Beering Through Europe

My wife and I took a wonderful trip to Europe for our 11th wedding anniversary back in May and I was able to grab some pretty good beer along the way.


While waiting for our international flight out of Chicago we had time to check out Revolution Brewing just
 a few EL stops south of O'Hare Airport.I had the Anti-Hero IPA (left above) and their Eugene Porter  while Ashlee tried their Black Power Oatmeal Stout  (right. above).  Afterwards, we moved onto another great beer bar
called The Map Room where I had the Bear RepublicHOP Rod Rye out of Sonoma, California.



Our first stop in Europe was Warsaw, Poland, a vibrant and growing city now out from under the boot of Communism.  Browarmia was on the first (and one of the few) microbreweries to spring up in the city after the dawn of capitalism found Poland.  Their house stout pictured above was excellent.  Ashlee really enjoyed their cherry wheat  beer.




This photo is a bit blurry, but it's worth posting  just to see the "beer tubes" used at Browarmia in Warsaw, Poland.  Instead of ordering pitchers of beer, larger groups can have tall glass tubes of beer (3 to 5 liters) installed at their table that everyone can tap into.  We should have made friends with these folks!



I found this pint can beauty in a little corner market  just around the corner from our hotel in Warsaw.  Tyskie is one of the oldest-produced and most popular beer brands in Poland.  This one is their pale lager.



Our next stop was Italy and while it's a country not really known for great beer (the wine was awesome!), if I have to have a Peroni, then I would much rather it be on a warm day in the lovely seaaide village of Portofino on the Italian Riveria than at some Olive Garden in the U.S.



My favorite beer of the trip was found in The Netherlands and most of it was found in a supermarket around the corner from the houseboat we rented on a quiet canal in Amsterdam.  The store had a large selectionnof tasty (and high gravity) beers from not only The Netherlands but nearby Belgium as well.  And the view and ambiance while enjoying these beers could not be beat.



On a sightseeing day-trip out from Amsterdam we stopped for lunch in the town square of Delft, South Holland.   We chose this restaurant from several on the square because of its view and the fact that they were advertising craft beer.  I had the Monk's Stout from Dupont Brewing in Belgium (left)while Ashlee tried one of their ales.  Both were delicious.



More canal beer in Amsterdam!

Even more canal beer!

And even more canal beer!

Great trip.  Great beer.  Great memories.

More bricks in "The Wall" of Beer - Road Trip to Tulsa, OK

My long-time and best friend, Craig, and his co-worker and friend (and mine too now), Barry, decided to take a road trip recently way out to Tulsa, Oklahoma, over a 3-day weekend to catch one of the few Saturday-night shows on the current Roger Waters "The Wall" Live tour.  Along the way and in Tulsa we were able to find a decent amount of good beer as well.

Six or so hours out of Paris, TN, where Craig lives, we stopped for lunch (and a few beers, of course) at Springfield (Missouri) Brewing Company.  The beer was solid and the food was good.  Their brewpub was a beauty and made for a perfect stopping point to stretch our legs and our livers a bit.  I opted for their Pale Ale which was decent.  Craig and Barry (both fans of darker beers) tried their  rotating "Dark Horse" tap which currently was pouring the Del Fuego, a roasted German-style stout with chili pepper infusion.  I got a sip of Craig's and thought it was OK, although it didn't pack the punch of the pepper-infused Special Speedway Stout I had out in California over the new year at AleSmith Brewing (see earlier blog).



Tulsa itself has no craft brewpubs to visit within its city limits that I could find mention of during an extensive  Internet search.  This is surprising since I read recently that over 900 new brewpubs opened across the U.S. last year???  Holy crap, that's a lot beer!  Tulsa overall looks to a be fairly quiet  and buttoned-up kind of town (well, what did you expect, it is the home of Oral Roberts U).   The one redeeming small district that seems to wear a party hat most of the time is their Blue Dome District, a little section of streets with numerous bars, hip eateries and urban shopping.  We found two great beer bars there with more than enough craft beer on tap  to suit us quite nicely.  The now famous "blue dome" building pictured above was a 1920's-built gas station along famous Route 66.



The first establishment we found was Fassler Hall, a perfect replica of a German beer hall, with lots of the Motherland beers on tap and even one of my favorite American IPAs, Single Wide, from Boulevard Brewing over in Kansas City.  This was the first time I had been able to try it on draught and it was tremendous.  Their food menu was an interesting selection of house-made sausages and just speaking for myself, the Habanero Chicken Sausage was out of this world good.  Now THAT is how you infuse peppers into something!  Whoooo!  Are ya hearing me, Springfield???

