The adventures of the Beer Trip Crew

Brooklyn Brewery and Brewers for Brewers Event

2011-09-05T18:19:00.001-07:00

I actually paid two visits to Brooklyn Brewery and I’m going to put both in to this one post. My first visit was for their standard tour and tasting. I had spent the majority of my day at Ground Zero which is a very sobering experience. Luckily the tour at Brooklyn is the perfect pick-you-up. I arrived early and hung around the front area not knowing what to do exactly. I saw a sign to buy tokens for the tasting so I went ahead and bought several as it’s NYC and I can use the subway and no worries about driving. I went and got an Irish Stout as that’s one I’d never tried before. To my great glee, you pretty much get a full cup of beer with your token, not just a taster as I expected. And with the quality of their beer, that’s a good thing.

Eventually they made an announcement that the tour was going to start and congregate up front. Our tour guide led us back to what is the new brewery. He gave a short overview on the history of the brewery and the neighborhood. You can’t spend time in Brooklyn and not notice the extraordinary number of hipsters and he mentioned this. He said when the brewery opened there was a lot more crack and meth and a lot fewer bikes and ironic mustaches. It then became the best brewery tour ever. If you’ve been on one tour, honestly, you’ve been on them all. This is where we store the malt, this is the mashtun, here are our fermenters, et cetera. However on this one he simply said, “This is the brewery, here’s a poster with the process, look around and take all the pics you want, or just go back and drink more beer.”

I took a couple quick pics and then went back to the tasting room. In the 15 minutes I’d been away the room had filled up quite a bit more. People had ordered pizza and were hanging out playing cards, and just enjoying the brews. It’s a great way to do tours and tastings in my opinion and makes it more a part of the community. I hung out for a couple hours using up the tokens I’d purchased. Because Brooklyn’s brews aren’t available in Kansas (shocking, I know), I got to try several that I hadn’t been able to obtain via trade. I bought a bottle of the Local 2 and a hoodie on the way out. I came to NYC via India and thought late March/Early April would be warmer for some reason and didn’t bring any warm clothes. It said “BROOKLYN” across the front and assumed I’d be an even bigger typical tourist. I can’t tell you how many times people asked me where in Brooklyn I came from. The funniest was when a homeless man asked me for money, and I said I didn’t have any money and got a “F*ck you, Brooklyn! You people are a**holes!”

Anyway, I digress. The next day, the Brewery was holding a benefit for Kiuchi Brewery in Japan as I was there just a couple weeks after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. The Brewers for Brewers event was held at the brewery and featured breweries from all around the NY area along with locally owned restaurants. There was a silent auction up front that had so many things I wanted to bid on, but most involved bottles or growlers of beer that are difficult to get on a plane, to say the least. The food was fantastic (SlantShack Jerky earned a new fan), but the beers were even better. Schmaltz Brewing had their Freak series available along with their Jewbelation which is one of my favorite beers. I also got to sample Sixpoint, Heartland, Empire, and Kelso brews which was perfect because I was either unable to fit them into the schedule or couldn’t get a tour. Of course, all of the Brooklyn beers were on tap as well.

I felt like such a fan-boy when I saw Garrett Oliver walking around. Of all the Beer Trip guys, I’m the most socially-inept. Generally chatting up people I leave to Dan, Andy, or Kelly and I just enjoy the beers and the experience. I attempted to talk to him, but I stumbled on my words and his chuckles weren’t from my attempts at humor but to ease the tension. But he couldn’t have been a nicer guy. He could have just blown me off, but he humored me until I said I’d let him go. Later on in the evening he gave a great speech on the reason for the benefit and the relationship they had with Kiuchi.

I continued to enjoy my beer samples and jerky for a while before heading back up to my hotel in Queens. My two experiences with Brooklyn were fantastic, and I loved the format of the tours that really made the brewery part of the community and not just a business. I look very forward to returning someday soon.

BEER TRIP VII

2011-08-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

First things first. This was not our average Beer Trip. Not even close. We were only going to go for three days, due to a couple guys being super busy with new careers and one moving soon. The prices of gas was around $3.70 here in the Midwest, and with us planning on heading east originally, the prices were only going to go upward. So without the normal fine-tuned itinerary thanks to Dan’s planning awesomeness, this was definitely not our normal Beer Trip. With us only rolling out for three days, we wanted to go someplace close, with good beer, and with enough brewpubs to keep us busy...Hellooooooo Minneapolis, Minnesota!

We start off about 8 AM from Dan’s house on a normal steamy July day. I decided to drive, which I have never done before on the first day, but we pile in to the EM-50, get on I-35, and head north. We go about 20 miles, and I decide to call my pops who lives about 70 miles north, in a area where we will be passing through in about 45 minutes. I ask him, “You ready?” “Ready for what?” “We’re coming by to pick you up; you’re going to go on Beer Trip aren’t ya?” After answering a couple more questions, I hang up the phone, look over at Dan, and I believe my quote was something like “Holy shit! Dude is actually going to go with us, I hope that’s cool.” Dan says, “Well yeah...that’s totally cool man!”

After our short stop to pick up my pops, Bill, we’re heading North to Knoxville, Iowa, and Peace Tree Brewing. We get there a little bit early and grab a quick bite. We meet our buddy Heemer who decided to join up with us from Des Moines. We were greeted by Dani who just also

happened to be the brewer’s wife, and Kaleb who is a college guy working at Peace for the summer. This was a very cool renovated building in downtown Knoxville. The tap room was very well decorated, with a cool vibe to it. Dani took us to back room where her husband makes some very nice beers. She gave us the quick and easy tour, which was totally cool with me. Dani and Kaleb started pouring us sample after sample of great tasting brews. They had an extremely cool cycling jersey that I knew Rob would be buying before we left since he was participating in bike ride across the state of Iowa. (crazy!) A big question for us was how they came up with the name Peace Tree. It’s a very cool story, and you can read all about it right here http://www.peacetreebrewing.com/about-3/ The brewery is fairly new and growing quickly, which is no real surprise with the beer they’re serving up. This is not a brewpub, so no food is served, however you can get food delivered to the tap room, which I personally think is a super cool idea. If you’re anywhere near Knoxville, or in Iowa, try to find their beer, as they do bottle. To keep up our newish tradition started on Beer Trip V, we had Dani and Kaleb place one of their cool stickers on the back of the EM-50. We say our good-byes and keep trucking north. Next stop, Minneapolis.

As we head north the sky is starting to look more and more gnarly. We get to the Minnesota border and the sky flat out opens up. It’s raining as hard as I have ever seen it rain while driving. There are two vehicles on the highway, us and a dude about five car lengths in front of us doing about 40 mph. Everybody else was on the side of the road. This lasts about 20 miles until we finally break free of it, only to be stopped about an hour later with a hour and 20 min delay sitting in traffic thanks to what I can only guess would be the state of Minnesota shutting down. We finally get to the hotel, check in, and go meet a Beer Trip veteran Travis.

We pile into the RV and head to hipster heaven, and Herkimer Pub and Brewery in Uptown. For whatever reason Mother Nature was being a complete bitch and decided to throw a bit of a heat wave right into the face of the Twin Cities.

We stroll into Herkimer and meet up with Travis. We’re all starving and thirsty! We all order up some brews that were pretty solid along with some food. It was a place that was really crowded and really hot so we decided to head across the street to a place called Muddy Waters. This place was just as warm, but it had a bunch of different beers available along with a really great server, whom Travis informed me about since he arrived fairly early and had been working this whole area over for the past six hours or so. After the guys had a few beers, it had quickly become a long day, so we headed back to the hotel where most of us went down to the bar to grab a nightcap.

Like I said from the beginning this was not our normal Beer Trip. We really didn’t have things planned out to a gnat’s ass and we weren’t really on a time schedule, which was kind of nice. Our first stop of the day was Barley John’s which we had stopped at on Beer Trip V but, most of us didn’t remember much of that stop, since we were pretty um, how do you say it, um, DRUNK!

We also met Fiona whom was a friend of Tim who he met, of all places, India. Fiona was originally from Dublin, and had lived in Minneapolis for a few years. Barley John's is a pretty small place with a really nice outside sitting area. It’s just a cool, small place to grab yourself a very, very well made beer. I didn’t eat there this time, but everything looked better than good. Dan got a beer called Dark Knight that we were told was 18%. I had just a sip, but it was just wonderful. On Rate Beer, it’s got a score of 100. So, yeah rock solid stuff from these guys. I think this is just a must stop if you’re in Minneapolis.

Next up we stop by an Aldi grocery store. So your next question should be, “What the hell?!?!” I’ll get back to that in a bit.

