Good Beer Hunting’s annual camping trip, Olly Olly, is just around the corner. We’ve got campfires and cabins on the brain, so this week we asked The Fervent Few about their favorite memories of good beer and the great outdoors.
Carla Jean Lauter: “I went camping about 10 years ago off the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was probably my first real camping experience as an adult—tent camping, carrying everything in and out, a relatively remote spot, etc. We were only camping for a weekend, so we brought some cans of beer with us, but not too many since there were only a few of us and no one wanted to carry too much weight. It was an early fall day but fairly warm, and I was kind of bummed that we'd only be drinking warm beer for the weekend when my brilliant friend pointed out the obvious to me: our camping spot was right next to a stream. So we took some rocks and created a small corral for the beer and stored them under the cold water: voila, a natural refrigerator. I know it’s an obvious trick to many seasoned campers, but I was thrilled to have any way to cool the beers down. And after a day's hike, we came back and they were waiting for us chilled and ready. Perfection.”
Nick Naretto: “For about 20 years of my life, my dad, brother, and I would go on an annual camping trip to the wondrous Allegheny National Forest just outside of Sheffield, Pennsylvania. At first our cooler consisted of Bud Light and Molson Canadian cans that would become the next day's BB gun targets. Eventually we added some other beers to the mix that I will forever associate with camping, like Bud Light Golden Wheat (R.I.P.) and Samuel Adams OctoberFest. On one especially clear night during our usual campfire, I disappeared. I was found lying flat on my back in the grass with a cold beer wrapped in the required camping koozie. I was just staring at the night sky, which was totally void of light pollution. They obviously thought that I had a few too many beers, but I asked them to join me, which they eventually did. We lay there and watched countless shooting stars and spent the rest of the night contemplating the cosmos.
On another memorable trip, friends and I pulled up to our usual camping spot to find something disappointing: there was already a tent pitched, and it wasn't one of ours. We traveled down the road and found a new spot, where we pitched a few tents and, in the middle, set up a canopy to gather around for meals, or if it rained. This trip was the debut of what was simply referred to as the ‘keg tent’: a small, one-person-sized tent that featured a keg bucket filled with ice and a half barrel of whatever light crusher was cheapest. We went particularly hard that weekend and kicked the keg during the first night. While others tried to figure out who was best equipped to drive an hour to the closest available beer, my friend Matt and I decided to teach ourselves a new skill: keg walking. We took turns standing on the keg and slowly rolled it along the root-covered ground in a competition for distance. We only invited a few others into the keg-walking club once we had mastered it, and of course the only other participant ended up spraining his ankle. It's just another magical and mysterious memory that I now have, thanks to a great night in the woods with friends and beer.”
Michael Kiser: “Last year after a trip to Pittsburgh, I grabbed a couple bottles of Brew Gentlemen's small Saisons and drove into the Allegheny National Forest an hour or so north. In Pennsylvania, you're allowed to pitch a tent anywhere on state grounds (it's a good idea to check in with the rangers and let them know where you're heading, just in case) so I wandered along a creek for awhile until I found a little island. I waded out to the middle, set up camp, started a fire, and popped those bottles by myself over a couple days and read. It was restorative. The white noise of the creek was like a trance. And the beers were ideal.
Another time I was in the Swedish forests, at the Kolarbyn Ecolodge, where you sleep in dugout huts with cots covered in sheepskins. The townspeople traditionally stayed in the camp once a year to cut down trees and build a huge fire to make coal. I had a variety of canned beers from the Systembolaget store in the last town we left behind. We couldn't find coolers or ice anywhere (this seemed like a foreign concept to anyone we asked), so we got some fish netting and tied up the cans to a log in an outlet stream from the lake, which was super cold in the early spring, and let them sink in. Within an hour they were cold and crushable. We drank them by the fire with a couple guys from France who were traveling, ate wild boar meat and cheese, had some mulled wine, and drifted off to sleep.”
Tim Decker: “Several years ago I attended a camping weekend where the entire campground was occupied by brewery staff, reps from guest breweries, bar owners, and distributor reps. Beer was flowing, and there was more than campfire smoke in the air.
My tent was set up between a camp full of bearded guys in flannel on psilocybin staring into their fire and another camp of guys who wear polo shirts and slacks during the work week doing stimulants. My wife, luckily, was entertained, and was happy to have a Pale Ale with the folks who would wander into our camp to see what we were cooking (chili at night, chilaquiles in the morning).
Around 3 a.m., as we were lying in our tent, we heard a giant WHOOSH, and for a moment everything was illuminated. The cheers that followed let us know somebody was breathing fire nearby. Shortly after, a brewery rep and his lady were having a vocal breakup as the sun started to rise on the horizon. Morning beers were called for. A bar owner from Seattle prepared Gueuze-mosas (no room for Lambic snobs at this camp) as we began to pack the car up to hit the road.”
Nick Yoder: “I haven't camped nearly as much as I would like to since I've become an adult. Back when I was a kid I camped all the time, but since a weeklong canoe trip in Canada's Quetico Provincial Park the summer before sixth grade, I've only been camping four times. All involved beer to some extent. One was a weekend bachelor party spent playing beer-in-hand wiffle ball, attempting to cook hot dogs with vodka as fuel when the propane ran out, and sleeping in a barn. Another was a road trip to Daytona for a bachelor party and the race, with nights spent around a fire and makeshift beer pong tables at the KOA. Then there was Olly Olly last year.
But the one that really sticks out was a month ago. On a warm August night, I set our tent up in the backyard, made a fire, roasted marshmallows, and then tucked my oldest into her sleeping bag. I spent the next few hours by the fire, a KBS in one hand and a book in the other, switching to music on the Bluetooth speaker once the darkness crept in. Eventually I joined my daughter in the tent and we spent the first of what will be many nights sleeping under the stars.”
Matt Paonessa: “Bars, restaurants, and brewery taprooms these days are often too dark, insulated, and industrial: in New England we really only have about four months of comfortable outdoorsy weather each year, so during those months I try to have an outdoor beer once a week—be it at Fenway, a brewery taproom patio, a restaurant, or even on my stoop or in a driveway. There is no one special outdoor beer experience for me because I cherish them all equally. Any chance to have a beer without a roof is a great time.”
Michael McAllister: “The past few years, after the holiday rush, my wife and I have taken to retreating from our interstate travels in the form of a cabin getaway for New Year’s Eve. The first such trip was actually a camping trip. Inspired by some warmer-than-usual weather, we drove out and grabbed a spot in the national forest about 90 minutes away.
We hiked, cooked, and enjoyed a few beers we packed all before sundown—delighted with ourselves that we were actually camping for New Year’s. And then it got dark. And the stillness of a winter night set in. We were plenty safe and prepared for the cold (my wife had fashioned a double sleeping bag to serve as a liner among the heavy blankets and sheets on our camping mattress in the tent). But the fire we had going wasn’t very resilient against the doesn’t-actually-feel ‘warmer-than-usual’ temperature. And if we were going to bundle ourselves in blankets, we might as well enjoy it from the comfort of our tent.
So we gathered ourselves and one more beer before the year was through: a Bourbon Double Cream Stout from our favorite local brewery. We wrapped up the last few hours of that year making plans and dreams by a single lantern. It was a perfect way to end a year. We stayed warm too, thanks in part to that decadent Stout. Most of those plans and a few of the dreams have come to fruition. And we now have a family holiday tradition of our own.”
Do you have any outdoorsy beer memories? Join The Fervent Few and share them with the greatest beer community on the internet.
Hosted by Jim Plachy 
