You do not have to go far for a good beer up here. From the lodge you can reach a full-blown, 25-year-old brewpub in about 5 min, and a small handful of good breweries all sit inside a half-hour drive. This is beer country in the plainest sense: mountain towns where the local brewery is also the local dining room, the local dance floor, and the place everyone lands after a day on the trail or the mountain.
This guide is not a ranking and it is not a listicle. It is what we would tell you if you messaged us asking where to drink a good beer. We cover the breweries themselves — not restaurants generally, which we handle in our separate where-to-eat guide — so here you get the vibe of each place, the styles they brew well, whether the food is worth staying for, what you can carry out in cans or growlers, and a plain read on hours, seasons, and getting home in one piece.
One thing up front, because it matters more here than in a city: this is a designated-driver landscape. Roads are dark, rideshares are thin, and the drink-and-drive math on a mountain highway is unforgiving. Plan for a sober driver or an early night, and the whole thing gets a lot more relaxed. The lodge is adults-only and 21-plus applies at every bar in this guide, so this is squarely a grown-ups' outing.
The lay of the land: how close the beer really is
Lincoln and North Woodstock sit right at the western mouth of the Kancamagus Highway, and the good news for beer drinkers is that the two closest breweries are within a couple of miles of the lodge. The Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery is on Main Street in North Woodstock, a short drive from our front door and a genuine walk-around town once you park. Basecamp Brewing — which longtime visitors will know as One Love — is over in Lincoln itself, in the Mills Marketplace area near the base of Loon. Between those two you can have a proper brewery evening without ever getting on the interstate.
Widen the circle to about a half-hour and you pick up three more that are worth the drive: Schilling Beer Co. in Littleton, Iron Furnace Brewing in Franconia, and Rek'-lis Brewing in Bethlehem. All three are a straight shot up I-93 or Route 18 through Franconia Notch, which happens to be one of the prettiest half-hours of driving in the state. Go a little farther east over the Kancamagus toward Conway and there are more still, but those turn a beer run into a day trip.
A word on vocabulary, because the region blurs it. Most of these places are brewpubs — they brew on site and serve a full menu — rather than bare taprooms with a food truck out front. That is a good thing for visitors. It means you can eat well, drink beer made in the same building, and not have to solve dinner separately. Where a spot leans more toward taproom-with-snacks, we say so.
None of these are far, but 'not far' in the mountains still means real driving on two-lane roads. Build your evening around one anchor brewery plus maybe one more, rather than trying to hit four. You will have a better time and a shorter drive home.
Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery, North Woodstock
This is the anchor of the local beer scene and the closest one to us. The Woodstock Inn has been brewing since the mid-1990s, and over the years it grew from a small seven-barrel setup into a real regional brewery — a 30-barrel brewhouse went in during 2023 — that now distributes across New England. What that means on the ground is a brewpub that takes its beer seriously and has the volume and history to back it up, wrapped inside a sprawling inn-and-restaurant complex with four separate pubs and a seasonal outdoor patio.
The 'Station' in the name is literal and worth knowing. The building that holds the restaurant is the original Lincoln railroad depot, built in the late 1800s, back when trains hauled loggers, paper, and summer tourists into the valley and ski trains ran up from Boston. In 1984 the crew sawed the old station in half and moved it to its current spot on Main Street; today the freight room is the dance floor and the passenger waiting room is a dining room. It is one of the few places where the history is baked into the walls rather than printed on a menu.
On the beer: the flagship is Pig's Ear Brown Ale, one of the three original recipes from 1995 — an easygoing brown with nutty, toffee, caramel, and chocolate notes that goes down easy after a hike. The 4000 Footer IPA is their calling card for hop drinkers, a West Coast-leaning IPA with a clean, citrusy bite that they cheekily call the official beer of hiking. Round it out with the Old Man Oatmeal Stout for something dark and smooth, and lighter lagers when you just want something crisp. Expect a dozen or so on tap between the year-round lineup, seasonals, and new releases.
The food is a full American menu — this is a place you can bring anyone, whether they want beer or not. They run brewery tours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at noon that end with tastings and a pint glass to keep, which is a good rainy-day move. And you can take beer home: the gift shop sells cans and fills growlers, so this is the easy answer for stocking the porch. Hours run breakfast in the morning and lunch through dinner into the evening (roughly late morning to 9pm most nights, 10pm on Friday and Saturday), but confirm current times before you count on a late kitchen.