Before the concert on Saturday, we ambled back over to the Blue Dome District for a late breakfast at the funky Blue Dome Diner.  It was a bit of a walk from our hotel, a nice little Double Tree that we got a great rate on, but the weather was great and the downtown streets were quiet and safe.  After brunch, we were able to get in our second good beer bar,  McNellie's Irish Pub (actually it's the James E. McNellie's Public House if you are not into the whole brevity-thing).  This had been our first destination of choice the night before except that it was very, very crowded.  Now I know why.  The beer selection here was amazing!  Try over 350 different ones with well over 50 on draught.  There were so many beers that  I had never heard of that I didn't know where to start.  I opted for the "Double Dragon" flight (photo above) which had four of five beers with double the main ingredients that I had not had before.  From L to R there was the Tallgrass Oasis Double ESB (Manhattan, KS), the Great Divide Double IPA (Denver), the Ommegang Abbey Ale (Cooperstown, NY), the Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock (Bavaria region of Germany) and good old Young's Double Chocolate Stout (England).  Loved them all except the Ommegang, but as I have stated many times on here, I just don't dig on the Belgian style of brewing.  I moved on from there to a full draught glass of the (cask-conditioned) Marshall Atlas IPA from...drumroll, please....Tulsa!!  Yep, they've got a craft brewery here, but it's just not open to the public for tours, nor does it have a brewpub attached to it.  No matter...their beer is outstanding...at least this IPA is, and anyone that can do cask beer this good is OK (get it) in my book.  So I could actually walk out of there and back to the hotel and to the concert later that evening, I hand to end with a draught pint of COOP Ale Work's  F5 IPA out of Oklahoma City.  Another great hoppy and delicious IPA and a good regional beer to end our wonderful visit to McNelllie's on.

The concert was held in the futuristic-looking BOK Center just around the corner from our hotel.  It's actually a bit smaller inside than it looks from the outside.  The show was tremendous.  A visual and musical feast  from start to finish of one of the greatest albums (and concepts) of all time.  You are a legend, Mr. Waters.  Thank you so much for your vision and your enthusiasm after all these years.  We all felt privileged and grateful to have seen this amazing show in this lovely city on the plains.   Below is a quick glimpse of just some of the amazing start of the close-to-3-hour show.  "Daddy what'd ya leave behind for me!!"

Half Acre Brewing - Chicago, Plus a Few More

I took a long weekend trip to Chicago recently with my wife and a couple of friends to celebrate my 45th birthday and I was allowed to check out a lot of good beer both locally and from other locales during the visit.  Here's a quick run-down:



Started in 2006, Half Acre Beer Company  was at full production by 2009 in Chicago on N. Lincoln Avenue.  They produce some great canned and bomber-only-bottled beer.  We were lucky enough to take their Saturdays-only tour which is limited to 60 people.

 

They mean to keep it sterile and clean here at Half Acre!
So hands off!



I had my first Half Acre brew (their Daisy Cutter Pale Ale) on my last visit to Chicago.  I was so impressed that I swore to seek them out next time I was in town and we did just that.  Thanks to my wife, Ashlee, and my friends, Wayne and Rex, for going along with my little obsession in finding them, but I think they all enjoyed the tour - given by company president, Gabriel - (a snippet of which is in the video below) and, of course, the great beer samples.  Along with more Daisy Cutter, we also got to try their brown Over Ale and their Chocolate Camaro Stout.



I found some more great canned beer (it's really becoming my favorite container for craft beer if I can't get it on tap) at a little hole-in-the-wall store just up the street from our condo.  It looks like your typical quick-stop market, but their beer selection is amazing.  I tried a four-pack of Hop Slayer Double IPA from Wild Onion Brewing in Barrington, IL, and a four-pack of Red Racer IPA from Central City Brewing in Surrey, British Columbia.  Both were excellent.

My friend, Wayne, snapped this picture of me (sporting my sad excuse for a playoff beard in support of the Predators)on our first night in town at The Hopleaf Bar up in the Andersonville neighborhood near the condo we rented.  This was a great bar with a wide variety of beer selections. Here I was having the Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale poured from a bottle by Founders Brewery in Grand Rapid, Michigan.  On another visit I even got to try the uber-popular and hard to find Zombie Dust APA from 3 Floyds Brewing just outside Chicago which Ashlee and I visited on our last trip to Chicago by car last summer.  All tried were delicious. 

The Quest for Good Beer (and good times) in Vegas Continues...

