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Vancouver, BC, Canada
Celebrating Beer Tourism since 2010

South-of-the-Border Beer Crawl - The Inaugural Tour

On a rainy Saturday morning, Oct 23rd, 2010, a sleepy-eyed group of craft beer lovers climbed aboard a bus on East Broadway, most with coffee in hand, to take part in BeerTourist's inaugural tour. Despite the early hour and tired faces, there was a buzz of anticipation among the group, but nobody, including the organizers, envisioned just how fun the next 12 hours would be and when the bus rolled on back to Commercial Drive, a group of smiling, weary and somewhat wobbly beertourits descended from the bus, with growlers of craft beer in hand.
From all accounts, The South-of-the-Border Beer Crawl was a huge success. BeerTourist chose Washington State as the first destination with Boundary Bay Brewery, Skagit Brewery and the The Rockfish Grill taking turns playing host and our American friends did not disappoint!
BeerTourists chow down and sample
some of Pacific Northwest's best
craft beers

Boundary Bay Brewery is considered by many the best brewery in Washington State and is definitely a beer destination for many both north and south of the border. The bar was set high by Boundary Bay and their Anniversary Ale was said to be the best sampled on the day. After food was noshed and beers were drank, the BeerTourists took the chance to fill their growlers to take home as souvenirs, although, thruth be told, many arrived back in Canada as empty as they were when they left.

Skagit Brewery, located in Mount Vernon, was the BeerTourist bus's second stop and the group was hitting second gear, thanks in good part to the amazing beers and yummy foods sampled at Boundary Bay. But before getting down to the business of sampling beers at Skagit, the group was treated to a tour of the brewery itself, seeing firsthand where the tasty brews they were about to taste were created. The tour, which was one of the highlights of the trip, had the BeerTourists even more excited about the prospects of sampling some more great, craft beer - not that they needed any encouragement.

The last stop of the day took the BeerTourists to The Rockfish Grill/Ancortes Brewery, located in the old section of Anacortes, WA. By this point the bus was a rocking and the BeerTourists were in fine form, lubricated by the tasty treats from the first two stops. The folks at Rockfish Grill did not disappoint and left the busload of now weary, but satisfied BeerTourists not wanting for anything as they gathered up their growlers and headed north for the border. We will definitely be heading back to this Pacific NorthWest gem to enjoy the great food and beers on offer!
For those of you who were on the bus, you will be able to say you were there for BeerTourist's inaugural and hugely successful first tour!!

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