Next we decided we're going to head to a place that is only about 7 months old called Harriet Brewing. This is in an older neighborhood in what looks like a old warehouse. They didn’t have formal tours that day, but they did have an open house, where they were serving up their beers for people to sample. We walk in and are greeted by a guy in the tap room asking if we’d like a taste. Well hell yeah we do, this is Beer Trip! Inside the tap room they have some awesome art hanging up all over, most of it which is for sale. I tried like hell to get my dad to pop $450 for a really kick ass painting that happened to be the original to what was the label to one of their beers. Harriet was basically run mostly by volunteers that day, and they were all very cool and were all knowledgeable about what is going on. We tried everything they had to offer and it all was very tasty. Most of their growler sales were from people who live within a three-mile radius of the brewery. Harriet also had the only fermenters that had decorative wood on the outside of them. Only benefit was looking cool. A few of us grabbed growlers and Timmy even got some art work, which were very cool and basically mini prints of the originals.

So our Aldi visit had to do with our next stop. SURLY! Our friend Keith, aka Surly Boy Wonder, was able to get us into their tour for the Saturday we would be in town. We told SBW (SurlyBoy Wonder) we’d be there with plenty of canned goods, as they ask you to bring canned goods as your payment for the tour. We delivered as promised and had to borrow their dolly to bring it all in. We were allowed to show up a bit early where we met Jori, one of the many Surly Nation

volunteers who help out during tours and gatherings at the brew house along with doing other volunteering for the Surly Gives a Damn. She welcomed us with open arms and made us feel right at home by pouring us a nice glass of Surly beer. This was Beer Trip's second visit to Surly, but Rob and I have been up for Surly’s Darkness Day the past two years, where we became friends with SBW and Todd the brewer at Surly. We all just kind of hung out talked with Todd, who was gracious enough to hang out with us until the tour started.

The crowd for this tour was unreal! Over a hundred people show up, and they kind of split this up into two sections. The first part is about the history of Surly and how it started, with the second part being about how everything is made and canned up. During the history portion of the tour, Beer Trip was mentioned by the tour guide and what we’re about, which I believe most of the guys got a good chuckle from. What I didn’t expect was the reaction afterward. During the “intermission” of the tour, no less than 10 to 12 people stopped to talk with us about where we have been and/or how their grandpa lived in KC, or my favorite question, how in the hell did you do that many places in five days? (I wish I could answer that one myself). It was one of the coolest moments about this trip. People wanting to talk to us about our beer travels. Really, come on, how freaking awesome is that! I felt bad that I had to cut some of the conversations short, but we truly appreciate everyone who stopped and took time to talk to us. As time was winding down on the tour we had to get moving as we had dinner reservations at Café Twenty Eight. A fabulous restaurant that is owned by Todd’s absolutely lovely wife Linda. I have been here a couple times, once with Rob, but the rest of the guys, including a couple of Tim’s friends, had not been there before. Linda and her staff couldn’t have treated us any better than they did. The food was amazing and since they were Surly’s first customer, guess what they had on tap? You guessed it...plenty of Surly along with a boat load of other bottle offerings. For dessert, Linda and Todd, who even joined us for dinner, brought out a treat of treats, a bottle each of Surly TWO and FOUR. Like I said before, she couldn’t have treated us bette! Todd told me that he had this new place

close to Café 28 that he wanted to take us to, and that he even had a room in the bar reserved for us. I had no idea where we were going but it just so happened that it was Muddy Waters, the bar we were at the night before. Like I stated earlier, Mother Nature was just being a complete and utter bitch about the humidity and oppressive heat. This poor room had zero air flowing through it and was pretty warm for everybody. We all looked like we had been brutalized by the heat and a full day of drinking. We hung out for awhile until it was time to head back to the hotel. I can’t wait to go back to Muddy Waters when the weather is cool, cuz it really was a neat place.

The next day our first stop is Town Hall. Last time were in Minneapolis. I was driving the day we went to Town Hall so I was excited to try some of their beers. Travis had stopped in at Town Hall while he was waiting for us to arrive, and he told us we must try their beer LSD. We did and it was well, trippy. A lighter beer, with tons of flavor. They also known for having a great IPA named Marsala Mama. The food here is worth the visit as well. Dan and I got the goat cheese nachos, and we both were in awe of them. Their beers were all high quality and very tasty. The building this place is in is quite cool as well. The tin tiled ceiling really sets it off along with huge wood features. A great place to grab a bite, with a pint.

We have a long drive ahead of us so we make our way south where our next stop will be Rock Bottom in Des Moines. We meet back up with Heemer and some of his friends, who were homebrewers as well. It’s about dinner time so we all grab something to eat and a few beers to wash them down with. Rock Bottom has solid brews, and for a chain, they do a good job of allowing the brewers to have some freedoms. Apparently that’s going to change, but I hope not as drastically as I’ve heard that they might be doing. After dinner, we keep on heading south where we drop Bill off followed by a short trip to the airport to drop Kelly off, since he happened to fly in on Saturday morning to meet up with us for the rest of the trip. We got back to Dan’s, separated our beer haul, and headed home after a very fun, although short Beer Trip VII.

I like to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to any and everybody who had anything to do with any part of the Beer Trip’s I was on. I’m retiring from Beer Trip, and I have to say that each trip easily got better and better each time. I simply couldn’t imagine these trips being as fun as they were without Dan, Timmy, Ed, Rob, Kelly, John, Travis and even Jerry! I love these guys, and I am eternally grateful to each of them for making each trip a very memorable experience in my life. A very, very sincere "Thank you!" to each one you guys!

Andy

Chelsea Brewing Company

2011-05-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

I recently was fortunate enough to spend a week in New York City and spend some time checking out the local beer scene. I’d heard that New York actually wasn’t a great beer town, but after my experiences I’d beg to differ. Although it was my second to last day in NYC, I’m going to start by writing about Chelsea Brewing Company.
I spent the morning at the Empire State Building, and being a dumb tourist, thought I’d just walk over to the west side of Manhattan. I made it as far as Madison Square Garden and decided the street numbers weren’t dropping fast enough and the subway sounded like a much better option. I got off at my stop, and what seemed to be a theme of the trip, I headed the wrong direction. I walked a few blocks before realizing this, of course. Finally, after much delay, I arrived at a large building that had a sign that said the brewery was in there. I didn’t realize I was basically walking into the backside of the complex because is built to face the water (an address of Chelsea Piers, Pier 59 should have clued me in).
I decided to take a seat at the bar but after looking around I should have asked for a seat at a lower level because there are huge windows looking out onto the water. Luckily though I had a great bartender who made up for missing out on the view. I ordered a sampler and a burger to eat. The sampler consisted of 6 beers. They were honestly all good, but the Black Hole XXX Stout blew me away. Stouts I rarely find amazing. Maybe if it’s barrel aged or imperial, but for the most part, the stout part of the sampler is normally a “It’s good, but what’s next?” beer. I began drinking it and it suddenly hit me that I was drinking an awesome stout.

The bartender brought me a couple more samplers of beers that they don’t offer in their regular sampler including a pumpkin beer that was interesting, and I mean that in a good way.
After I horked down my burger and sampler I walked around outside and checked out the view. Really wish I’d been there later in spring because there is outside seating on the boardwalk that would have been awesome, even more so than the seats looking out the window.

I then went back inside and started looking in to the brewery and taking some pics when a man walked up to me and asked if I’d like to go inside and see it up close. As it turns out, it was one of the brewers, Mark Szmaida.

Even after the awesome beers and great burger, this turned out to be my favorite part of my visit. We just hung out and talked for probably 30 minutes. We spoke a bit about beer trip; a lot about the New York beer scene which was fascinating. He couldn’t have been a more gracious host, but that seems to be the consistent case with those in the craft beer world. Chelsea Brewing’s brews are only available on tap in the northeast. If you live in the area or are fortunate enough to visit one of the world’s truly great cities, please go by the brewery itself or find a place that serves their beers. You won’t be disappointed and you’ll be supporting a great brewery.

Beer Trip 6.5 - Broadway Brewing Company

2011-05-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

The last stop on Beer Trip 6.5 was Broadway Brewery in Columbia, Missouri. We were supposed to go straight to Tin Mill Brewery in Hermann, Missouri, after Schlafly, but because Troika, James, and company treated us so well, we ended up staying at Schlafly about two hours longer than we expected as Tim stated. So Tin Mill was out, and on to Columbia we went to have dinner before calling it a Beer Trip.

When we got to Columbia, the Gods must have known that we were from Kansas and I was a KU alum, as it suddenly started to pour (which is why we have no pics since Tim didn’t want to have his camera out in the rain). Kelly was driving, and he was being a sweet heart, so he dropped us off at the front so we could stay dry. It was a good thing he did this too, as Broadway was packed. There weren’t a lot of tables there, as the place is kinda small, and there was a party or two going on. Luckily, we arrived before a lot of other people showed up, so we were seated by the time Kelly made it in (although it took him awhile to find a spot). We were greeted pretty quickly, and I wasn’t sure if it was because they were busy and they wanted to turn over the tables as quickly or because we were probably underdressed for the place. It was a pretty nice place, and not a fancy place, but a place that was a lot nicer than most brewpubs.

