Local Beer and LP

2/18/14:  I had an unexpected bachelor evening in Nashville recently since my wife had to stay in Chattanooga with her mom who was in the hospital (dehydration, nothing serious), but she had to miss a concert we had planned on seeing together tonight, so I decided to go on alone and made an evening out of it with a couple new beer stops along the way:

The Hop Stop in East Nashville - this fairly-new draft house and growler filling station has an impressive 36 taps and also serve half-pints, a concept I love in terms of variety-tasting with lower caloric intake and the avoidance of a DUI.  I had the Basil Ryeman, a farmhouse ale from Tennessee Brew Works here in Nashville which was OK.  The beer was fine, but Belgium-style brewing is still not my favorite.  Next I had Randy's IPA from the Jubilee Brewing Company which is also here in Nashville.  This one was a disappointment to me in terms of IPA boldness and flavor.  I finished on a high note with the Werhner Von Brown Porter from Straight to Ale Brewing in Huntsville, AL, which was excellent.

Fat Bottom Brewing in East Nashville 

I finally made it to Fat Bottom!!  I was really impressed with the beautiful facility they have, and their beer has already become one of my local favorites over the past few years.  They were running a Tuesday-night special where if you ordered a burger, you got a free pint with it.  Serve it up!!  The burger was outstanding and the Java Jane Porter was spot on!  I will definitely be back to this great place for the food, atmosphere and excellent beer.

I finished the evening at classic Nashville venue, The Exit/In, to see one of my favorite singing voices in the business today:  a little ukulele-playing gal by the name of LP, who was opening for another band. Her solid 45-minute set was great, but since it was a school-night I didn't hang around for the opener, Kodaline, who I had never heard of anyway.  It was a fun evening.  I am sorry you missed it, honey.

A couple other local brews I had recently on different occasions included:

The Gerst Amber from Yazoo Brewing:  I am not a huge fan of malty German-style beers, but this one's pretty darn good!  It's a revival of a historic Nashville brewery that went defunct after prohibition and Yazoo has brought it back to life with the permission of the family that owns the recipe along with their still-remaining Gerst Haus German Restaurant here in downtown.  I had my first complimentary one over in East Nashville at a poster show that Yazoo was a sponsor of, and then I ordered another one at the new Barlines watering hole in the new Omni Hotel complex downtown before a concert at the Bridgestone Arena.  Well-done, Yazoo, on preserving good beer and Nashville history at the same time!

I also had a bottle of the Adam Bomb IPA from Blackstone Brewing here in Nashville at dinner the other night at Suzy Wong's House of Yum.  Blackstone just recently started bottling their beer and this one's a keeper!