Motorworks Brewing

In 2012 a former race car driver named Frank Tschida walked into a derelict 27,000-square-foot Hudson Motors dealership from 1923 and saw a brewery. The concrete ramp, the black metal trusses, the exposed brick — it all stayed. So did the automotive DNA: the name, the hood-ornament logo, and a competitive streak that has hauled in dozens of medals since the first Great American Beer Festival win in 2014.

The reason to come at night is out back. Motorworks' beer garden sprawls beneath a 150-year-old oak, with a deck built around the trunk, cornhole and bocce and life-sized Jenga scattered across the lawn, and a stage that runs a nearly nightly lineup of local and touring acts. USA Today ranked it one of the top ten beer gardens in the country.

The schedule has its own rhythm: Reggae Sundays, Shift Drink Mondays, the Launchpad open-mic series that graduates players from the mic to the main stage, and full weekend concerts. Wilder's and the Bluewater food truck handle dinner; an air-conditioned taproom handles August.