Fall is harvest season in wine country and festival season in beer towns, which makes it the best time of year for a tasting weekend with the guys or with your wife. These 12 destinations run from bourbon in Frankfort, Kentucky and pinot in Oregon's Willamette Valley to Beer City USA in Grand Rapids, and several of them cover beer, wine and spirits in the same place, so nobody in the group has to settle.
After years of planning fall weekend trips around breweries, distilleries and tasting rooms, I've found that the best ones give the beer guy and the wine guy a reason to be in the same town, which is why the Hudson Valley, Charlottesville, Southwest Michigan and the Central Coast of California are the easiest sell to a group of guys with mixed tastes. It also makes it easy for families since most wineries and breweries are pretty family-friendly, with activities for kids as well as mom and dad. If one of you is still learning your way around a wine list, our guide to tasting skills that transfer from whiskey to wine is a good place to start before you go. Tea for hangover relief: Target nausea, headaches, and dehydration naturally. Ginger, peppermint, and chamomile blends provide therapeutic benefits. Essential guidance for men seeking effective recovery. Planning a Caribbean guys golf trip: which courses justify the flight, what all-inclusive covers, and how to keep a mixed-handicap group happy. ManTripping: Men's Travel and Lifestyle Blog for busy men who love to travel. Promoted by FlowAds Frankfort, Kentucky's state capital, sits on the Kentucky River in the middle of the state, less than an hour from both Lexington and Louisville, and it's home to six distilleries of its own. Buffalo Trace is the famous one, and its tours fill up months in advance, so reserve that first. The others in Frankfort and Franklin County are more likely to take walk-ins, and Kentucky Bourbon Trail distilleries like Woodford Reserve in Versailles and Four Roses and Wild Turkey in Lawrenceburg are within about half an hour, so Frankfort works as a less expensive home base for a Kentucky Bourbon Trail guys trip. Plan on two distilleries a day and hire a local driver. The town gives you more than bourbon. Kentucky River Tours runs the country's only boat-based bourbon tour through November, Canoe Kentucky rents boats for the river and Elkhorn Creek, and Daniel Boone's grave sits on a bluff above the river in Frankfort Cemetery. At night, downtown runs from House of Commons: A Bourbon Library to the river patios at Bourbon on Main and Doc Crow's Social, and the beer drinker in the group has local breweries and taprooms to work through. A free downtown trolley gets the group between stops, and every September is Bourbon Heritage Month. Rebecca Ruth Candy, the downtown candy maker credited with the original bourbon ball, is an easy stop to bring something sweet home to the kids. About 90 minutes north of New York City, the stretch of the Hudson Valley from Poughkeepsie to New Paltz packs wineries, distilleries and hiking into a 30-minute radius of The Heartwood at Vassar, a good base for a newly married couple or a group of guys. The Shawangunk Wine Trail links 13 wineries, including Robibero Winery, Benmarl Winery and Quartz Rock Vineyard and Cider House, and September and October bring grape stomps and harvest festivals. The beer and whiskey side is just as strong. Start a Sunday with brunch and a distillery tour at The Hudson House Distillery, get pizza and a pint at Mill House Brewing, then watch football from the rooftop at Zeus Brewing Company. Walk off Saturday on the Walkway Over the Hudson, a 1.28-mile pedestrian bridge high above the river, ten minutes from the hotel, with the leaves turning on both banks. Oregon's Willamette Valley has more than 700 wineries, and most of them are small, so it's not unusual to taste with the owner or the winemaker, the way you can at JL Kiff Vineyard, Compris Vineyard or Bells Up Winery. The valley is split into 11 smaller official wine-growing areas, called AVAs, and a short drive into the hills leads to view-heavy tasting rooms like Alloro Vineyard and Domaine Divio. Chehalem Ridge Bed & Breakfast in Newberg sits 1,000 feet up Chehalem Mountain with five guest rooms and a chef-innkeeper cooking a three-course breakfast, a strong pick for a couple's wine weekend that doesn't need a luxury resort price. September is the driest month for a visit, October is still good, and by November the crowds thin out along with the sunshine. Between tastings, hike the waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park or play Chehalem Glenn Golf Course, built on sand so it drains fast after fall rain. The James Beard-nominated Painted Lady and Rosmarino Osteria Italiano cover dinner in Newberg. Portland, Maine pairs peak foliage with a food and craft beer scene you can cover on foot. Allagash Brewing Company is the tasting-room stop the beer drinker will want, lobster rolls and oysters cover the rest of the group, and a ferry through Casco Bay or a walk along the Eastern Promenade shows off the coast in fall color. The Westin Portland Harborview is an easy base: its restaurant, Congress Squared, runs a happy hour with drinks under $10 and Football Sunday specials, and the top-floor bar, Top of the East, brings DJ sets and a Halloween party. Fall is also the start of hockey season, and a Maine Mariners game is a lively local night out. The Charlottesville area is one of the best-known wine regions on the East Coast, and September and October are harvest season, with the summer humidity gone. The best way to see it with a group is on an e-bike tour from Shifting Gears Travel, led by sommelier and guide Jeff Dion: rolling hills with views toward the Blue Ridge, two winery visits, a vineyard walk and a gourmet lunch, with the motor handling the climbs so the tasting stays the focus. Spend the next morning on the James River in Scottsville with the James River Batteau Company, which runs trips on a replica of the flat-bottomed boats that once hauled cargo on the river. For dinner, Selvedge Brewing pours