Their beer list was pretty solid, as they had about seven or eight of their beers on tap, plus guest taps from great places like Bell’s. Two of the beers that they had were an Imperial Stout and an Imperial IPA. A couple of us ordered some of those, and we passed them around the table. They were both pretty tasty. The other guys ordered some of their standard beers, including their ESB and Altbier. These beers were also really good, especially for their style.
As is the case with most Beer Trip last stops, most of us weren’t hungry and some were ready to head home (Nebraska Brewing Company on BT VI being the major exception, as I don’t think any of us wanted to leave ever there). I ordered a burger (very good), while others ordered some of their appetizers. Especially popular was their Peasant Platter, which consisted of cheeses, fruit, vegetables, and toast. The soup of the day was a beer cheese soup, and a couple of guys ordered that and commented about how liked it as well.

We hung out for a little over an hour, and it was a really good place. If it wasn’t the last stop of Beer Trip and the fact that we were all pretty worn out, we probably would have hung out longer and tried more of their beers. Everything was terrific, and it wasn’t two hours from home, I’d have been back there already. Definitely a place to stop at if in the area or if you need a break from all the fireworks and porn shops while traveling on I-70 (and yes, I know I beat that to death, but really, how can I not?).

Beer Trip 6.5-Schlafly Tap Room

2011-05-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

After a great visit to Urban Chestnut, it was time to move on to our second stop of the day, the Schlafly Tap Room. It is the original location located near downtown STL. We arrived a bit early for our scheduled tour. We were lucky enough to get a special VIP tour that they don’t do very often, but Dan using his network of friends and associates was able to score one for us. We had a beer at the bar while we waited for the tour to start. Troika, who had taken us around the Bottleworks location the previous day joined us again.

Our tour guide James met us at the bar and took us back into the brew area. It was very small and we were told that they use that area now for test batches and some limited release beers. James talked some about the history of the building and how it was originally housed printing presses. Another interesting fact was the neighborhood was so bad before urban renewal, that “Lost in New York” was filmed there because it looked like a wasteland. They even have a picture of Snake walking in front of the building that would someday house Schlafly.
From there we went down to the basement of the building. Part of the building was destroyed by fire before they moved in, and it was obvious what area was rebuilt once you got down there just from the wood floor joists. The tap cooler is housed in this area as well as a bottler for their special beers. Here we were lucky enough to try their barleywine.

Off the side from the bottler was a dark, un-used room. This room at one time housed a boiler for the building. They’ve been trying to remove it, but it hasn’t been an easy task. Off that room was another, funky, smaller room that literally goes underneath the street in front of the building where they had some of their beers aging in barrels. The biggest surprise to me came at the end of the tour. They set up tables with cheeses and bread and pitchers of their beers for us to sample, along with two bottles of their 750ml bottles, including their Imperial Stout. We hung out for quite a while talking to James and Troika. They even gave us each a special glass that only those on the VIP your get. It was really cool, to say the least.

After awhile, another VIP group of possible investors was making their way to where we were, so it was time to go back upstairs and eat some of their amazing food, along with drink more of their beers. Unfortunately they had already ran out of the vanilla stout that they had just tapped the day before (which we were lucky enough to have at Bottleworks), but they had many more amazing brews which I happily drank. The food is almost completely opposite from what they offer at the Bottleworks. While there, the menu is more modern, lighter, and often organic, at the Tap Works, as one person there put it, they have a deep fryer and aren’t afraid to use it. I ended up ordering turkey, cheese, and cranberry coated in funnel cake batter and then, of course, deep fried. It was deliciously artery-clogging and I could only finish half of it. I got up at one point to check out the pictures they have around (including the Snake pic) and when I came back, there was the man himself, Tom Schlafly, standing at the end of our table. I unfortunately didn’t get to talk to him personally, but he spent a few minutes talking to the group.
We ended up spending about two hours longer than we had planned, but it was well worth it (sorry Tin Mill. We’ll stop there another time). We even took a while leaving the parking lot because we got to talking with James about Beer Trip and him checking out the EM-50 and our collection of stickers. Troika even bought us some bottles of their beer for us to take back home, which was extremely generous, and one was a beer brewed by our friend Drew who had worked for Schlafly until the day before Beer Trip 6.5. Schlafly was the beginning of the beer renaissance in St. Louis, home of the AB InBev Empire, and they still have proven themselves to be a leader. More importantly, Bottleworks and especially the Tap Room have become two of the best Beer Trip stops of all time.

Eighth Annual Parkville Brewers' Festival

2011-05-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it had been a long time for me, but finally, I was able to make it to the Parkville Microbrew Festival after about a six year absence. And not that I didn’t want to go to it the past few years, but for whatever reason, something was going on which wouldn’t allow me to go. Luckily, this year on April 30th, I didn’t have a wedding to attend, a Wizards game to work, a Chiefs minicamp to run messages at, or wasn’t out of town in Hawaii. Okay, I’d rather have been in Hawaii, but I digress. The weather was perfect, and eight Kansas breweries were in attendance, which really excited me since I could see some of my old brewery friends who I used to cover in Southwest Brewing News. Timmy picked me up a little after noon, and we headed up I-635 towards Parkville for what turned out to be a great day.

First of all, the festival was packed. I don’t know what the numbers were, but I would imagine there were well over a thousand people in attendance, not including kids in strollers or Baby Bjorns and dogs, which there were a lot. We got there before it opened, and saw Andy and his family as we were walking in. He told us the Rob was coming, which was great since I hadn’t seen him since Beer Trip 6.5. I bought my ticket ahead of time, online, so while they waited in their line, I walked around the tents a bit before they started letting people in to try to talk to some of the brewer friends I know. Most of them were really busy setting up, but I was lucky enough to get to chat with Gerald and Janet from Liquid Bread in Hays for a few minutes. I also said hi quickly to Randyl of McCoy’s/Beer Kitchen/The Foundry before I headed back to line to get in.

The event was really great. One of the best things was running into a lot of friends who were there. My friend Chris, who was pouring beer for Buffalo Brewing Company out of St. Louis, was there and recommended the Gordon Biersch Unfiltered Czech Pils, which was solid. I also got to hang out with Pete, a friend who I work with at the Stadium, and got to meet his wife, who couldn’t have been cooler. Later on in the day, I bumped into another friend, Eugene, who came in from Lawrence with his girlfriend and told me to try the Upstream Grand Cru (which was gone by the time I got there).

As for the beer part of the festival, the first place I went to was the River City Brewing Company tent where their head brewer Dan brought up four of his bigger beers for the event. I will admit that I am probably biased because I like the guy, but all four of his beers were terrific. And despite the fact that I don’t really care for the name, his “The Situation” beer was one of the top five beers I had at the festival. I got to chat with him for bit, which was nice since I hadn’t really talked to him since SWBN dropped Kansas last year. I could tell that things were going really well with him and the brewery. I really need to make it back there.

Another past Beer Trip favorite is Nebraska Brewing Company, and it was great seeing Paul and Kim there. They treated us really well on Beer Trip VI, and even though they were one of the more in demand tents at the festival (the cheesecake and Fathead Barleywine pairing probably had a little to do with it), they talked to us for a bit and even told us to make it back there around 3:15, which Tim, Andy, Rob, Pete, Kendra, and I did. There, he opened up a bottle of their Apricot au Poivre Saison, which we got to finally try. We had really wanted to try this one, maybe more than any other beer at the festival since Tim went up there to help them bottle in last year, and it was probably the best beer I had at the festival.

I got to see and talk to a few of my other brewery friends at the festival, but some for a really short amount of time. My friend Nathan, who now works for Tallgrass Brewing Company, gave me a sample of a variation of my favorite Tallgrass beer, Oasis, that was interesting, and really good if you like maple flavors. Kris from Little Apple had a terrific barleywine, and his beers are better every time I have them. I didn’t get to talk much with Jeremy of Boulevard, but he did pour two great experimental beers, the first being Love Potion #2, which was an amazing sour beer (which I’m usually not a huge fan of). The second was a version of their Tripel with brett yeast, which was also outstanding. I dug those two beers a lot. I said hi briefly to Adam from New Belgium, Gary of Schlafly, and RD from High Noon, but they were all really busy to say more than “Hey” before pouring more beer.

Finally, at the end of the event, most of the crowd had left and many of the brewers were packing up after running out of beer, I got to talk to Bucky from 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence. He seemed genuinely happy to see me, and he talked to me for a good five minutes while pouring me some of their IPA, which I really like. As it reached 5PM (the end of the festival), Paul from Nebraska came over to Tim and me and just talked to us for a few minutes more about beer and Beer Trip. He’s a really great guy, and even gave us a parting gift.

I know this turned into a bit of a love letter about the event, so sorry about that. But really, it was a great time. Part of the thing about Beer Trip is how we get to meet all the great beer people, and there were a lot of great beer people at the festival.

