This was my longest driving trip ever, more than twice as long as my
West Coast trip. I spent many months planning it.
The biggest challenge in planning a brewery trip is the fact that each brewery has its own unique days and hours of
operation, so you can't just leave on any given day and expect each brewery to be open whenever you arrive because
choosing a particular day for one brewery has a future "chain effect".
For example, let's say that you want to visit Brewery A one day, Breweries B and C the following day (in that
order because B is on the way to C), and Brewery D the day after that. Brewery A is open Wednesday-Sunday, so your
departure days are limited to
those 5 days of the week. Brewery B is open every day, but it doesn't open until 4 PM on
Monday-Thursday, and arriving that late would cause you to arrive too late at Brewery C, which is 4 hours down the road
and closes at 8 PM. So, you must arrive at Brewery B before 2 PM on Friday-Sunday (to allow an hour at each brewery),
which means that you must leave for Brewery A on
Thursday-Saturday (3 possible days). Brewery D is closed on Mondays, which means that you must go to breweries B and C
on Friday or Saturday, so you must go to Brewery A on Thursday or Friday. Now you're down to 2 possible departure
days. Well, imagine planning a trip with dozens of breweries along thousands of miles of road.
By the way, Google Maps is a great resource for getting driving directions, although it's not always
accurate in estimating travel times because its estimates are done according to traffic at the time you do your
research, so if you research at off hours and then travel during trafficky times or inclement weather,
it will take longer to reach your destination than your research tells you. For this reason it is a good idea to
check the best route just before you leave; it might differ from the route you've planned.
I wanted to start my trip on Wednesday February 20 with a visit to
Adroit Theory, but the brewery was closed that
day due to snow. It wouldn't have been considered a storm where I come
from (Massachusetts), but because I live in the Mid-Atlantic, the 5 inches we got was a "storm" that caused
locals to stock up on
milk and toilet paper. Why do people do that? What is it about snow that causes people to suddenly develop osteoporosis and diarrhea?
This day turned out great anyway because I walked to some friends' house and drank all afternoon/evening with neighborhood
friends. (Note that the photo on the left is not me - it's a meme that I found on the Internet.
The photo on the right was taken at my friends' house.)
Thursday February 21. I could have left the day before the "storm", but Adroit Theory is closed on Tuesdays.
And of course if I'd gone to there today, it would have messed up plans several days down the road due to the chain
effect. So I skipped that brewery and drove directly to Richmond VA in order to follow my original plan.
In the late morning I arrived at the home of my friend
Chuck, who maintains the Belgian Beer Specialist website and
as of this writing has visited 175 Belgian breweries. We walked over to
ZZQ and had some amazing turkey and brisket. I asked one of the employees
how they got their meats so tasty and succulent. She said that they use only wood in the smoker (no other fuel source)
and instead of checking internal temperature to determine when the meats are done, they do it by "feel". The place is
very popular.
Chuck had to work so I Lyfted to The Answer, which I'd been to a year and a half earlier.
The name is a play on the first name of the owner, An Bui. They had 20 house beers and 39 guest beers on tap.
They infuse their stouts with various things via their "Andall", which is a play on Dogfish Head's "Randall".
They also have many sour/fruity beers that they call "Joose".
I ordered a plate of their Viet Brussels Sprouts, which was quite good; and
tried 8 of their house beers, including 2 Andalls and 4 Jooses:
Papusas, Money, Glycol
Bloody Malth
Dixie Normous (a fantastic stout that was the thickest beer I've ever had)
Chocolate Brownie (a nice stout)
Blackberry Currant Imperial Puffsicle (nice sour ale with marshmallow, blackberries, and redcurrants; lots of pulp, like a smoothie)
Double Raspberry Puffsicle (great 3.5% ABV sour ale with marshmallow and raspberries)
Imperial 3 Scoops: Passionfruit, Mango, Peach
Triple 3 Scoops: Passionfruit, Lemonade, Mango
Cardboard cut-out of An.
Next door is a large Vietnamese restaurant called Mekong
that An opened in 1995. The two are not connected, however; you enter Mekong in the front, but to enter The Answer
you have to go around back. Mekong had 4 house beers and 48 guest beers on tap, and they were all different
from the ones at the Answer. They don't do flights at Mekong but my server gave me small samples of the house beers,
2 stouts and 2 jooses, all of which were Andallized. They were all good but not as good as those from The Answer.
King Kahuna
Good Nightmare
Pineapple Popsicle (very mouth-watering)
Kromer Juice Mango (also very mouth-watering)
On a tip from Chuck I Lyfted to Bingo Beer Company.
It has a kitchen, pool tables, air hockey, video games, and pinball machines, and the atmosphere is quite festive.
It opened on November 1, 2018. All the beers were well made.
Black Lager
Free Space
Boreal Rays
The Fall Guy
I walked to Black Heath Meadery, which is owned by Bill Cavender, a
friend of both mine and Chuck's, who I've known for many years through a homebrew club called
BURP. The place opened in March 2015. Chuck finished work and walked over
to meet us. Bill gave us samples of some of his meads, all of which were good.
Muse
Sweet and Tangy
Farmer's Daughter
Raspberry Featuring Chocolate and Vanilla (nice flavor and wonderful aroma) (bottle)
Chuck and I Lyfted to Triple Crossing's Fulton location, which
I'd visited a year and a half earlier. We sampled:
Shimmer
Small Fortune
Double Dry-Hopped Clever Girl (nice)
Nectar and Knife (great)
Dawn Chorus
The Grid
The Proposition
Rolling Blackouts
Next we Lyfted to Tabol, which had just opened earlier in the month.
Two friends of mine, Mike and Glenn, met us there.
We sampled all of Tabol's beers, most of which were good.
Sezono Vintro
Bruxit
Bucolic Frolic
Now
Sooon (yes it's spelled that way)
Atingita
Floroj
Io Torito
Glenn had to attend to family matters, so Mike, Chuck, and I Ubered to The Veil.
By this time I was pretty drunk. The place was crowded and we had to
wait in line for beer. We sampled:
By the time we left I was crocked so it's a good thing Chuck and Mike took care of me. I don't remember anything after
this point. Thanks to the photos I took and the voice recordings I made, I can tell you that we walked to
Väsen and sampled:
Foeder Beer #1
Foeder Beer #2
Cashmere Secrets
Enigma Borealis
Sour Cherry Walrus
Norse Pale Ale (nice)
Wanderlust #3
Then I suppose Mike went home and Chuck and I walked back to his place, but I don't remember.