its own beer with a bar menu from chef Tucker Yoder, and the Boar's Head Inn is a central base with its own golf course. On Sunday, grab a breakfast sandwich to go at Bodo's Bagels. My honest take on California wine country: the Central Coast is more relaxed, less expensive and more fun than the better-known regions to the north and south, and it's often more welcoming to families too. Santa Barbara is the easy start, with the Urban Wine Trail running on foot through the Funk Zone, from Santa Barbara Winery to Margerum and Fox Wine Co., and Figueroa Mountain Brewing and Institution Ale showing games and pouring local for the beer drinkers. October is shoulder season, with rates below summer and the weather usually in the 70s. Inland, the Santa Ynez Valley has dozens of tasting rooms in small towns like Los Olivos, and Santa Maria is the home of Santa Maria-style tri-tip barbecue. Keep going up the coast, and Cambria makes a strong base for Paso Robles, about 30 minutes inland, where October is Harvest Wine Month and the winery hopping mixes easily with breweries, distilleries and barbecue. Oceanpoint Ranch on Moonstone Beach has fire pits and big lawns built for a group. Cambria's Scarecrow Festival fills the town with more than 200 scarecrows through October, and Hearst Castle and the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas are a short drive north on Highway 1. Denver is one of the country's biggest craft beer cities, and it hosts the Great American Beer Festival, usually in early fall. The Curtis downtown has 13 themed floors, with rooms built around arcade games, pop culture and summer camp. The hotel's Corner Office Restaurant + Martini Bar is an easy first round, and the city's sports venues and bars are all within reach for a guys night out. Bend is a brewery town that gets noticeably calmer after summer, and Tetherow, a 700-acre resort on the edge of Deschutes National Forest, pairs an 18-hole David McLay Kidd course on Golf Digest's Top 100 list with The Row, a pub pouring more than 30 beers with games on TV. Spend a day mountain biking, hiking, or fly fishing, then work through Bend's breweries in the evening. Fall adds beer festivals, harvest events and cooler weather for the golf course. Asheville built its reputation on beer, and the South Slope district downtown lets you walk between taprooms. Sierra Nevada's East Coast brewery is about 20 minutes south in Mills River. Fall color usually peaks along the Blue Ridge Parkway in mid to late October. Check the road status before you plan a drive, since some sections of the Parkway have had long closures for repairs. I did a Grand Rapids beercation with a group of guys in the middle of winter, with a Brewsader passport, the city's brewery stamp book, to fill, and we hit 11 breweries between us, from Founders Brewing and Brewery Vivant to The Mitten Brewing Company. When the weather cooperates, many of them are within walking distance of downtown. The city is a few hours' drive from Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis, so it's a long weekend within reach of most of the Midwest. Here's the full rundown of our Grand Rapids beercation. Walla Walla, in southeastern Washington, has well over 100 wineries, and dozens of tasting rooms sit right downtown, so a couple can park the car for the weekend. Harvest runs through September and October, and the valley's red wines, especially cabernet and syrah, are the reason to go. It's a small town, so book dinner reservations early on fall weekends. St. Joseph sits on a bluff above Lake Michigan, about 90 miles from Chicago, and the wineries of the Lake Michigan Shore wine region are a short drive from the beach. Round Barn in Baroda makes wine, beer and spirits in one place, which settles the beer-or-wine argument, and Silver Beach is right below downtown for a walk at sunset. Don't miss the chance to explore the area's you-pick apples, fresh made pies, and craft beer as well. Southwest Michigan has a wide variety of other beach towns and agricultural areas to explore as well and the fall colors are always amazing this time of year! Each of these places works as a guys night or a couple's weekend, and the right pick depends on who's in the car. A newly married couple wants a place like the Willamette Valley or Walla Walla, where the pace is slow and the B&B is part of the trip. A guys night wants density: Grand Rapids, Denver and Asheville put several taprooms within walking distance of each other. Most of these trips have one reservation that fills first. In Frankfort it's the tour at Buffalo Trace Bourbon Distillery, and small-group outings like the e-bike ride in Charlottesville only have so many seats. Book that before you book flights, then build the rest around it. A canoe on the Kentucky River, the Walkway Over the Hudson or a hike at Silver Falls gives everyone a clear head for the afternoon pours. Tasting rooms are good at selling memberships, and most waive a fee or two for signing up. Before you commit, add up the shipments for a year and ask whether you'll finish them, because on an early-career budget, three cases of cabernet can crowd out next year's trip. 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Frankfort, Kentucky - Home Base For The Bourbon Trail
Hudson Valley, New York - A Wine Trail And Rooftop Football
Willamette Valley, Oregon - Tasting With The Winemaker
Portland, Maine - Allagash, Lobster Rolls And Casco Bay
Charlottesville, Virginia - Wine Country By E-Bike
California's Central Coast - Santa Barbara To Paso Robles
Denver, Colorado - Craft Beer And A Hotel With Arcade-Themed Rooms
Bend, Oregon - A Brewery Town With A Golf Course
Asheville, North Carolina - Breweries And The Blue Ridge Parkway
Grand Rapids, Michigan - Beer City USA
Walla Walla, Washington - More Than 100 Wineries Around A Small Downtown
St. Joseph, Michigan - Lake Michigan Shore Wine Country
How To Plan A Tasting Weekend That Works For Everyone
Match The Trip To Who's Coming
Book The One Thing That Sells Out
Mix In Something That Isn't A Tasting
Join The Wine Club Only If You'll Drink It
