Around the World in 80 Beers - Beer for All Seasons: A Through-the-Year Guide to What to Drink and When to Drink It (2015)

Beer for All Seasons: A Through-the-Year Guide to What to Drink and When to Drink It (2015)

Chapter Seven: Around the World in 80 Beers

With your great thirst for beer experiences, what if you won the lottery? If you had unlimited resources and no fear of jet lag, could you spend an entire year on the road, chasing down the great beer events like a surfer in search of the perfect wave? Let’s assume for a moment that you could. This chapter is your itinerary.

The trip careens around the United States and back and forth to Europe a few times and hits South America and Australia by way of Hawaii. It’s not a pretty path, zigging and zagging erratically, but that’s the price to be paid for hitting every major beer event on the planet in one year. There are just a few R&R breaks here, but not too many. It’s getting to be a pretty beery planet, and that means there is almost always some beer event worth traveling to going on somewhere.

This is all a fantasy, of course. No one’s liver or attention span is really up to swallowing this many beers in one long continuous streak. But we all have dreams, and even the unattainable ones are a lot of fun to fantasize about. The listings here do point out some advantageous strings of events that will get you to several fabulous fests, one after the other in a logical way. If you can’t give up two years of your life — one to travel this grueling itinerary and one to recover — hitting some shorter sections of the grand tour may be well within the realm of the possible.

Dates for these events do change from year to year, and they change names and even cease to exist. If you book a ticket to Bulgan Aimag, Mongolia, for the Fermented Mare’s Milk Fest (mid-September) and don’t check the dates first, don’t blame me when you find that you just missed it and that it was really great.

Also, we’re living in an age when there are more people wanting to attend these events than there are available spots, so tickets for many events sell out well in advance. Everything is done online these days, so get on it as soon as you can to get the best chance of snagging your pass.

As much fun as these festivals are, it’s important to remember that beer travel is about much more. So plan some extra time on every trip to soak up the local life, pub culture, foods, history, and all of that. Many cities in Europe offer walking tours of historic neighborhoods that are actually pub crawls, and those are great whenever you can find them. Breweries offer tours, and there are many brewery museums in various parts of Europe. I love to visit art museums to look for pictures of people drinking beer and to drool all over the collections of antique glassware and ceramics, imagining what kind of delicious beer they must have held.

Traveling is always far better when you can connect with the locals. As beer enthusiasts and homebrewers, we are lucky, because we are all part of the secret society of beer. These days, it’s easy enough to connect with beer fans anywhere online. Make plans in advance for a pub night out, or better yet, tell them you’re bringing some rare and exciting beers or homebrew to sample, and you’ll make some new friends who can help you understand their world. Also, check the online club calendars for regular meetings and events hosted by homebrew clubs or beer appreciation groups, and you may be lucky enough to get in on something really interesting. In many places, there are women-only tasting groups, so check those out if you qualify.

For the ultimate in beer-soaked travel, think about staying in breweries and pubs. It’s easier than you might think, especially in Europe, so research that option wherever you’re going. Germany actually has a Brauerei Gasthof (brewery guesthouse) association that publishes a guide to dozens of breweries that have rooms available for travelers.

January

We’ll start the world tour with a couple of big-ass beer festivals in some chilly but beautiful locations:

Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival, Vail, Colorado Vail is among the most exclusive ski areas in the United States and as a result has a booming restaurant culture and lots of serious foodies hanging around. So, many of the events surrounding this festival have a heavy focus on food and draw brewers who share the passion for delicious food. There are dinners, seminars, workshops, and of course a grand tasting event featuring all that is strong and mighty in beer.

Alaskan Beer and Barleywine Festival, Anchorage, Alaska Alaska is a long way away in every sense, but when you get there you’ll find the warmest possible kind of community. And during this week there are some seriously big beers there as well. This event is the capstone at the end of Alaska Beer Week, so you’ll come early and take part in all that has to offer. Anchorage is a compact city with plenty of brewpubs and beer bars in a walkable downtown, with a few more just a short hop away. There are some really terrific beers, and it will great to be able to tell your friends you went to Alaska to drink barleywines in January and survived to tell the tale — assuming you do, of course. Third week.

