by We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania for the chocolate, but there was really only one candidate for lunch: Tröegs Independent Brewing. Since they only distribute within a reasonable distance of their location to maintain freshness, it’s the sort of thing you need to get when you can.
Tröegs is a craft-brewery that goes all the way back to 1997, which makes it practically a senior citizen in the microbrewery world.
It originally set up in operations in Harrisburg, but moved to Hershey in 2011. The Hershey space is a destination: 90,000 square feet featuring a full view of the brewhouse, tours, interesting foods, and of course a store for branded products and to-go beer selections.
Tröegs currently has 16 beers running in its regular production, split between year-round and specialty/seasonal beers.
Its name is a combination of the founders’ last name, Trogner, and the Flemish word for pub, kroeg.
Its Perpetual IPA is a best seller, but the Tröegenator wins for best name.
The brewery uses local ingredients where it can, purchasing 225,000 pounds of grain, honey, and fruit from local farmers for use in its beer. The Snack Bar (which serves a much higher caliber of food than its name implies) also prepares from-scratch items made using local ingredients.
Doug picked up a crowler of Double Nugget Nectar to go, as well as bottles of Troeg’s Triple Nator triple bock (12.7% ABV) and Bourbon Barrel-Aged Triple Nator (13%)
A couple of weeks after our visit to Troeg’s, he brought out the bottles while we were visiting family in Maryland and conducted a mini-beer tasting.
While not everyone may have appreciated beer-snob Doug’s tasting notes and style history description, they all really enjoyed sampling the beers themselves, and Doug may have converted some more people to his craft beer ideology!
Tröegs is always a good choice while in Hershey, great beer, a cool facility, and good food. They’re original location in Harrisburg was pretty cool to visit back in the day as well.
We were impressed by the food. It’s called a “snack bar” but it’s way not!