On Sunday August 6 I went with my friends Amanda, Lori, Pat, and Colin to six breweries. It was Amanda's birthday weekend. She was going to have dinner at her parents' house in southern Pennsylvania, so she invited the rest of us and planned brewery visits along the way. Our first stop was Big Truck Farm Brewery. Since there were 5 of us we were able to sample all of their beers (and this is pretty much what we did at every brewery). All the beers except the first and last one in the list were fairly pedestrian.

• Double Cab Hazy (pretty good NEIPA)
• Watermelon Gose
• Blood Orange Wheat
• Sunset Drive (NEIPA)
• Half Cab Hazy (NEIPA)
• K5 Topless Blonde
• Crew Cab IPA
• Dually DIPA
• Bay Blonde
• Dozer Stout
• Passionfruit Mango Sour (pretty good)

Shortly after 2:00 we arrived at Black Locust Hops and Farm Brewery, where the beers were slightly better.

• Naked Yogi (pale ale)
• Hopyard IPA
• HZ IPA
• Pub Full o' Poets (Irish stout)
• Who's a Good Little Hazy?
• Wee Brown
• Hefty Brown
• Ferme Saison (pretty good)
• Kölsch
• Dark IPA
• The Cool Side of the Pillow (cold IPA) (pretty good)
• Ben's Best Bitter
• Berry Gar-sour-a (kettle sour)

We crossed into Pennsylvania and went to Aviator Brew Hub, which is a pour-your-own place. The beers were not very good.

• L.C. (American lager)
• Hoverfly (orange wheat)
• Sparkle (lemon blueberry sour wheat)
• Sparkle (passionfruit sour with orange and guava)
• Buzz the Tower (NEIPA)
• Buzz the Tower Mango
• Boom 'n' Zoom (nitro coffee stout)
• Boom 'n' Zoom (nitro chocolate stout)
• Dark Star (vanilla porter)
• Dark Star (chocolate porter)

Next we stopped at Gunpowder Falls Brewing, which makes only German lagers. It had the lowest Untappd rating of all the breweries we visited, and boy did it live up to it.

• Pilsner
• Dunkel
• Helles
• Export Hell
• Maibock

Less than half a mile away is Vortex Brewing, which was about 4 months old. The beers ranged from pretty good to crappy.

• Dry-Hopped Golden Sour
• Oak-Infused Sour
• Freight Train Ukrainian Gold
• Heritage Hefeweizen
• High Rail Hazy (pretty good) (our unanimous favorite)
• Pennsy Pale Ale
• Derailed DIPA
• Perfect Porter
• Jacob's Lager (dunkel)
• Harkin (Irish red)

Our final brewery was AleCraft. I had been to their original location in Belair MD the previous year. This location, in Railroad PA, opened in January 2023. It has an upper level and a lower level, which was closed. Here are some photos of the lower level:

The beers were barely average.

• Recalcitrant (IIPA)
• The Fresh Pints of Belair (IIPA)
• Le Renard (IPA)
• Stowaway Blonde
• Cornerstone Pale Ale
• Golden Spike (witbier)
• Crucible (tripel)
• Treated Streetts (porter) ("Streetts" is not a typo)
• Royal Roast (oatmeal stout)
• Night Owl (Irish stout)
• Strawberry Wheat
• Cheat Day (blueberry cheesecake sour)
• Blue Trail (lemon blueberry shandy)

After that we all had dinner with Amanda's parents, who live nearby, as well as her sister. Then we drove home in torrential rain.

It had been a great day. The breweries were subpar, but we were in good company, and that is more important.