Portsmouth, NH

Red Hook Brewing

Portsmouth is now of those towns where you just get a good vibe. Scenery, people, food- everything is screams quirky North East. We started our stay by setting up our home in the Red Hook Brewey Parking lot. Yup, seriously. We had no idea how large of an operation that brewery was, but it was huge. They had a very nice and very busy restaurant inside as well.

Liars Bench Beer Co.

After Red Hook we wanted to check out a smaller more intimate brewery- and we may have found our absolute favorite, for many reasons: Liars Bench Beer Co. Not only did this place have some killer fall beers with the perfect amount of pumpkin-y squash-y spicy flavors, but the brewery was a tiny place that felt like you were in someone’s garage or basement- probably because thats what it was. And the decor was as New Hampshire-y as it could get.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, they had the best pickles we’ve ever had. Random I know. But this is important. While sipping on the brews, we of course wanted a snack and on the menu they had Whole or Half Pickles. We were obviously intrigued and had to order a whole pickle, split two ways of course. I do not know how to describe the perfectness of this pickle except that we made a second stop at this brewery purely because I needed another one. It was just a huge pickle, cut in half, serves in a paper cup of spicy mustard. That’s it. It was magical. And we will be going back… for both the beer and pickles.