil Hall was built in 1742 and known as the "Cradle of Liberty". This historic building was a focal point for American Revolution speeches. The ground floor features limited shops, while the upper level contains the Great Hall, which is still used for civic meetings today. Quincy Market, built in 1826, is a massive, three-building complex that stretches behind Faneuil Hall. The central building is famously home to the city’s renowned indoor food hall, while the North and South Market buildings house a variety of retail stores, pubs, and restaurants. We met my cousin Eric there, and, stupid me, I forgot to get a photo of him. I did get a quick photo of the inside of Quincy Market, which really doesn't do it justice.


The three of us walked past Long Wharf...


...to the North End (aka Little Italy). Melissa was very happy because there were lots of places selling many kinds of desserts.


One place, called Mike's Pastry, was packed.


After stuffing ourselves with sweets, Eric went home and Melissa and I walked back to Long Wharf.


We got a drink at Tia's Waterfront, rode a carousel, and then got on The T shortly before 6:00. It was packed because there was a Red Sox game. We arrived at our hotel at 7:15 and had a few beers.



Tuesday July 21. We drove up to my alma mater University of New Hampshire and walked around. A brief synopsis of my college career: I lived in Engelhardt Hall my first three years and at my fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha my senior year (it has moved from 10 Madbury Rd to 35 Madbury Rd). I was on the wrestling team, did a lot of partying/drinking, played arcade video games (mostly Asteroids, Missile Command, and Time Pilot), and graduated in 1984 with a Computer Science degree.


We drove an hour north to Portland ME and visited Bissell Brothers Brewing.


Modestman Brewing Lone Pine Brewing A few minutes away is Belleflower Brewing.


Then we drove up to Goodfire Brewing's location in Freeport (their Portland location is closed on Tuesdays) and met Melissa's friend Rachel.


We all went to Rachel's house in Sidney.


Wednesday July 22. We said good-bye and drove 2+ hours to Acadia National Park. We parked at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center, took a shuttle down to Jordan Pond, and walked the 3.3 mile loop trail.


We shuttled back to our vehicle and drove to Blackwoods Campground, where we would camp for the next two nights. As you would expect, motels in the area cost $200 or even $300 per night during the summer when you include tax, while campsites are $30, and with my senior lifetime pass I get them half price, so it's only $15 per night.


Thursday July 23. I didn't book far enough in advance to find a campsite that was available for both nights, so we packed everything because we would be staying at a different site that night. We drove to the Fabbri picnic area and did most of the same hike I'd done on my 2019 trip. We went by Otter Cove, Otter Point Overlook, Boulder Beach, Monument Cove, Thunder Hole, and Sand Beach Overlook.


We walked across Sand Beach to the Great Head Trail and hiked up to Great Head.


We hiked back down, crossed Sand Beach, then took the Beehive Trail. There is a split where if you continue on the Beehive Trail, it is a steep, treacherous climb (I'd done it in 2019). Or you can instead take the Bowl Trail, which is what we did. Both trails go to a pond called The Bowl.


We backtracked a bet, then turned down the Gorham Mountain Trail to the trailhead, and from there it was about a quarter of a mile to our vehicle. We drove to Blackwoods Campground and set up camp at our new site.


Friday July 24. We drove about 6 hours to River Roost Brewery in White River Junction, VT.


We then drove to Tunbridge and checked into the one Airbnb we would stay at on this trip. It was out of our way but it was in a beautiful location and considerably cheaper than any hotel in Vermont during the summer.


Saturday July 25. We drove up to Ben & Jerry's and got the tour.


Next we went to Alchemist Brewery, which I had visited several times.


Then it was off to Waterbury to visit two breweries. The first was Prohibition Pig.


Next was freak folk bier, our first stop of the day that I'd never been to.


Twenty minutes away is Lawson's Finest Liquids.


Next we went to nearby Warren Falls.


Our final brewery of the day was Red Clover Ale Company.


A few minutes away is Smoke Rise Campground, where we would spend the night. This campground has coin-operated showers.


Sunday July 26. We drove down to Saratoga Springs to Tree House Brewing, which as of this writing has 8 locations throughout the northeast (the Faneuil Hall location is not listed on their website).


Next was Mixed Breed Brewing, which until early 2026 had been located in Guilderland. It then took over the former Unified Beerworks location in Malta and served its beers at Van Patten Golf Club in Clifton Park for several months. It opened a taproom at its Malta location in xxx, and that's where we went.


Then it was onward to Fidens Brewing, where we had been the previous September.


We drove an hour and a half to Bad Seed, which is a cidery. I'm not into cider but Melissa is into pinball and the place has several pinball machines.


Our final brewery of the trip was Equilibrium Brewery, which I'd been to in 2023 and 2025. I sampled beers while she went to nearby Rock Fantasy, which is a rock n' roll shop and arcade.


We spent the night at Sleep inn & Suites Middletown.


Monday July 27. On the way home we stopped at The Break Arcade, aka "8 on the Break".


We arrived home at xxx

Sign in bathroom.