So to close this, I have one request of my friends: if any of you are getting married next year, can you plan it so that it isn’t towards the end of April please? I would appreciate it. I already have other plans.

Dan

Beer Trip 6.5-Urban Chestnut

2011-04-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

After a great first day of Beer Trip 6.5 we wake up, and get a free breakfast with the local white pride contingent staying at the same hotel. A classy group from the flannel Halloween jammies all the way up to his WHITE PRIDE tat on the back of his neck.
We have an hour and half drive in front of us, so we get rolling as we need to be in the Lou by 10:30 to meet Florian the Head Brewmaster at Urban Chestnut. We get there a touch early which is our style on the first stop of the day for us, and shortly after Florian shows up. We say hello and he graciously invites us in. (Florian’s greeting was the complete opposite of how Crown Valley greeted us.) Now we’ve been to well over a 100 different breweries in the past 6 years and only a few have made me stop and take it all in. Surly with their space and their potential for growth at the time, not to mention Todd and Beaner standing there waiting to give us some beer was quite cool. Standing on the fermenters outside of New Belgium was more than amazing and Urban Chestnut gave me the same feeling, with tons of brand new Stainless Steel equipment that reached up, but couldn’t quite touch the very high, arched, cathedral type wood ceiling, along with shiny black piping made for a nice accent. It was rustic, but with a cool modern charm to it. Sometimes walking into a place for the first time you just get that wow feeling and this was one of those times for me.

Florian showed us around and told us their plan moving forward, as they had only been open a few weeks when we stopped in. We go into the tap room where Chris started pouring us beer. First up was the Winged Nut, a Bavarian Wheat Beer brewed with chestnuts. According to Florian, many bier gardens in Germany are shaded by chestnut trees, hence the name of the brewery and the inspiration for this beer. We continued to sample beers, which were all very well made. You can just tell when somebody truly cares how well made their beers are and that came through with all of the beers we sampled. My favorite was the Hopfen, a Bavarian IPA.

As we were hanging out enjoying our samples, David Wolfe, Florian's business partner in this new brewery showed up. He was a really nice guy and told us a little more about what they want to accomplish with their brewery. These two guys very much fit the mold of laid back lovers of well made beers and getting it out into the community that they live in.

As what has become tradition, starting with Omar from Surly, we had the guys who have treated us so well place their brewery sticker on the back of the EM-50. If you are ever in St. Louis and you need a beer, my suggestion is look these guys up and have a few. From their logo’s to the beer, to the cool urban setting, you can’t go wrong here.

Beer Trip 6.5-Day One

2011-03-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

Few things help me get through winter like a Beer Trip. I think for a variety of reasons, I was looking forward to Beer Trip 6.5 quite a bit. The terrible winter weather we’ve had played a part. I also was needing a break from work. But I think the main reason was that we were able to get tours at both Schlafly locations, including a VIP tour at Schlafly Tap Room that I was really pumped about. For this trip, we had seven of us going, which is a lot for the EM-50. Most of the normal crew went, with Kelly, Andy, Tim, and me going. Rob also joined us, because he was helping out his family, we picked him up in Columbia. Ed decided that goose hunting was more important than beer, so he was out. In his place were two Beer Trip Point Five veterans: Adam (Beer Trip 4.5) and Dave (Beer Trip 5.5). The game plan was to leave at 7:15 am, and thanks to an oversleeping Tim, we left about 7:25 am. Luckily, Kelly had a lead foot as he took over the morning driving, and we made it up quickly. The trip across Missouri on I-70 was like most other drives along it: pretty eventful with exit after exit alternating with fireworks warehouses and porn shops. Thanks to Kelly’s driving, we got to Schlafly Bottleworks a little early, even after picking up our Wisconsin friends, Travis and John, both who have hung out with us on previous Beer Trips. This would be Travis’s third Beer Trip appearance (after Beer Trips V and 5.5), and this would be John’s fourth in a row. So it was great having them with us again. I’d never been to Bottleworks before, and it was a really cool place. It is a refurbished grocery store, and it seemed to fit the space well, with the brewery (including bottling line) on one side, and the restaurant and bar on the other. They had tasting rooms for tours, and was really a cool spot and layout for a brewpub. Saying I was a little excited about coming to Bottleworks would be an understatement, not only because Travis and John were here and that I’d never been there before, but because at Schlafly we were going to meet Troika. Troika is a good friend of my friend Adam from East Troy, and he was cool enough to let Troika know about Beer Trip and our visit. So when we walked in, Troika was there waiting for us. I have to admit, there are few things that make me feel cooler than when come into a brewery or brewpub and having someone say something to us about us being the Beer Trip guys. Troika greeted us and took us to a table for us to have lunch. For being the Communications Director who claimed he didn’t know a lot about beer, he knew a lot about beer. He told us a lot about Schlafly’s history, what they are up to now, the brewing scene in STL, and just chatted with us about whatever for awhile; just a great guy. Luckily for us, they were tapping a new beer that was a collaboration beer with a famous St. Louis bar, The Royale. It was a Vanilla Milk Stout, and Troika had them bring us some samples of it. It was a phenomenal beer, and I wasn’t surprised to read online the next day that both Bottleworks and the Tap Room had gone through it all. Later on, after our really good meal, they brought us out bottles of their ’07 and ’10 Schlafly Reserve Barleywine, which Troika explained were made differently. It was a cool vertical, as the ’07 was a cloudy beer, while the ’10 was clear. Both, however, were extremely tasty. After lunch, where Troika treated us to those fantastic beers, we took the 1 PM tour. The tour was a standard brewery tour, both informative and interesting. Our guide did a good job explaining the process and ingredients to those less seasoned in taking beer tours, but for those who are veterans of scores of tours, it was a good tour as well, especially because the bottling line was running. That’s always pretty cool.

After the tour, we went into the tasting room, where they poured us samples of some of their beers. As we were short on time and had just had some of their finest beers thanks to Troika, we had just a couple before we decided to head out on to our next stop. Six Row Brewing Company was a really quick stop, but that was no fault of their own. We just had to get to our next stop soon after. It wasn’t far from Bottleworks, and we quickly grabbed a table and ordered beers from their bar. I had their Dubbel, and other guys ordered their Foreign Extra Stout among other beers. They all were really good, and before we headed out we got a couple of glasses of their Imperial IPA to share. That was a terrific beer. I think everyone enjoyed that one. We finished up our beers, said farewell to Travis and John for the day (they were staying in STL for the night), and headed south in the RV to Sainte Genevieve. The Facebook fan page has been a pretty cool thing for us. Andy and Tim did a great job in deciding to have one. They are much smarter than me when it comes to certain things (most things, probably), but that page had been a great benefit to the Beer Trippers. Anyway, because of the page, we’ve reached out to various places to let them know we were coming to visit. Not that we want special treatment or anything, but it seems that most places appreciate what we do. Which is, they appreciate us driving hundreds of miles (thousands on the big summer Beer Trip) to check out their place and try their beers. Plus, I’d like to think we are pretty generous to those who have welcomed us. I did this for Crown Valley Brewing and Distillery as well, letting them know that we would be stopping by and hoped they’d be able to stay open past 5 PM, although I didn’t suspect that they would. I had to give it a shot, right? Well, I have made it my business to not knock people for treating us poorly on the Beer Trip blog, so I will try to word our visit to Crown Valley Brewing and Distillery as fairly as I can. When we pulled up around 4:20 PM, we were greeted at the door. I believe the lady said, “Are you the guys who’ve been contacting us on Facebook? Well, welcome, but know that we are still closing at 5:00 and last call is at 4:45.” Not quite the “Hey Beer Trippers!!!” that we got from Tim at Snake River Brewing Company, but I get it. I never expect special treatment, and we don’t deserve it either. We went up to the bar, ordered some beers, and headed out to the back to check out the scenery. It really was a cool looking place, and Kelly, being the Guv’nuh that he is, talked the lady into giving us a tour. She took us to one side of the brewery where the brewing equipment was, and it was nice and shiny. She said that all of their equipment was brand new, and it looked like it. The only brewery I’ve ever seen that looked cleaner than that was Gerald Wyman’s brewhouse at Gella’s Diner and Lb. Brewing Company in Hays, KS. She led us to the other side of the building to see the bottling line and the distillery portion of the place, and that was all really nice too. They even roast their own coffee there, which Tim decided to buy when we left. As it was approaching last call, we went back into the bar area/tasting room. I wanted to buy my son some of their root beer and get my wife a bottle of their wine. Some of the others did the same. As I was purchasing the root beer and wine, it was 4:47 PM according to my phone. I asked the lady if I could please order a glass of their IPA (which I hadn’t seen at the liquor stores in the KC area) to share with the guys so we could try it. Now I knew last call was at 4:45 PM, since that was explained to us in the second sentence to us on their grounds, but the other bartender was pouring a round of about three or four beers for people sitting down at the other end of the bar. She told me flat out, “Nope, we already had last call!” When I again said, “Please!” and mentioned that the other lady was still pouring beers for other people, she told me, “They’re different!” and walked away. I was a little in shock to say the least, but I guess maybe I was different. Andy also bought two six-packs of root beer, and was told to go to the front to grab it as we left. That is what he did, however they only had them in cases, so he took two out of the box and then took the rest in the box and stood outside waiting for the rest of us to leave. As he waited, right in front of the door, the other bartender bolted out towards him and rudely said, “You only paid for two six packs!” He explained that that is exactly what he took, and even opened the box to show her. I’m not sure if he asked her if he looked stupid enough to steal root beer and then just loiter in front of the building, but he should have. Anyway, it was a really disappointing stop for us, especially since we could have just stayed in STL with our friends and had fun there. But stupid me wanted to visit and support a new, small brewery who sold their beer in the KC area (and that I had bought a few six packs from). But I guess I’ll spend my money on Schlafly, Odell, New Belgium, and Goose Island when I head to the beer store instead from now on. Oh well. It was still early (remember, it was only about 5 PM now), so we went down to Cape Girardeau for our last stop of Day One. We checked into our hotel (a pretty nice Super 8, actually), and asked about a cab. They gave us some numbers, and we called and asked for a cab for seven of us. When the cab showed up in a mini-van with someone already in the passenger seat, we figured we couldn’t manage that. But the Guv’nuh jumped in the back, and Adam crouched between the two middle seats, and we did it. The best part was that we were able to get a round trip for all of us to the brewpub and back for just $21. I would imagine that is the cheapest cab fare in the country. The cab took us to Buckner Brewing Company, and we sat down for dinner. Our service was really good, and they had just tapped their India Brown Ale that day. I ordered that (which was terrific), along with a pizza, and it was a pretty nice meal. Some of us were feeling really good (me and Kelly, especially), while some of the guys were tired (like Andy, who went to see Motorhead the night before). We walked over by the Mississippi River, decided it was too cold and too early to just stay outside or call it a night, so we walked into the bottom part of the brewpub. That was a funky place, in a good way, and it reminded me of college. Not just because it was a college bar in a college town, but because you could smoke in there. I didn’t like that, but I had a good time. We played shuffleboard and darts, and chilled out. Andy was really chilling out because he was so tired, but even my jukebox selections like “Linger”, “Grace Kelly” by Mika, and “MmmBop” accompanied by my singing couldn’t get him going. We enjoyed some more India Brown Ales (while Dave switched to rum and Cokes and Adam had some gin and tonics), before calling the cab and heading home. Apparently there was a slutty looking chick in the van on the cab ride home, but that is all hearsay as I think I was too “well on my way” to notice. I do remember being told by the guy with the slutty chick about Old Chicago in Paducah having 110 beers and that “Boddington’s in the big, yella can” was his favorite, but soon enough we were home, just short of midnight. And then I crashed. All in all, it was a great day, and Buckner Brewing Company was a great follow up to our not-so-good Crown Valley experience. Schlafly, of course, was the highlight of Day One, and thanks to Troika’s hospitality, we were all really excited about heading to the Schlafly Tap Room the next day for the VIP tour. And to put it mildly, it did not let us down at all.