South Florida Beer Week, Miami, Florida Recover in the sun before heading off to Europe for a serious festathon. Florida and the rest of the southern United States have been a little late to the craft beer party, but things are changing fast thanks to progressive brewers like Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing. This event takes place in the greater Miami area around the last week of the month. It’s nice to be among the beautiful young things in southern Florida this time of year, and the food is great as well.

Enjoy the respite and build up your energy reserves. You’re going to need a stockpile before hopping on a plane to Europe for the next leg of the journey.

February

BAB Bierfestival, Bruges, Belgium Bruges has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful towns in Europe. A silted-up river diminished its important role in commerce starting about 1400, and as a result it’s a gorgeous time capsule. And of course the historic glow is improved by the stunning glasses of Belgian beer that can be found at historic cafés like Den Dyver, ’t Brugs Beertje, and De Gare. A beer festival is really icing on the cake. The local tasters’ group Brugse Autonome Bierproevers organizes a really tasty event. First weekend of February.

This event ties in perfectly with an organized tour centered on lambics in and around Brussels.

BeerTrips: A Week-Long Lambic-sploration, Brussels, Belgium Organized tours offer a lot: transportation, special access to places you’d never think of or get into on your own, a lot of inside information, and the camaraderie of traveling with like-minded beer geeks. BeerTrips has been doing beer tours all over the place for years now, so if you like the sound of this one, check out BeerTrip’s other offerings in Europe and elsewhere. And of course there are other tour companies offering similar excursions. This particular one rolls the second week of February.

The CAMRA National Winter Ales Festival, Manchester, England Winter beers are a lovely specialty in England; we don’t get enough of their subtle, warming charms here. The setting here is Manchester, in England’s industrial north, which has a burgeoning artisan brewing scene. Beyond the fest, soak up the pub culture and look for local beers like J W Lees, Thwaites, Blackedge, Deeply Vale, Marble, Wilson Potter, First Chop, and Quantum. Third weekend.

If you can’t swing Europe this time around, or if you just haven’t had enough barleywine yet:

Toronado Barleywine Festival, San Francisco, California Publican and craft beer pioneer David Keens has been running this well-regarded fest in his bar for more than two decades. It’s one of the crown jewels of San Francisco Beer Week, but be prepared to be elbow to elbow with fellow enthusiasts, which is rarely a problem after a couple of big beers. Plenty of great things are happening always in SF, and even more so this week, so you’d better have a plan!

Pianetta Birra, Rimini, Italy It feels a little like a beer festival, but it’s actually the all-Italy bar and nightclub show, with lots of booths showcasing Italy’s exciting new craft beer scene. It’s also the judging site for Birra del’ Anno, Italy’s annual craft beer competition. Rimini is a beach town on the Adriatic. There are a few nice beer bars in this ancient Roman town, and there is very little bad food in Italy, so enjoy. End of the month.

March

Starkbierfest, Munich, Germany This event is sort of the strong, dark fraternal twin to Oktoberfest. Taking place partly in the participating breweries’ cellars, it showcases the rich, strong, and malty bockbiers, the barleywine equivalents in the lager tradition. Stark simply means “strong,” and the locals are happy to let off a little steam after a long winter, so expect things to get a bit crazy. The fest is spread around Munich in breweries and beer halls, especially Paulaner’s Nockherberg Brewery. As with Oktoberfest, reservations for tables are recommended for larger groups. First two weeks of March.

If you’re thinking of heading back to the States, there’s a twofer in Boston on adjacent weekends:

Extreme Beer Fest (EBF), Boston, Massachusetts at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. Third weekend.

And:

New England Real Ale eXhibition (NERAX), Boston, Massachusetts North America’s premier celebration of real ale, at the end of the month.

Boston has a ton of fascinating history and plenty of craft beer watering holes, but the Public House is probably first and foremost among them. Do not miss Cambridge Brewing, one of the more inventive breweries on the planet. Don’t forget Boston Beer Company and Harpoon.