Basecamp Brewing (formerly One Love), Lincoln
Here is the one fact that trips up returning visitors, so we will be blunt about it: the brewery many people still call One Love Brewery is now Basecamp Brewing. South Peak Resort acquired it and rebranded in 2026, keeping the same building at 25 South Mountain Drive in Lincoln, near the base of Loon. Same address, same brewing, new name and a renovated look. If your GPS, an old review, or a friend's recommendation still says One Love, you are in the right place.
Because of that changeover you may run into confusion online. Some directory listings still show 'One Love Brewery' marked closed — that is the stale old entry, not a real shutdown; the brewery is operating under the new name. If you ever want certainty on a given night, a quick phone call settles it, and that is good practice for any mountain-town business with seasonal hours anyway.
The house style leans toward clean, drinkable lagers and pilsners — One Love built its reputation on well-made lagers, and that DNA carries over — alongside the usual rotating IPAs, stouts, and seasonals brewed on site in small batches. It is an approachable lineup rather than a chase-the-rarest-hazy scene, which suits the crowd: skiers and hikers who want a good beer and a plate of food without ceremony. There is a cozy taproom and a roomy outdoor patio and deck for warm evenings.
The kitchen does comfort food that pairs with the mountains — think grilled cheese and tomato soup, salads, handhelds, and heartier entrees up to steak, plus dessert. Current taproom hours run Monday through Thursday 4 to 9pm, Friday and Saturday noon to 10pm, and Sunday noon to 8pm, but treat those as a guide and confirm, especially in the shoulder seasons. Of the two in-town options this is the one that feels most like Loon's living room.
Twin Barns Brewing North Taproom, North Woodstock
The newest local option is the North Taproom of Twin Barns Brewing, the Meredith brewery that opened a second home on Main Street in North Woodstock, about a mile from the lodge. It brings their lineup — lagers, hop-forward IPAs and stouts — up into the mountains without the drive down to Meredith.
It runs as a relaxed taproom rather than a full brewpub: fresh pints, live music on the calendar, a patio, and barbecue from a kitchen sharing the space. It rounds out the 2 min-from-town beer options alongside the Woodstock Inn and Basecamp, so you can hit three distinct taprooms within a couple of miles without a highway drive.
Schilling Beer Co., Littleton — the one worth the drive
If you only make one trip out of town for beer, make it Schilling. It sits about 23 miles and 25 to 30 min north of Lincoln up I-93, in Littleton, and it is the brewery in this region with a statewide — arguably national — reputation among beer people. Where the local brewpubs lean American, Schilling is unapologetically European: Belgian, German, and Czech-inspired ales and lagers made with real care. If you like pilsners, saisons, dark lagers, and Belgian styles done properly, this is your place.
The setting does a lot of the work. The brewpub lives inside a restored 18th-century grist mill right on the Ammonoosuc River, with a beer garden and a riverfront deck that are hard to beat on a summer afternoon. The kitchen turns out wood-fired artisan pizzas that pair beautifully with the beer — this is the rare brewery where the food is a genuine draw rather than an afterthought.
For taking beer home, Schilling runs a separate Store & Tasting Room next door where they release special batches and sell cans, bottles, and merch. That is your best bet for bringing back something you cannot get at the closer breweries — a few cans of a Czech-style lager or a Belgian tripel travel nicely back to the porch. Typical hours are around noon to 9pm on weekdays and 11am to 9pm on weekends, with the store keeping its own schedule; confirm both before a special trip.
The one thing to plan around is the drive. 30 min each way after a few beers means you absolutely need a designated driver, or you make it an early afternoon outing and eat there. Pair it with a wander around Littleton's charming Main Street — there is a famous covered bridge and a good bookstore — and it becomes a half-day rather than just a beer run.
Iron Furnace Brewing, Franconia
Franconia is the closest of the out-of-town breweries — about 17 miles and 20 min north through Franconia Notch, which is reason enough to go. Iron Furnace Brewing is a small, community-minded operation set inside a converted barn at 115 Main Street, and it has the feel of a neighborhood taproom where the regulars know each other and visitors are folded in without fuss.