Friday February 22. Woke up very early and couldn't get back to sleep, which gave me time to work on
this web page. Drove in the rain to Raleigh NC and arrived at the home of my friends Carmen and William, who I've
known for decades and hadn't seen in years. Carmen had taken off work, so the two of us had lunch at
Brewery Bhavana. It has a sort of contemporary decor, with lots of
books that you can read. The beers were good and the food was excellent. They don't do beer flights but I asked for some
small tastes and our server brought 4 substantial tastes that were just like ordering a flight. We tried:
Till (farmhouse ale)
Grove (DIPA)
Glean (mango peppercorn saison)
Bloom (cardamom tripel)
By the way, Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks, due to the many oak trees. It has a giant acorn statue
called Nutzilla.
Carmen works for my former employer at a facility on the NC State campus, so she drove me around the campus.
It rained all day so we didn't walk much. We did go inside the
Hunt Library, which is state-of-the-art. It has millions of books that are retrieved by a robotic delivery system called
bookBot. Someone happened to be
giving a tour, so we glommed onto it. The library is quite large. It has many computers, teaching labs, and spaces
where students can collaborate. NC State has several libraries; this one is the science and technology library.
That evening Carmen cooked us a great dinner and we all got caught up on what's been going on in our lives.
Saturday February 23. Left shortly after 6 AM because I had close to 9 hours of driving ahead of me. It was
dark, still raining, and 43 degrees. I didn't mind because I purposely chose the time of the year with the crappiest
weather for this trip because the vast majority of my time would be spent inside buildings and my car. During the nice
weather I want to be walking around outside.
There is lots of time to think on a long trip. Having just visited two old friends I got to thinking about how
fortunate I've been to have some wonderful people in my life. I've
got many friends, some for more than 30 years now. Sometimes we lose sight of our good fortune as we focus
on whatever life issues we might have (financial, medical, familial). In the end, what is most important? Loved ones,
and finding inner peace. (I will spare you a long dissertation on finding our true selves and inner peace.
If you'd like to read my thoughts on this topic, click here.)
After about 4 hours I made it to the Angel Oak Tree, located near Charleston SC.
It is a Southern live oak. (Apparently the Carolinas are festooned with oaks.)
This is a whopper of a tree, with a trunk that measures 28 feet in circumference and many thick, long arms that touch the
ground. It looks like a giant octopus sea monster. The gift shop prohibits cell phone use in order to prevent people from
snapping photos of the prints that are for sale, which is silly because there are plenty of free photos of this tree
on the Internet. Just Google "angel oak" and click on "Images".
Most of the highways south of Virginia had speed limits of 70.
There were religious billboards in South Carolina and Georgia, indicating that Bible thumping is still big down there.
Sometimes shortly after a religious billboard there'd be a billboard advertising an "adult" shop.
As I entered Florida there were a bunch of palm trees along the side of the highway, but only for a while. Then
there were no more, which indicates that they were planted by the State of Florida to create an effect. The drivers were
the rudest of the day, especially those in pickup trucks.
By the time I made it to Jacksonville it was more than 80 degrees out and partly sunny. I stopped at
Aardwolf Brewing, which opened in 2013, and sampled:
Foeder San Marcos Sour (a good sour that reminded me of my gueuze)
Barrel Aged San Marcos Sour Batch # 004 (tequila and Scotch barrel aged)
Blueberry Acai (good fruit sour)
Soulshine (foeder aged saison with blackberries, black currants, and cherries)
Twin Blasphemies (barrel aged sour amber saison)
Hard Target (Belgian golden strong)
Early Bird Special (imperial stout with coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon)
Double Surrender Ash (bourbon and Scotch barrel aged black barleywine)
B.P.A. (Belgian pale ale)
Death By Face (sour wheat)
I bought a couple of 750s to go and then made it down to my friend Linda's place in St. Augustine.
We have been friends since 2005 and she had just moved
there from my neighborhood a few weeks earlier. We Ubered with another friend of mine, Jazs, who lives just minutes
away and I've been friends with
since 1995, to downtown St. Augustine. It is a happening place with many bars, restaurants, and shops. We started at
Auggie's Draft Room, which had opened 4 months earlier.
It has 24 self-serve taps of beer, wine, and cider where you pay by the
ounce. We sampled many of the libations while listening to live reggae music.
Jazs's Taz.
We then ducked into a few places and watched some fireworks.
We stumbled upon
Colonial Oak Music Park,
a nice intimate park that is situated
under a very large live oak tree. An excellent rock band was playing and drinks were being sold. I had a
coconut porter from Ancient City Brewing. Hundreds of people of all ages were
there. Several folks were dancing. The three of us danced in the rain toward the end of the concert.
We headed over to Milltop Tavern
for more drinks and live music. I had Green Room Head High IPA.
Then we went to a popular place called Prohibition Kitchen
for even more drinks and live music. We got
Swamp Head Big Nose IPA and Lexington Bourbon Barrel Aged Ale.
Our last stop was Burrito Works Taco Shop
for post-midnight tacos and beer. We drank some Coppertail Free Dive IPA
and took home a can of Halyard Volcano Juice.
Sunday February 24. The three of us had a hearty breakfast at Linda's and drove down to the south side
of St. Augustine Beach. Driving on the beach is allowed there, so...
Then we headed over to the St. Augustine Amphitheater for the
St. Augustine
Shrine Club Chowder Challenge for Children, a chowder festival that benefits the
Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa, Florida. We sampled dozens of locally made chowders, several of
which were great. As they say in the Boston area were I come from, wicked good chowdah!
Then we boarded the "train", which is basically a street buggy. (I lifted the following photo from the Internet.
It was actually cloudy today, and it rained halfway through the tour.)
The tour guide drove us around downtown St. Augustine. The city has a lot of history, which you can read
about here. It is home to
breweries, a winery, a distillery, a chocolate factory, several museums, Flagler College,
and countless shops, bars, and restaurants. Here are some random photos I took.
Next we went to St. Augustine Distillery. The place was crowded, and
we were lucky to find the last available parking spot. We got a tour with tastings, and it was free! They made us
various drinks, including Florida Mule, Rum Tiki Cocktail, Grapefruit Hibiscus Spritz, and Old Fashioned.
We also got to sample 5 of their spirits, including Florida Straight Bourbon, Port Finished Bourbon, New World
Gin, Pot Distilled Rum, and Florida Cane Vodka.
Then we went upstairs to check out their bar/restaurant called Ice Plant.
(Before refrigeration, ice was produced at the distillery. Ice was very important to the economy.)
Then Linda dropped Jazs and me off at Bog Brewing and went home for a bit to take
care of her dog. We sampled:
Blume Bier
Brut IPA
Grapefruit IPA
Hazy IPA #ESM
Belgian Dubbel
Raspberry Saison
Oatmeal Coffee Stout
Mango Tart
Eventually Linda came back to get us and we all went to the
Back 40 Urban Café. The food was great and the
portions were huge. It was a nice ending to a fun day.