Celebrate: Michael Jackson’s Birthday, March 27 This celebrated beer writer really helped build the foundation of a strong and lively craft brewing movement worldwide, and he championed it ferociously until his death in 2007. Doubtless there are many places that will celebrate his birthday, but the most personal might be the Andover Arms in Hammersmith, London, the pub he considered to be his local, and the spot where he enjoyed many pints of his beloved Fuller’s Chiswick Bitter over the years. Wherever you are, hoist a pint of your favorite to this genial giant.

April

Celebrate: King Gambrinus’s Birthday, April 11 This fictitious King of Beer has a birthday, but it’s not been widely celebrated. Time for a new tradition, I think.

If you’re still in Europe, there’s one more major festival this season:

Zythos Beer Festival, Leuven, Belgium Leuven is a college town just southeast of Brussels, with a huge ancient city square lined with fabulous beer bars. How do you improve on that? Add the most famous beer festival in Belgium and enjoy. Last weekend of the month.

Or plan a layover in Chicago on your way to California for this freewheeling thrash:

Dark Lord Day, Northern Indiana Despite its nondescript location in an industrial park in northern Indiana on the far outskirts of Chicago, the party is as colorful as it gets. Hordes of the young, hip, tattooed, and, above all, beer-obsessed descend on the Three Floyds brewery to scoop up their annual allotment of the legendary Dark Lord Imperial Stout and other goodies offered by the brewery only on the last Saturday in April. The right to purchase bottles of the prized nectar is determined by an online lottery well in advance of the event. Dark Lord Day is a carnival of all things beery, with plenty of draft beer, ad hoc tasting circles (bring your rare beer to share and you’ll be in), food, head-banging music, and much more.

May

This next one you can celebrate almost anywhere you happen to be:

National Homebrew Day and AHA Big Brew This is a celebration of homebrew that takes place at sites all over North America and beyond. The format is basic: Bring your brewing equipment to wherever the party is, set up and brew a beer, and enjoy the unmatched camaraderie of the homebrew brethren and sisters, plus food and whatever else homebrewers do when they get together and aren’t actually brewing. The American Homebrewers Association sponsors the event; go to their website (homebrewersassociation.org) for a listing of locations. Be prepared to make a lot of new friends.

However, if you can get to southern California, there’s no better place to spend National Homebrew Day than at this monster campout:

Southern California Homebrewers Festival, Lake Casitas, California This huge outdoor spectacle has been running for a couple of decades now and has grown to well over 2,000 attendees. There is brewing, seminars on a myriad of homebrewing topics, and food, but the highlight is a big beer festival with elaborate club booths serving hundreds of fantastic homebrews. At night, there is a lot of drinking around the campfire. Shuttles to hotels in nearby Ojai (north of Los Angeles) are available. The event is open solely to members of the Southern California Homebrewers Association, but anyone can join the club — so do. First weekend.

Depending on timing, you may be able to squeeze this one into your itinerary:

Celebrate: Fred Eckhardt’s Birthday, May 10 If you don’t know Fred, you should, because he’s one of the reasons we have such a lively and irreverent craft beer scene these days. Writer, sage, sake enthusiast, and an exquisite gentleman, his birthday is celebrated with a charity event called FredFest, in his Portland, Oregon, hometown.

Scoot back across the country for this one-of-a-kind beer and food event:

SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience, Washington, D.C. I hope you’re hungry. The Brewers Association lays out a lavish spread for one of the most elegant and upscale beer events around. Designed to showcase how the great flavors of beer and food can raise the experience to lofty heights, the event features dozens of breweries and more beers than you can possibly taste, along with bite-size portions of tasty tidbits on every table. An added benefit is that brewers and owners are required to staff their booths, so it’s a great opportunity to chat up some of your idols. Event locations (some years it is held in NYC) and dates change to some degree, but usually it’s held around the second weekend.

