I was gone last week, if you followed the twitter feed, you probably figured that out. I tried to start a trending topic on twitter with VGRIDAVL, but apparently was the only person to use it. I wanted it to be as popular as when the Obama's went to Asheville, but apparently #avlpotus got more people to use it than #vgridavl. Oh well.
Kridz and I left on Monday morning for the 600 mile drive. It was uneventful, so that was nice. It takes us right around 9 hours for the trip, more or less depending on if you stop to eat, or just grab a gas station sammich.
We got there on Monday and went to the fiddlin pig. They have some local beers on tap, so, of course, I had local beer. I believe I had something from French Broad. I finished up with a Carolina Blonde. It's from Carolina, but not necessarily local. I had the Beef Brisket Platter, with fried okra and greens. It was ok. There's live bluegrass playing, which was nice. Kridz thought I hated bluegrass, but I can appreciate it. I reminded her that we listened to the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack on the way back from Dark Lord Day, but she thought I only put it in to be funny or mock, when I asked her why I could sing along, she didn't really have an answer.
I had some thoughts about songs that I'd like to hear in a bluegrass style. Mostly, I thought Famous Blue Raincoat would make an awesome bluegrass song. I also wondered how I could turn Baby Got Back into a bluegrass song.
That was about it for Monday. Tuesday, we didn't really have any plans, except our hosts had to take their two month old to the doctor for shots, so we couldn't really plan to do much on Tuesday. So, I went to the store and got stuff for a dinner. We had a cheese plate with brie and drunken goat and a baby greens salad, served with New Belgium IPA. Second course was pan fried beef tenderloin steaks with asparagus in a balsamic reduction, served over parmesan risotto; served with Ommegang Abbey Ale. We were all pretty full at this point, so we let our dinner settle and later had a Sara Lee vanilla bean cake, served with the Sierra Nevada Fritz and Ken's Stout. All in all, it was a decent meal, and I think it was received well. Neither Kridz nor Dana are very experimental with their food. They had their salads with ranch dressing, instead of balsamic. Dana, normally puts ranch on her steak, but said that this was good enough that it didn't need anything on it, so that made me happy. Neither really like the asparagus. The risotto (to me) didn't turn out the way I wanted.
Wednesday, we went downtown and had lunch at Lexington Avenue Brewery. I had the American Pale Ale, Kridz had the India Pale Ale. I ate the portobello sandwich, Kridz had the beer cheese soup. Both were good enough.
We left there and walked down to the Mellow Mushroom. MM in Asheville has an awesome beer selection, for being a pizza place. They have a large amount of taps, and have a lot of local beer on tap. I can't remember what anyone had, but I know we enjoyed them. Evening meal was spaghetti.
Thursday for lunch, went to Asheville Brewing Company. I had the buffet, Kridz had some sort of chicken alfredo looking thing. I don't remember what beer I had, but it was something I've had before. It was serviceable. Neither outstandingly great, nor horrifically bad.
We left there and made our way back to downtown and walked to Bruisin' Ales. I gave Jason and Julie two bottles of Dark Lord, and Jay gave me a bottle of Le Baladin (can't remember what) but it had a sticker price of $50. I think we'll be opening it on Monday. Also picked up some other things that I've never heard of, and haven't seen, so that'll be nice.
After spending about $120, we left and went down to the Woolworths (odd how there's another Oh Brother reference). The woolworth in Asheville has a soda fountain, and is an art gallery. When I go there, I get ideas of things to do. I don't really do them, but I get ideas.
Thursday night we ate beef strogonoff, nothing too spectacular.
Friday, Frank arrived, after having worked in Knoxville for the week. Lunch was at BW, which has asome local beers on tap, so I had the French Broad Wee Heavy-er, followed up by Highland Black Mocha. Later that afternoon, we went down to Craggie. Had a sip of the antebellum ale, which is heavy on the ginger. I drank the Battery Hill, which is an english-style rye. Kridz and Frank both had the Toubab, zwickel beer.
We left there and went to the Green Man Brewing and Tasting Room (also known as Dirty Jacks for some reason). I had the porter, Kridz had the stout, Frank had the Imperial stout. I bought a new trucker hat. We left there planning on going to the Yacht Club, but instead went to the Green Man sister restaurant Jack of the Wood. Frank had a Founders Double Trouble, I had a Stone Ruination. I ate the Salmon Fish and Chips, which was pretty good.
We then went across the street to the Thirsty Monk. They were having a Terrapin event. They had the newest side project on cask, Boom Shaka Lager. Which was pretty darn good. Frank got one as well. Kridz got a Wake-n-Bake. We got to talk to Spike Buckowski, of the brewery, and I begged him to come to Champaign. I also asked that he distribute solely to Radio Maria in Illinois, but he didn't really seem interested in that, but I tried.
We then headed back to Frank and Dana's as the baby was getting cranky. Frank and I shared a couple of beers, but I really don't remember what all we had.
Saturday was Frank's birthday, there was a cookout, there was beer. There was fuzzy memories. I know we had the previous Terrapin Side Project, Capt'n Krunkles which was a really good black IPA; there was plenty of other stuff too, but, I don't remember. After everyone left, Frank and I split a Widmer Brothers' Reserve Prickly Pear Braggot. It seemed to have more of the honey flavor than of the prickly pear. It also had quite an alcohol kick towards the end. It was good, but I'd have hoped for more of the fruit juice in the flavor. We finished his birthday with a Foothills Brewery Sexual Chocolate. This is one of those beers, that you consider yourself blessed to try. It wasn't a bitter chocolate, but it wasn't a milk shake either. It was a darn fine beer. (It's listed as #97 on Beer Advocate's top 100 list; I don't care about rankings, but some people do).
Sunday, we drove back, on my twitter feed, you can see how fast we were traveling and how far we got each hour. Made it back in time for Blackhawks puck drop. Then I went in to Radio Maria to count beer.
It was a good trip. Lots of beer. Time with friends. And yes, I held the baby, but only because on Saturday night, Dana put the baby on me, as I was sitting in a chair. When the baby was removed, I germ-x'ed myself thoroughly. Babies make me sick. Why, I don't know. But touching babies seems to give me the flu.
Showing posts with label Highland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Highland. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thanksgiving South Easterly Trip
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. For it, Kridz and I went south east. Our initial plans were to go down to Marietta Georgia and spend the week with my uncle helga, and do Thanksgiving day (proper) with the mother.
Then we thought a whole week in Georgia might be too much, so we thought about going to Asheville on Friday (or Saturday) and spending some time with Frank and Dana. Then we changed our minds again, and went to Asheville first, and headed to Atlanta area on Thanksgiving itself.