I recently got yet another cheap, cheap flight to Las Vegas ($150 RT!) on Frontier Airlines and in between poker tournaments and some more sightseeing I was able to try yet more new beer in Sin City which is quickly becoming on of my favorite beer towns in the country.



First up was Chicago Brewing Company, despite the name, this is a local establishment that has won best Las Vegas microbrewery on more than one occasion, most recently in 2010.  I thought their beer was very good.  Their Hardaway  IPA was stinking of hops which I love.  I also tried their Cocoa for Coconuts Porter which had a great finish to it.  This place is open 24 hours and has video poker machines in it, so I drank for free while I played and even made enough at $1 blackjack to go see the movie "Red Tails" at a theatre next door.  The beer was much better than the movie BTW.




Among the new sightseeing I did in between poker and beer was nearby Mt. Charleston, the closest ski area to Vegas.  The peaks had just gotten a fresh snowfall the night before, and the drive up from the desert valley floor was breathtaking to say the least.  The half-hour drive from Vegas was well worth it.




With a quick elevation change, the world changes drastically from the flat desert roar of Vegas to the green and white rugged tranquility of the mountains.



Gordon Biersch is a large chain microbrewery found across the U.S. and their brewpub in Vegas on Paradise Road which runs parallel to The Strip, is definitely a flagship facility.  The brewery is surrounded by a beautiful restaurant as well with some tasty food (I had the garlic fries as a snack...yummy) and some descent German-styled beers.  I had a nice big 22 oz. glass of their signature Schwarzbier (dark lager) on a quick stop-in one afternoon.   Speaking of German beer and such, I have to give a big disappointing thumbs down to the Hofbrau House just down the street.  I stopped in this huge German-style beer hall/restaurant for a quick beer and found it to be quite the tourist trap.  Man, what a cheese-fest.  Plus their beer was bland (I had their seasonal dark wheat - the hefe weizen dunkel ) and at $9 a pop, I can see why the place was completely dead??? Yep, $9 for a glass of weak beer, that is not a misprint. Schweinhunds!!!



My favorite new pub in Vegas is The Crown & Anchor, this British-influenced hole-in-the-wall is located a few minutes from The Strip and is open 24/7. I drank free here as well thanks to playing video poker/blackjack while I was there (plus I won $20 on top of that).  I chose the Bombardier IPA, a California-produced concoction from Pizza Port Brewing.  It was great.  Speaking of English pubs, I have to give another huge thumbs down to The Queen Victoria Pub in the Riveria Casino.  The place was dead when I walked in and I figured out why quick...a crappy, overpriced beer selection...I paid $7 for a glass of Boddington's....really, people??  You know I can get great beer FOR FREE at other places in town???  Yet another tourist trap.  Of course, the three goobers who had come into town for the "World of Concrete" convention seemed to really being enjoying their Coronas....yeah, at a "British pub"......ass-clowns.

Of course, when you go to Vegas you always have a good chance of seeing someone famous.  Best of all was  Ronald McDonald in the car behind me at a red light having his girlfriend take him to work.  In the Aria poker room I saw 2-time World Champion and living poker  legend, Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, popular, young poker pro, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, World Poker Champion, Huck Seed, and I even played at the same table with former MLB star and budding poker pro, Jose Conseco.  He seemed a nice enough guy and chatted with the whole table, but was complaining a lot about bad luck at the game which is weird to hear from a guy whose obviously seen a lot of money come (and go?) his way and is playing in a cheap, daily tournament with the rest of us grunts (roid rage maybe?).  Speaking of rotten luck, the closest poker success I got on this trip was 13th out of about 70 people, but they were only paying the top nine.  Close, but no ceeeeegar.

Another fun trip to Vegas is in the books.  Incredibly, I still have a couple of breweries to visit out there, so I can't wait to go again!

SoCal Suds

My wife and I got some cheap airline tickets out to LA earlier in the year and made a New Year's trip out of it.  Fortunately, my wife has become quite a fan of craft beer as well, and she indulges me in my passion of seeking out great beer by letting me incorporate some of our trip around that search.  Here are the results from Southern California...so far....:

December 29, 2011:  First stop of the trip was San Pedro Brewing just 20 minutes off the plane at LAX.  Great location in the shadow of the spectacular Vincent Thomas Bridge at the big shipping port of San Pedro.  The beer was so-so (their Red Ale was decent), but their food was excellent and definitely the star of the show along with the ambiance.




