A Brewery Trip Around Charleston

There were only two things that I wanted for my birthday this year: a mini vacation down to Charleston and a corresponding Charleston brewery hop.

Truth be told, we usually don't need any sort of excuse to go check out a new brewery or any brewery for that matter. But a birthday celebration seems like a pretty good excuse, right? We stopped by five different breweries on our last trip down to Charleston. Two were ones we'd been to before and three were new to us.

{Holy City Brewing}

But of course this was our first stop last Thursday on our way into town. We didn't have plans to visit Holy City until we got a slightly later than planned start out of Columbia and realized that we would be passing by Holy City right around lunch time.

I always go with the Washout Wheat when it comes to Holy City but decided to go with a flight to try out a few other ones. The one that I wasn't crazy about was the blonde ale. The Paradise Session IPA was really good... might I be slowly turning into an IPA fan? Maybe?

Birthdays get zero judgement, so I'll share exactly what I had for lunch: a basket of these amazing fries with beer cheese on the side. If you've never had these fries before then you're missing out!

{Frothy Beard Brewery}

Fun fact: most breweries in Charleston don't open until 4pm on weekdays. This one was suggested to us by the bartender at Holy City as one that opened early and we are glad that we stopped by!



I went with another flight of beer here but since there were only three that I wanted to try, Patrick picked out the last one.

The Hominy Cream Ale, Pelican Pilsner, and Holy Water Belgian Saison are all beers that I would love to find sometime in Columbia. They were great. That last one? Uh... even the bartender that day agreed that it wasn't the best one on tap. Per Patrick, it tasted like boiled peanuts. I can attest to the fact that it smelled just like water that boiled peanuts had been cooked in. It was not the most appealing?

{Palmetto Brewing}

This was one brewery that I knew I needed to give a second chance. The first time that we went here was late on a Thursday night and the place was loud, crowded, and hotter than preferable in July.



It was just as hot this go around, but there might have been less than 10 people there? Perks of going here at 3pm on a Thursday.



I'd love to tell you what I had to drink here, but I forgot to write it down and I think it was a seasonal beer that's no longer on tap. Whatever it was, I really liked it!

Our 2nd stop by this brewery was a success and I'm now officially a fan.

{Westbrook Brewing}

Oh, Westbrook. The White Tai has always been one of my favorite beers and this brewery has always been on our list to visit.

They were right. As much as we love their beers, their taproom wasn't what we were used to. It's smaller, has limited hours, and isn't made for settling in for a couple of hours with your friends. Our trip here was purely to check it off the list - mission accomplished!

{Lo-Fi Brewery}

We stumbled across this one. We had a limited amount of time to squeeze in one last brewery before meeting up with friends for dinner and in hindsight, we would have picked a more popular one that was right down the road.

This was the taproom...



Would I suggest their beer? Absolutely. I just wouldn't suggest stopping by their taproom just yet. They'll likely have a great one soon so we'd take another trip here in another year or so for sure.

Just for the record, other Charleston breweries that we love and didn't have time to get to this trip:

Low Tide Brewing {on Johns Island}

Revelry Brewing

Ones we still need to try:

Coast

Fatty's Beer Works

Charles Towne Fermentory - any time we talk to someone about Charleston breweries, they ask if we have been to this one yet.

Lagunitas - this was right across the street from our hotel this past trip but was closed for renovations

Tradesmen

Cooper River Brewing