Tucson Craft Beer Crawl

I can’t believe I forgot to review this amazing event!
The weather could not have been more perfect for a day of walking around downtown Tucson and visiting some craft beer spots for delicious local beers.
We checked in and were handed our tasting glasses, a map, and 20 drink coupons. I think at the end of the day we each still had 5 – 7 tickets (and our fill of beer), so for next year, don’t worry about running out of tickets.
We hit: Borderlands, Tap and Bottle, Playground, Pueblo Vida, and Hotel Congress. Obviously Borderlands and Pueblo Vida served their own amazing beers, but at the other stops, we got to try beers from all over the state.
The only suggestion I would make is it would be nice if more places had food. Borderlands had a food truck outside, but other than that, I didn’t see much food available. With all of the beer, it would have been nice to have something to soak up some of that alcohol.
The Tucson Beer Crawl was overall a great event, and I would definitely go next year!

So many great breweries were represented, including my personal favorite — Sonoran Brewery. The White Chocolate Ale is my absolute favorite beer! didn’t know they brewed any other varieties, so I was very excited to see two other options available at their tent in Borderland’s front patio — great utilization of this space that is not used too often!
I liked how the crawl was spread out all over downtown. I got some sun walking from bar to bar and it was never too crowded at one location.
Only downside, I didn’t purchase tickets for my whole group in advance and they SOLD OUT :(. [Congrats on selling out], but not having a ticket made the crawl a bummer for my friend who didn’t have a ticket. Each bar was either closed to regular customers for the crawl, or they had a sectioned off area for the crawlers and the regular customers could not come in that area to socialize with their friends. This made the event complicated for my group. Now I know to buy my tickets early to avoid this!
Overall I thought it was an excellent event, and I hope that next year it can be expanded to include even more bars downtown!

Woops, I never published this review… well, better late than never.
It was a gorgeous Saturday in spring for the 1^st Tucson Craft Beer Crawl. I am excited that downtown Tucson now has so many craft breweries that can support an event of this size! The event was very well organized. Tickets were sold out, which is was a good thing in my opinion so the event didnt get overcrowded or run out of beer! We each received a 5oz tasting class and 20 tickets (wow, that is 100oz of beer!). No one can drink that much, but it at least gave you the feeling that you wouldn’t run out.
We started at Congress as I was excited to see the collaboration Agustin Kitchen did with 1055 using the fruit from the trees at the Mercado to brew a Saison… yummy! Iron Johns and Four Peaks were also in different areas of the indoor concert area of Congress as well. I only wish this could been outside on the patio! Next, we went to go meet friends at Playground, which had Old Bisbee Brewing downstairs and San Tan and Grand Caynon upstairs, along with live music. This was amazing ambiance, as I mentioned, the weather was perfect. From here we moved on to Borderlands, which was pouring all of the Borderlands on draft! Outside was Sonoran, another favorite of mine!
Overall, it was a nice day spent with friends tasting a lot of the craft beerTucson (and AZ) has to offer. It was never too crowded, nor did we have to wait in line very long, which I appreciated. I am already looking forward to next year!

It was pretty much one of the best beer crawls I’ve been on. I really like how there were different breweries at different locations downtown. It was great to explore some of the more up and coming places down there. There were more than enough drink tickets for tasting, a little too much. No one can drink 100oz of beer on a Saturday afternoon! I know I can’t. My only two complaints is that I wish it would have started a tad bit later, maybe 1pm-​5pm. And that there were more snacks along the way!

Wow, what a day! So many fantastic local breweries down in Tucson to celebrate the end of AZ Beer Week. The day started with a little disorganization in line to get tickets but after the tickets were received the day went perfectly smooth. So with 20 tickets and a tiny beer glass I head to Hotel Congress to sample the 3 breweries, ten fifty five was solid, four peaks had a great chocolate porter and free pint glasses and Iron Johns was very experimental. Stop #1 success! Stop #2 was the R Bar where I sampled consistently awesome Dragoon and tried Huss Brewery for the fist time and fell in love with their That’ll Do IPA. Pueblo Vida was our 3^rd stop and i just cant get enough of this new little brewery. The hike to Borderlands was a little too long, and I usually love walking all over the place but I think there was too much time between the congress/​broadway stops and the toole/​6^th stops. Borderlands was hopping for sure and the inside atmosphere matched the happy patio with Sonoran Brewery. But unfortunately by the time we left there, headed to Tap and Bottle, it was 3:55 and we missed the drinks at T&B and so we just made the trek back down to Thunder Canyon for dinner… No beer samples left here either. Overall it was a great day, beautiful weather and a lot of happy people in Tucson.

The crawl was a very fun event. I attended with my wife. We were checked in fairly quickly, and very glad we purchased tickets ahead of time as the event was sold out. Taster glasses for the event are a good shape and size, but 20 sample tickets was a little much. We would have been rushed to try 20 samples over 4 hours.
We wanted to be reasonably sober, so we had a delicious and quick lunch at Thunder Canyon, one of the craw stops, along the way.
Pueblo Vida was a little crowded. Borderlands was setup nicely with a Sonoran tent outside. Hotel Congress did have bottles of water available to take. Playground flowed well with one station downstairs and two upstairs, also the live music was a nice touch. R bar was closed, so the tents were set up in the alleyway, it worked. We did not make it over to Tap & Bottle because we were running out of time.
All in all, a fun event that I would recommend and most likely attend again in the future.

Great event that could be even better. Loved the concept of ‘crawl’…not waiting in long lines, pacing yourself, friendly venues, no beers running dry. It was an absolutely perfect day for strolling and finding some delicious beers — personal faves — 1055 Saison, Pueblo Vida 2IPA, Strong English. Why it wasn’t a five-​star event for us — we came down w/​our wives and most of the time had to be separated from them (DD wristband vs drinkers wristband), also felt crammed into some venues. Looking fwd to next year!

This was a very fun event. Over 14 breweries represented across 7 bar locations all within walking distance in Downtown Tucson. Having multiple venues kept things interesting and fun while trying the various offerings from around the area. This event was done at the PERFECT time of year, and the weather could not have been better. 4 hours for the event was also the perfect amount of time to enjoy each venue, and «pace» yourself accordingly. Getting wristbands /​registered at the start was a little confusing and unorganized, but once past that, the day was AMAZING. Personal favorites: Sonoroan White Chocolate Stout, 1055 Saison, and Borderlands Citrana Wild Ale. This was the first craft beer crawl of its kind in Tucson, so hopefully this becomes a yearly event! A couple recommendations for the event organizers: have water /​snacks at each venue, streamline and coordinate the registration process better.

Great event, busy but not crowded. Excellent way to try many different craft beers especially from Tucson. Disappointed that Iron John’s and 1055 brewing closed up shop early at Congress and we did not get to try.
Favorites of the day include: Pueblo Vida Belgian Golden Strong Ale, Dragoon Super Stronghold and Old Bisbee indigenous Holy Grail IPA. Suggest that water be available at locations and small snacks would be a nice touch.