The beer runs to Belgian blondes and IPAs alongside a rotating set of house brews. It is a smaller lineup than the bigger players, which is part of the appeal — you are drinking beer made a few feet away in a room that seats a crowd without feeling like a factory. This is a taproom-first spot with food rather than a full-scale restaurant, so check what the kitchen is running before you plan dinner around it.
Hours skew toward afternoons and evenings and vary by day — generally opening mid-afternoon early in the week and around midday Friday through Sunday, closing by 8 or 9pm and earlier on Sunday. Because it is a smaller place, the schedule is the most worth confirming of any on this list, particularly outside peak season. Pair it with a drive through the Notch or a stop at one of the Franconia Notch State Park sights and it slots neatly into an afternoon.
Rek'-lis Brewing, Bethlehem
A little farther on — roughly a half-hour from Lincoln, up past Franconia in the small town of Bethlehem — Rek'-lis Brewing is the relaxed, dog-friendly, live-music end of the spectrum. It sits at 2085 Main Street with a patio and a separate 'Pint House' in the back lot, and it leans into the easygoing summer-evening energy that Bethlehem does well.
The beer list rotates and covers the usual range, but people come here as much for the scene as the specific pours: a beer garden, live music on the calendar, a kitchen doing solid pub food with takeout available, and a welcoming attitude toward dogs and families in the outdoor space. If your idea of a good brewery night is sitting outside with a band playing and a burger in hand, this is the pick.
Hours generally run daily from around noon to 9pm, with the back Pint House open Thursday through Sunday, but as with all of these, confirm before a long drive. Bethlehem itself is a quiet, artsy little town worth a short stroll, so like the Littleton run, this works best as an afternoon-into-early-evening trip with a designated driver rather than a late night.
Farther afield, if you're chasing beer specifically
The five above cover essentially everything you can reach easily from the lodge. If you are a completist, a few more sit at the edges of a reasonable drive. Head east over the Kancamagus Highway toward Conway — about 45 min to an hour of gorgeous but winding two-lane road — and you reach Tuckerman Brewing, a well-regarded, long-running brewery on the eastern side of the mountains. It is a real destination, but the Kanc after dark is not a road to drive tired or tipsy, so treat that as a daytime outing that ends before the light goes.
Closer in, you will occasionally hear about smaller operations toward Campton and down Route 49 or Route 3, and the broader White Mountains region keeps adding cideries and small breweries. These come and go and change hours often, so a quick call ahead is worth it before any long drive. If you want to build a proper beer tour, the visit-white-mountains tourism site keeps a reasonably current tasting-tour roundup that is a good sanity check the week you travel.
Our real advice: you do not need to chase the far ones. The two in town plus Schilling in Littleton give you a range — American brown ales and IPAs, clean lagers, and proper European styles — that covers most of what anyone comes to beer country for. Save the long drives for the scenery, not the tap list.
A sensible brewery day (two versions)
Version one, the no-fuss local evening: start with an early dinner and a couple of pints at the Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery in North Woodstock — order the Pig's Ear and the 4000 Footer to cover both ends of the range — then swing over to Basecamp in Lincoln for a nightcap lager on the patio if the weather is good. Both are a few minutes from the lodge, so one designated driver handles the whole night with minimal road time. Grab a four-pack from Woodstock's gift shop on the way out for the porch.
Version two, the scenic half-day: leave after breakfast and drive north through Franconia Notch. Stop at Iron Furnace in Franconia for a midday beer and a snack, then continue up to Littleton and make Schilling your main event — wood-fired pizza, a beer in the riverfront garden, and a few cans from the store to take home. If you still have appetite for it, loop back through Bethlehem and stop at Rek'-lis for an outdoor pint before heading home while it is still light. That is a full, memorable day, and it demands a sober driver from the first stop.
Whichever version you choose, pace it. The single most common mistake we see is people treating five nearby breweries as a checklist to complete in one night. Two is plenty. You will taste more, spend less, and drive home clear-headed — and you can always hit the others on another day of the trip.
If you would rather hand the whole thing off, some local outfitters and lodging concierges can point you to seasonal brewery-tour transport, and a few of the resorts near Loon run occasional shuttles. Message us to ask what is running the week you visit; it changes by season.
What each place does best
A quick cheat sheet for deciding where to point yourself. For classic, sessionable American beer with real history behind it — brown ale, West Coast IPA, oatmeal stout — the Woodstock Inn is the reference point, and it is the closest. For clean, drinkable lagers and pilsners in an easy après-Loon setting, Basecamp is the call. Both are in-town and low-effort.
