Days of the Beer, June 8

The beer for June 8 is Harvey and Son's Tom Paine Original Old Porter.

On June 8, 1809 Thomas Paine died.

According to Wiki

His main contribution was as the author of the powerful, widely read pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), advocating independence for the American Colonies from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of The American Crisis, a series of pamphlets distributed between 1776-1783 that supported the Revolution.

According to the Brewers Website

Brewed to commemorate the bicentenary of Thomas Paine's "The Rights of Man". It is thought that Paine help draught the American Declaration Of Independence. His work still ranks among the best sellers of all time. America celebrates Independence day on July 4th each year. CAMRA has designated July as a celebration of British Independent Brewers of which Harveys is one. Where ever your sympathies lie it is worth raising a glass of Tom Paine. A dry hopped strong pale ale awarded the Silver Medal at the BBI Awards in 1993.

So if you like freedom and beer, on June 8, crack open a Tom Paine Porter.

Days of the Beer, June 7

The highlighted beer for June 7 is Three Floyds Robert the Bruce.

On June 7, 1329, Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, died.

According to Three Floyds website.

Robert the Bruce

STYLE: Scottish Ale
COLOR: Dark Brown
FLAVOR CHARACTERISTICS: A big malty body from chocolate and roasted malts, well balanced withjust the right combination of hops. Robust yet smooth, a true malt-lover's delight. AROMA: Full sweet malty nose, highlighting by roasted malt notes.
ALCOHOL % BY WEIGHT: 7.2%
AWARDS: Gold Medal, 1997 Real Ale Fest

I remember Robert the Bruce from Three Floyds as being
extremely malty. Most 3F beers are big on hops, but this one is HUGE on malt. At 7.2% it can also mess you up pretty good if you have a bunch. So, for June 7, find you a Robert the Bruce, and drink happily.

not my picture

Bar Review, After Softball Bars

In the greater CU area there are several bars that I tend to think of as After Softball bars.

These are the places you might go to around 8 or 9 p.m. on a weeknight (not Friday or Saturday) and see a bunch of people wearing similar shirts and tall socks. There will invariably be some guys in brightly colored socks in Adidas flip flops.
These bars are pretty easy to pick out. So how do you tell if the bar you are at is an after softball bar, if it's raining? It's pretty easy to pick out, if the place sells pitchers of beer and its the little plastic pitcher, then it's probably an after softball bar.

When you go to these places, you could get that little pitcher filled with your choice of macro beer. Miller Lite, Bud Light, and if you are lucky you might be able to get one full of regular Bud. Horray!!!

Around CU, there are 4 bars that fit the above descriptions pretty well.

The first is on Neil Street near downtown Champaign. Tumble Inn, called TI to people who frequent it.

TI has darts, and some form of internet juke box, and possibly bar food, dunno for sure, never been there when anyone was eating. This bar is macro-heaven. There's a review somewhere on the interwebs that says over 50 beers (wait no, that's 50 years). If it's a macro-made, it's probably at TI.

TI is the kind of place where you don't go to enjoy a beer, or to enjoy your liquor, it's a "Let's do shots" kind of establishment.

A little down the road on Springfield is Pia's Sports Bar and Grill. Pias sponsors many many many softball teams (I think most everyone who has played softball in CU has either played for or against a Pia's team). Pia's is one of the places to go after softball, where you pay for your pitchers for striking out. They also have a grill that produces grilled bar food (go figure). There's nothing too spectacular about the place, but some folks love it.

A couple blocks away is Office II. It's pretty much the same as Pia's except it's totally different, just ask the people who love O2 and can't stand Pia's. Apparently someone likes their burger basket. I think I once had buffalo wings there that were ok.

So far, none of these places will have any beer that remotely resembles craft beer. You might be lucky and find Guinness on draught, but is that really luck?