On the Sunday before we left, I stopped at Friar Tucks to pick up some things to trade with Julie from BruisinAles. She had asked for some of this years Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Three Floyds Behemoth, and Three Floyds Alpha Klaus. GIBCS and Behemoth were available at Tucks so I picked up some of that for her.
We left on Monday morning around 8:30 or so. We got to 465 in Indy around 10:45 (with the time change; maybe). Then had to get gas, so we stoped at Crown Liquors. Crown Liq is at exit 2B on 465. Take that for about 3 miles south and it's on the left. It doesn't have a huge selection, but the selection it has is outstanding. (If you go down 31 further south, you'll come to E Stop 11 road, turn left there and go down another 2 miles and on the right is Parti-pak Liquors, that store doesn't look like much, but has an OUTSTANDING beer selection, and everything is available in singles; we didn't go there this time) We weren't really shopping to get much, just hoping to pick up some more GIBCS (tucks only had the bombers) and hopefully some Alpha Klaus. The store had Alpha Klaus, horray. It also had bombers and 4 packs of GIBCS, horray. It also had Behemoth, horray. It didn't just have Behemoth, it had '09 Behemoth, sitting next to '08 Behemoth, sitting next to '07 Behemoth. All were the same price, exactly how that was possible, I have no idea. So, I got one of each of those (for Julie). I also picked up a 4pack of Bells Hell Hath No Fury, because that's awesome. I think that's about all we got there. The guy working was nice enough to give us 15% off our purchase, it was supposed to be just for bombers, but he did it for the whole thing. I'm sure we got more, I just don't remember what all else we got there.
We continued traveling to Asheville. Interstate 40 is closed just inside the North Carolina border, so we hadda take a detour. This was through some of the windy-est up and down backwoods parts of North Carolina. In Illinois, we are pampered. Seriously. The ground is flat, and pretty much all the roads go north and south, or east and west. There are a few curves, but it's pretty straight. Even the non-interstate roads are pretty straight. You can take route 150 from Danville to the Quad Cities, and you'll be stopping a lot, but it's pretty straight. This backroad route that we had to take in North Carolina, I swear we stayed on the same road, but intersected the road we were on. There's a lot of turning. There's a lot of ups and downs. There's mountains. There's valleys. There's OMG YOU ARE GOING TO FAST FOR THIS CORNER!!!! ARRRRGGGGHHH.
We made it to Asheville, without much incident (although my car is making a weird rattling noise). Got to Frank and Dana's and ate and had a beer or 2, not exactly sure what all we drank that night, the week got kind of fuzzy...
Woke up on Tuesday and ate breakfast. Killed some time, then headed to downtown to the Mellow Mushroom to eat lunch. I had a Sweetwater Motorboat, Kridz had a Wedge Pale, Frank had a Highland Cold Mountain. I had a second beer, that was the French Broad Rye Hopper. We left there and headed to Pisgah Brewery. There we met Julie and J from BruisinAles. We all got beer and went and sat at the tables and chatted about beer. Based on my twitter messages, I know that the first beer I had was their Belgian Amber. Kridz had their porter and Frank had the Nitro Stout. Because we were there with Julie and J, we got to go back and check out the works of the brewery (I'm sure they would have let us back their without them; but it didn't hurt that we were there with one of the top beer store people in the world). We talked to one of the brewers and learned some of their stuff. We finished up and headed to the next brewery.
Our next stop was Wedge Brewing Co. Wedge is pretty. Wedge is possibly how I'd like my brewery to look. While there, I had their belgian abbey ale, which was awesome. Frank and Kridz both got their DIPA. We got to go back and talk with Carl, the brewer, about some of the things he was doing, and to look at their setup. I'm pretty sure that I had another beer there, but who really knows. We packed up there and headed to the next brewery.
Our next stop was Dirty Jacks. While there, we got to talk with the brewer, John. I was drinking the DIPA, and Kridz got the ESB. Their ESB was one of the first non-bud light beers that Kridz had. From our first trip to Asheville, when we helped move Frank and Dana down. It's a good gateway beer. Back then, it was probably a lot more flavor than she was used to, now it's probably kind of tame. John was working on something special for something special (not exactly sure what it was) but he brought out some samples of a stout for us, and that was pretty darn good. We packed up there and headed to our next stop.
Next stop, the Thirsty Monk. The monk is pretty much 2 pubs, downstairs is all Belgian and belgian style, upstairs is pretty much... beer, any and all beer. When we were there, we got to sit in on a tasting of Hanssens Lambics in the basement, which I enjoyed, but Frank and Kridz didn't seem to like. At one point I said, "you have to want to like these beers" if you don't you'll never get around to appreciating them. If you don't want it, you'll hate them and just be stuck with the vinegar flavor. Then we went upstairs and got to drink some cask Ola Dubh 12 year. That was awesome too. I'm pretty sure I had a beer from downstairs, but I have no clue what it was. While we were finishing up the Ola Dubh glasses, Dana called and said she was about ready to be picked up from work. That call ended a LONG day of drinking. A LONG great day of drinking. Although I think we may have had another one or two when we got back to Frank and Dana's.
Woke up Wed, and felt a little small, not horribly hungover, but not the greatest. Dana managed to get the day off, so we ate breakfast and headed out to go do some beer exchanging with BruisinAles. We got there before they opened, so we had to figure out something else to do. We wound up going to The Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa for the National Gingerbread House Display. That was... interesting. The place smelled like gingerbread, which I guess is to be expected. Some of them were nice, others were... meh. We finished up there and went to BruisinAles again. (the final haul list will be at the bottom of this post).
We left there, went back to Frank and Dana's ate dinner had a couple beers (including a Troegs Nugget Nectar from Julie and J's private stash) and watched Pelham 123. Woke up Thursday and headed towards Atlanta. Made the 200 wind-y drive in about 4 hours. Got to mom's a little bit into the packer game. Had to call mother for directions to her house from the road we exited the interstate from. She apparently doesn't know the road's name to turn on from the road we were on, which I believe is the road she works on.
Watched football, ate, played scategories, left and went to Uncle Helga's. Wanted a beer during dinner, but not so much after. Relaxed the rest of the night at Harolds. Friday went back to go work on their laptops that both had issues. Frank's display was turning off, and they needed the data from it on the other lappy. Mom's lappy wasn't printing. I managed to transfer the data without having much visibility on the monitor, and managed to get her printer working (Windows 7 security features have a tendency to lock down machines to a point where they don't work). Ate, then headed to Highland Beverage in Hiram.
Highland doesn't have the biggest selection, but they do have a decent one. This whole trip my plan was to only get beers from the south east, I pretty much succeeded, but did get a couple of Stone's and some other things.
