Sip and ride: Idyllic bike trails to breweries along coastal Delaware

Delaware beaches keep it local. And so there are always secrets worth discovering, whether a new crop of indigenous oysters in the Inland Bays or all the prime birding spots in the Prime Hook refuge. And, of course, a pair of the best paved biking and beer trails on the eastern seaboard.

The Junction and Breakwater Trail, and the Georgetown-Lewes trail along the railroad, wend from their trailhead in Lewes through idyllic streams and grass and tree shade. But ... they also just happen to pass near some of the more pleasant places in Delaware to grab a light nip.

We’ve mapped out a few of our favorite all-local breweries, wineries, meaderies or distilleries along each trail to stop off for a sip and a bite. But though we’ve given you lots of options, you don’t need to take this as a challenge to try them all in a single ride. Come back later: They’ll all still be there.

For simplicity, we’re starting each ride at the free public parking lot at Lewes Public Library at 111 Adams Ave. in Lewes — which conveniently boasts a bike rental spot Seagreen Bicycles, just across the street.

Here’s our guide to bike trails and sips along Delaware beaches.

Wine, beer, booze and mead along the Georgetown-Lewes Trail

Total distance: 6.7 miles each way, estimated 34 minutes total each way. Georgetown-Lewes Bikes and Sips Google Map: bit.ly/GLbikesip

First stop: Malt whiskey and gin at Beach Time Distilling (and soon, Dog Pirate)

32191 Nassau Road, Lewes, 302-644-2850, beachtimedistilling.com.

From right by the library, head west on the Georgetown-Lewes trail through an interesting mix of urban and rural, with some stretches lined by trees so thick you feel you have the world to yourself — and others guarded by the big trucks of a U.S. Army Reserve station.

Just a couple miles down the road, you’ll emerge at a clearing with a historical marker and a red building home to a tattoo shop, a bakery that smells strongly of cinnamon, and a hidden door leading into the homey tasting room of Beach Time.

Among their dozen or so spirits — you can taste a whisper of each for a mere dollar apiece — the most accomplished were an intense and lavender-forward gin that begs to be poured in a spritz, a caramel-smooth gold rum and a young malt whiskey distilled onsite that’s already showing some promise at just 2 years old.

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Distiller Greg Christmas will also soon gift Lewes with a new brewery: At the same location, Dog Pirate Beer Company will eschew overhopped hazy IPAs in favor of balanced English bitters, Belgian saisons and German Hefeweizen. Christmas also will be able to start brewing the mash for his own whiskey.

Possible dogleg: Estate Chardonnay and gluggable rose at Nassau Valley Vineyard

32165 Winery Way, Lewes, 302-645-9463, nassauvalley.com.

Delaware’s oldest active winery is accessible only if you go off-trail and cross a busy country highway. This is eminently possible, but not ideal for every bicyclist.

If you do make it across, you can cycle through lovely fields of grapes to a decades-old winery with a few surprises up its sleeve: Pay $12 for a tasting, and get six pours of melony or oaky estate Chardonnay, a complex smoky-plummy Vintner’s Red and especially a ridiculously fun and gluggable Cape Rose that tastes like strawberry punch without being sweet.

Don’t miss the fruit wines, however — in particular a peach wine that bittersweetly reminds you it comes from stone fruit, and a distinctive apple cider made with varieties that include the much-vaunted Arkansas Black.

End of the road: Medieval honey brews and fruit wines at Brimming Horn Meadery

28615 Lewes Georgetown Hwy, Milton, 302-664-1188, brimminghornmeadery.com.

Just off the trail, Brimming Horn is a friendly, fur-pelted and many-antlered hall of mead — an ancient medieval quaff brewed from honey, often tarted up with fruit or spiced with herbs.

Whatever they’re pouring on the fast-rotating menu, you probably haven’t had it: an herbal methegline-style honey-orange mead, a shockingly savory wine fermented from tomatoes and raisins, a blackberry chai hard tea with intense but well-balanced flavors, a bracingly dry mead that tastes like all the wildflowers the bees found.

The menu is full of strong flavors that best reward small-pour tasting flights. And though mead drinks as smooth as cider, it often kicks like wine. For the sake of the return trip: watch out!