Get on a jet and prepare yourself for a couple of long hauls, as the next couple of stops are across the vast Pacific. At least you’ll have a soul-soothing stop in the Hawaiian Islands to break up the outbound leg.

Maui Brewers Festival, Maui, Hawaii It’s not the biggest beerfest. Or the one with the wildest, strongest, or most unattainable beers. But it’s Maui, folks, and the beautiful setting and happy island vibe make this one unique in all the world, tasty local beers included. Third weekend.

Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, Melbourne, Australia The Australian beer scene has a slightly different, more businesslike flavor than the North American one, but it’s a lot of fun, and the beers are getting more imaginative and assertive as time goes on. This is a great opportunity to survey the scene, including beers from Tasmania and New Zealand and the cutting-edge beers of Western Australia. Melbourne is charming, widely viewed as the best food city Down Under, and as easy a town as there is to navigate. Be sure to get down to the sprawling Victoria Market to shop for everything from unusual varietal honeys to precious opals.

If you’re still in North America, here’s another one that you can enjoy pretty much wherever you happen to be:

Celebrate: American Craft Beer Week This a week set aside as a celebration of craft beer by the Brewers Association. Check the craftbeer.com website for a complete listing of hundreds of events across the continent, and for the timing of the nationwide toast in honor of our favorite beverage. Around the third week.

June

This schedule gives you plenty of time to rest and make your way to Philadelphia for the best beer week of them all:

Philly Beer Week, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania If you’re only going to do one beer week, this is the one. As the original, it’s bigger and better organized than many, and there are hundreds of events to scratch any imaginable beery itch. Philly’s fun and a great town for food and drink anyway; this just adds dramatically. Be sure to get down to South Philly and explore the Italian markets there, especially the fantastic DiBruno Brothers. Great local foods are also available at the Reading Terminal Market downtown. And, of course, Philadelphia is filled with history and some really great museums, and great local breweries as well. Philly Beer Week occupies 10 jam-packed days starting at the end of May and through the first week of June.

Get yourself on up to Montreal, Quebec, for this merveilleux event:

Mondial de la Bière, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Quebec has a really exciting beer scene that is built on the unique culinary foundation of its Francophone society. It’s craft beer for sure, but there is a strong Belgian sensibility, making it one of my favorite places to drink beer on the continent. Since 1993, Mondial president Jeannine Marois has done a great job of making this one of the most enjoyable events on the globe. It’s a typical fest layout, but it’s partly inside and partly outside and it seems a lot less crowded and frantic than the typical fest. Be sure to get out and enjoy Montreal’s culture, especially the really fantastic public markets and their selection of local cheeses and charcuterie, and of course brewpubs like Cheval Blanc, Dieu du Ciel!, and others. If you have time, jump across the river to Unibroue in Chambly. Usually early June.

American Homebrewers Association National Homebrewers Conference, Various Locations If you haven’t noticed, homebrewing is big these days. And this event has gone from a few dozen guys sitting around a hotel sharing brews to a large, entertaining, and very well-organized event for several thousand rabid homebrewers. It’s a standard conference format, with presentations during the day and events at night including a local Pro Brewers Night. The highlight is Club Night, a self-assembling beerfest featuring elaborate club booths and costumed crews, and of course hundreds of deliciously creative homebrews for sampling. Always about the middle of June; location rotates around the U.S.

If you’re looking for a more exotic locale for your homebrewing fun, head south:

Brazilian National Homebrewing Conference, Various Locations, Brazil While the movement is still small, Brazil is exploding with beer enthusiasm these days, and this conference reflects that energy. The format includes competition judging, seminars, keynotes, great food, plenty of homebrew, and a commercial beer festival. Brazil can be daunting as a travel destination, but when you’re hanging with the local homebrewers, there’s no more comfortable place to be. They are hungry for a taste of the U.S. craft beer scene, so show up with some interesting bottles and you’ll make new friends very quickly. The event moves around Brazil, so check the website of AcervA (acerva.com.br), the national homebrewing club that hosts it. The language of the conference is Portuguese but there are plenty of people around who speak English who will help you make sense of things.

