So I was in the maritimes last week and holy crap did I have some good beer. I will list them in the order experienced:
Pumphouse Brewery: Visited their restaurant in Moncton while I was waiting for my wife to pick me up, tried a flight of beer.. with I can't remember all of them but I really enjoyed the Fire Chief's Red Ale and the Pump House IPA was so so. We do get some of their beer out west so I wasn't super excited for this one, kind of just reminded me of Big Rock. Nothing crazy but some decent beers in the mix. I did bring home a bottle of their IPA (proceeds went to the SPCA!)
http://beer.pumphousebrewery.ca/beer
Picaroons: Visited these guys in Saint John one night on a recommendation from TimSJ, great place. Really cool venue with a lot of great beer including some that isn't even theirs for sale, which I appreciated. I had the Hippie IPA, not to be confused with their bottled Yippie IPA, this was a seasonal brew I believe, it was up there for the best IPA of the week. I did bring back a bottle of their Yippie IPA and am looking forward to tasting it.
http://picaroons.ca/beer/
Big Spruce: These guys had a really cool operation going just outside of Baddeck on Cape Breton up in the woods that Maritime Q Scout recommended.They had a little tasting room and a neat little store front. I only had time to test a few of their beer as we were on our way out but I had the Kitchen Party Pale Ale and Tim's Dirty American IPA which took the crown as the best IPA of the week. Really enjoyed talking to these guys, very nice group and I highly recommend stopping in if ever in the area. I brought back a bottle of their Cerberus American IPA.
http://bigspruce.ca/our-beers/
Boxing Rock: Ran into these guys at the farmers market in Halifax and I was happy to see them as they were recommended by the guys at Big Spruce. I tried their Hunky Dory Pale Ale and a Brown Ale, both were very good. The Pale Ale was very well done and a great session beer, I brought a big bottle of that one home.
http://boxingrock.ca/beer
Propeller Brewing Company: Their brewery was in a pretty crappy part of Halifax, we actually made the mistake of walking to far the wrong way and things got sketchy fast forcing us to back track. It is pretty old and run down as well, but the beer was very good. These guys are old school it would seem, been around for 19 years, their beers were solid. A step above Pumphouse, old school craft style but they were also predictable. Nothing really wowed me. Their IPA was a solid IPA, it wasn't my favourite but it was definitely the most consistent beer I had all week. Just flat out good. The rest of the flight I don't really remember except the Pale Ale which I thought was just so-so. I brought back a can of the Pilsner, IPA and Pale Ale anyway as cans are able to transport easily and I wanted to support one of the 'founding fathers' of craft brewery in the area. They reminded me a lot of Paddockwood, a solid old school style craft brewery that was getting passed by the young hipper more adventurous local companies.
http://www.drinkpropeller.ca/yearround/
Unfiltered Brewing: These guys were also in Halifax and were pretty good. They had a nice store front tasting room in a not so nice neighbourhood, but the beer was solid. Exile on North Street and Riddle of Steel were two totally different tasting IPA's but both were very good, which I thought was really cool. They also had a double IPA which was fantastic, almost as good as Paddockwoods Loki. I didn't bring any of their beer back though as it was growlers only, and i can't post the link as it has a swear word in it.
Good Robot Brewing Company: These guys were hands down my favourite. Located around the block from unfiltered, but seemingly in an entirely different area of the city, they had a great outdoor drinking area, a really cool store front that was right in the heart of the brewing action and an indoor lounge area. Their beer was just consistently good. Every where else I went there was 1 or 2 in the flight I struggled with, but here I did the same amount of variety and had zero problems finishing.. and then having more. Despite many of the beer being named after Wu-Tang members skewing my opinion, my favourite beer was the Burban Legend American Pale Ale. It was the most sessionalable beer I had all week, I liked it so much I bought a growler of it, taped the lid on and brought it home. This was my favourite brewery of the week with Big Spruce a close second... Picaroons in a close third.
http://goodrobotbrewing.ca/our-beers/
I had a ton of other beer in the different pubs but I just can't remember all of them, Celtic Brewing, Big Axe, Tatamagouche (they were great).. the list goes on and on. I really should have been writing it down.