Monday February 25. Got up before 4 AM due to having turned in relatively early the night before. One might think
that being retired would cause one to sleep later, but it doesn't if you're the sort of person who typically sleeps 5 hours
a night. It gives me plenty of time to write triplogs when I travel and pursue hobbies when I'm home.
A beautiful, sunny day, although a bit chilly for Florida. Linda had to work, so Jazs and I spent the day together.
First stop: Cafe Eleven. They serve food all day and also have craft beer
and live music. We got smoothies.
Then we headed over to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.
You know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? It depends on whether you're gonna see it later
or in a while. Anyway, in addition to many crocodilians...
...they had turtles, tortoises, birds, lemurs, snakes, and a couple of Komodo dragons.
Komodo dragon.
I shot this video of a tortoise (or is it a turtle?):
Then we went to Old Coast Ales. Next door is a taco place called
Osprey Tacos, which delivers to Old Coast customers, so we got several tacos to
have with our beers. We tried:
Oh-8-Oh Chinook
Static Haze (nice NEIPA)
Hop Suds
Anniversary Hazy
Empirical
Burt's Summer
Bourbon Barrel Aged El Galeon 2019
They have a program where you can buy beers for friends ahead of time. Two boards display who bought them, for whom, and how
many. We played ping pong for a while and also ran into Emily, the woman who had given us our distillery tour the previous day.
Sharing board.
Emily is next to Jazs.
Next we drove to downtown St. Augustine and walked around for a while.
We walked through the city hall building, which houses a museum, a hotel, nice greenery, and a koi pond.
After that we walked to the touristy area that has many shops and restaurants.
We saw Flagler College.
Hammocks.
We also saw Casa Monica, which is a hotel and spa.
We retrieved Jazs's van and drove by the Old Senator Live Oak, which is estimated to be 600 years old.
We also drove by Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth, but it was closed
for the day. I took this photo of the street it's on. That white thing in the road is a bride who was having
photos taken.
Then we went to Beaches at Vilano, where Linda met us after work for drinks
and to watch the sunset.
We all went to Jazs's house. Her boyfriend Jim was there, and the four of us spent the evening together.
Beers included Bog Brewing Smoked Datil, Wild Range Brewing IPA, and Sweetwater IPA.
Tuesday February 26. Warmer today, but overcast. I left Linda's in the late morning and drove to
Civil Society Brewing in Jupiter. Every beer was good.
After Work Murk (rye IPA) (collaboration with Pure Project)
Deciphering Dreams (DIPA) (collaboration with Southern Swells)
Bulkshake w/ Blueberry, Raspberry, and Strawberry (milkshake IPA)
Waking Reality (IPA)
Center of the Sun (DIPA) (collaboration with Equilibrium)
Juice (DIPA)
Waking Reality is one of the beers sold in cans. The label is part of the
48 Beer Project, in which
artist Heidi Geist is traveling around the country from September 2018 to September 2019 in a retrofitted school bus,
visiting one brewery in a new state each week and designing an original label for it during her short time in town.
Afterwards I went to my mom's house in Delray Beach, where I would spend the next 3 nights.
My sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner.
Wednesday February 27. Jogged (my first workout in 8 days), napped, and hung out with my mom. What a rough day.
View from my mom's front door.
Thursday February 28. Pretty much the same as yesterday. By the way, my allergies had been kicking up since
St. Augustine. The pollen count was pretty high because spring comes early in Florida.
Anyway, that night the four of us went out for Chinese food
at Kingsburg.
Friday March 1. Left beautiful Delray Beach...
...and drove to Tampa. Many motorists exhibited the same selfishness and recklessness that I'd seen several days earlier.
One sign on the turnpike said, "Florida Turnpike. The Less Stressway." Apparently they have no idea how their residents drive.
Maybe the motorists aren't so selfish. Maybe speeding and cutting people off is the accepted norm in Florida. What do I know?
I'm from up north. It's interesting that you have two kinds of dangerous drivers in Florida. You have the reckless folks that I mentioned; but you also have lots of old people who have slow reflexes, can hardly see, and/or take various medications that make
them drowsy. They're not jerks - they're just inept. You tend to see the older folks on the local roads, whereas the young jerks
are everywhere.
French Toast (good but very sweet imperial porter with vanilla beans, cinnamon, and maple syrup)
German Chocolate Cupcake Stout with Orange Zest (quite good, thick, and orangy, but cloying)
The bar stools were interesting.
Then it was on to Tallahassee. At one point I stopped to take a leak, and it took 15 minutes because I had to exit the
highway, wait at a few traffic lights, pull into a fast food joint, do my business, then wait in more traffic lights to
get back on the highway. It is much quicker to use rest areas. Or pee in a jug. Anyway, the temperature got close to 90,
but mid-afternoon thunderstorms dropped it by 25 degrees. Eventually I got to
Proof Brewing. The parking lot was filled because it was Friday at 5:00.
The place was quite crowded. There is foosball, air hockey, and a back yard with artificial turf and cornhole.
There were 19 house beers plus a guest cider on tap. I enjoyed every beer I sampled:
La La Land (good hoppy, crisp, clean IPA)
Tropical Uprising (good NEIPA with some kind of fruit)
Raspberry Kissing Giants (good gose)
Strawberry Banana Evil Kiss (good Berliner weisse)
Royal Bloodline (nice 12.5% ABV imperial stout)
Rum Barrel Aged Royal Bloodline (another nice 12.5% ABV imperial stout)
Glass Emperor (nice boozy 10% ABV imperial stout; tasted higher in alcohol than all the other stouts)
Cherry Cordial Glass Emperor (quite good 10% ABV imperial stout)
They sold crowlers of several of their beers but unfortunately not their stouts.
On a tip from one of the bartenders I went to a nearby store called
Beer Stop that had a nice craft beer selection.
I spent more than an hour using Beer Advocate to look up beers'
ratings and spent almost $100 on beers. Then I checked into the local Motel 6, which had wooden floors with a layer of filth.
This was the first night in more than a week of traveling that I did not stay with friends or family.
Saturday March 2. Up by 3:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep due to turning in early the night before.
The morning was overcast and dark when I left at 6:45.
Drove west, entering the Central time zone. It was dark, gray, and dismal for most of the Florida panhandle, with
lots of rain that was quite heavy at times. But when you're on your way to beer, it's always sunny!
Went across Alabama and Mississippi, into Louisiana. My allergies subsided. Stopped at
Calandro's Supermarket in Baton Rouge because I'd read that it had a great beer selection.
Well, it does -- hundreds of both foreign and domestic craft beers, not to mention about as many wines.