July

Back across the Atlantic for:

Carnivale Brettanomyces & Andere Wilde Dieren Beer Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands This is a wild weekend of beer, but one focusing on the beer-transforming micro­organisms rather than the revelers. Taking place in bars and breweries in central Amsterdam on a Friday and Saturday in early July, it’s a hardcore mix of professional symposium and beer-tasting event featuring, as the name suggests, beers fermented with Brettanomyces and other wild critters, resulting in funky and sour flavors that you either love or hate. Bring your Pepcid. Programs are mostly in Dutch, but beer is a universal language. Amsterdam has plenty of charms: canals, historic buildings, great museums, a vibrant and experimental jazz scene, and amazingly friendly people, so be sure to set aside some time to get out and explore. An all-day canal boat pass is a great way to get around the historic areas.

Bum around Europe for the rest of the month, building an itinerary around beer events like:

ArtBeerFest in Caminha, Portugal; the Farsons Great Beer Festival in Ta’ Qali, Malta; Festival na pivoto Prilep, Republic of Macedonia; Great Japan Beer Festival, Osaka, Japan; Fête de la Bière, Felletin, France; Pivo in Cvetje, Laško, Slovenia; Õllesummer festival, Tallinn, Estonia; Tbilisi Beer Fest, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Amidst your travels, this one looks like a gem:

Scottish Real Ale Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland A Scottish take on Britain’s classic beer in the beautiful, friendly, and history-drenched Edinburgh, midmonth. If you’re a whisky enthusiast, don’t miss this opportunity to visit the Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting room in Leith, the old shipping warehouse district.

Eventually, you can bookend the month with another great Belgian fest:

Beer Passion Weekend, Antwerp, Belgium A fest organized by Beer Passion magazine, Belgium’s best beer journal. End of the month.

Or, if you just can’t seem to get enough homebrewing, swing through Chicago:

Siebel Advanced Homebrewing Program, Chicago, Illinois This is a week-long immersive boot camp in late July for homebrewers at the Siebel Institute, taught by a well-known crew of experts and authors. Chicago’s a world-class city with an exploding beer scene and a long-established foodie culture. Great art, music, museums, people, everything really — except the traffic.

If you’re not into the homebrewing scene, then this will be more to your taste:

Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland, Oregon This is one of the premier beer festivals in North America. Hosted by the Oregon Craft Brewers Guild since 1988, it takes place in a grassy downtown park under tents and features the best of Pacific Northwest brews. Start at the huge Saturday market nearby for some sustenance and a little shopping, then hit the fest. Portland’s a compact and easy-to-navigate town, and just chock-full of brewpubs and beer bars, so don’t just breeze in and out for the festival. Stay at one of the McMenamin brewpub hotels in the area, and maybe enjoy a little sightseeing and beer drinking up the gorgeous Columbia River Valley. The event runs the last weekend of the month.

August

You can either continue the trail of smaller beer events in Europe like:

Fête de la Bière, in Schiltigheim, in France’s highly gastronomic Alsace region; Belgrade Beer Fest, Belgrade, Serbia; or Dani Piva in Karlovac, Croatia.

Then wind up at the definitive celebration of real ale on the planet:

Great British Beer Festival, London, England The real ale preservationist group CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) has been putting on this huge event since 1977 as a way to present the fantastic beers that form an important part of Britain’s cultural heritage. Unlike other fests, beer at GBBF is sold by the pint or the half-pint, so be prepared to share with your friends. Takes place over five days midmonth.

Or if you’ve had your fill of Europe by now, head back to a super-chill event in Wisconsin:

Great Taste of the Midwest, Madison, Wisconsin This is generally regarded as the best summer beer event in the Midwest. The organizers, Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild, do a great job of keeping an uncrowded, noncommercial vibe going. The shaded, grassy location next to Madison’s Lake Monona doesn’t hurt either. Watch out for the many special tappings of rare beers throughout the day, and get in line. Madison is a charming college town with a strong pub culture and several great breweries and brewpubs to visit as well as one of the best farmers’ markets in the Midwest, famous for its artisan cheese. If you have time, be sure to stop by New Glarus Brewing Company, a half hour away in a small town with a strong Swiss heritage. Second Saturday.