Left there and went to Taco Mac Marietta. Other than pizza, Taco Mac is the beer place that Old Chicago wishes it was. Old Chicago has like 20 taps, Taco Mac Marietta has 50. Old Chicago claims 110 brews. Taco Mac has 402 bottles. I don't know any place locally with that number, (other than the houses of people in the beer club). While there, met my cousin, his wife and 2 daughters. That was nice. I added 4 beers (between kridz and I) to my passport club thing.
Saturday, packed up and headed back to Illinois.
That's pretty much the trip. Here's the haul...
4 pack Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
4 pack Atlanta Brewing Company Double Chocolate Oatmeal Porter
4 pack Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout (and another for Puffer)(commonly known as Wake and Bake)
2 Dogfish Head/Sierra Nevada Life and Limb
3 Terrapin Gamma Ray
2 Stone Sublimely Self Righteous
2 Duck Rabbit Wee Heavy Scotch
2 Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot
Sweetwater Festive '09 #1655 (must check to see what number my '06 is)
Bruery 2 Turgle Doves
Stone Old Guardian Early '09 Release
Smuttynose Baltic Porter
Smuttynose Imperial Stout
Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale
Weyerbacher Insanity
Hanssens Oude Kriek (from Thirsty Monk tasting)
Highland Tasgall
Sweetwater Wet Dream (dank tank)
Terrapin Side Project #6 90 Shelling
Terrapin Side Project #7 Maggies' Farmhouse Ale
Weyerbacher XIII
Weyerbacher 12
Deschutes Jubelale '08 (from Julie and J)
Highland Imperial Black Mocha
Sweetwater Big Ol' Belgian Blue Balls (dank tank)
Troegs Mad Elf (from Julie and J)
Terrapin Imperial Red Ale Big Hoppy Monster
Brewdog Paradox Smokehead #15
Brewdog Paradox Isle of Arran #16
Weyerbacher 14
Weyerbacher Quad
(the Paradox gives me numbers 1,3,5,8,10,11, 13, 15, and 16)
Then we thought a whole week in Georgia might be too much, so we thought about going to Asheville on Friday (or Saturday) and spending some time with Frank and Dana. Then we changed our minds again, and went to Asheville first, and headed to Atlanta area on Thanksgiving itself.
On the Sunday before we left, I stopped at Friar Tucks to pick up some things to trade with Julie from BruisinAles. She had asked for some of this years Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Three Floyds Behemoth, and Three Floyds Alpha Klaus. GIBCS and Behemoth were available at Tucks so I picked up some of that for her.
We left on Monday morning around 8:30 or so. We got to 465 in Indy around 10:45 (with the time change; maybe). Then had to get gas, so we stoped at Crown Liquors. Crown Liq is at exit 2B on 465. Take that for about 3 miles south and it's on the left. It doesn't have a huge selection, but the selection it has is outstanding. (If you go down 31 further south, you'll come to E Stop 11 road, turn left there and go down another 2 miles and on the right is Parti-pak Liquors, that store doesn't look like much, but has an OUTSTANDING beer selection, and everything is available in singles; we didn't go there this time) We weren't really shopping to get much, just hoping to pick up some more GIBCS (tucks only had the bombers) and hopefully some Alpha Klaus. The store had Alpha Klaus, horray. It also had bombers and 4 packs of GIBCS, horray. It also had Behemoth, horray. It didn't just have Behemoth, it had '09 Behemoth, sitting next to '08 Behemoth, sitting next to '07 Behemoth. All were the same price, exactly how that was possible, I have no idea. So, I got one of each of those (for Julie). I also picked up a 4pack of Bells Hell Hath No Fury, because that's awesome. I think that's about all we got there. The guy working was nice enough to give us 15% off our purchase, it was supposed to be just for bombers, but he did it for the whole thing. I'm sure we got more, I just don't remember what all else we got there.
We continued traveling to Asheville. Interstate 40 is closed just inside the North Carolina border, so we hadda take a detour. This was through some of the windy-est up and down backwoods parts of North Carolina. In Illinois, we are pampered. Seriously. The ground is flat, and pretty much all the roads go north and south, or east and west. There are a few curves, but it's pretty straight. Even the non-interstate roads are pretty straight. You can take route 150 from Danville to the Quad Cities, and you'll be stopping a lot, but it's pretty straight. This backroad route that we had to take in North Carolina, I swear we stayed on the same road, but intersected the road we were on. There's a lot of turning. There's a lot of ups and downs. There's mountains. There's valleys. There's OMG YOU ARE GOING TO FAST FOR THIS CORNER!!!! ARRRRGGGGHHH.
We made it to Asheville, without much incident (although my car is making a weird rattling noise). Got to Frank and Dana's and ate and had a beer or 2, not exactly sure what all we drank that night, the week got kind of fuzzy...
Woke up on Tuesday and ate breakfast. Killed some time, then headed to downtown to the Mellow Mushroom to eat lunch. I had a Sweetwater Motorboat, Kridz had a Wedge Pale, Frank had a Highland Cold Mountain. I had a second beer, that was the French Broad Rye Hopper. We left there and headed to Pisgah Brewery. There we met Julie and J from BruisinAles. We all got beer and went and sat at the tables and chatted about beer. Based on my twitter messages, I know that the first beer I had was their Belgian Amber. Kridz had their porter and Frank had the Nitro Stout. Because we were there with Julie and J, we got to go back and check out the works of the brewery (I'm sure they would have let us back their without them; but it didn't hurt that we were there with one of the top beer store people in the world). We talked to one of the brewers and learned some of their stuff. We finished up and headed to the next brewery.
Our next stop was Wedge Brewing Co. Wedge is pretty. Wedge is possibly how I'd like my brewery to look. While there, I had their belgian abbey ale, which was awesome. Frank and Kridz both got their DIPA. We got to go back and talk with Carl, the brewer, about some of the things he was doing, and to look at their setup. I'm pretty sure that I had another beer there, but who really knows. We packed up there and headed to the next brewery.
Our next stop was Dirty Jacks. While there, we got to talk with the brewer, John. I was drinking the DIPA, and Kridz got the ESB. Their ESB was one of the first non-bud light beers that Kridz had. From our first trip to Asheville, when we helped move Frank and Dana down. It's a good gateway beer. Back then, it was probably a lot more flavor than she was used to, now it's probably kind of tame. John was working on something special for something special (not exactly sure what it was) but he brought out some samples of a stout for us, and that was pretty darn good. We packed up there and headed to our next stop.