The final after softball location is at one of the softball locations. T.K. Wendls or the Brickhouse, one of the two major CU places to play softball, the other is Champaign County Parks district. Wendl's has a full grill bar menu, and the full lineup of ho-hum beers. After softball games, on hot nights, its fun to sit out and sip hydrating beers and watch pretty girls play sand volleyball. Other than that, it's not so great. There are two pool tables at the Brickhouse and up until recently they had OTB.

So if you are looking for a bar that has decent hamburgers, with marco lager on tap that is served in mini-pitchers, then Office 2, Pia's, Tumble Inn or the Brickhouse would be great places to go.

Days of the Beer, June 6

I'm going to start a new "feature" here on the Vbg-log, called Days of the Beer. We've all seen (and possibly have) a beer calendar, the day at a glance thing. I've got one sitting on my desk, it's still on April 24. It seems the beers in there are in no particular order. Today's beer is Mactarnahan's Oregon Honey Beer. What does that have to do with June 6? (This won't be a definitive list, but it'll be a beer that would be a good one to have today). If you know of any beers that go with a date, let me know.

So the first Day of the Beer will be for today, June 6.

Guess what... Today's beer isn't even beer. It's a cider.

Etienne Dupont Cidre Bouche Brut de Normandie

Image taken from the web

On June 6, 1944, the battle of Normandy began. Operation Overlord, or D-Day began with 155,000 Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy France. Beaches Omaha, Utah, and Pointe du Hoc were taken by American troops; the British landed on Sword and Gold; Canadians on Juno.

So in honor of those soldiers from U.S., Canada and the UK, today would be a good day for Cidre Brouche Brut de Normandie.

The label says "Product of France"; if we didn't win, it'd say "Product of Germany".

I had this cider last year on May 22, I remember it tasting like a dry champagne style cider, as opposed to the sweet sugary style. I believe it was almost like a white wine, than a sweet alco-pop beverage.

Bars at the Crossing

On Wednesday's now, Kriddy and I are in an APA pool league at Jupiters at the Crossing.

Right next to Jupiters 2 (Jupstew) is another bar, Billy Barooz. Both Jupstew and BB are Carlos bars, like Seven Saints. The man gets a lot of my money. Granted he's probably got a huge house, but I'd bet that I spend enough at his bars to make him a mortgage payment a year.

We started out at Billy Barooz to eat before heading next door to Jups2. I prefer the BB food rather than the pizza at Jups. BB has a good menu and is the Carlos bar you would most likely take a family to for a sit down dinner. It's probably the only bar he has that has a kids menu.

Last night I had the ribeye steak sammich, which was delicious. It looks like they changed out the steaks because the last time I had it, the meat was thinner and stringier, last night it was about a half inch thick, prepared perfect (medium rare; pink throughout) and the bun was good too. I got it with the vegetables which last night was steamed baby carrots and broccoli. Kriddy went with the kids mac and cheese and fries. The mac wasn't too impressive, Kriddy thought it might have been kraft. If it was, they made a lot of money off it. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great and looked like something anyone could make.

On Saturday's they used to (and might still) have a special of the smothered sausage. This is DELICIOUS. A polish style sausage covered in peppers and onions. Served with a side of spicy jardinière. The mixed vegetables normally are a squash and zucchini mix which is outstanding.

On Sundays they had (and might stil have) the country fried steak which Kriddy got most every football sunday. BB has the NFL sunday ticket and enough tv's to have every game on. (Update Sept. 6: Billy Barooz no longer has NFL Sunday Ticket)

One of my favorite meals there is the Cajun Creole Pasta. It's AWESOME! The pasta itself is good enough, but it's got shrimp, peppers, spices and some hot sausage, served in a spicy creamy cheese sauce. It's sooo damn good. I'd eat it everyday, except that since I'm lactose intolerant, it REALLY rips me up. Add to the cheese that shrimp can also devastate my insides and when I eat that I have to have a restroom available three hours alter. But it's worth the pain every now and then.