September

Still in Europe? There’s one more premier event to add to your collection:

Belgian Beer Weekend, Brussels, Belgium Bathe yourself in the glory of a beerfest with more than 400 Belgian beers, held in the Grand Place/Grote Markt. What more can I say? Held on an early weekend in September.

And then you could probably zip on over to this nearby one in southwest Belgium:

Hops Festival/Beer & Food Event, Brasserie Brootcoorens, Erquelinnes, Belgium Early September.

And, of course, there’s plenty to explore on the route from there through England and a short hop across the water to Ireland:

All-Ireland Craft Beer Festival, Dublin, Ireland Ireland’s craft beer scene is rapidly picking up steam, and this fest offers one-stop shopping to try it all out. Midmonth.

But on the other hand, you just may want to scamper back to North America for this string of pearls on the West Coast:

The Great Canadian Beerfest, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada British Columbia, in western Canada, has been on the craft beer track for a while now, and it has an especially rich vein of classic cask ales. Located a short ferry hop from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, this beerfest is a great opportunity to get yourself a taste of what’s going on in the region. End of the first week of September.

Then slide down the coast, make a left turn in Seattle, and head over to eastern Oregon for a deep immersion in the aromatic world of hops:

Hop & Brew School, Yakima, Washington Yakima is the epicenter of hop growing in North America. Join the experts at the hop merchant HopUnion for a seminar and celebration of our favorite plant, and see the fascinating agriculture and processing of this green gold. Mid-September.

A stunningly beautiful 650-mile drive through one of the most brewery-rich corridors in the world eventually lands you here:

Northern California Homebrewers Festival, Dobbins, California This event is similar in concept to the homebrewers event in southern California, but with the uniquely laid-back atmosphere offered by northern California. Plenty of great homebrew and a strong focus on food as well. At a camping resort/lake, but hotel lodging is also available. Around the third weekend of the month.

Or do the grand tour all the way down the incomparable Big Sur coast and end up here after stopping at about a hundred breweries:

LA Beer Week, Los Angeles, California It’s not just a Chardonnay town anymore; the beer scene is starting to get very interesting here. Third week of the month.

Or not, because it’s Oktoberfest time:

Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany You know what I’m talking about. There’s no point elaborating about it here, because there’s a whole section on it in chapter 5. But you should go. Starts the last week of September and runs for 16 days, well into October.

Time to get back on that plane again. There are lots of great things happening in North America this time of year. The one wild card is the GABF, which varies as much as a month from year to year, which obviously will change the order of some of your travels.

October

Assuming there’s no conflict, start in beautiful Seattle for this small but very unusual specialty fest:

Elysian Brewing’s Great Pumpkin Beer Festival, Seattle, Washington If you’re a pumpkin beer freak, there’s only one place to be this weekend, and this is it. Early October. See details here.

If you time things right, you may be able to squeeze in one or more of the harvest-oriented beer festivals that happen this month as you slide on down the West Coast:

Wet-Hop Beer Festivals: Hood River Hops Fest, Hood River, Oregon; Fresh-Hop Ale Festival, Yakima, Washington; San Diego Brewer’s Guild Wet Hop Beer Festival, San Diego, California; Portland Fresh Hops Beer Festival, Portland, Oregon.

But eventually, all roads lead to Denver:

Great American Beer Festival, Denver, Colorado You’re not really a fully experienced beer geek until you hit this monster of a fest. Dates change from year to year depending on convention center availability. See a much more detailed description here. Plenty of special events, brewery open houses, and more in the whole Front Range area during this week.