Next stop, the Thirsty Monk. The monk is pretty much 2 pubs, downstairs is all Belgian and belgian style, upstairs is pretty much... beer, any and all beer. When we were there, we got to sit in on a tasting of Hanssens Lambics in the basement, which I enjoyed, but Frank and Kridz didn't seem to like. At one point I said, "you have to want to like these beers" if you don't you'll never get around to appreciating them. If you don't want it, you'll hate them and just be stuck with the vinegar flavor. Then we went upstairs and got to drink some cask Ola Dubh 12 year. That was awesome too. I'm pretty sure I had a beer from downstairs, but I have no clue what it was. While we were finishing up the Ola Dubh glasses, Dana called and said she was about ready to be picked up from work. That call ended a LONG day of drinking. A LONG great day of drinking. Although I think we may have had another one or two when we got back to Frank and Dana's.
Woke up Wed, and felt a little small, not horribly hungover, but not the greatest. Dana managed to get the day off, so we ate breakfast and headed out to go do some beer exchanging with BruisinAles. We got there before they opened, so we had to figure out something else to do. We wound up going to The Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa for the National Gingerbread House Display. That was... interesting. The place smelled like gingerbread, which I guess is to be expected. Some of them were nice, others were... meh. We finished up there and went to BruisinAles again. (the final haul list will be at the bottom of this post).
We left there, went back to Frank and Dana's ate dinner had a couple beers (including a Troegs Nugget Nectar from Julie and J's private stash) and watched Pelham 123. Woke up Thursday and headed towards Atlanta. Made the 200 wind-y drive in about 4 hours. Got to mom's a little bit into the packer game. Had to call mother for directions to her house from the road we exited the interstate from. She apparently doesn't know the road's name to turn on from the road we were on, which I believe is the road she works on.
Watched football, ate, played scategories, left and went to Uncle Helga's. Wanted a beer during dinner, but not so much after. Relaxed the rest of the night at Harolds. Friday went back to go work on their laptops that both had issues. Frank's display was turning off, and they needed the data from it on the other lappy. Mom's lappy wasn't printing. I managed to transfer the data without having much visibility on the monitor, and managed to get her printer working (Windows 7 security features have a tendency to lock down machines to a point where they don't work). Ate, then headed to Highland Beverage in Hiram.
Highland doesn't have the biggest selection, but they do have a decent one. This whole trip my plan was to only get beers from the south east, I pretty much succeeded, but did get a couple of Stone's and some other things.
Left there and went to Taco Mac Marietta. Other than pizza, Taco Mac is the beer place that Old Chicago wishes it was. Old Chicago has like 20 taps, Taco Mac Marietta has 50. Old Chicago claims 110 brews. Taco Mac has 402 bottles. I don't know any place locally with that number, (other than the houses of people in the beer club). While there, met my cousin, his wife and 2 daughters. That was nice. I added 4 beers (between kridz and I) to my passport club thing.
Saturday, packed up and headed back to Illinois.
That's pretty much the trip. Here's the haul...
4 pack Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
4 pack Atlanta Brewing Company Double Chocolate Oatmeal Porter
4 pack Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout (and another for Puffer)(commonly known as Wake and Bake)
2 Dogfish Head/Sierra Nevada Life and Limb
3 Terrapin Gamma Ray
2 Stone Sublimely Self Righteous
2 Duck Rabbit Wee Heavy Scotch
2 Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot
Sweetwater Festive '09 #1655 (must check to see what number my '06 is)
Bruery 2 Turgle Doves
Stone Old Guardian Early '09 Release
Smuttynose Baltic Porter
Smuttynose Imperial Stout
Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale
Weyerbacher Insanity
Hanssens Oude Kriek (from Thirsty Monk tasting)
Highland Tasgall
Sweetwater Wet Dream (dank tank)
Terrapin Side Project #6 90 Shelling
Terrapin Side Project #7 Maggies' Farmhouse Ale
Weyerbacher XIII
Weyerbacher 12
Deschutes Jubelale '08 (from Julie and J)
Highland Imperial Black Mocha
Sweetwater Big Ol' Belgian Blue Balls (dank tank)
Troegs Mad Elf (from Julie and J)
Terrapin Imperial Red Ale Big Hoppy Monster
Brewdog Paradox Smokehead #15
Brewdog Paradox Isle of Arran #16
Weyerbacher 14
Weyerbacher Quad
(the Paradox gives me numbers 1,3,5,8,10,11, 13, 15, and 16)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Beer B-Ashe-ville
If you remember back to "(Insert Witty Title Here)" Kriddy and I went to the wedding for our friends. If you remember back to "The May Beer Crawl 9-10" we got the presents from that reception.
Well, after a week of chauffeuring those gifts around in the car; we finally drove to Asheville. We left on Friday morning around 845, and pulled in around 630 or so (with the time change it took about 8-9 hours or so). The drive itself was uneventful; but somewhat saddish. The route to Asheville from Champaign Urbana goes from here, to Indianapolis, to Louisville, to Lexington, to Knoxville, to Asheville.
My car was full of stuff. In Indy there's several liquor stores, Lexington has the Liquor Barn... we drove past some great places and didn't have any room for more beer :(
We had to get there at a decent time too, as the groom was making steaks on the grill; so we couldn't stop for extended layovers for sampling either.
We got there on Friday and delivered the goods (also was thrown in a congratulatory Dark Lord 2008). After eating, we got into the car and headed into downtown Asheville to a place called the "Thirsty Monk". This place is nice. It's hard to miss, it's the big purple building, with a monk drawn on the side. (Note: I'll make two or more postings today; this one will be the rundown of what happened and stuff, so if you are here for the fun exploits, then this is the blog for you; if you are here for beer reviews, then you'll just haveta wait, cuz I haven't written that yet). The bar has Belgian beers, lots and lots of Belgian beers and belgian style beers too. As you walk down into the place, on the left side of the walkway is a variety of empty beer bottles affixed to the wall. I noticed a bottle of Oud Beersel Gueze and pointed it out to Kriddy as we had just had it on May 3. According to the menu there are 14 beers on tap. Several are popular belgian beers, Delirium Tremens and Noctrnum; Kasteel Rouge; they also had a trappist, Chimay White on draft; in addition to a local Pisgah Solstice; and some national brews, Brooklyn Blanche de Brooklyn; and Brother Thelonius.
Kriddy of course wanted a stout, so I got her a De Dolle Extra Export Stout; Dana wanted one of the Delirium's and Frank and I split a St. Bernardus Abt. 12 60th anniversary. After we finished that (reviews to follow) we shared a La Chouffe McChouffe.
A very nice aspect of the Thirsty Monk, is that they seem to have appropriate glasses for every drink. Not just that they have an assortment of appropriate style glasses; they have the brewery glasses. Dana's Delirium came in a delirium glass; our beers were both served in brewery glasses (La Chouffe and St. Bernardus). Other people were drinking from Kasteel glasses and there was a huge selection of glassware behind the counter. The glass selection itself would probably make beer OCD people jealous. Before presenting each glass they were rinsed in sight to ensure the best presentation for the beers. (Kriddys stout was given a plain tulip:( ).