Belgian Beer Trip-Part 1

2011-01-31T19:16:00.000-08:00

The majority of the time of my week in Europe was spent in Belgium. This was my first time spending any time there, having only been through the airport on a layover many years ago. We arrived in Brussels around 8AM on a Friday morning. We grabbed our bags and headed down to the lower level of the airport for what should have been an easy train ride to central Brussels. We just missed a train, but the next one was supposed to arrive in less than 20 minutes. No big deal. Our tour at Duvel wasn’t supposed to be until 2PM. We wait. And wait. Then the message board flashes that the train we are waiting on is delayed. Then, the PA system says to move to a different track. Then we wait. Then another train arrives at the track we just left. I believe it was just short of two hours from when we got there that we finally got on a train. Now a simple ride to Midi Station, transfer to the subway, and arrive a block from the hotel. We go through several stations, and I’m thinking we’ve arrived at the correct one, but the signs say Zuidstation. So we don’t get off. I should have brushed up on my Flemish. They speak French in the southern part of Belgium, and I can speak it; but Brussels lies right in the middle. Apparently Zuid is the Flemish equivalent of Midi. I’m a smart one. We realize this when the city fades away and we’re seeing picturesque Belgian villages out of the windows.

We get off thinking we’ll just catch the train going in the opposite direction and get back to Midi/Zuid Station. We can skip the details of what happens. After more than an hour wait, the train finally arrives. We get to Midi/Zuid Station, and I decide that we’re grabbing a taxi to the hotel. No more public transit for now.
By the time we get to the hotel, check in, shower to get the airplane stink off, and get ready to go, it’s after 1PM. It’s over a half hour to Duvel if we were driving direct, and we would be dependent on public transit. Duvel wasn’t going to happen. Our hotel was literally around the corner from Grande Place which is the major tourist area of Brussels so we decided to walk down there and check it out since our first scheduled stop was a fail. When we’d left India, it was in the 80’s and sunny. Brussels was struggling to stay in the 40’s and it was cloudy and drizzly, and, at first, it was refreshing. We sat down to eat at a diner that offered a free beer with your meal. They only had Leffe which I was able to find at a bar in Delhi, but it was okay. I was in the Mecca of beer. I had no doubt I’d have plenty of time to try many different beers.

Oddly, the best part of that meal was the glass of ice water and the salad. I hadn’t had ice in over two months, and fresh vegetables are off the menu in India due to westerner’s inability to handle the water in which it is washed. Lettuce had never tasted so good. We spent the rest of the day wandering around central Brussels getting a feel for the city. We stopped in at another bar, had some more Belgian beers while sitting outside in the cold watching the city. We called it a night early. We were exhausted due to jet lag and had to be up early the next day to get to London.
The next day was spent in London which I wrote about previously. Sunday we got up and walked down to Grande Place for some Belgian waffles for breakfast. I chose not to have beer with it, although the little café did offer it. We hit some touristy spots in the city, one of which, Atomium, had a café in it. I tried a canned Kriek beer they had just for fun. It was not good, and part of the In-Bev family. I was mad at myself for even trying it. We went back to central Brussels and found the Delirium Café, the world-famous beer bar. To my extreme pleasure it was a two minute walk from our hotel, just tucked into an alley that we hadn’t noticed.

It is split into three levels, the main floor being the taphouse. This night, we actually never made it out of the taphouse. We saw the tap list with 27 beers on it, and settled in. Sunday night must not be a big night for drinking as there wasn’t a huge crowd in the bar. Behind the bar was a messy array of kegs, tubes, and CO2 tanks. Glasses of every sort were hung above it, and an odd collection of bartenders were working it, knowing exactly what glass to use no matter what the beer ordered. I was happy to see a Great Divide sticker on the wall, feeling like American beer is getting respect in Belgium (and one we visited on Beer Trip II). As we sat with a barrel as our table, looking at the list, Ben made the decision that our goal before we left Brussels was to drink every beer on it. We tried a wide range from the list that night and I never got tired of seeing the bartenders hear what I wanted, grab a specific glass, pour it until it is overflowing, then scrape off the foam in a matter of seconds. I stumbled back to the hotel and crashed with a belly full of awesome brews. I wish I could give you the list, but I didn’t think to date the beers when I checked them off.

The next morning we were up and on our way to Cantillon Brewery early to get our first true tour. The brewery was located not far from Zuid/Midi Station where we were picking up our rental car later that day. It was a non-descript building, and I actually had trouble finding which door to enter. Inside was a lot what I expected. Nothing fancy, rather disorganized, and centered on the beer. The tour is self-guided, which I actually prefer most of the time. So the lady gave us a pamphlet with the route to take and info on each stop.

There were aging barrels stacked everywhere with dates scrawled on them as to when the beer inside was produced. Upstairs they had the large, open fermenter that had windows that opened to the outside air because they do natural fermentation, giving each batch its own unique flavor. At the end of the tour they give you three samples of their beer. I bought gift pack of all three of their beers and some cheese. It was then time to go to the train station and pick up the rental car and head northwest to the world-famous Westvletern.
We picked up the rental an hour ahead of time which I was excited about because that’d give us an extra hour at the Sint Sixtus Brewery. Unfortunately, we were again delayed because we couldn’t get out of the damn parking garage. Long story, but fast forward a half hour and we’re on the road, still 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We get about 30 minutes outside of Brussels, and the freeway comes to a dead stand-still. And we sit, and sit, and sit. It took us two hours to go 4km. I was about to have a stroke and got more and more pissed off as we sat there. Again, to save time, we’ll fast forward and skip the Citroen Bag or bunder (monkey) discussions we had whilst sitting on the Belgian freeway.