It was worth the detour. Bought some local stuff (using Beer Advocate to
help me choose) and went on my way. A little over an hour later I checked into
La Quinta Inn and ate some food. (I never eat at restaurants
when I travel alone. I get food at supermarkets and eat in the car and motel rooms.)
Lyfted to Parish Brewing (Lyft is usually cheaper than Uber).
I was impressed with the beers:
Envie (good hazy pale ale)
Nova Vert (good NEIPA)
Ghost in the Machine (nice NEDIPA)
Abbey Reserve 2018 (good 10% ABV quad)
Rêve Coffee Stout (very good stout with Rêve coffee and Madagascar vanilla; huge coffee aroma and flavor)
Double Vanilla Rêve Coffee Stout (very good sweet stout with lots of vanilla aroma and flavor)
Grand Reserve 2018 (good 11% ABV barleywine; could use some aging)
Our Cake is a Lie (nice 10½% ABV Doberge cake-style stout with cacao nibs)
Imperial Reserve 2018 (11½% ABV imperial stout; the only beer I didn't like)
Maple Shade 2017 (good 14% ABV stout with maple syrup and aged in bourbon barrels; more oaky and boozy than the 2018)
Maple Shade 2018 (nice 14% ABV stout with maple syrup and aged in bourbon barrels; sweeter and more maple-y than the 2017)
Strawberry Canebrake (good American wheat with strawberries)
I got mighty toasted as you might imagine from so many high-octane beers. Bought 4-packs of
Ghost in the Machine and Rêve Coffee Stout.
Talked with an older couple named Whitey and Janie, who live locally in a
geodesic dome home.
After the place closed at 7 PM, they offered me a ride back to the hotel.
Sunday March 3. Got up even earlier than the previous morning due to an early bedtime.
The hotel had free breakfast. Normally I don't eat anything until I get to my first brewery because the only purpose
of food is to slow alcohol absorption, but it was free, so I ate some. I also took some with me because hey, free.
Left at the same time as the previous day, on a gray, foggy, drizzly morning, with temperatures in the high 60s.
When I reached Texas two hours later, it was 10 degrees cooler, and still cloudy. The traffic lights were horizontal
rather than vertical. Stopped in Houston at
Spindletap Brewery, whose hazy IPAs got great ratings on
Beer Advocate. It's a modern-looking place and they played classic rock music.
Hop Gusher (IPA)
Houston Haze (good hazy IPA)
Juiceton (hazy DIPA)
Haze Invaders (DIPA)
B.A. Valdez (barrel-aged 14% ABV English barleywine)
I wanted to buy some Houston Haze to go, but it was sold only in 6-packs. However, one of the servers went back into the
brewery and gave me two short-fill cans for free.
Nice sticker. It should be - they charged $2 for it.
As I was putting the beers in my trunk with my stash, a guy who was also leaving struck up a conversation with me.
He said he was heading to a new brewery in nearby Humble called
Ingenious Brewing. I decided to follow him. The place opened in
March 2018. We pooled our resources and tried:
Maternal Brain (good NEDIPA)
C800 (another good NEDIPA)
Barrel-Aged Blueberry Crumble (nice 13% ABV imperial stout with cacao nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, ancho chiles, and blueberry puree)
Bully Bully (yet another good NEDIPA)
Double Splat (NEDIPA that was kind of stale)
Triple Splat (good triple IPA)
Then I went west to visit my friends Neb and Kim in Round Rock. They'd just moved there from Maryland
a few months earlier. Round Rock is near Austin, and at the time I was visiting, the entire Austin area was experiencing
an explosion of new businesses and people moving there, so there was a lot of traffic. It was 43 degrees when I arrived.
They drove me down to Jester King, whose sour ales
I'd thoroughly enjoyed in years past. When we got there it was cold and windy. The brewery is located on a large farm.
There is an outdoor pavilion.
There is also a building where they make pizza and serve beer.
We went to the main bar and tried all their beers.
Le Petit Prince (3% ABV table beer)
Super Ultramega Hyperforce (refermented with cantaloupe, tarragon, and ginger salt)
High Lorde (good hoppy farmhouse ale)
Saison Américaine (foudre-fermented saison)
2018 SPON 3-Year Blend (nice blend of 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old spontaneously fermented beer)
Vague Recollection (refermented with Sangiovese and Tempranillo grape pomace)
Bière de Blanc du Bois (nice beer barrel-aged and refermented with Blanc du Bois grapes)
Viking Metal (good smoky beer, gin barrel-aged with smoked malt, juniper, and sweet gale)
Twilight Oblivion (farmhouse Baltic porter refermented with Mourvédre grapes) (collaboration with Red Horn)
Neb and Kim
They gave a tour while we were there, so we joined it. Unlike most breweries, they get their water from a spring and
they do not treat it. Their brewery is reminiscent of Cantillon and other Belgian sour ale breweries, with many barrels and
a koelschip where hot wort is transferred for inoculation with yeast and bacteria that naturally occur in the air.
We went back to Round Rock and stopped at Pinthouse Pizza.
This is their third location (the other two are in Austin) and it had just opened weeks earlier.
It's a festive place with foosball, table hockey, and tiki toss.
They make good beer and even better pizza, and they also have guest beers. We all got pizzas and sampled:
Monday March 4. A 28-degree morning. Drove to Hewitt, where my friends Loyd and Anne, who used to live in my
neighborhood, had moved a year and a half earlier. During the drive I got to thinking: I won't date anyone who lives
more than 30 minutes from me, but I'll drive thousands of miles for beer. This shows where my priorities are. Women have lied
to me, stolen from me, criticized me, and tried to change me. Beer has never done any of those things.
Loyd and I went for lunch and beers at
Cricket's Draft House + Grill in Waco (they also have a location in Lubbock).
It's not a brewery but it has about 100 taps and great food. We got samples of:
After that we visited Brotherwell Brewing, which opened in early 2018.
It's open only on Saturdays,
but Loyd knows the owner/brewmaster Jacob, who happened to be there, so he let us in and gave us samples of all the
beers he had on tap. All of them were good.
Act of Faith (Belgian tripel)
The Chisolm (pale ale) (my favorite)
Texas Forever (red IPA)
Bridge Street Wit
Gerrymander (session India brown ale)
Sandman (imperial stout)
He also gave us a sample of a lager that was still in the conditioning tank. He was very gracious in taking the time to
entertain us, and he didn't even charge us for the samples.
Jacob.
We stopped by Cameron Park and saw
Lovers' Leap. It was cold and windy so we didn't walk around.
We went over to Dancing Bear Pub, which is a bar with
about 16 taps and 40 cans of mostly local brews. Anne met us there after work. We tried:
Blue Owl Dapper Devil (good Belgian sour with raspberries)
Our last stop was Texas Roadhouse, a chain
restaurant that serves great steaks. They didn't have any craft beer but I got some excellent filet.