For going out to have a beer, this is a fine spot in Asheville to do it. For going out to have a Belgian or Belgian style beer, this is probably one of the best places in the U.S. to do it.
After we finished up there, we headed out to find a different place to have some beer. We walked past Greenman Ales and found a bar that didn't have a cover charge. It also didn't have a great selection. I got the Pisgah Pale, which was served in a plastic Miller Lite pint glass. Also people were smoking inside (it's allowed because it's a pool hall too, or something like that). Mix the smoking with the plastic glass, and it wasn't a great place to be. We didn't stay there long, and it didn't leave enough of a good impression for me to remember (or even write down) the name.
We then headed back towards our hosts place, but stopped off at a bar, which I believe was named "Pub". Right next to the flea market area. Inside, I had an O Pale Ale. Everyone else had something too, but nothing too spectacular.
Frank and Dana don't have a great pint glass selection, heck, they only had 2 glasses. Both from the Brews Cruise that they took with some friends previously. So while at the pub, we talked the waitress into letting us lift some glasses from her. So we added 2 glasses to their collection. They weren't standard pint glasses, but they were nice to look at. I don't remember exactly what they were, but Frank asked how they got into his dishwasher on Saturday morning. We finished up at "pub" and went back and crashed.
After we woke up we headed down to the Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company. It was there, that we would meet up with the Asheville Brews Cruise. While we were waiting, I shared the ABC Scout Stout with Kriddy while frank and Dana had the Ninja Porter. When we did meet up with Mark (the driver for the day) he presented us with a gift bag containing an itinerary, some mints, some Cheezits (that seemed popular) and some other schwag with info about Asheville. On the tour was us 4 and two other people who were kind of local, the Thomas'.
We then headed out to our first brewery, Highland Brewing Company. Now, I've been to many breweries and brewpubs this year, mostly it was just to have the sampler platter, and had a quick look at their brewing setup. At Three Floyds Dark Lord was distributed in the warehouse, and you walked past the brewing area. The brews cruise is AWESOME. Mark has contacts with the local brewers and you spend time with actual beer people. It's like beer class. When we were at Highland, the brewery was shown to us by Paul, the assistant brewer.
Paul was a great guy to get information from (and seemed like a nice guy too), all you had to do was ask the right questions, and he could talk for quite a long time on the subject. At first, I was probably the "kid in class" that everyone hates because he never stops asking questions. Eventually, (I think) the others there were happy I was with them.
Sure, I asked how the hop shortage was going to/ or had affected them, and Paul talked about their contracts and that it shouldn't be too bad this year, but next year, might be trouble. He told us about where they got their malt (Wisconsin) and also talked about their yeast. After he told us about the worldwide hop shortage, he talked about their Imperial Kashmir IPA. This beer was made with more than 200 pounds of hops. The last few remaining bottles are at the brewery and are for sale at $10 each (22 oz bomber). Frank and I each got one, so I'm not sure how many more are left.
Paul showed us around the brewery and it was very hands on, you could touch the outside of everything, if you wanted. We saw the entire area from their Mash tun to the bottling line to cold storage, and everything else in between. (An interesting thing they do, not sure how many other places do; is their hot wort, as it is chilled, the warm temperature is transferred to the next water that will be going into the brewpot, which saves energy; the cold from the new water is transferred to the wort, while the heat from the wort is transferred to the new water). Also interesting is that because most of their beers are similar styled as scottish ales, they use the same yeast in most of their beers.
While we were going through the tour, I asked if Paul did any home brewing, he said not really, they do their experimenting at the brewery, and he showed us their small scale setup. Then he took us in the cooler, where he had a beer they might do in a small cask, so we got lucky to try the unnamed (but I called it) Paul's Imperial Stout. It was a hopped up version of their Black Mocha Porter.
The brews cruise isn't just a museum visit, it's a beer filled museum visit. While inside the breweries, Mark made sure our glasses were never quite empty. In addition to Paul's imperial, we also got Gaelic, Kashmir, Oatmeal Porter, Black Mocha and their newest spring/summer offering Shining Rock Lager.
As I'd never done the "tour" of a brewery, it was nice to actually go through with it. Once is probably enough to get how it's done everywhere, except for the factories, but I don't really want to go on a tour of a factory that makes beer.
Our next stop was French Broad Brewery. I didn't get the name of the brewmaster, but he was the one who explained his beers over pretzels to us. A great guy, and produced some damn good beers too. His operation was a whole lot smaller than Highlands. While Highland (with a name like Highland) specialized in Scottish style ales. French Broad seemed to specialize in lighter beers. Their Kolsch (style) would be awesome to drink after mowing. But plan ahead, as their beers aren't bottled. Go get a growler before you start your yard work.
We were lucky to get to drink a brewmaster test run of a belgian stout-ish beer. It was good, Frank wanted a growler of it to go, but we finished off the rest of the 5 gallon, so there was no to go cups. However we were given the recipe. (Email me, if you are interested).
Our final stop was back where we started at Asheville Pizza. There we ate and sampled the Shiva IPA, Scottish ale, Ninja Porter and Scout Stout. We were shown around the place, which is very neat. They have a huge game room, and a movie theater. Movie and beer, WHOO HOO. I had the Reuben, which was pretty good. Kriddy hadda pizza, which she seemed to enjoy.
The entire time on the Brews Cruise was about 3-4 hours, it cost $35 a person (out of town rate) and the glasses stay full. We were also given pint glasses at the end (you don't want to be worried about those while walking around).
The last part of the cruise is sometimes a stop at Bruisin' Ales. They have a good selection of stuff that isn't available in Illinois. Also, since we were on the cruise, we got to have a beer while we were perusing the store. I picked out Dale's Pale Ale from Oscar Blues. I'm drawing a blank as to what Frank picked. As we'd already had many local beers I didn't get any Highlands. I did get a 4 pack of Dogfish Palo Santo Marron, and a 6er of Duck Rabbit RIS. Meat has been looking for Pyramid Imperial Hefeweizen for a few months or so, so when I saw it, I got the two last bottles in stock. Also got a 4 pack of Kwak that came with a half yard (or is it a foot).
Bruisin Ales has a Big monk thing that if you open it up has beer in it. We got one of the Single and Triple ales from it.
The guy behind the counter was great, and since we spent $147, he offered us a free glass, so we got a Chimay glass.
After that, we headed back to our host's for a nap.
After freshening up we headed out to Pomodoros (if that's how you spell tomato in Italian or is it greek?) for evening meal. I had the calamari (which wasn't quite as good as the calamari at ShoreLine up in Michigan City) and washed it down with an Alfa Helenic Beer which wasn't that great (it seems to have bad reviews all around).