I was about to pee my pants after sitting there for so long. We pulled off the freeway and stopped at a gas station to use the restroom and get something to drink. We found out from the nice Flemish man working the counter that there had been a bad wreck and someone had died. So of course I felt bad about earlier in the trip when we were sitting there stating “I’d better see blood on the pavement if I’m gonna sit here all this time.”

It was dark by the time we arrived at the brewery. It’s located in a sparsely populated region with one lane roads and no street lights so that was fun to maneuver in the dark and rain. We got to In De Vrede, which is like their brewpub next to the abbey around 7PM. I wanted to try all three beers, so we each ordered a Blonde, and I got up to take some pictures. It was pitch black outside and pouring rain so I didn’t even attempt pictures of the brewery across the street. The Blonde was honestly just okay. It was a beautiful beer though. The color and the sediment floating in it made it one of the best looking beers I’d ever drunk.

We ordered some food and I ordered the 8. Ben was driving back, and given the alcohol content of the 8 and 12, he decided to skip the 8 and wait for the world-famous 12. The food was decent and the 8 was a good beer as well. We had a hard time getting the waitress to come back by as there were a couple groups of old people in there, who I assumed were locals. I finally flagged her down and said we’d like two of the 12’s. “I’m sorry the bar is closed” was her reply. I sat there for a second thinking she had to be joking. Apparently they’d closed and not bothered to tell the obvious Americans sitting off on the side who are used to a “last call” before a bar closes. She said during the winter they close early, but they’d be open again tomorrow. I muttered something, still in shock that I’d come all the way from the US, via India, to try what some say is the best beer in the world, and because I’d ordered a few minutes too late, wouldn’t get to try. They had the 8 available for sale so despite my pissed-off state I bought a sixer of it, and left still thinking this had to be a bad dream. We drove back to Brussels in what seemed like no time compared to how long it took to get there. I had been in email contact with one of the managers of the hotel before our arrival and she had mentioned a beer package I could buy from them that included a trip to a bar that had the Westy 12 available.
We again set out for Grande Place searching for “Au Bon Vieux Temps” bar. While we seemed to be star crossed at many steps along the way, other times we were very fortunate. Down a tiny alley we happened to notice a sign hanging with the bar’s name. We walked in and the bar is MAYBE 200 square feet. There’s an old lady working the bar, an old drunk man at the bar, and some douchey looking young people at a booth. Ben and I sit down at the bar and the old lady asks what we want. I try to access years of French classes just to ask for “deux Westvleteren.” She pulls out two bottles and by chance, I notice the yellow cap on top which I’d seen on the sixer of 8’s I bought. I stopped her from opening them and said “Douze! Douze! Pas huit!” She acknowledges and she bends over and lifts up a door and seems to disappear into the floor. She comes back up with two bottles with brown caps. She poured them and I paid her the 20 euro for them. Only double the price they wanted at the brewery so I didn’t bitch. The beer is good. Malty sweet, heavy, a slight alcohol burn at the end. However, I may be banned from beer geekdom for this, but not the best beer I’d ever had. I think the difficulty in obtaining the beer contributes to the mystique of it and therefore, when one does get it, makes them rate it higher. Or, I could be harboring some bitterness from our experiences a couple hours earlier. We finished the highly sought after Westy 12s and decided to go back to Delirium which is in the next alley over. Apparently Mondays are more popular nights to drink because the place was overflowing. All three floors were filled and there wasn’t a seat to be found. We decided to come back earlier in the night next time and just call it a night because we had to be up to get to Amsterdam the next morning. I’ll write about the rest of our experiences in Belgium in another post as this one is becoming very long. Despite my experience, I’d recommend going to Sint Sixtus or trying the Westy 12 if you get the chance. Just plan an entire day for it to be safe.
Cheers!

Omaha and Bottling at Nebraska Brewing Company

2011-01-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

This year, my birthday coincided with release of Sam Adams’ collaboration brew with Weihenstephan, Infinium. I had toyed with the idea of flying to Boston and attending the release party on the ninth of December. However, I couldn’t find anyone to go, and it’s a pricey trip when you’d be flying from Kansas City. So I decided against it. Luckily for me, that weekend, Nebraska Brewing Company in Papillion, NE needed volunteers to help bottle two of their limited edition releases. If you’re a faithful reader, you’ll remember we stopped at Nebraska Brewing on Beer Trip VI and were blown away by their beers and the owners Paul and Kim. So I was really excited to get back up there and help out any way I could.
I emailed the head brewer, Tyson, volunteering for the early shift on Saturday. I would have preferred the afternoon shift and made a night of it, but that night was the first annual Beer Trip beer tasting at Andy’s, and I couldn’t miss that. He replied back to confirm and it was all set. Because my shift would start at 7:30AM and I’m roughly 3.5hrs away, I needed to go up the day before. Dan, Andy, and I had met a fellow beer enthusiast, Chad, through beerpal.com and actually met him in person at NBC on Beer Trip VI. Since he lives in Omaha, I emailed him too, and he agreed to show me the local beer scene in the Omaha area when I got up there.
I left Kansas City around 4PM on Friday. The trip to Omaha couldn’t be simpler and isn’t very long. I got into the city and checked into my hotel. Chad met me not long after that and we went to our first stop, Max & Joe’s.

It’s actually one of three beer bars in one. Max & Joe’s is the Belgian beer bar. It’s connected to The Crescent Moon Ale House, and above Huber-Haus German Bier Hall. The selection was amazing, and what seemed to be the theme of the trip, my phone was dying and I couldn’t use it to make notes of the beers I tried. Trust me, if you find yourself in Omaha, you won’t be disappointed. We had a couple at Max & Joe’s, along with some fries prepared Belgian style, complete with mayo. I wanted to check out the beer available to buy, and luckily enough, the three bars are connected to a beer store called Beertopia. We went over there and I spent way too much, but picked up some beers by Lucky Bucket (which is brewed in Nebraska, but is not available in Kansas). I had quite a haul of different beers when I left, and the bartender at Max & Joe’s was nice enough to let me store it at the bar while we went downstairs to the German Brew Hall. This is definitely the most popular area of the three. It was packed with people drinking German lager out of Das Boot, made famous in recent years by the movie Beer Fest. I didn’t have one, but I did have a great dunkel before heading out. We left after that and headed west to Upstream Brewing Company.

The original is located downtown (which we visited on Beer Trip II), but they had built a new brewery/restaurant on the west side of town that is beyond impressive. The lower level has a restaurant and bar, but there’s also an upper level with a bar and a pool hall. I tried their Snow Blind Imperial Stout, a great beer that I’d like to have more of the next time they release it. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had to be up early to work at Nebraska Brewing and Chad had to get home to his family. He couldn’t have been a better tour guide and it was a blast to hang out with him.
The next morning I got up about 6:30 AM as my hotel was about a 20 minute drive to the suburb of Papillion. I looked outside and the nice weather the day before had been replaced by howling wind and blowing snow. There were blizzard warnings just north of the city. It was also the first time I’d had to drive in snow since the previous winter so that’s always an adjustment. I got to Nebraska Brewing after a stop at Starbucks for my caffeine fix around 7:20. Ironically enough, all the volunteers were there, but a couple of the employees were running late because of the weather.

We got started and were bottling the Melange a Trois and Apricot au Poivre Saison. The morning crew was bottling the Melange which is aged in chardonnay barrels thus making wine the predominant aroma in the air. I lucked out and got the easiest job in the line. All I had to do was dry the bottles before Paul put the label on them with their new labeler. Before that day, he had to manually place the labels, so it was a big improvement. It labels one at a time, but makes it much easier.

The only job I didn’t want was capping. I know from when I helped Andy bottle his homebrew that it’s the worst job. I lucked out and a perfect reason for that fear of capping showed up a few hours into the shift. Turns out the alignment went wacky and wasn’t sealing correctly. They had to go back through all the previous cases to make sure others weren’t affected. Several were and had to be recapped. Capping is the worst, if I hadn’t made that clear already. Our shift wrapped up at noon as we finished up the Melange and the second group arrived.

They opened up the bar for us and brought out some of their awesome food. Unfortunately, I had a three –plus hour drive back to Kansas City in the snow, so I only treated myself to a couple beers. It was great getting to meet Tyson who was out of town when Beer Trip made the stop there on BT VI. Also got to meet Paul’s dad and talk to him for a bit. Dan had sent up a bottle of one of Cigar City’s beers for Paul, and I had a bottle of Westvletern 8 I picked up in Belgium. Ironically enough, Nebraska Brewing and Cigar City had just decided to do a collaboration beer together and Paul hadn’t had a chance to try any of their beers. So needless to say he was very excited to get that bottle. Paul’s wife, Kim was there too and hung out for a bit as well. I had to get on the road to make the tasting so I dropped a bunch of money on more of their beer to bring home.

It was a great experience and I had a great time there. I was beyond impressed by the beer scene in the greater Omaha area. I look forward to getting back up there when I get the chance, and when I can spend more time. Although not in the winter. I don’t need any more experience driving in Nebraska snow.