Loyd and Anne.
Tuesday March 5. Woke up a little after 1 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I lay in bed feeling the energy in
my body. We are beings of energy. Whether we are ghosts in the machine, or just the machine, we are all energy.
Okay, back to Earth. The temperature dropped to 21 degrees overnight. I left Loyd and Anne's at about 8:45 and drove up to
Oklahoma. There is lots of open land / prairie / farms, and there were many trucks on the road. Apparently Oklahoma is too cheap to
build overpasses because the speed limit is 70-75 for most of the way, but then you'll come to a small town and have to stop
at a traffic light. I saw a sign that said, "Do not drive into smoke." This is a warning about prairie fires.
It was a nice sunny day, but because it was still winter the grass was yellow and the trees were still bare. Gas was
a little more expensive than in Texas, and you have to be careful about where you get it if you're on a budget because some of the
smaller places gouge you; stick with the big places that display their prices. The drivers were much better than in all the other
states I'd driven in. I guess it has to do with population density. Much like rats will become hostile when their population density
gets high, so will people. The population density in Oklahoma is fairly low.
I arrived at
Prairie Artisan Ales in Tulsa shortly after 2 PM. They have 3 locations; I went to their
Prairie Pub. Sampled 4 of their imperial stouts and a guest beer, and all were good.
Bible Belt (13% ABV stout with coffee, vanilla, chiles, and cacao nibs) (collaboration with Evil Twin)
Christmas Bomb! 2016 (nice 11% ABV stout aged on espresso beans, vanilla beans, chocolate, ancho chiles, and spices)
Founders Blushing Monk (9.2% ABV raspberry fruit beer)
Origami dollars made by customers.
Checked into a nearby Airbnb, which is a loft in the back of a historic building. I brought in my beer and water so they
wouldn't freeze overnight.
This American Pie poster was on the wall.
Faux fireplace.
I chose this particular Airbnb because it is a 3-minute walk from
American Solera's SoBo location (SoBo refers to Tulsa's South Boston
Avenue district). Their brewery and another tasting room are located 4
miles away. They opened in 2017, and their brewer used to brew at Prairie Artisan Ales.
They make several styles of beer. Their IPAs/DIPAs are really
NEIPAs/NEDIPAs, because they're cloudy and contain lactose, but they're not labeled as such. I sampled:
Party Sub (DIPA with Enigma, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy hops) (excellent)
Terpy Galaxy (double dry-hopped DIPA with Galaxy hops) (excellent) ("terpy" refers to hop terpenes)
GOODberry (oak-aged farmhouse ale refermented on second-use cranberries) (good and sour)
Hypnotic Trance (10% ABV Baltic porter)
Midwest Magic (IPA with Simcoe, Citra, and Galaxy hops) (good)
Terpy Secret (DIPA with Vic Secret hops) (nice)
This is What I Sound Like (Black Currant) (farmhouse ale refermented with black currants)
Strawberry 2-Year Blend (spontaneously fermented for 2 years and aged on strawberries) (nice)
The PartySub and Terpy Galaxy were so great that I bought some cans to go. They had just released cans of Terpy Citra, which wasn't
on tap so I couldn't try it, but I bought some anyway because it will probably be great.
Note that the Terpy Galaxy label was put on upside down.
I talked with a young couple named Keith and Candace at the bar about my beer journey, and they drove me to
a party at
The Rookery, which is a
DoubleShot Coffee Company location that had just opened that day.
There were hundreds of people there.
A beer called Cavern Hymn from local brewery Heirloom Rustic Ales
was served. It was the
cloudiest kolsch I'd ever seen. After a while Keith and Candace drove me back to the Airbnb.
This is a kolsch?
Candace and Keith.
Wednesday March 6. Up in the wee hours again. Worked on this triplog for a while, as I'd been doing every
morning. Temperature was in the low 20s. Left around 6:45 AM. Drove 4 hours, mostly through Kansas on a sparsely traveled
highway. There is no such thing as "rush hour" where I was. The scenery left much to be desired; at this time of year
the trees are bare and the grass is yellow, and much of the land is farmland anyway, which is ugly in the off season.
Arrived at
Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, Missouri 15 minutes before they opened at 11 AM.
Ate some food and went in.
It's a big place. There is a big production brewery, and a big tasting room about a block away. They give tours.
There is educational stuff on the walls, including this historical video:
There is a better video on YouTube:
Anyway, I sampled:
Space Camper Cosmic IPA
Whiskey Barrel Stout
Terra Vox Norton Collabration Ale (nice) (collaboration with Terra Vox winery) (the Norton grape is Missouri's state grape)
Love Child #9 (quite sour)
692 Mosaic IPA
2018 Saison Brett (their Tank 7 beer with Brettanomyces)
Imperial Stout with Cinnamon (also has vanilla)
The first two beers were in their regular line-up, and the latter 5 were test batches. Since I was driving I
bought samples of only the first two. The test beers are sold only in 8-ounce pours, but my server gave me small splashes of them.
I wanted to give him a big tip but they don't take tips here. Before I left I bought a bottle of Terra Vox to go.
Drove almost 4 hours across Missouri to St. Louis. Got pulled over on the way, not for speeding but for not using my turn signal when I
changed lanes (there was no one near me except the cop on the side of the road). Since it was such a minor infraction
he just checked my registration and insurance information and let me go. The 15-minute delay made no difference because I still
got to the next brewery 20 minutes before it opened, which gave me plenty of time to lay a food base.
Distant Land (saison with Brettanomyces claussenii)
Hommel (good dry-hopped Belgian pale ale)
La Cosecha (nice mix-culture sour ale aged in wine barrels with Missouri peaches) (collaboration with Jolly Pumpkin) (2019 Good Food award winner)
Checked into an Airbnb in nearby Maplewood. Schlepped my stuff, including the beer, upstairs to my room.
At the previous night's Airbnb the bed was up in a loft so I had to navigate stairs to/from it every time I went to the
bathroom. Lesson learned:
Airbnbs can save you money, but they can be inconvenient. Parking might be tight, or there might be stairs with no elevator.
Often the proprietors won't greet you, but will leave a key in a designated location. The room might be small, or
the bathroom might be down the hall instead of adjacent to your bedroom. Sometimes the bathroom is shared.
With hotels/motels there is someone there to greet you 24/7 and hand you a room key, there is off-street parking, there are
elevators, and you get your own bathroom.
Ubered to Side Project Cellar. This Belgian-inspired beer bar is a
tasting room for
Side Project Brewing, which is located nearby and open only on Saturdays.
