South County is home to some of Rhode Island’s best beaches, so it’s no surprise that several of the breweries along the Rhode Island Brewers Guild’s RI Brewery Passport beer trail draw inspiration from their seaside locale. Whalers Brewing Company's reputation has expanded well beyond its home in the sleepy Peace Dale Mill Complex. The brewery’s flagship Rise is a five-time Best American Pale Ale winner at the World Beer Awards, and their spacious tasting room is full of fun, from giant Jenga to pool tables and corn hole. Plus, Whalers logo hats may be the single coolest piece of swag you can take home from Rhode Island.
The Grey Sail brewery is even closer to the sea, with a large tasting room and bar in a converted colonial house on the banks of the Pawcatuck River in Westerly. Grey Sail’s tasting room serves beer brewed in a former macaroni factory, wine and cocktails featuring spirits from their own South County Distillers. Also in Westerly, is Tapped Apple Cidery, a family-owned cidery and winery with a downtown tasting room which also features an a la carte charcuterie menu designed to pair with their ciders and wines.
The Tilted Barn Brewery really is located in an authentic, New England-style post and beam barn on a working farm, where some of the acreage is devoted to raising the hops that end up in your beer mug. Their spacious indoor and outdoor seating encourages folks to gather, relax, enjoy a food truck or two and grab a six-pack of their limited release of canned beers, which lean strongly toward IPAs and American pale ales. This is “farm-to-glass” brewing at its best.
West Kingston’s Shaidzon Brewing Company pairs their canned and tap brews with a steady stream of visiting food trucks and live music on weekends. Food trucks and tunes also are part of the experience at Sons of Liberty Spirits Co. — a near neighbor to Whalers in Peace Dale — whose founders started out making whiskey from high-quality beer before deciding to share the beer with the public, too. Try the Nitro Uprising Stout, which is the base for the distillery’s single-malt Uprising Whiskey. Better yet, try both.