London, Amsterdam, and Dusseldorf

2010-12-05T18:12:00.001-08:00

So, after spending ten weeks in India, it was time to go home. However, when you’re flying over Europe to get home, why not stop in for a bit? So I, and a colleague of mine, Ben, took a week-long layover in Europe. We left Delhi at 3AM and arrived in Brussels at 7AM after a 9hr flight. Have to love time zones. I’ll write about Belgium in a separate entry; this one is to talk about my experience in England, Holland, and Germany. Europe’s transit system is second to none, so on our second day in Brussels, we took the subway to Midi Station and boarded the Eurostar train for the 90-minute ride to London. Train travel is the best way to travel in my humble opinion. Also, I can now say I went to the bathroom underneath the English Channel. Our main goal was to be full tourists, to be honest. However, there’s no way I’d pass up a chance to check out the pub scene or their craft brew.
We arrived at 8AM (again, gained an hour because of the time zone), and did a whirlwind tour of the biggest tour spots London has to offer. London is one of my favorite cities in the world despite both of my times there I’ve only got to spend one day each trip. It’s chaotic and crowded, but at the same time has peaceful parks, and for a city of its size, it’s really clean. After hitting the main sites (Buckingham, Big Ben, etc) it was lunch time. Ben’s favorite fast food restaurant is Chipotle and the only one in Europe happened to be located in London. My best friend since the first day of Kindergarten now lives in London so he was going to meet us there. I do like Chipotle, but from my experience here the beer selection isn’t even worth a second look. To my surprise I saw a familiar red label. At a Chipotle in London, England, I found Goose Island Honker’s Ale. I know, I’m in England, I should have chosen an English beer, but you say that after being deprived of American Craft beer for over two months. I devoured my grotesquely large barbacoa burrito and was careful not to chug the delicious Goose Island.

After Chipotle, we stopped at Starbucks for the second time that day (no Starbucks in India!!) and Jared, Ben, and I decided to do the London Eye. Very cool experience, and worth the hefty fee to get on. From there, it was late enough in the day, 2PM, that I didn’t feel bad saying a pub would be nice. I had reservations at Brew Wharf Brewpub at 4. Jared knew of a truly authentic feeling English Pub not far from the Eye, The Market Porter. It’s what I expected of an English pub. Small, somewhat crowded, and extremely friendly bar tenders. They had Meantime on tap, so I couldn’t pass up having it fresh. Their India Pale Ale is great, as I expected. We had a couple pints while Jared and I caught up on each other’s lives.

He had to get going for a family event for his woman and it was time for Ben and I to check out Brew Wharf. Luckily for us, it was literally a few meters down the same road.

The restaurant was obviously a rehabbed building. Seems to be a trend with brewpubs, and one I fully support. It had very modern touches throughout, however. We were a little early for our reservation, but they went ahead and seated us anyway. They had two of their beers on tap, the Indian Summer Wheat and the Brown Chicken Brown Cow. I started with the Brown. Malty and delicious. I asked the waitress if the brewer happened to be in, but unfortunately he wasn’t.

We were both still pretty full from the burritos at lunch so we just ordered their cheese plate which was excellent, and they didn’t skimp on the quantities. Next up was their wheat which while not my favorite style, was still good. I had to get up to use the facilities, and I told Ben that if the waitress came by to get our tab and ask if they had any merch to buy. When I returned, he had two glasses sitting in front of him; one your standard pint glass, and the second a 20oz from the Borough Market Brew Fest. He said she told him pick which one we wanted or we could just have both. So even across the pond, beer people are just as awesome. Unfortunately we only had time in the schedule for a day trip. After Brew Wharf it was time to head back to King’s Cross and catch the Eurostar back to Brussels. My love of England only increased, and I look very forward to returning, hopefully for more than a day the next time.

On our fourth day in Europe, we rented a car to make it easier to get to the small breweries that aren’t convenient by the train. We decided to take a road trip through the Netherlands and Germany for a day and night. We set out on the fifth day for Amsterdam. Not exactly known for its beer culture, but I’ve been to Europe three times previously and had never been there. While we were there we did “The Heineken Experience.” Basically, they had moved their brewery out of central Amsterdam and had turned the old brewery into a giant tourist trap for Americans. Everything is in English, including signage, and no other language. The people working there speak with American accents, and it is all very odd. Now, I love my Europeans, but the “Experience” couldn’t be more European in style. Whether it is the odd video pods that you lie in or the discotheque-like rooms you walked through. Ben and I skipped the room that was supposed to be like you’re the beer. We’re thinking it is one of those emersion movies that the seats move and you feel like you’re actually moving. Just didn’t interest us. We moved directly to the tasting room.

Here an extremely attractive blonde from Australia gave us instructions on how to taste beer. It was pretty much standard stuff, but then towards the end she talked about how whenever you look at a beer you should put your fingers on the other side. If you can’t see your fingers, it’s a bad beer. I’m hoping beyond hope she was referring only to Heineken and not beer in general. If she was referring to beer in general, then that’s just horrible advice. From there we went on to the bottle your own beer section. Here, you can pay 5 Euro and get a bottle of Heineken saying you had bottled it. Complete bullocks, but of course we did it. At the very end we finally got our two full tasters, which I have to admit was pretty cool. There is their standard lager then the Heineken Ice which is served at a brain-freezing temperature. We drank those then picked up our bottles that we apparently bottled by magic. Afterwards, we tried to find a good bar to sit down and have a beer or two, but we didn’t have much luck. Maybe we just didn’t know enough about the city, but we had no success finding just a standard bar.

The next morning we set out for Dusseldorf, Germany. We were headed to southern Belgium and decided to stop in at a brewpub in Germany on the way. I had no reason for picking Fuchschen really. Just found it on beermapping.com, and their website was tacky, crazy, and entertained me. And I’m glad I did pick it.

They only serve one beer, an alt, and it was really good. The awesome German food made it even better. I had the schnitzel, and Ben went for what is basically an entire leg of a pig.

We had a couple of their Alts afterwards, and then headed back to Belgium. While we didn’t make some epic Beer Trip, it was a great experience, and got my feet wet in the European beer culture. Talk to you soon about our experiences in Belgium, both the great and the not so great.
Cheers!
Tim

High Noon Saloon and visitors from Great Taste

2010-11-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

Last week I got an email from my friend Bob, Wisconsin correspondent for the Great Lakes Brewing News. He sent me an itinerary of a mini-tour that he and those involved with Madison’s Great Taste of the Midwest, a beer festival that many refer to as the best in the country-even better than the Great American Beer Festival. Since I’ve been to neither (which I am a little ashamed of), I can’t comment. Regardless, it is a highly acclaimed event. I, along with Tim as the other Beer Trip guys were off camping, decided to make our way over to High Noon Saloon and Brewery in Leavenworth, Kansas to meet up with them for a little bit. They were scheduled to be there at 8:15 PM, so Tim picked me up (since I drove to Gordon Biersch on Wednesday) around 7:30 and we headed to Leavenworth.

We got there right at 8:15 PM. When we got there, we saw that a band was playing and I was asked to pay a $5 cover charge. I’m not sure why, but this really annoyed me for about two minutes. I told the guy at the door, who was really nice about it, that I was just meeting the brewery guys from Wisconsin and didn’t want to pay any cover charge. He was about to go ask a manager about it, when I just said, “Sorry. I don’t know why I am so against a $5 cover charge. Here you go.” I still hate cover charges at a brewpub, when I just wanted a couple of pints of their beer, but I get it. I just wish the band was better.
After a bit I told a guy by the bar that I was Dan, the guy who used to write about Kansas for Southwest Brewing News, and he seemed to recognize me. He even bought me a beer, which was nice. I told him that I was friends with RD, the owner, which is probably a stretch by I really consider myself friends with all of the Kansas brewers that I covered. And I miss talking to them every other month. He came over and talked to me for a bit, and I told him that I was going to tag along with the Wisconsin guys when they came in to take a tour. He said they were running late but that was fine, and he went back to his family. Tim and I grabbed a table, another beer, and we waited for Bob and crew to arrive.
About 9:30 PM, they arrived. They had a large crew, and these guys were doing it up right. They had a nice bus, with a driver, and a solid itinerary chock-full of brewery and brewpub visits (and even a distillery). They even had the itinerary printed on t-shirts that they wore, which is arguably a step up from the buttons the Dahlbeeyotch made for us for Beer Trip V (“Shut up and drive! It’s Beer Trip V!”), but I prefer the buttons. Bob introduced me to a few people in the group, including a couple of brewers from Ale Asylum in Madison and the guy behind the Great Taste of the Midwest. They were all really great guys, and it is an event I’d really love to go to sometime. After a few minutes, RD come around and asked who wanted a tour. About three-quarters of the group went to the brewhouse for the tour, which was interesting enough.

