The World According To Kate
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As someone who loves to travel and plans most all of my vacations around where I’ll be eating and drinking, I found this list of the 20 Best Beer Towns in America from Worlds Biggests pretty interesting. The list is nicely organized by region, making it easy to imagine planning a sort of beer road trip around it. Mmm… beer road trip.
It looks like I easily have the entire Northeast region covered thanks to my recent visit to Portland, ME (which can be read about here and here too), in which we seriously did nothing but eat and drink all weekend long (not that there’s anything wrong with that)! Now, on to conquer the rest of America’s beer towns!
A few pictures from our various beer adventures over the years:
PS – Kevin will most likely kill me if he sees the picture I posted of him, but when I found it, I really had to share it. I love it 
Recently, Kevin and I met our awesome friend Jenn out for a Sunday afternoon lunch at The Hearthstone Pub in the Planstville section of Southington. I had been hearing a lot of good things about it, so when she suggested we meet up there, I couldn’t turn down the invitation!
Jenn!
The décor is simple, but attractive, with lots of dark wood and fireplaces everywhere you look (there’s a grand total of 16 in the restaurant)! It has a very cozy and comfortable feel, the kind of place where you can really relax and spend some time with a few friends and some beers. We actually managed to stay a few hours on our visit!
Speaking of beer, they have 16 different beers on tap, and Kevin and I were very pleased to find a number of microbrews on the list, including several IPA’s. It was definitely a nice little selection. They also had an extensive wine list.
Kevin, enjoying an IPA
Because this was Jenn’s last weekend before starting a diet, we decided to go all out and order the Pub Fried Combo as an appetizer. And it was all that a fried combo should be! It consisted of potato skins, wings, calamari and onion rings, and came with a variety of dipping options. It was delicious, fried goodness!
Fried Awesomeness!
For our meal, I ordered the Grilled Portabella Panini, which was served with fries and coleslaw. The Panini was really good. One might wonder how one can screw up a Portabella Panini, but as someone who orders this sort of thing all the time, trust me it happens all the time. The Hearthstone Pub got it right, though, it was perfect – flavorful, with lots of veggies, and not too soggy. The fries were good, but nothing to write home about. I tried the slaw and wasn’t impressed, but then, I’m not usually a big fan of coleslaw – this one was way too mayonnaisey for me. Overall, I was happy with my meal.
Jenn had the Baked Stuffed Shrimp, which was served with rice and a heaping pile of vegetables. Look at all those veggies! Beautiful!
Kevin order the Guinness Bacon Cheeseburger, which was served with a side of fries. While the burger was good, it wasn’t really anything special. It just tasted like a normal bacon cheeseburger – no noticeable Guinness flavor at all. The menu indicated that there would be a Guinness sauce, but it either wasn’t there or just wasn’t detectable, so that was a bit of a disappointment.
Overall, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the place, and definitely intend to go back in the near future. This is a great place for a Sunday afternoon with friends, an evening out with the girls or even a romantic dinner for two!
42 West Main Street
Plantsville, CT 06479
(860) 628-0877
About Kate
A 29 year old blogger from New Britain, CT. Follow Kate in her adventures in food, drink and life!