The beer selection isn't that great. There are 4 different taps on each side of the bar. On the north side is Guinness, Smithwicks, Blue Moon and Stella Artois; on the south is Coors Light, Miller lite (or high life), Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. You'll note there are no AB products on draft. They have all the AB's in bottle. BB's also carries Natural Light for one special person who shows up every now and then. They carry about 20-30 bottles and you can probably find something in a style that suits you. Kriddy's favorite beer there is Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout. My standby is Goose Island Oatmeal Stout (although I'm not sure they still carry it). Up until yesterday there were no 22 oz bombers but now they have New Belgium Fat Tire.

BB was the bar that got me to stop drinking miller lite. Ok, it was a bartender there, but still, it was at that bar. Right where the Stella tap is, was the beer that got me off macro's. It was Bells Amber. The handle that looks a little bit like a tooth with a light brown ball. Several months after switching beer, they changed that to Bells Oberon (which I didn't like, I missed my amber :( ). That's about when I started to try all their beers. It's to the point there now, that several bartenders won't even serve me Miller lite anymore.

The bartenders are friendly and accommodating. They'll change the tv's to whatever you want, and if it's slow enough, they'll just give you the remote. There are "for entertainment only" poker games but only a couple. There's also the game center where after 10 at night you can play Adult games, like the Photo Hunt (or as kriddy calls it T&C). There is a Touch Tunes internet jukebox. After 10 p.m. I've been known to terrorize the remaining patrons with music they hate. Marilyn Manson's Cake and Sodomy is one of my favorites for that. Playing that at 10 really cleans out the people who ate dinner and are just staying for "one more drink" "ok, maybe one more but this is it" "ok one more".

BB's used to be my everynight bar, back when I was going out drinking with my nEighbour. One night he'd drive and I'd get to drink, the next he'd be loaded up on some REALLY STIFF Jack and Cokes.

BB's was and still is one of my favorite bars. I've got some fond memories of sitting in there drinking. But there's not much else to do in there than sit and drink.

If you need something to do... go next door. Jupiters at the Crossing is now Champaign's playground. Like the original Jupiters, there are pool tables. The original has about 4 tables, the new one had about 3 times as many. The main floor has about 6 tables and the basement also has a bunch. (I've never been to the second floor; but I think it has darts).

In addition to pool tables, there's an air hockey table and all kinds of other games. There are kid's style games that give out tickets that can be redeemed at a machine that gives out prizes. They've got skeeball! On the first floor next to the motorcycle racing games is the basketball freethrow game. Kriddy kicks ass at that. Her favorite downstairs game is Deal or No Deal, while I enjoy the hunting game.

Oh, there's also 4 lanes of bowling. It's not full sized bowling, the lane is about half as long. You throw shotputs down the lane and hit pin's on strings. It's as much fun as you should be allowed to have while drinking. Kriddy has been known to not set her beer down while playing. I effort throwing the ball REALLY hard. I like the pin explosion.

The food is mostly pizza and related items. There are all kinds of pizza, if you want something on a pizza, they've probably got it. I've heard people say the pizza at Jups Classic is better, and I tend to agree; although I don't eat pizza much due to the afore mentioned lactose intolerance.

Now for the beer...

This is the Carlos bar with the largest selection of beer. It's not the variety you'd get at Crane Alley, but it's probably got the fifth largest selection in CU. The beer list was initially put together with input from Andy at Seven Saints. They've got nearly the full line of Great Divide beers including Yeti, Hercules and Titan. There are several Lefthands. There are still a few bottles of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout floating around at some of the bars (there are bars in the basement and the first floor, and probably on the second... dunno, haven't been up there). There's a wide variety of Rogue beers there, along with several trappist ales too.

In the past 2 times I've been there I've had New Belgium 1554; New Belgium Fat Tire; Rogue Shakespeare Stout; Great Divide Hercules; Rogue Chocolate Stout; Great Divide Yeti; Goose Island Bourbon County Stout; Great Divide Titan and probably some others.