Since it was Wednesday I went to the Cellar. I liked the vibe. In addition to their own beers they serve select beers from around
the world, as well as many whiskies and a few wines. Their sour ales were quite good, with a smooth lactic sourness and no
vinegary notes, but they have gotten such high ratings on Beer Advocate that they could barely match them.
Note that in the list below, some say "Side Project" and some say "Shared". The
Shared beers are experimental, and
different from their normal sour, wood-aged beers (click
here for details).
Side Project Bière du Pays Blend #7 (saison aged in a Missouri oak fouder) (good)
Side Project Saison du Blé Blend #8 (oak-aged wheat saison) (nice)
Side Project "Foedre Fermier" Blend #2 (good)
Side Project Grisette Blend #5 (farmhouse ale aged in Missouri oak foeders with Brettanomyces) (good, and got better as it warmed)
Shared iTap Lineage (triple dry-hopped NEDIPA with El Dorado, Galaxy, Mosaic, and Vic Secret hops) (nice)
Shared Skip & Whistle (IPA double dry-hopped with Galaxy, Motueka, and Vic Secret hops) (very good)
Surprisingly, the Skip & Whistle was murkier than the iTap Lineage, and it wasn't billed as New England-style.
It was the only beer they sold in cans, and since I liked it so much I bought a 4-pack.
Walked to Schlafly Bottleworks. (Schlafly also has a tap room
7 miles away in downtown St. Louis.) It's a large venue containing a brewhouse, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a bar.
I very much liked the bar's ambience, and thoroughly enjoyed the 1920s/1930s hot jazz music by a group called
Miss Jubilee. I'd had Schlafly beers before and enjoyed them,
but the ones they had here were not at all to my liking.
It seemed that the focus was on fun, and the beers were just an afterthought.
The place had the worst set of beers and the best vibe of my entire trip. I tried:
Northeast IPA
Variant II (stout aged in brandy barrels on dark cherries soaked in dark chocolate) (there was a $3 upcharge because this beer was in my sampler)
Barleywine
Imperial Coffee Stout
Merry Berry
Beers when they were served...
...and what I didn't drink.
Ubered back to the Airbnb and crashed after 11:30.
Thursday March 7. Woke up around 3:30. It wasn't as cold out as was predicted so schlepping all that beer
up and down the stairs wasn't necessary. But it gave me some exercise. Left at 7:00. Drove northward. Went through a
snowstorm for a while that made the highway slippery so I had to go slow for a while.
At exactly noon I arrived at
Big Grove Brewing in Solon, Iowa. (They have another location in Iowa City.)
An air raid siren went off just as I got there. It reminded me of my childhood, when my elementary school would sound an
air raid siren every Friday at noon. Solon had had below-zero temperatures earlier in the week. Right now it was a balmy
23 degrees. The staff were very nice and friendly. They let me go into the brewhouse so I could snap some photos and meet the brewer,
and they gave me a few gratis samples in addition to what I ordered (the tiny glasses pictured below). They also gave me a wooden
token that's good for a free pint (shown in the same photo below). Big Grove opened in 2013. Their beers were all fairly good,
not great.
Better Tomorrow (NEDIPA with South African hops)
Nuclear Free Zone (NEIPA with experimental hops)
BGB IPA
Passion Project (Berliner weisse with a lot of passionfruit and a little plum)
Dirty Little Secret (American strong ale with raspberries)
Que Rose (Berliner weisse with 3 varieties of grape must)
Que Sera (sour wheat)
I left at exactly 1:00 and drove past lots of snow-covered farmland...
... to Leytze's Corner Historical Bed & Bath in
Decorah, Iowa (which had also had below-zero temperatures earlier that week). It took 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there from Solon,
which is exactly what Google maps had told me. Leytze's is located in a historical house
that was built in the late 1800s. The exterior will give you an idea of what the weather was like.
My room was upstairs, but one of the proprietors, Frank, let me keep the beer downstairs to save me some work.
There are several rooms but I happened to be the only guest that day. The place is very pretty.
This room was pretty until I moved in.
The room I stayed in had all sorts of Wizard of Oz stuff in it.
I walked over to Pulpit Rock Brewing, which started in 2015.
The place was crowded. All their beers were good.
One Trick Pony (IPA with Citra hops)
Stinkjuice (IIPA with Mosaic, Eureka, and Bravo) (nice)
Saftig (NEIPA with Mosaic and Simcoe hops)
Pour-Over Porter (Costa Rica Tarrazu) (porter infused with coffee grown in the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica)
My next brewery, Toppling Goliath, which opened in 2009,
used to be located a block down the street, but
they moved to a much larger space about 4 miles away in February 2018. The old brewery is now a bar called
Dixie's Biergarten, which is owned by a relative of
Toppling Goliath's owner.
I walked back to Leytze's and Frank, who had never been
to Toppling Goliath's new location, drove me there. He doesn't drink but he enjoyed hanging out and listening to me
prattle on about my beer travels and beer production. Toppling Goliath's beers get great ratings on Beer Advocate, and for the
most part they lived up to them. Frank told me that he often gets guests who come into town for Toppling Goliath's beer releases.
As of this writing, Toppling Goliath distributes to about half of the U.S. states (and unfortunately Maryland isn't one of them).
Pseudo Sue (Citra pale ale) (nice)
Fire, Skulls & Money (NEIPA with Mosaic, Citra, Galaxy, and Nelson hops) (nice)
Sosus (DIPA with Mosaic hops)
Supa' Sumo (IIPA with Citra and Mosaic hops)
Hopsmack! (DIPA with Mosaic, Galaxy, and El Dorado hops)
King Sue (DIPA with Citra hops)
Double Dry-Hopped Pseudo Sue (with Citra hops)
Mosaic Dry-Hopped Pseudo Sue (with Citra and Mosaic hops) (nice)
Galaxy Dry-Hopped Pseudo Sue (nice)
Dragon Fandango (kettle sour with mango, passionfruit, and dragonfruit) (nice)
Term Oil 18-B (~13% ABV barrel-aged imperial stout) ($10 for 4 ounces) (great complex beer that got even better as it warmed)
Sumosa (nice fruity IPA with orange peel)
Pompeii (IPA)
We returned to Leytze's and I hit the hay by 9:00.
Friday March 8. Woke up around 2:30 AM. Left around 7:15. Incidentally, everyone I met in Iowa was very nice.
Also, gas was more expensive here than down south.
Drove eastward and crossed the frozen Mississippi River into Wisconsin. I saw a horse pulling an Amish buggy, so I
suppose there's an Amish community around there.
I approached New Glarus Brewing shortly before 10:00 AM when they opened.