Head southeast, and you’ll eventually hit this legendary blowout:

The Dixie Cup Homebrew Competition Featuring the Fred Eckhardt Tasting, Houston, Texas A total blast of a homebrew lost weekend. Much more than your usual homebrew competition, even if it is the largest single-site one in the world. Enjoy potluck, homebrew, special Fred Eckhardt beer and food tasting, and a come-in-your-bathrobe barleywine tasting on Saturday morning. Friday and Saturday, midmonth. Try to squeeze in a trip to St. Arnold Brewing Company for a tour and a beer.

Or if you prefer to have others make your beer for you, it would be best to head back to the Midwest:

Cleveland Beer Week, Cleveland, Ohio This one is starting to build some real momentum, connecting nicely with Cleveland’s burgeoning food scene. Runs for 10 days starting midmonth.

Surly Brewing Co. Darkness Day, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota A beer tasting and release for this nearly unobtainable imperial stout. Takes place at Surly Brewing Co. on a Saturday near the end of the month.

You’re probably getting whiplash from the transatlantic crossings by now, but I promise you that this one is really worth it:

Salone del Gusto, Torino, Italy An enormous food festival so fabulous that you’ll forget all about beer. But just in case you don’t, there’s plenty of that to choose from amongst the cheese, wine and salumi, especially from Italy’s highly creative craft beer scene. Torino is a beautiful Victorian city with polite people, a large confectionery industry, a great museum of Egyptian antiquities, and oh yes, the church with that shroud thing in its basement. As the capital of Piemonte, one of Italy’s premier wine regions, Torino’s food and drink are extra awesome. Be sure to try the frizzante Barbera red wine with dinner. Gorgeous scenery, too, and at this time of year it’s harvest season. If this isn’t heaven, I’m hard-pressed to figure out what is. Late in the month. Find more information here.

November

If you can drag yourself back to the West Coast — or if you never left — it’s time for a little fun in the sun:

San Diego Beer Week, San Diego, California A great outpouring of beery fun from a town already gushing with great beer — as long as you are okay with hops. While you’re there, catch the San Diego Brewers Guild Beer Festival. Besides appreciating the beaches, seafood, and awesome weather, be sure to get out and enjoy some of the world-class breweries in the area: Green Flash, Pizza Port, Ballast Point AleSmith, and the astonishingly grand brewpub (or should I say brewtemple) Stone Brewing Co., along with a ton of new small ones. The beer week is held early in the month.

Hop on Amtrak’s California Zephyr for a leisurely ride through the beautiful scenery of America’s Southwest and you’ll wind up in Chicago, refreshed and ready for:

Festival of Barrel-Aged Beer, Chicago, Illinois Focusing exclusively on beers that have had an intimate encounter with something woody, FOBAB is a connoisseur’s delight of the rare and exotic, featuring everything from the massive bourbon-aged stouts that got this category going to delicate wine barrel-aged farmhouse ales and everything in between. Presented by the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild around the second Saturday in November.

While you’re in Chicago, the timing will probably work out for you to immerse yourself the week before in some professional training at the world-famous Siebel Institute brewing school:

Siebel Master of Beer Styles and Evaluation, Chicago, Illinois This is several days of intense tasting, smelling, and learning about the flavors of beer, the history and characteristics of most of the classic styles, and how to best formulate and brew them. Siebel Institute, near downtown.

December

You may be getting just a teensy bit tired by this point, but if you’re not yet hospitalized from fatigue — or worse — you might want to grab an IV bag or two and add a couple more events to your journey:

Portland Holiday Beer Festival, Portland, Oregon It is what it sounds like: a grand celebration of holiday beers of all stripes, held in the comfort of heated tents in downtown Portland. Check out plenty of special editions and one-offs from local breweries, unlikely to be found anywhere else on earth. Early December.

Kerstbier Fest, Essen, Belgium One final event for you, the Christmas Beer Festival, this time with deliriously tasty and strong Belgian Christmas beers. Six nights, five days, midmonth in Essen, near Antwerp.

Whew.

Just a couple of weeks to rest a little and prepare to shower your friends and family with the fabulous beers and other gifts you’ve collected on your world travels.

I hope you enjoyed your trip. I wish I could have been there drinking beer with you.