After that we headed to an ice cream place, where I got to watch everyone else enjoy some ice cream. Kriddy and Dana had some ice cream made with Highland Black Mocha Stout; they both seemed to like it. After that, around 10, we headed back to get ready for Sunday.
Woke up, headed to Bristol for NHRA. It was overcast and dreary. Not hot, so if they ran, it'd be good times. We found our seats after I about crapped my pants several times, due to them testing the rebuilt engines. Even if I'm braced for it, I'm still a very jumpy person. When they hit that nitro methane button, I always jump. We watched the first round of Top Fuel, then the rain started. Each rain delay at drag racing, is a wait for the rain to stop, and then a wait for drying the track. We watched 3 or 4 rain delays before we finally left, which was right at the end of Funny car. We didn't see any pro stock. We did manage to get through 4 rounds of beer at $20 a shot, for fizzy yellow water, so that was great... (wheres my thumbs up emoticon?) We headed out to try to find Depot Street Brewing, but it's in Tennessee, so they were closed on Sunday.
Went back and ate at the Wild Wing Cafe, they had shirts that said "Beer, It's not just for breakfast anymore". With that kind of advertising, I expected a huge beer list, but was very disappointed. There were about as many hot sauce varieties (33) as beers. After we finished there, went back to the house and Frank opened his bottle of the Highland Imperial Kashmir IPA, it was outstanding. Even though it was an "older" IPA, it still had a strong hops smell to it. (You'll get that from 200 pounds). It wasn't very bitter (although it probably was technically bitter) but had most of the hops flavors in it... depending on what you looked for. Spicy, piney, grassy, they were all in there, at some form or another.
After we finished that off, we watched the end of NHRA on ESPN2, where they carried the finish of Funny Car, live, at 1030. That would have been a REALLY long day, had we stayed.
Went to bed, and prepped for the ride home.
Left Asheville around 645, and around noon, pulled up towards Louisville. Kriddy was getting hungry so she looked on the GPS for a brewpub. I couldn't remember the name of it, but knew it was BB something, so when she pulled up the list, and there was Bluegrass Brewing Company, we were set.
Walked in and the bastard love child of Bruce Vilanch and Brian Posehn was tendi
ng bar. Sat down, order the sampler. Last year, I had 4 of their beers, and I got to add 7 more to my list. So that was nice. All their beer were good. After he gave us the first 7 samples, I looked at the tap handles and wondered where the rest were (there were way more than 7 taps). So he brought us out three other samples, Gross Batard, Raspberry Meade and Frambozen. I was especially impressed with the Raspberry Meade, it was probably the best meade I've had.
I ordered the fish platter, which was a HUGE FRIGGIN piece of fish. Kriddy got an Italian beef sammich. The fish was outstanding. Remember how I mentioned Gordon Biersch had bad fish. That was just chunks of fish that weren't done properly. This slab of fish was over a foot long and about an inch thick in the middle. It was completely cooked all the way through, all of it was flaky. The batter wasn't burned, but was the color of a belgian triple. I saved up the nutbrown sample to drink with the fish, and it went well with it. Kriddy had the stout (of course) and that went pretty good with the sammich.
We told Jeff (the love child) about going on the brews cruise, and he thought it'd be a great idea to start one up around Louisville. We told him we were heading up towards indy on the way home, and he said for us to stop at Oaken Barrel, and mentioned another place, that I just can't remember now (Brass Monkey in Kokomo? Half Moon?) Dang, I need to write more things down.
After we headed back north on I 65, we stopped at Parti Pak Liquors and got about $100 worth of beer, or so it seemed. Then headed up the road to Crown Liquors. Crown seems to be the little hole in the wall place that everyone ignores. You'd expect Partipak to be that place, but Partipak has a reputation among beer aficionados (it's rated A+ on Beer Advocate) . Crown Liquors doesn't seem to have that cult following. Either crown restocks the shelves after each customer, or they don't have as many people go through. Either way, doesn't matter to me, I'm stopping there every trip I take to Indy. (It's right off U.S. 31 on the south of Indy). Crown has a wide range of Stone, Three Floyds, Mikkeller, Bells and a bunch of other stuff, and it's almost always in stock. I took their last two 6 packs of Bells Hopslam (and will be selling one of them to Meat). The guy working asked me about the Brewdog line (I had just gotten a few down the street) so I asked about the Paradox line, and he showed me where he had some. So I got a bottle of the 8. Crapola, I thought I had previously got the 4,5 and 9, but I got the 5,8,and 9 (back in C-bus) so now I've got another bottle of 8, which I'll just add to Meat's bill.
As I was pretty much grabbing everything in Crown that I hadn't had, and/or wanted, I was ringing up a hefty bill. So the guy working took my email was was going to pass it to their beer guy, to see if I wanted to do any trading. Also, for "special" customers, he had a bottle (or maybe two) of Darklord that he would sell, I mentioned I had 19 of them at home, and didn't really need any more. So we spent over $100 there too.
The GF is now a huge fan of the bourbon aged beers (just not the GIBCS so much, but that one gets better with age). She really liked the BBC Jeffs Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout, so we picked up a pack of that somewhere. We also got her a bottle of the Barley Island Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal (bourbon barrel oatmeal stout, this will probably be her favoritest beer in the world) and a bottle of Stone Smoked Porter as she really liked the O'fallon whiskey aged smoked porter.
It was a great time. All weekend went well, not too many bad beers, (except the coors light at the race). Next trip there will be for Bele Chere. Hopefully we'll be able to get Mark to take us to some of the other breweries, and also to the new ones.
Well, after a week of chauffeuring those gifts around in the car; we finally drove to Asheville. We left on Friday morning around 845, and pulled in around 630 or so (with the time change it took about 8-9 hours or so). The drive itself was uneventful; but somewhat saddish. The route to Asheville from Champaign Urbana goes from here, to Indianapolis, to Louisville, to Lexington, to Knoxville, to Asheville.
My car was full of stuff. In Indy there's several liquor stores, Lexington has the Liquor Barn... we drove past some great places and didn't have any room for more beer :(
We had to get there at a decent time too, as the groom was making steaks on the grill; so we couldn't stop for extended layovers for sampling either.
We got there on Friday and delivered the goods (also was thrown in a congratulatory Dark Lord 2008). After eating, we got into the car and headed into downtown Asheville to a place called the "Thirsty Monk". This place is nice. It's hard to miss, it's the big purple building, with a monk drawn on the side. (Note: I'll make two or more postings today; this one will be the rundown of what happened and stuff, so if you are here for the fun exploits, then this is the blog for you; if you are here for beer reviews, then you'll just haveta wait, cuz I haven't written that yet). The bar has Belgian beers, lots and lots of Belgian beers and belgian style beers too. As you walk down into the place, on the left side of the walkway is a variety of empty beer bottles affixed to the wall. I noticed a bottle of Oud Beersel Gueze and pointed it out to Kriddy as we had just had it on May 3. According to the menu there are 14 beers on tap. Several are popular belgian beers, Delirium Tremens and Noctrnum; Kasteel Rouge; they also had a trappist, Chimay White on draft; in addition to a local Pisgah Solstice; and some national brews, Brooklyn Blanche de Brooklyn; and Brother Thelonius.