The bartenders are ok about the beers, but they are more jack and coke makers than providers of great beers. Most of the time, they don't know the beer you ask for, and then spend a long time looking for it... "it's the one in the bottom shelf in the middle... with the white label". Last night I asked for a Fat Tire and got a 1554. Asking for an amber and getting a black isn't great. I drank it anyway, but wasn't too happy about it.

Jupiters at the Crossing is probably the best place to take a person if you want to entertain them and have them try some really great beers. It's best to go there after 10 p.m. because that's when they kick the kids out. Saturday and Sunday afternoons have a lot of kids birthday parties. (CU doesn't have a chucky cheese, the nearest is 50 miles away).

Between the two bars, you can get some great food and some great beer. It's too bad I can't transfer my tab between the two. Or maybe it's a good thing, I'd probably spend even more money if I could get BB food at Jups or Jups beer at BB.

Forget the rain, there's a bar to review

I was going to be reviewing "after softball" kinds of bars today, but changed my mind last night to reviewing Mike and Molly's. Unfortunately, Kriddy left her ID in the car and it was raining and she got carded in MnM so we went next door to Seven Saints, whey they know our names.

Ok, I won't lie, Seven Saints is one of my favorite bars. It's a member of the Carlos Nieto family of bars. It's located in downtown Champaign, on University Ave, towards the train tracks, next to the alley. Many people, for some reason, have trouble finding that bar.

Parking isn't so great in the downtown area, so if you are going to any bar, you may just want to park at the train station. If you are lucky, you'll get a spot right in front of 7S. You probably won't get lucky.

Seven Saints is the kind of a bar that you go to WITH a date, as opposed to a place you go to try to find a date. It's definitely not a MEET Market. It's somewhat dark inside, but that's a mood thing. There are always candles burning on the bar and in the candle display at the end of the main sitting room. The music is somewhat subdued, and the selection is made by the staff. There is no jukebox. There are 2 tvs above the bar, one around the corner and one in the dining tables area. They will put on whatever you want to watch. Last night, we were flipping between the Cubs game and the evening news while watching about the storm.

The manager, Andy, is very knowledgeable about his craft. He was brought over by Carlos from Crane Alley (the second best BEER bar in CU) to help this bar along. When Andy arrived, he turned over the beer selection and also the hard liquor selection. The liquor was mirrored (same on east and west) of the bar, but he reduced the multiple bottles and more than doubled the liquor selection. In the top middle is Pappy Van Winkle 23.

The bar has some martini originals, and some other mixed drink specialties, but they seem to pride themselves on their whiskey selection. There are 2 shelves (or so it seems) of whiskey. If you want it, they've probably got it. If they don't have it, they'll probably get it. They had, during May (not sure if it's still going on) Whiskey Wednesday, where the whiskey was half off, which made for some really good deals on servings that were formerly around $30 a glass.

Their food menu is somewhat ... um... snobbish. While the main fare is "slider" style mini-burgers, they can be found with all sorts of interesting ingredients. Of their sliders, my favorite is the bratwurst slider (I think I had that once). They have beet chips, cheese curds, and hummus. I do enjoy their ribeye sandwich but it's not the best steak sandwich in the Carlos bars. There are other entrees on the menu besides sliders.

As for the beer; they have 3 mirrored coolers on either side of the bar that contain most of their beers. They have beers that fit all styles. There are wits, wheats, ambers, bier de garde, farmhouse, lambic, porter, stout, ciders, marzans, and several trappists. If you order something and don't know what beer goes with it, you could either go with the St. Amand Farmhouse Ale; or the new Flying Dog Garde Dog (bier de garde). There are several beers from Flying Dog, Dogfish Head, Bear Republic, Dark Horse, Left Hand, and Rogue (to name a few). There are (I think) 8 taps, with Guinness; Magic Hat (#9); Dark Horse Black Bier; Rogue (currently Issaquah Bullfrog); and for the macro... Miller High Life (I think). I can't remember the rest of the taps, sorry. There is also a cooler that has rotating stock, whatever is new and limited goes in there. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout is in there. Most of the 22oz bombers are in there, including the Bear Republic beers. In the entryway to the kitchen is Andy's cooler. He keeps some "special" bottles in there. If you ask him nicely, he may bust out something special from there. He's given us a Dogfish Head Pangea, some stuff from 3 Floyds and some other high quality beers from his own stash. The stuff in his cooler is from his personal cellar, and he loves to share good beer. Just make sure you are willing to hear the story behind the beer, because he'll talk about it for a while.