For anything European or more ambitious — pilsners done to style, saisons, Belgian ales, dark lagers — Schilling in Littleton is in a different category and worth the drive for a beer nerd. For a small-barn, community taproom feel with Belgian blondes and IPAs, Iron Furnace in Franconia delivers. And for a patio, live music, and a dog at your feet, Rek'-lis in Bethlehem is the mood.
If you are new to craft beer and not sure what you like, do not overthink it: order a flight. Every one of these places will pour you a paddle of four or five small glasses so you can taste across styles without committing to a pint of something you might not love. It is the single best way to figure out your own palate, and the staff at these places are, without exception, happy to steer you.
Growlers, cans, and taking beer back to the porch
One of the quiet pleasures of staying here is ending the night on the lodge porch with a good local beer rather than a bar tab. All you need is to plan the to-go stop while you are out. The easiest source is the Woodstock Inn's gift shop, which sells cans and fills growlers — a growler is a half-gallon jug of fresh draft beer, best drunk within a day or two of filling, so plan to open it that night or the next.
Schilling's separate Store & Tasting Room in Littleton is the best stop for cans and bottles you cannot get closer to home, including special and limited releases; if you are making that drive anyway, load up. Basecamp, Iron Furnace, and Rek'-lis all typically offer some form of to-go beer as well — cans or crowlers (a 32-ounce sealed can filled to order) — though the exact options change, so ask at the bar.
Cans travel best and keep longest, which makes them the smart choice if you want beer for more than one evening. Growlers and crowlers are for near-term drinking. Either way, keep it cold — there is a fridge in your suite — and remember there is no beer sold on site at the lodge, so a to-go stop is the move if you want a porch nightcap.
Please recycle your cans and bottles in your suite's bin, and keep glassware indoors or on the porch table rather than out on the lawn or deck rails — a broken bottle is a bad ending to a good night, and we are barefoot-and-coffee-mug people out there in the mornings.
Beer on the lodge porch: how to do it right
The porch is one of the best seats in the house for a beer, and because we are adults-only and five of our six suites are TV-free, evenings here stay quiet and conversational in the best way. Bring back a few cans, pull up a chair, and let the mountain air do its thing. A couple of house notes make it work for everyone: we keep quiet hours in the evening so all six suites can rest, so wind down the volume as the night goes on, and keep gatherings to registered guests.
Suites like Artist Bluff, with its private entrance off the back deck, are especially good for this — you can come and go with your own beer and your own hours without moving through the main house. Whatever suite you are in, there is a fridge to keep cans cold and glassware if you would rather pour than drink from the can.
If you have picked up a growler, open it the night you get back — draft beer in a growler goes flat within a day or two once it is filled. Cans hold up fine for the length of a normal stay. And if you overbuy, that is a good problem: a couple of cold local cans make a nice thing to hand the next guests, or to pack for a picnic on the Kancamagus.
The 21-plus and designated-driver reality
We will say this because it is the part that keeps people safe. Everywhere in this guide is 21-plus to drink, and every one requires a way home that does not involve a tipsy driver on a mountain road. This is not a city. Uber and Lyft coverage up here is thin and unreliable, especially at night and in the off-season — you cannot assume you will be able to summon a ride when you want to leave.
The realistic options are simple: designate a sober driver, keep it to the two in-town breweries so any drive is short, or make beer an afternoon activity and be home before dark. North Woodstock's little Main Street is walkable once you have parked there, so the Woodstock Inn works well as a park-once, walk-the-village evening. But the roads between towns — and especially the Kancamagus and the Notch — are dark, curvy, and share space with moose and deer after dusk. They are no place to test your limits.
New Hampshire's open-container law applies in the car, so your porch beer stays sealed in the trunk on the way home, not open in the cupholder. And after a hard day of hiking or skiing, alcohol hits harder than you expect — you are often dehydrated and tired. Drink water alongside your beer, eat something, and know that two good local beers enjoyed slowly beat four rushed ones every time. The whole point of a place like this is to slow down.