Kriddy of course wanted a stout, so I got her a De Dolle Extra Export Stout; Dana wanted one of the Delirium's and Frank and I split a St. Bernardus Abt. 12 60th anniversary. After we finished that (reviews to follow) we shared a La Chouffe McChouffe.
A very nice aspect of the Thirsty Monk, is that they seem to have appropriate glasses for every drink. Not just that they have an assortment of appropriate style glasses; they have the brewery glasses. Dana's Delirium came in a delirium glass; our beers were both served in brewery glasses (La Chouffe and St. Bernardus). Other people were drinking from Kasteel glasses and there was a huge selection of glassware behind the counter. The glass selection itself would probably make beer OCD people jealous. Before presenting each glass they were rinsed in sight to ensure the best presentation for the beers. (Kriddys stout was given a plain tulip:( ).
For going out to have a beer, this is a fine spot in Asheville to do it. For going out to have a Belgian or Belgian style beer, this is probably one of the best places in the U.S. to do it.
After we finished up there, we headed out to find a different place to have some beer. We walked past Greenman Ales and found a bar that didn't have a cover charge. It also didn't have a great selection. I got the Pisgah Pale, which was served in a plastic Miller Lite pint glass. Also people were smoking inside (it's allowed because it's a pool hall too, or something like that). Mix the smoking with the plastic glass, and it wasn't a great place to be. We didn't stay there long, and it didn't leave enough of a good impression for me to remember (or even write down) the name.
We then headed back towards our hosts place, but stopped off at a bar, which I believe was named "Pub". Right next to the flea market area. Inside, I had an O Pale Ale. Everyone else had something too, but nothing too spectacular.
Frank and Dana don't have a great pint glass selection, heck, they only had 2 glasses. Both from the Brews Cruise that they took with some friends previously. So while at the pub, we talked the waitress into letting us lift some glasses from her. So we added 2 glasses to their collection. They weren't standard pint glasses, but they were nice to look at. I don't remember exactly what they were, but Frank asked how they got into his dishwasher on Saturday morning. We finished up at "pub" and went back and crashed.
After we woke up we headed down to the Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company. It was there, that we would meet up with the Asheville Brews Cruise. While we were waiting, I shared the ABC Scout Stout with Kriddy while frank and Dana had the Ninja Porter. When we did meet up with Mark (the driver for the day) he presented us with a gift bag containing an itinerary, some mints, some Cheezits (that seemed popular) and some other schwag with info about Asheville. On the tour was us 4 and two other people who were kind of local, the Thomas'.
We then headed out to our first brewery, Highland Brewing Company. Now, I've been to many breweries and brewpubs this year, mostly it was just to have the sampler platter, and had a quick look at their brewing setup. At Three Floyds Dark Lord was distributed in the warehouse, and you walked past the brewing area. The brews cruise is AWESOME. Mark has contacts with the local brewers and you spend time with actual beer people. It's like beer class. When we were at Highland, the brewery was shown to us by Paul, the assistant brewer.
Paul was a great guy to get information from (and seemed like a nice guy too), all you had to do was ask the right questions, and he could talk for quite a long time on the subject. At first, I was probably the "kid in class" that everyone hates because he never stops asking questions. Eventually, (I think) the others there were happy I was with them.
Sure, I asked how the hop shortage was going to/ or had affected them, and Paul talked about their contracts and that it shouldn't be too bad this year, but next year, might be trouble. He told us about where they got their malt (Wisconsin) and also talked about their yeast. After he told us about the worldwide hop shortage, he talked about their Imperial Kashmir IPA. This beer was made with more than 200 pounds of hops. The last few remaining bottles are at the brewery and are for sale at $10 each (22 oz bomber). Frank and I each got one, so I'm not sure how many more are left.
Paul showed us around the brewery and it was very hands on, you could touch the outside of everything, if you wanted. We saw the entire area from their Mash tun to the bottling line to cold storage, and everything else in between. (An interesting thing they do, not sure how many other places do; is their hot wort, as it is chilled, the warm temperature is transferred to the next water that will be going into the brewpot, which saves energy; the cold from the new water is transferred to the wort, while the heat from the wort is transferred to the new water). Also interesting is that because most of their beers are similar styled as scottish ales, they use the same yeast in most of their beers.
While we were going through the tour, I asked if Paul did any home brewing, he said not really, they do their experimenting at the brewery, and he showed us their small scale setup. Then he took us in the cooler, where he had a beer they might do in a small cask, so we got lucky to try the unnamed (but I called it) Paul's Imperial Stout. It was a hopped up version of their Black Mocha Porter.
The brews cruise isn't just a museum visit, it's a beer filled museum visit. While inside the breweries, Mark made sure our glasses were never quite empty. In addition to Paul's imperial, we also got Gaelic, Kashmir, Oatmeal Porter, Black Mocha and their newest spring/summer offering Shining Rock Lager.
As I'd never done the "tour" of a brewery, it was nice to actually go through with it. Once is probably enough to get how it's done everywhere, except for the factories, but I don't really want to go on a tour of a factory that makes beer.
Our next stop was French Broad Brewery. I didn't get the name of the brewmaster, but he was the one who explained his beers over pretzels to us. A great guy, and produced some damn good beers too. His operation was a whole lot smaller than Highlands. While Highland (with a name like Highland) specialized in Scottish style ales. French Broad seemed to specialize in lighter beers. Their Kolsch (style) would be awesome to drink after mowing. But plan ahead, as their beers aren't bottled. Go get a growler before you start your yard work.
We were lucky to get to drink a brewmaster test run of a belgian stout-ish beer. It was good, Frank wanted a growler of it to go, but we finished off the rest of the 5 gallon, so there was no to go cups. However we were given the recipe. (Email me, if you are interested).
Our final stop was back where we started at Asheville Pizza. There we ate and sampled the Shiva IPA, Scottish ale, Ninja Porter and Scout Stout. We were shown around the place, which is very neat. They have a huge game room, and a movie theater. Movie and beer, WHOO HOO. I had the Reuben, which was pretty good. Kriddy hadda pizza, which she seemed to enjoy.
The entire time on the Brews Cruise was about 3-4 hours, it cost $35 a person (out of town rate) and the glasses stay full. We were also given pint glasses at the end (you don't want to be worried about those while walking around).