Less than a quarter of a mile from their road, the highway was blocked off. Y'ever have that happen? You're so close
to a destination, or perhaps an accomplishment, and something impedes you. I could see police lights in the distance.
A sign detoured me, so I drove around for a few miles to get on the highway on the other side of New Glarus, and it was
blocked from that direction too. I called the brewery and they told me to go back where I came from and drive around the
barrier; since their road was before the traffic accident, I'd be able to get in. So I backtracked on the detour route
and made my way in.
They don't have a bar per se. Instead, tastings are held in the gift shop. You get 3 samples for $8 and keep the taster glass.
There is a self-guided tour so you can see the brewery. They give guided tours on Fridays.
The original (smaller) brewery is a few miles away, and is where
they brew their Thumbprint Series beers.
The brewery opened for business in 1993. I sampled:
Spotted Cow (farmhouse ale)
Moon Man ("no coast" pale ale)
Belgian Red (very good cherry sour ale)
After walking around I went down to their "Beer Depot" and bought three 6-packs. It is much cheaper to buy
their 12-ounce than their 750-ml bottles. Several of their beers cost $12.50 for 750 ml (almost 50 cents per ounce), while a
12-ounce bottle is $3.75 (just over 31 cents per ounce) and a 6-pack of 12-ounce bottles is $17.50 (less than 25 cents per ounce).
Here is a brief video of their bottling line in operation:
Drove about 3 hours to
18th Street Brewery
in Hammond, Indiana (they also have another location in Gary). It has a death metal theme.
No sours here but they do have barrels. A guy at the bar saw me taking pictures and talking into my recorder, so he asked me what was up.
I told him about my beer trip and this website. Turns out he's the
general manager. He's a great guy and his name is Ed. He gave me a tour of the brewery. The building also houses
their distillery, called, oddly enough, 18th Street Distillery.
I sampled:
Hunter (double milk stout)
Convicted Souls (DIPA with lactose)
Brothers of Feathers (juicy IPA)
Gluttonous Swine (11% ABV Russian imperial stout with roasted coconut, pecans, and cocoa nibs)
Bitch's Bank (12% ABV Russian imperial stout with cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa nibs)
Distilling equipment.
Ed told me about The Sour Note Brewing a block up the street, which is
owned by the same person who owns 18th Street. I walked over there but it was closed. There were no signs on
the doors, just this paint job on the upper part of the dilapidated-looking bulding.
Then I checked into an Airbnb just across the state line in Illinois. It was the best Airbnb of the trip. I had an entire
floor of someone's house to myself. It had a large living room with a huge sofa (which I didn't use), a very comfortable bed,
and very soft pillows and linens.
Lyfted back into Indiana to 3 Floyds Brewing. The place has a good vibe.
They play heavy metal music, especially from a band called High on Fire, who is considered their house band.
In fact, the band and the brewery did a collaboration beer called Razorhoof.
They serve food that is supposedly great, but I had
already eaten. They have a distillery next door but it wasn't open yet. At the time they were planning to expand the brewery
and install a canning line. They had 16 house and 4 guest drafts, as well as many guest bottles.
They also had Pabst Blue Ribbon (the only beer that won a blue ribbon at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair).
Their beers tend to get very good ratings on Beer Advocate. I wasn't impressed. Some of their beers were pretty good,
others were a bit bland, and none of them were great. To be fair, they do make some great stouts, but they didn't have any on tap.
One particular stout, called Dark Lord, is so popular that once a year they have Dark Lord Day, where you have to get tickets
in advance to be able to buy any. They have a website dedicated to this event.
The beers I tried were:
Cheerteam (good IPA)
War Pigs Foggy Geezer (IPA brewed by War Pigs Brewing, which is a collaboration brewery by 3 Floyds and Mikkeller)
Yum Yum (a pale ale that was not yummy)
Zombie Dust (highly rated pale ale that was just okay)
Gumballhead (light American wheat beer)
Alpha King (another highly rated pale ale that was just okay)
Pear Bear (wild ale with pears) (weird flavor)
Geordonnay (Northern English sour brown ale with blackberries)
Saturday March 9. Up around 3 AM. On a tip from someone at 18th Street, I decided to call an audible.
Arclight Brewing is located on the way to the other breweries I'd planned to
visit today, so I researched it and got directions. I would be entering the Eastern time zone, which meant that I'd lose an hour,
so I left by 8:30 to get there when they opened at 11:00. The further east I drove, the more rude the drivers were. Tailgating
seems to be a pastime in that part of the country.
Arclight opened in summer 2014.
The beer hall is fairly big, with a few video games and lots of board games. There is outdoor seating too.
They have a line of fruit sours called Soursmith, which are all barrel-aged and a little more sour than I like.
Hazy Days Have Arrived (good NEIPA)
Soursmith Black Raspberry (barrel-aged sour) (great; the massive fruitiness mitigates the acidity)
Soursmith Apricot
Soursmith Mango
Soursmith Pineapple Mango
Soursmith Kriek (good)
Snickerdoodle (porter with vanilla and cinnamon; the glass rim is coated with honey, sugar, and cinnamon)
Bourbon Barrel-Aged Berrien County Stout (great)
When I told the bartender (an assistant manager named Brad) about my website he gave me not only several free samples but also
a bomber of the Bourbon Barrel-Aged Berrien County Stout. I'm glad I decided to stop here.
Habitante Espíritu (oak-aged sour double white IPA; collaboration with North Peak) (nice)
Single Hop Pink Boots Blend (oak-aged sour pale ale) (good)
Just 5 minutes away in the same town is HOMES Brewery.
It has a nice bar, a few rooms, and a patio, and it serves food. It opened in 2017.
Same Same Different (nice double dry-hopped IPA)
Raspberry Lime Sherbet (good kettle sour with lactose, raspberries, and lime zest)
BluePassion Sherbet (good kettle sour with lactose, blueberries, and passionfruit)
They had one beer for sale in bottles to go: an oak-aged fruited wild ale called Composition 3.
I was going to buy a bottle but by the time I finished my beers there were a dozen people in line so I didn't wait.
Headed about an hour south to visit my friends James and Alexandra (Alex) in Toledo, Ohio. We had a nice taco dinner with their son
Chris and two high school exchange students that they were hosting. I also got to meet their dog, Dash.
Went with James, Alex, and Chris to a couple of local breweries. First was
Patron Saints Brewery, which is a small place that
had just opened the previous summer. We tried all 12 of their beers.
Crunchy Hippie Granola (brown ale with brown sugar, honey, sunflower/chia/hemp seeds, raisins, and cherries)
Scotch Barrel Aged Orion the Hunter (barrel-aged black imperial wheat)
Killerney (Irish red cream ale)
2017 Fat Bastard (wee heavy)
The Spice is Right (blonde spiced winter ale)
London Calling ("a Clash of U.S. and British IPA styles")
We closed the place down and returned shortly before midnight.
