With the growing popularity of craft beer we have witnessed a concomitant increase in beer-related tourism. This is a topic I have written about in a previous blog entry. Most beer tourism involves short two or three day getaways, usually to a town or city where there are enough breweries to keep the beer drinker happy for a couple of afternoons and/or evenings. Beer tourism can be big business and can bring significant sums of money into a local economy. For example, a study by Grand Valley State University estimated the economic impact of beer tourism on Kent County, MI to be in excess of $12 million. Much of this impact was due to the fact that Kent County is home to the city of Grand Rapids, one of the premier craft beer producing cities in the United States. The study found that the 42,000 beer tourists who visited Kent County during the spring and summer of 2015 accounted for fourteen thousand hotel nights at an average cost of $148 per night.

While most beer tourists stay at a hotel in close proximity to the breweries they plan to visit, in a few cases it is possible to stay in a hotel or other lodgings owned by the brewery. Perhaps, the best known example of a brewery hotel is the DogHouse Hotel. Touted as the “world’s first craft beer hotel”, the DogHouse is located on the grounds of the BrewDog Brewery just outside of Columbus, OH. The hotel has thirty-two themed rooms, with draft beer on tap in each. Given that the DogHouse Hotel is only a couple of hours from where I live, you might think that I have stayed there already, but I have not. It is on my ‘to do’ list, however. Another well known brewery that owns a hotel is Dogfish Head. Their sixteen-room hotel (the Dogfish Inn) in Lewis, DE is a short twenty-minute drive from the Dogfish Head Brewery in Rehoboth Beach, DE. Unlike the DogHouse Hotel, the Dogfish Inn does not offer beer on-site – the idea is to get visitors to visit bars and restaurants in the surrounding community.

While I still have to make it to the DogHouse Hotel, I did recently have the opportunity to stay onsite at another brewery – The Inn at Springfield Manor in Thurmont, MD. My wife and I were visiting Maryland and Virginia to celebrate a family birthday and my wife’s step-father, knowing of my love of beer, booked us a room at the aforementioned inn. The Inn is situated on a beautiful 130 acre estate. But there is more to the estate than the Inn. On site, they brew beer, distill spirits, and ferment wine – something for everyone, as it were. The Inn has eight rooms. We stayed in The Edelweiss Suite, named after one of the types of lavender grown in the Inn’s lavender fields.

We arrived at the Inn late afternoon. After checking into our accommodation we headed to the outside bar area. As part of our room package, we received a complimentary flight of drinks. My wife opted for a flight of four sangrias, while I went for a flight of four beers. While the bar offers small plates to munch on, more substantive fare can be purchased from the food truck that is on duty. That evening’s food truck specialized in grilled cheese sandwiches, so I had a very tasty grilled cheese and pulled pork sandwich for dinner. As the evening wore on, the outside bar got increasingly busy. Given the limited number of rooms available at the Inn, most of the folks enjoying the craft beer/spirits/wine were either locals or tourists staying in other accommodation.

We had a wonderful two-night stay at the Inn at Springfield Manor. The setting was idyllic, the service was friendly and attentive, and the craft beer was tasty. Following our stay at the Inn, we got into our car and headed to our final destination. Chincoteague Island, VA, where we were meeting up with family from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Texas. On our way there, we stopped for lunch at RAR Brewery in Cambridge, MD. Later in the day, after checking into our hotel in Chincoteague, we headed to Black Narrows Brewing Company for a late afternoon beer. Overall a great trip – quality time with family and a few breweries thrown in for good measure.