A recap of our craft beer trip to Louisville, Kentucky- Against the Grain Brewery, Goodwood Brewing, and Cumberland Brews.
What a crazy two week we had! We traveled to 5 states, 6 breweries, and covered 5,000 miles. We had some amazing food, drove through some beautiful areas, spent time with family, and sampled more beers than I can remember. It was a great trip.
Lets start from the beginning. We originally planned to attend a class, for work, near the panhandle of Florida. The company we’re contracted with had something else they wanted us to do the same day, plus a last minute meeting, so we had to change our plans. The only other class was available in Louisville, Kentucky, 15 hours and a 1,000 miles north. Huck looked at flights, but they were $500+ each. I said no thank you, but Huck suggested driving “We can make a trip out of it and spend time with family!” I agreed with the promise of an adventure.
So, Tuesday morning, we packed up the car and headed to Georgia. We spend the night at Georgia, dropped the dogs off at their grandparent’s house, and headed to Louisville, another 7 hours away. That drive wasn’t so bad though. Way better than driving through flat, straight, Florida. Tennessee and Kentucky had curves, trees, mountains, and pretty views.
For our lodging, we used AirBnB. For someone that loves to travel, I can’t believe I’ve never used this site before, and only recently heard about it. So if you’re like me and have no idea what AirBnB is, it’s a website where people list their home or a room in their home and you can stay for the night, week, or even month. People write reviews about the host, and the host write reviews about the guest. It was kind of weird at first, staying in someone else’s house, but honestly, we were there for maybe 8 hours. Just enough time to sleep, and I’ve stayed with people I’ve know a lot less. They didn’t come with reviews! It’s also a much cheaper option than a hotel. We saved about $150-$200 vs. staying the night in a hotel.
While in Louisville, we stayed at a cute Urban Farmhouse.
(Source)
This was a private room. Our host, Mark, greeted us when we arrive, showed us our room, and gave us some recommendations for places to check out in the area. We arrived around 7PM, so my number one priority was food!
We went straight to Against the Grain Brewery where we ordered our first Kentucky beer flight and some BBQ. The brewery is located right at the Louisville Slugger Field.
I ordered the half chicken with potato salad, and Huck ordered the ribs with fries. We both agreed the pickled onions and potato salad was the best part. The meat was good too of course. The beer flight was huge. We ordered the basic flight that came with 6 beers plus 3 of their specialty brews. I sipped each one and left the rest to Huck. My main focus was food. I enjoyed the We Mint Well beer, a collaboration beer with Against the Grain Brewery and Brew Dogs. It was the closest thing I had to a mint julep the whole trip.
From there we went to the Louisville Slugger Museum. It was closed of course, but we still got to see the giant bat out front.
Next up, we headed to Goodwood Brewing Company. We shared the Bourbon Barrel Stout.
This was a 10 oz. pour. It was way more glass than beer. And this is going to be a little bit of a complaint/rant but the bartender was rude! There was no passion at all or even desire to be there. He was complaining about having to be there to everyone in the bar {all 8 of us}, and honestly, it made me not want to be there either. Huck finished the beer and we left.
While at the bar, I pulled up Google Maps to see what was near by. We realized Indiana was just across the bridge {less than a mile away}, so we decided to head over to say we’ve been to Indiana. We discovered a brewery near by, New Albanian Brewing Company, but unfortunately, it was closed.
From there, we headed back to our room, along the way, we stopped at Cumberland Brews to share one last beer while in Kentucky.
If only we had more time in Kentucky. I would have liked to check out a few more restaurants and some of the historical sites. Next time.
Thursday morning, we were up bright and early for a fun day of doing nothing.
For our lunch break, we went to Mirage Mediterranean Restaurant. The food was great but we both ate way too much and too much food + a boring meeting = pretending not to sleep sitting up.
Once the meeting was over, we headed to Churchill Downs just to check it out. It made me wish I had a big hat and a mint Julep.
Next stop Nashville!
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