Andy tries to keep the staff knowledgeable on their selection, but with all the hard liquors and different beers (there's possibly 50) they have trouble keeping up. Granted I don't need any help picking out a beer, but I can throw in a food pairing or a beer suggestion when I'm there. The beer menu isn't exactly up to date, but Andy will give a little writeup on the new beers on the back of the menu. (he likes to use an exclamation mark!)

Last night a guy was drinking Delerium Tremens and was looking to have something different, but then couldn't figure out what to have, so he ordered another DT, so I recommended a Unibroue La Fin du Monde, as those are both similar beers. He seemed to enjoy it. So that was nice.

If you want a beer or drink with someone, without having to shout across the table; Seven Saints is a good place to go. If you are taking a date out and don't want to be bumped into a lot, it's good for that too. The kitchen is open later than most of the other bars around, so you can get a slider at a late hour. (However if you are closing bars and need to eat, Merry Ann's is still the place to go). If you want to dance, it's not the place. It's not the busiest bar downtown, but on Friday and Saturday, the bar can get kind of full.

Champaign/Urbana Bars... my goal

The other day as I was looking around the web for information on bars owned by Carlos Nieto, I came across this website. It's a nice little rundown of some of the bars in C/U. As I read it I realized that it was 4 years old, and many things have changed since then. So I thought... Someone's gotta do it... so it'll be me.

So at least once a week now, in addition to the beers and all the other crap that I fill your free time with, I'm going to review a bar. Tuesday night is normally the night that Kriddy and I have to go to a bar (at least it's the NORMAL night for that) we get out some other nights, but mostly it's Tuesday that we hit bars. So on Wednesday's you'll be able to read up on some bars.

Things I'll try to get in are (of course) beer selection; wait staff knowledge of the beer selection; food selection; atmosphere and overall impression. Yes, I'm biased to certain bars and there are some that I know that I hate; with pool being in house and not traveling anymore, it'll be difficult to get to the dives, so I'll go from memory on those.

First up, the dives...

I think the biggest dive in CU is D.R. Diggers. Diggers is kind of like Moe's tavern, without the possibility of any fun nights. When you walk in, there'll be a bunch of regulars there who look at you over the top of their macro lager, as though you don't belong there. There'll be some girl who just turned 21 a couple of months ago, who used to be pretty in highschool, but the past 3 years have aged her poorly. She'll be hanging out with her friend who's a couple years older and several nights closing the bar ahead of her, she's the mentor. They are only 15-20 years away from being straight up bar hags... prune tang. They'll come up to you and ask you to buy them a drink... refuse to do it. If they offer to buy you a drink... RUN!!!

Diggers has 2 pool tables in the back. They are coin-op per game but can also be fed dollars and played by the minute. The juke box is Touch Tunes. The songs played normally on it vary from "my dog just died" country; to "i'm going to kill you" death metal. You can play pretty much anything in there, someone might like it, one of the surly drunks at the bar won't. Just stay away from him.

I've heard their food is ok. It's mostly fried fare, but it's pretty good drunk food.

Diggers is poorly lit. It feels dark. The ceiling over the pool tables has fiber optic lights punched through it which gives it a starry feel, but it's still... very dark. As for the beer, there is nothing too interesting there. Mostly macro's. You might be able to find the Michelob seasonal there (I've had Winters Bourbon Cask Ale on draft there) but the highlight of their selection is HAMMS (for $1.50 I believe).