December 30, 201: Today was the official "Brewery Day" of our trip.  We visited five in total in the north San Diego area that is known for its great craft beer.  First up was Ballast Point Brewing.  Here's a look at their board of offerings.  Excellent beer overall.  We had their sampler and my fave was the Sculpin (it's a type of fish) IPA.  We brought two bombers of the Sculpin IPA and the Victory at Sea Imperial Stout home with us for an upcoming Calfornia beer-tasting we are going to have at our house.

 




Our second stop was close by at the tiny Alesmith Brewing.  We had their sampler as well and I was
actually disappointed in their hoppier offerings, their IPA and the Horny Devil.  Both had a weird baloney
 (not kidding) taste to me.  Their Speedway Stout was very good, however, with a nod of interest also to the
Special Speedway Stout which contains chipotle and morita peppers for a heck of kick.

  




Green Flash Brewing was next and all their beer was excellent that I tried.  I had the  Double Stout, a taste
 of the Winter's Folly and a glass of the  I Plead the Fifth Black IPA.  This brewery is a real up-and-comer with
bottling distribution to a large section of the country (no, not Tennessee yet).  They recently moved into a much
larger facility which was spacious and full of taps as you can see in the picture above.

  


Mecca achieved!!!
 I finally made it to my favorite brewery of them all!!  Stone Brewing is the granddaddy of all California craft brewers.  Incredible products available throughout the country including Tennessee, thank goodness!.  This is a glass of the Self  Righteous Ale.  It was awesome.  I got a bomber of it to take home as well.






Our last stop was The Lost Abbey Brewery.  It had a been a long day so I only had the Hot Rocks Brown
German Lager which was very good.  This little artisan brewery is a favorite among locals here and for good
reason.  They are producing some amazing beer here.  My wife actually brought me some of their other offerings
a few years ago when she was out here without me.

 

Date unknown......What the???  Who took that???  Hey, it was $3 and I bought at a Rite-Aid near our hotel.  And I never had Corona Familiar before.  I was not impressed.  Turns out its the same as Corona Extra, just in a bigger bottle. 

 I also had a decent IPA at Stuft Pizza and Brewing, a regional chain restaurant with a location near our hotel in Dana Point.  They actually have their beer brewed off-site at Firestone Walker Brewery, a central-California brewery with a good reputation.  The IPA was pretty good.

beer updates



The beer can hotel in Denmark...yeah, I'm totally going!

 A recent Mt. Juliet Beer Company variety six-pack that I put together included:

1. Grand Circus IPA (can) - Atwater Brewing, Latrobe, PA

2. Sam Adam's Latitude 48 IPA - -Boston -  bottle - very good

3. Harpoon Octoberfest - back to Boston - bottle

4. Highland Clawhammer Oktoberfest Lager - good - bottle

5.  Stranger American Pale Ale - Left Hand Brewing - Colorado - bottle

6. Yazoo Fall Lager - pretty good - bottle

Milkman's Autumn Amber - home brew bottle from my friend, Chris, with his own cool labels
I also had his Milkman's Nut Brown Ale which was my favorite and his Milkman's Summer Light.  Nice job, bud, keep up the good work!

I also had a Chattanooga Brewing IPA at Taco Mac on a recent trip back to Chattanooga

Christmas Cheer and Christmas Beer

This year's Christmas tree with a beer theme was my best-looking one yet thanks to some feminine touches by my wife Ashlee and our friend, Tarryn, who added silver ornaments throughout and spruced up the six-pack cartons with some glittering spray-on snow.  We also tied on a few empty bottles as ornaments including a home brew made by Tarryn's husband and my friend, Chris.

The beer tree got even more adornment when our friends, John and Monique, surprised me with several strands of beer-cap garland that they made by hand!!  They had a bartender at their local watering hole save caps for them and then drilled two tiny holes in each one and ran steel wire through each.  Above is a close-up view of their fantastic work.

Some of the new-to-me beer that I offered at our annual Christmas party (and whose cartons I displayed on the beer tree this year) were Saranac Brewing's Season's Best Nut Brown Lager, their Big Moose Ale (a hoppy winter pale ale) and their Caramel Porter (by far, my favorite).  I also picked up a six-pack of Abita's Christmas Ale which was very good also.  Thanks to the Mt. Juliet Beer Company for providing such an excellent selection of beer to choose from again this year.

I had a New Belgium Snow Day Winter Ale at my friend, Caroline's Christmas party.  It was tasty.

I also got a couple good high-gravity pints in my stocking from wife including:

Missing Elf Double Bock (9.5%) and Lobster Lover's Porter (8.2%) from the Rinkuskiai Brewery in Lithuania