After a few hours touring distilleries on the Bourbon Trail this past Saturday, it was time to head into Lexington to check out some of their breweries. After checking into our hotel near the University of Kentucky, we took an Uber to West Sixth Brewing. Our visit happened to coincide with their 3rd anniversary party which featured all sorts of specialty beers and infused firkins. Apparently I was having too much fun to remember to take any photos.

Blue Stallion Brewing Company Bar

Something else even bigger was taking place in Lexington during our visit, UK basketball was playing Notre Dame for a spot in the final four. At times it seemed like our group was the only one in town not wearing blue. This also caused Uber fares to skyrocket. Fortunately the weather was pretty nice, so we decided to walk to our next destination, Blue Stallion Brewing Company.

Blue Stallion Brewing Company Brewery

Blue Stallion specializes in authentic German lagers and British ales, boldly traditional craft beer as they say. On tap was roughly a dozen of their own beers such as Weizenbock, Schwarzbier, and Doppelbock plus a handful of guest beers. I was told by one of the bartenders that an IPA is in the works, though it seems they will still primarily focus on these traditional styles.

Chase Brewing Taps

From there we walked to Chase Brewing Co., which has been opened for a couple of years but looks to be just starting their brewery operation. Out of the sixteen taps only two were created in-house, but there were plenty of good-looking options. Unfortunately we never got to sample any of the beer as the crowd gathered to watch the basketball game had completely overwhelmed the wait staff.

Chase Brewing Brewery

We quickly continued our brewery crawl with a decent hike out to Country Boy Brewing, which has been operating for roughly the same amount of time as West Sixth, since early 2012. The crowd was definitely glued to the TV’s, including the bartenders from time to time, but we didn’t have any problems getting some beers to drink.

Country Boy Brewing Taproom

I really enjoyed the beers here, probably my favorites of the day. Their cliff jumper IPA was a very solid choice, and they also had a couple of double IPA’s on tap that I enjoyed very much as well. The crowd eventually thinned out after the game was over and our group was able to claim a table and enjoy a couple of beers before closing time.

Country Boy Brewing Taps

We tried to get a ride back to our hotel but in the end found it easiest to just walk back to our hotel. It was just over a 5K route and would only have been two miles without the last leg to the hotel. It’s nice that there are numerous breweries within walking distance of downtown. Now that Taft’s Ale House is open in Cincinnati, plus Braxton in Covington, we also have a nice brewery crawl route with Moerlein (both locations) and Rhinegeist included. I may have to give that a try sometime in the future. Anyone want to join me?