Monadnock Brewery Road Trip: Scenic Back Roads Through Southwestern New Hampshire

Keene: Elm City Brewing & Branch & Blade Brewing

Keene’s brewery scene holds two very different taprooms a few minutes apart, giving the route a strong anchor point before spreading out to Peterborough and Troy. (If you’ve visited Keene before and are looking for Modestman Brewing on Main Street: Modestman closed its Keene taproom in 2025 and relocated its entire operation to South Portland, Maine. It’s no longer part of this route — but if you’re a fan, it’s worth knowing where to find them now.)

Elm City Brewing Company

Housed in the Colony Mill Marketplace, a converted 19th-century mill building on West Street, Elm City is Keene’s original brewery — brewing on-site since 1995. It’s a full-service restaurant and brewpub rather than a taproom-only stop, so it’s a natural place to plan a meal around: burgers, wood-fired-style pub fare, and a rotating lineup of house ales and lagers served in an exposed-brick dining room or, in summer, on the outdoor patio.

Branch & Blade Brewing

A short drive from Elm City, Branch & Blade leans into experimentation: hazy IPAs, fruited sours, and a kitchen menu that punches above what you’d expect from a brewery taproom — think blackened mahi tacos and beef-tallow fries alongside the pours. The property includes a large outdoor pavilion with picnic tables, cornhole, and regular live music, making it one of the more built-out hangout spots on this route.

Peterborough: Post & Beam Brewing

Post & Beam occupies Peterborough’s G.A.R. Hall, a building that dates to 1837 and originally housed the Peterborough Academy — giving it the same back-roads, historic-building character as the rest of this route. The taproom keeps things simple: light bites like pretzels and soup, outside food is welcome, and Blackfire Farm sets up a wood-fired pizza stand on-site Friday through Sunday. It’s a beer-styles-first stop, rotating through IPAs, lagers, sours, and stouts. One note if you’re traveling with a dog: Post & Beam doesn’t allow pets in the taproom or on the patio, service animals excepted.

Troy: Granite Roots Brewing

Just south of Keene, Granite Roots is a small nano-brewery that partners with the neighboring Monadnock Berries farm for locally grown fruit used in several of its beers — a genuinely local supply chain, even if it’s a next-door partnership rather than fruit grown on the brewery’s own land. Granite Roots runs on a seasonal schedule, typically open Friday through Sunday from May through the fall and closed through the winter months.

Worth flagging: as of this writing, Granite Roots’ own social media indicates the brewery may be in the process of relocating. Confirm current hours and location directly with them before building your trip around this stop.

Planning Your Monadnock Route

• Route 101 and Route 12 carry the cohesionof this trip — Route 101 east to Peterborough and Route 12 south to Troy — connecting Keene, Peterborough, and Troy across scenic, low-traffic back roads. Plug the exact stops into your map app for current drive times before you go — construction and seasonal traffic around foliage weekends can shift things.
• Fall is the strongest season for this route, with covered bridges and old mill architecture along the way lining up well with foliage timing.
• Skip Out.Haus Ales.It’s located in Northwood, outside the Monadnock region near the Capital/Seacoast area, and multiple recent customer reports indicate the owner has stopped brewing. If you’re looking for something in that general direction instead, Frogg Brewing (now located in Swanzey, NH, after relocating from its original Marlborough spot) is a closer alternative that keeps this loop’s drive time tight.