Diggers has "for entertainment only" video poker.

Diggers "allows" smoking (Illinois has a no smoking law). Unfortunately, it's back near the pool tables, so that really sucks. Some people go out and follow the rules/law, other go near the back door, others just sit, hidden away in a corner, puffing away. This gives off a seedy-dive feel. I'm pretty sure once while I was relieving myself in the men's room, that a drug deal was taking place in the stall.

Diggers is not a place I chose to go to. I only go there for billiards, since I'm not in a traveling league... I won't be there for a while.

The next dive is The Phoenix. The Phoenix has absolutely no redeeming qualities, or at least no reason to go there that I couldn't get at a different bar.

The Phoenix beer selection is really bad. They don't sell bottles because people who get into fights would kill another person with it. The Phoenix probably has the largest selection of 24 oz canned beer in CU. If you are stuck drinking horrible beer, you might as well get a really huge friggin can of it, right? WRONG!

They have 2 pool tables, both coin op. There is also "for entertainment only" video poker.

They also have Touch Tunes, but get really mad when you play something that isn't Lynrd Skynrd... It seems very southern rock-y.

The bar is also very dark. The front windows are tinted dark. It's dark. There is a stage where bands play, and I'm pretty sure it's only local death metal bands. I've never been there on a music night.

It's a biker bar some of the time. Kriddy is pretty sure that once while she was there a guy was jacking off in the corner while looking at her. On another occasion, two bikers in full leather pulled up in front of the bar, parked came inside and shouted "Let's get this party started". Which would be scary enough, except the guy who said it was speaking through a mechanical larynx. This is a scary bar. I am uncomfortable there.

Another major issue with this bar is, the "allow" smoking. One of the parts of the Smoke free Illinois thingy is that bars can't have ashtrays on the table. The Phoenix technically doesn't have ashtrays. The last time I was there, they had Altoids cases on the tables, that could easily be closed, should some sort of enforcement person show up. We were there for pool and outside of us, there were maybe 10 other people in the bar. It seemed all 10 people were smoking. I stunk worse than when I smoked. Kriddy had to take a shower before she could go to bed, the smell of smoke was too strong for her. Renee got sick from the overpowering smell.

For food, the Phoenix has frozen pizza... and some bags of chips and stuff.

If you are looking for a place where you'll get beat up, can drink crappy beer from 24 oz cans, and can smoke, then the Phoenix is probably for you!

The final dive for today is Boomerangs. It seemed like we were always at Boomerangs every year for the all star game. I'm not sure how that worked, but for quite a few years we'd be sitting in front of the same tv watching the all-star game. Boomerangs has two pool tables.

Boomerangs bathroom, during the winter, is possibly one of the coldest places on the face of the earth. In addition to being 20 degrees colder than the outside temperature, they somehow manage to pump water into the sink that is 10 degrees below freezing. You will get contact frostbite if you touch the sink. Don't stick your tongue on it.

Their food menu is decent greasy spoon grill fare.

They have one of the larger Leinenkugel selections in town on draft. Otherwise, there is nothing to spectacular for beer.

The jukebox is an internet jukebox, but not touchtunes. I'm not sure the name of the style, but it's one of the greatest I've seen. You can listen to at Boomerangs. I can torture their patrons for hours with nearly the entire KMFDM collection.

Boomerangs isn't as dark as the other dives. It's also a starting off point for some people as it shares a parking lot with the the Silver Bullet (dancers wanted, no exp. needed).

If you are looking for these three dives, they work from west to east. Diggers is off Springfield Ave on 604 S. Country Fair Drive. The Phoenix is at 215 S. Neil Street. Boomerangs is 1309 E Washington St.

There's more dives in town, I'm sure I'll remember more... I'm not trying to leave anyone out. I'll get them later.

V