Seasons, hours, and the fine print that changes
Every hour and detail in this guide can shift, and in a seasonal mountain town it shifts a lot. Summer and fall foliage season are peak — expect the fullest hours, patios open, and the biggest crowds, especially on foliage weekends in early-to-mid October when the whole region fills up. Winter is busy too, timed to Loon's ski season, with après-ski driving the afternoon and evening trade. The quiet stretches are 'mud season' in spring and the lull in late fall, when some places trim their hours or their days.
Because of that, the single most useful habit is to call ahead or check the brewery's own website or social page the day you plan to go, rather than trusting a directory listing. Directory sites lag behind reality — the One Love-to-Basecamp changeover is a perfect example, with old 'closed' entries still floating around for a brewery that is very much open. A thirty-second phone call saves a wasted drive.
The breweries also run events worth timing around: the Woodstock Inn's weekend brewery tours, live music nights at Rek'-lis, special releases at Schilling's store, and seasonal beer festivals that pop up around the region through the year. If a festival lands during your stay it can be a great way to taste widely in one afternoon — just apply the same designated-driver rule, since festival crowds and mountain roads are a poor mix.
We keep an ear to the ground on what is open and what is running each week. If you are not sure whether a place is keeping winter hours or whether a festival is on, ask us — it is easier for us to check than for you to guess.
Fitting beer into the rest of your trip
Beer is best as the reward at the end of a good day, not the whole day, and the geography here makes that easy. Come off the gondola at Loon or down from a Franconia Ridge hike and the Woodstock Inn or Basecamp is minutes away — see our Loon Mountain guide and our hikes pages for how to build that day. A drive up the Kancamagus, covered in our Kancamagus Highway guide, pairs naturally with a beer back in town afterward, since the highway itself has no services.
The northern brewery run — Iron Furnace, Schilling, Rek'-lis — layers perfectly onto a day spent in Franconia Notch State Park: do the Flume, the Basin, or a Notch hike in the morning, then work your way north through Franconia, Littleton, and Bethlehem for beer in the afternoon. Our scenic-drives and 'rainy-day' itineraries lean on exactly this pairing when the weather turns and a brewpub becomes the plan rather than the postscript.
For where to eat beyond the breweries — the restaurants, the coffee, the breakfast spots — see our separate where-to-eat guide, which we deliberately kept distinct from this one so each does its job properly. Between the two, plus the itineraries, you can plan a trip where every good meal and every good beer is accounted for before you arrive, and still leave room to wander.
That is really the whole philosophy here: a short list of good places, a practical read on how to reach them, and a quiet porch to end the night on. Pick two breweries, bring a few cans home, and let the mountains handle the rest.
Safety & conditions
- Designate a sober driver or make beer an afternoon outing — rideshares are scarce up here and unreliable at night and off-season.
- Never drive the Kancamagus Highway or Franconia Notch after drinking: dark, curvy two-lane roads with moose and deer after dusk.
- New Hampshire's open-container law applies in the car — keep to-go beer sealed and in the trunk on the way home.
- After hiking or skiing you're often dehydrated and tired, so alcohol hits harder; drink water, eat, and pace yourself.
- Confirm hours by phone or the brewery's own site the day you go — directory listings lag, and seasonal hours change often.
- Everywhere in this guide is 21+, and the lodge is adults-only; keep porch gatherings to registered guests and mind evening quiet hours.
- Keep glassware on the porch table, not the lawn or deck rails, and recycle cans and bottles in your suite bin.
Where to stay
Launchpoint Lodge sits right where the Kancamagus meets Lincoln and North Woodstock, which puts two good breweries within a few minutes and three more inside a half-hour. That makes us an easy base for a beer-focused stay: park the car, walk North Woodstock's Main Street to the Woodstock Inn, or make an afternoon of the drive north through Franconia Notch to Littleton and back. Come home to a quiet porch, cold cans in the suite fridge, and a TV-free evening that is all yours.
We are adults-only, mostly TV-free, and self-check-in, so your hours are your own — bring a growler back after a late dinner and no one will rush you off the porch. Message us to ask what is open and what is running the week you visit; seasonal hours change often up here, and it is easier for us to check than for you to guess. For nightly availability, see the live booking calendar or just ask us.
Sources & official info: woodstockinnbrewery.com · basecampbrewing.com · schillingbeer.com · ironfurnacebrewing.com · reklisbrewing.com · visitwhitemountains.com
— Launchpoint Lodge, From the lodge