On the way back: Crisp lagers and crackling hops at Big Oyster Brewery

1007 Kings Hwy. Lewes, 302-644-2621, bigoysterbrewery.com.

You’ll have to veer from the trail to ride up spacious bike lanes alongside Gills Neck Road and then Kings Highway — and if you do this on the way back, you’ll be on the correct side of the road.

Your reward for this detour is Big Oyster Brewery. Big Oyster is the kind of rambling beer hall you always hope you’ll find near a beach: a rural-styled barn of a place with a bar made from a solid hardwood slab, a wooden stage out back for local bands, and a sizable playset for the kiddies.

Luckily, the beer is also pretty dang good. They’ve got newfangled hazies and Willie Wonka vanilla blueberry sours, but the best, as befits their semi-rural spirit, are the classics. They make remarkably crisp lagers free of flaws — in particular a lovely and biscuity seasonal Helles — and their flagship Hammerhead is the sort of bright, modern, generously dry-hopped pine-citrus IPA you rarely see on this coast.

After a long hour on the road, their steamer trays and fish and chips and $16 happy-hour oyster dozens will likely also hit the spot.

The Beer Tour: Breweries near the Junction and Breakwater Bike Trail

Total distance: 6.8 miles each way, estimated 35 minutes total each way. Junction and Breakwter Trail Bikes and Sips map: bit.ly/JBbikesip

First stop: Down-home beer and pizza at Revelation Craft Brewing

19841 Central St, Rehoboth Beach, 302-212-5674, revbeer.com.

Note that if you don’t need to rent a bike, and can transport your own bicycles via car, you can shorten your ride a few miles by starting at the Junction and Breakwater parking lot at 35536 Wolfe Neck Road in Rehoboth Beach, amid the more greenery-filled parts of the ride.

New at the beer garden: Wilmington's Constitution Yards Beer Garden to debut Dogfish Head VIP lounge, new drinks

But otherwise, to get to the Junction and Breakwater Trail from the library, first head east on the Georgetown-Lewes trail, then take a right onto Monroe Avenue, and cross a two-lane highway to get to the intersection with the JB trail.

Once you get clear of the highway, the JB trail is a nature-filled and immersive ride, passing across multiple little streams and down tree-lined paths near suburban cul-de-sacs before reaching the end of the trail in Rehoboth Beach.

From there, it’ll be a short hop down little bike-friendly roads to Revelation Brewing, a homey neighborhood brewery with chalkboard beer, clean Pilsner and some award-winning fruit sour beers wonderfully expressive of apricot or raspberry.

A little shack out front serves wood-fired pizza, and the beertenders are some of the friendliest in the state: We know this in part because one of them, Kim Couch, won a statewide prize as barmaid of the year in 2019. Another, Lynda Grace McDonald, wrote a children’s book she sells from the brewery.

After a long and maybe sweaty bike ride, Revelation is a hospitable revelation.

End of the trail: Oysters and 90-Second IPA at Dogfish Head’s Chesapeake and Maine

316 Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach, 302-226-3600, dogfishhead.com.

This is a bit of extra credit: we’re way off the bike trail at this point. But Dogfish Head's food and beer complex in Rehoboth Beach is a worthwhile reward for a detour.

To get there, you’ll have to travel east along the wide bike lane along Delaware Route 1A until you cross the bridge, avoid traffic by taking a right on Canal and then a quick left on State Road. When you re-emerge on the main drag, you'll be quite near the multiple pubs of Dogfish Head.

For our money, especially if you arrive at happy hour, the best of Dogfish Head's options is Chesapeake and Maine, for its namesake mix of local and Maine oysters, ale-soaked mussels and steamed littleneck clams. Pair that with a seasonal beer from the most famous brewery in Delaware before the long bike ride back.

On the return trip: Big Oyster Brewing

1007 Kings Hwy. Lewes, 302-644-2621, bigoysterbrewery.com.

But let’s just say you didn’t go the extra mile to Dogfish Head.

Welp: In that case, you can just go ahead and get oysters and beer on the way back to the Lewes library, at Big Oyster Brewing (see above.) You can’t lose.

Matthew Korfhage is a Philadelphia-based writer for USA TODAY Network.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Best scenic bike trails to breweries, wineries along coastal Delaware