The last part of the cruise is sometimes a stop at Bruisin' Ales. They have a good selection of stuff that isn't available in Illinois. Also, since we were on the cruise, we got to have a beer while we were perusing the store. I picked out Dale's Pale Ale from Oscar Blues. I'm drawing a blank as to what Frank picked. As we'd already had many local beers I didn't get any Highlands. I did get a 4 pack of Dogfish Palo Santo Marron, and a 6er of Duck Rabbit RIS. Meat has been looking for Pyramid Imperial Hefeweizen for a few months or so, so when I saw it, I got the two last bottles in stock. Also got a 4 pack of Kwak that came with a half yard (or is it a foot).
Bruisin Ales has a Big monk thing that if you open it up has beer in it. We got one of the Single and Triple ales from it.
The guy behind the counter was great, and since we spent $147, he offered us a free glass, so we got a Chimay glass.After that, we headed back to our host's for a nap.
After freshening up we headed out to Pomodoros (if that's how you spell tomato in Italian or is it greek?) for evening meal. I had the calamari (which wasn't quite as good as the calamari at ShoreLine up in Michigan City) and washed it down with an Alfa Helenic Beer which wasn't that great (it seems to have bad reviews all around).
After that we headed to an ice cream place, where I got to watch everyone else enjoy some ice cream. Kriddy and Dana had some ice cream made with Highland Black Mocha Stout; they both seemed to like it. After that, around 10, we headed back to get ready for Sunday.
Woke up, headed to Bristol for NHRA. It was overcast and dreary. Not hot, so if they ran, it'd be good times. We found our seats after I about crapped my pants several times, due to them testing the rebuilt engines. Even if I'm braced for it, I'm still a very jumpy person. When they hit that nitro methane button, I always jump. We watched the first round of Top Fuel, then the rain started. Each rain delay at drag racing, is a wait for the rain to stop, and then a wait for drying the track. We watched 3 or 4 rain delays before we finally left, which was right at the end of Funny car. We didn't see any pro stock. We did manage to get through 4 rounds of beer at $20 a shot, for fizzy yellow water, so that was great... (wheres my thumbs up emoticon?) We headed out to try to find Depot Street Brewing, but it's in Tennessee, so they were closed on Sunday.
Went back and ate at the Wild Wing Cafe, they had shirts that said "Beer, It's not just for breakfast anymore". With that kind of advertising, I expected a huge beer list, but was very disappointed. There were about as many hot sauce varieties (33) as beers. After we finished there, went back to the house and Frank opened his bottle of the Highland Imperial Kashmir IPA, it was outstanding. Even though it was an "older" IPA, it still had a strong hops smell to it. (You'll get that from 200 pounds). It wasn't very bitter (although it probably was technically bitter) but had most of the hops flavors in it... depending on what you looked for. Spicy, piney, grassy, they were all in there, at some form or another.
After we finished that off, we watched the end of NHRA on ESPN2, where they carried the finish of Funny Car, live, at 1030. That would have been a REALLY long day, had we stayed.
Went to bed, and prepped for the ride home.
Left Asheville around 645, and around noon, pulled up towards Louisville. Kriddy was getting hungry so she looked on the GPS for a brewpub. I couldn't remember the name of it, but knew it was BB something, so when she pulled up the list, and there was Bluegrass Brewing Company, we were set.
Walked in and the bastard love child of Bruce Vilanch and Brian Posehn was tendi
ng bar. Sat down, order the sampler. Last year, I had 4 of their beers, and I got to add 7 more to my list. So that was nice. All their beer were good. After he gave us the first 7 samples, I looked at the tap handles and wondered where the rest were (there were way more than 7 taps). So he brought us out three other samples, Gross Batard, Raspberry Meade and Frambozen. I was especially impressed with the Raspberry Meade, it was probably the best meade I've had.I ordered the fish platter, which was a HUGE FRIGGIN piece of fish. Kriddy got an Italian beef sammich. The fish was outstanding. Remember how I mentioned Gordon Biersch had bad fish. That was just chunks of fish that weren't done properly. This slab of fish was over a foot long and about an inch thick in the middle. It was completely cooked all the way through, all of it was flaky. The batter wasn't burned, but was the color of a belgian triple. I saved up the nutbrown sample to drink with the fish, and it went well with it. Kriddy had the stout (of course) and that went pretty good with the sammich.
We told Jeff (the love child) about going on the brews cruise, and he thought it'd be a great idea to start one up around Louisville. We told him we were heading up towards indy on the way home, and he said for us to stop at Oaken Barrel, and mentioned another place, that I just can't remember now (Brass Monkey in Kokomo? Half Moon?) Dang, I need to write more things down.
After we headed back north on I 65, we stopped at Parti Pak Liquors and got about $100 worth of beer, or so it seemed. Then headed up the road to Crown Liquors. Crown seems to be the little hole in the wall place that everyone ignores. You'd expect Partipak to be that place, but Partipak has a reputation among beer aficionados (it's rated A+ on Beer Advocate) . Crown Liquors doesn't seem to have that cult following. Either crown restocks the shelves after each customer, or they don't have as many people go through. Either way, doesn't matter to me, I'm stopping there every trip I take to Indy. (It's right off U.S. 31 on the south of Indy). Crown has a wide range of Stone, Three Floyds, Mikkeller, Bells and a bunch of other stuff, and it's almost always in stock. I took their last two 6 packs of Bells Hopslam (and will be selling one of them to Meat). The guy working asked me about the Brewdog line (I had just gotten a few down the street) so I asked about the Paradox line, and he showed me where he had some. So I got a bottle of the 8. Crapola, I thought I had previously got the 4,5 and 9, but I got the 5,8,and 9 (back in C-bus) so now I've got another bottle of 8, which I'll just add to Meat's bill.
As I was pretty much grabbing everything in Crown that I hadn't had, and/or wanted, I was ringing up a hefty bill. So the guy working took my email was was going to pass it to their beer guy, to see if I wanted to do any trading. Also, for "special" customers, he had a bottle (or maybe two) of Darklord that he would sell, I mentioned I had 19 of them at home, and didn't really need any more. So we spent over $100 there too.
The GF is now a huge fan of the bourbon aged beers (just not the GIBCS so much, but that one gets better with age). She really liked the BBC Jeffs Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout, so we picked up a pack of that somewhere. We also got her a bottle of the Barley Island Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal (bourbon barrel oatmeal stout, this will probably be her favoritest beer in the world) and a bottle of Stone Smoked Porter as she really liked the O'fallon whiskey aged smoked porter.
It was a great time. All weekend went well, not too many bad beers, (except the coors light at the race). Next trip there will be for Bele Chere. Hopefully we'll be able to get Mark to take us to some of the other breweries, and also to the new ones.
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