Sunday March 10. Slept until 5:45, which seemed late for me until I remembered that:
It was daylight saving time, so I'd lost an hour.
I had lost another hour by entering the Eastern time zone the previous day.
Oh well, I felt rested, and that's all that mattered. Left around 8:45 AM on a gray, cold, windy day.
Arrived at Fat Head’s Brewery, Beer Hall and Restaurant
in Middleburg Heights, one of Fat Head's three Ohio locations (they also have a pub in Pittsburgh).
I got there a half hour before it opened at 11:00. About 10 more people showed up while I was waiting.
It's a big beer hall, and it opened on August 29, 2018. Like New Glarus, you can take a self-guided tour of the brewery.
I sampled only 2 beers because I'd be visiting 4 breweries today and I had a good amount of driving to do.
As usual, I used Beer Advocate to help me decide what to order.
Hop Juju (nice DIPA)
Head Hunter (nice IPA)
I went to the gift shop to buy both beers to go. They were out of Hop Juju (a common occurrence because it's so popular) but
I was able to get a 6-pack of Head Hunter.
Two hours east, in Meadville PA, is Voodoo Brewery, one of
Voodoo's six locations. It's in a cool-looking old building. Upstairs they have a small stage where musicians
and comedians sometimes perform. I sampled:
Voodoo Love Child (fruited Belgian tripel)
Gran Met (nice Belgian tripel)
They're Good Hops Brent (good IPA)
Imperial Red Rye Lager (meh)
I liked the Gran Met enough to buy a 4-pack.
Headed southward. Lots of tailgaters in that area. The speed limit is 70 but people want to go 90.
An hour and a half later I arrived at
Dancing Gnome Brewery in Pittsburgh. It was very busy.
The smallest size beer you can order is 9 ounces, so I got only two.
Warm Hand Splash (great NEDIPA with Citra hops)
HaHa! (nice NEDIPA with Simcoe, Amarillo, and Columbus hops)
They sold growlers so I got some Warm Hand Splash. In order to save the $5 charge for the growler itself,
I used an empty growler that I always keep in my trunk for just such an occasion.
Went to an Airbnb in a neighborhood called Swissvale which, like much of Pittsburgh, is very hilly. The proprietor was
not there, and since he had turned his phone off he didn't answer my calls and texts. This is another advantage that
motels have over Airbnbs - they answer when you call. I ate some food and ordered an Uber for my
final brewery of the day. Then the Airbnb owner called me. He told me the lockbox combination and I got the house key.
The Uber arrived shortly thereafter and took me to
Brew Gentlemen in nearby Braddock. The driver said to be careful because it's
a rough part of town. The pub has a sort of cave look to it, and it had a lively crowd. There were dogs too.
I talked with a young guy named Chris about
my beer journey. He coined the term "beer renegade". Somehow we got to talking about the sport of wrestling, which he did as a kid
and I did until I was 53. He said he had tickets to the NCAA Division I wrestling tournament, which would be held later
that month in Pittsburgh. Anyway, I sampled:
General Braddock's IPA
Miyabi (IPA) (good)
Albatross (spring DIPA) (nice; my favorite, and also the murkiest)
Mammoth (winter DIPA) (nice)
Certified Public Accountant (Citra pale ale)
Final Colossus 2019 (DIPA) (nice)
Chris and me.
While I was there I called Fat Head's Saloon,
which is located in Pittsburgh, to see whether they had any Hop Juju to go. They didn't.
I left Brew Gentlemen shortly after it closed at 8:00, Ubered back to the Airbnb, and brought my stuff inside.
I had to climb a lot of stairs because my
car was parked well below the house, plus my room was on the second floor. It wasn't a problem since I'm able-bodied, but
if I ever stay in an Airbnb again I will ask about stairs first.
Monday March 11. Woke up around 4. Left at 8:45.
Drove 3 hours eastward to Pizza Boy Brewing, which has a restaurant called
Al's of Hampden that serves pizza and other stuff. They have 99 taps, according to their website.
About one-third of the beers were theirs and the
rest were guest beers. The smallest size you can order is 8 ounces. I checked Beer Advocate and only one of their beers
got a great rating. It wasn't great to my palate but it was good:
Sunny Side Up (Little Amps Coffee) (double coffee stout with Little Amps coffee)
They have a good selection of cans and bottles to go. You can make your own six-pack for $15, so that's what I did.
I returned to Maryland and stopped at B.C. Brewery. They're closed on Mondays but
the head brewer is my
old friend Jim, who I've known through homebrewing since 1995. He was an award-winning homebrewer throughout the 90s and was the
head brewer at DuClaw Brewing for 18 years until he took the position at B.C. Brewery when
they opened in April 2018.
He was working today and let me in. The place is a big beer hall;
I didn't take photos of it because all the stools were on top of the tables.
It has about 30 normal taps and 24 self-serve taps where you
insert a credit card and pay by the ounce (like Auggie's in St. Augustine).
The brewery has a canning line that fills 16-ounce cans that are sold on-site only.
Jim and I sampled the following:
Throwback IPA
PawPaw Hazy IPA (nice tropical NEIPA)
Electric Hammer (10% ABV triple IPA)
Letche Del Diablo (barleywine) (the term is Spanish for Devil's Milk, which a barleywine that Jim used to make at DuClaw)
Knob Creek Letche Del Diablo (Letche Del Diablo aged in a Knob Creek barrel) (nice)
Wild Turkey Barrel Letche Del Diablo (Letche Del Diablo aged in a Wild Turkey barrel)
Lord Farquaad (Belgian quad)
On'ry & Mean (Belgian dark strong)
Happy Place Wheatwine (14.1% ABV wheatwine with over 50% wheat) (good)
Cookie Puss (stout with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves)
Getting the Band Back Together (IPA)
The final beer
in the list was a can of collaboration beer that Jim did with Manor Hill Brewing.
Manor Hill's main brewers, Kurt and Milhouse, were assistant brewers under Jim at DuClaw. Milhouse was also head brewer at
3 Stars Brewing for a few years before going to Manor Hill in 2018. Kurt did the can's art work,
which has caricatures of the three of them dressed like the Blues Brothers.
Self-serve taps.
After that I returned home, where it was 63 degrees - the warmest weather I'd seen since Louisiana.
What a great adventure. Traveled more than 4500 miles
through 20 states, went to 43 breweries (plus a meadery and a distillery), tried 300+ beers, ate some tasty food, saw the
Angel Oak Tree and St. Augustine, and visited more than a dozen friends and family. It was beer that moved me
to take this trip, but there was so much more.