At the end, RD gave them all a glass, which was one of the more practical brewpub pint glasses that I’ve seen. It had the High Noon logo on one side, and the back had a list of their flagship beers. It ended up coming in hand a few times when people were asking me what High Noon beers they had. I thought it was a cool idea. We went back to the bar, talked to a few more people, and before I knew it, they were headed back to the bus. Before they left, Bob was nice enough to bring me a few Wisconsin beers for me, including some from my friends at O’so (Night Train!). It was pretty cool. They left, and Tim and I had one more Stumblin’ Reindeer, their winter seasonal, which was really good. After the band played their rendition of “Cherry Bomb”, we felt it was time to call it a night. We made the drive back home, and I gave Tim a couple of the beers Bob gave me for driving me.
It wasn’t an eventful night, but it is always great meeting people in the beer industry. And I like checking out the local brewpubs when I can, which isn’t as often as it was when I was the Kansas correspondent for SWBN. So basically, I had a really good night, and hopefully I can make it back to High Noon again soon, and hopefully someday to Madison for the Great Taste of the Midwest in the next few years.

Cheers!
Dan

Gordon Biersch Winterbock release

2010-11-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

I haven’t written in a while, but mostly because I hadn’t done a lot lately in terms of beer. Having a baby girl will do that. No complaints from me. But I got an email from Gordon Biersch in Kansas City recently about a release party for their winter seasonal Winterbock, so I decided that this would be a good thing to do. It also happened to be on the same day as the 21st Anniversary/Birthday of Boulevard Brewing Company, who had some events planned for that night, so it seemed to be a good night to go out. Tim, fresh back from India and Europe, decided to come with, so we decided to take our talents down to Kansas City’s Power and Light District for a few hours.

When we got to Gordon Biersch, it was pretty crowded and loud. They had an 80’s trivia night, and we walked in right by the guy running it. We saw the brewer from GB, James, there, and he was changing out a keg of the Winterbock to give out samples. We stopped and grabbed one, then Tim, who also brought a few cans of food for Harvesters, and I grabbed a table to have dinner. One thing to note is that if you are a fan of Gordon Biersch Kansas City on Facebook, you can print off a free order of their garlic fries. Luckily for us, I did, because they are really, really good. We ordered some dinner, and I ordered one of their Marzens while Tim ordered a mug of the Winterbock.

The food was pretty tasty, as I ordered the chicken tenders off of their seasonal menu and Tim had a pulled pork sandwich that he really liked. Everything was really good. Our waitress was very good and friendly, and I do enjoy GB’s beers. They don’t go crazy with hops or high alcohol brews, although the Winterbock tipped in at 8.2% ABV, but what they make is great for the style. I enjoy marzens, and theirs is very tasty. As we were walking out, I stopped and talked to James for a bit. He seemed like a pretty cool guy, but it was crowded there, he was pouring the samples, and I am not a pretty lady, so I kept it short so not to bother him, and we moved on to Flying Saucer.

Flying Saucer for those who are not familiar is a great beer bar. They have one of the best beer selections in the city, if not THE best, and it’s a cool, laid-back atmosphere. Plus they have couches, which Tim and I took over when we arrived. The big deal that night was “keep the glass” night for the 21st Anniversary Fresh Hop Pale Ale for Boulevard. We were told right away that the glasses were gone, which wasn’t a big deal to either of us. Tim first ordered their “Fire Sale” beer, which was Bell’s Oktoberfest, while I ordered a water (since I was driving). He liked the beer, and when he decided to move on and get the 21st Anniversary beer without the glass, I followed suit and did the same. While it is probably not the typical style for a big anniversary beer, we both enjoyed it. I found it to be a better than when I had it previously from a bottle. We looked around, and were told that they were going to have a toast to Boulevard at 10 PM, but as I looked at my phone and saw that it was 10:02, we knew that wasn’t happening. We saw on Facebook that some of the Boulevard people were at a bar nearby, Ragland Road, but when we got there they were nowhere to be seen. They did have some mini-cupcakes left though, so we had a couple of them as Tim ordered another beer while I again had a water. We hung out for a bit, watched a young lady jump on a platform and do an Irish dance, and decided to call it a night.
It was a pretty nice night, despite the crappy weather and even crappier team name change for the Wizards. I hope to attend more of Gordon Biersch’s seasonal release parties, as it was a cool, little event. Free garlic fries and free samples of their beers don’t hurt. Especially when that free beer is a tasty 8.2% offering.
Drink up!

Dan

India and Craft Beer

2010-11-16T19:20:00.001-08:00

When someone says craft beer, one doesn’t immediately think of emerging market countries. And honestly, there’s a reason for that. Recently I spent a few months in India for my day job, and while there, I was excited to try their take on craft beer. The first thing I’d advise someone about India-nothing is convenient. I was based out of the Delhi suburb of Noida not far from the city of Gurgaon where all three of the Delhi area breweries are based. While by American standards, it would be just down the road, by Indian standards it’s quite a trek. I rented a car and driver for 6 hours to go to two brewpubs. Freeways are scarce, and traffic jams common. Basically anything goes on their roads. Lanes are a suggestion, as they’re supposed to drive on the left hand side. If that’s inconvenient, they just drive on the right.

The second thing I’d advise is that the beer scene in India in still “nascent,” as one of my Indian colleagues put it. The main reason people drink in India is to get drunk. There hasn’t been the disposable income to care about taste or quality. Basically they need more bang for their buck. If that means buying a Haywards 5000, which honestly tastes like a Bud Light with an alcohol burn, so be it. However, there is an exploding middle class developing, with an expanding disposable income, which is searching for more than a quick drunk.

My first stop was Howzatt brewpub. It’s located at the Galaxy Hotel in Gurgaon and is a cricket-themed bar. A little insight on Indian culture-field hockey is their national sport. Cricket is their religion. I honestly was shocked by brewery. Despite being a five star hotel, I didn’t expect how modern of a facility they have. I walked into the brewpub, and I immediately was hit by the aroma. I was lucky enough to go on a day they were brewing. After six weeks in India and no beer exposure, it was a moment of pure joy. We sat down and looked at their menu. They only brew three beers, a lager, a dark lager, and a wheat beer. We started with the lager. There were three of us, myself and two of my American colleagues that were working in India with me.

They had pitchers that poured three pints. Roughly cost $8 so very cheap by American standards. The lager is what it is. I have to be honest that lagers aren’t my favorite style. However, compared to the mass produced Indian beers I’d had up until this point, it actually had character and flavor. Next we tried the wheat. This could have been an excellent beer, but it was overpowered by an overabundance of wheat. It was like chewing on a stalk of wheat. It wasn’t awful, but they need to tone down the amount of wheat they use in the brew. Third on the list was their dark lager. This was actually their best in my opinion. It had a great malty flavor with enough hop balance that it wasn’t overly sweet. Overall, Howzatt was a great brewpub, and one I’d liked to have returned to if it wasn’t such a hassle getting there.

Next up on the mini-tour was Rockman’s Beer Island , again in Gurgaon. However, we got caught in traffic and it took about 45 minutes to go the 15km from Howzatt. Located on the 4th floor of the Ambience Mall, it is a large complex of restaurants and pubs. We were seated in the Bavarian Pub Brewery. It’s supposed to give you the feeling of being in Germany, but not so much. They have five beers available. They had a lager, strong lager, a dark, a wheat, and a special Oktoberfest. I tried the Oktoberfest and it tasted like a standard lager. The beers were much pricier here, and a 20oz glass was just short of $10. Because of that, I only had one more, the dark. It was decent, but not worth the cost.

On a non-brewing note, I did find Leffe at Route 04 at Kahn Market in Delhi. Overall, the selection you’ll find at a bar includes Kingfisher, Corona, Budweiser, Tuborg, and possibly Victoria Bitter or Fosters. Lagers are the preferred style in India so that’s what you find. I actually had someone ask if I’d ever had a Guinness because they’d heard good things about it. I was also told that if you go to Mumbai or Bangalore, you may find a better selection. But in Delhi, there wasn’t much to be found.

India is developing a beer culture, which gives it potential. With the large number of Americans, Europeans, and Australians being sent there for business, craft beer could make a killing, especially in the urban centers. However, at this time, it is not a destination for beer-lovers. Possibly in five to ten years, I would imagine that you’d find a much better selection. Hopefully if I have to go back, this will be the case. Either way, I know I’ll be packing my suitcase with some beers from home. You can never be too sure.

Tim

Beer Trip VI-Day Five

2010-09-20T02:05:00.000-07:00

Day Five. Always a sad day for me. We normally take it easy on the fifth day, as the previous four have caught up to us. Also, the majority has wives and kids at home, and they don’t want to return home half-wasted. We set out from Ogallala, NE early in the morning. Our first of only two stops that day was actually a repeat visit: Thunderhead Brewing in Kearney. We had stopped there in Beer Trip II just as a stopping point, honestly not expecting too much. Thankfully we were treated to some excellent brews, so good in fact, we wanted to return. As luck would have it, we even had the same waitress we had four years ago. She remembered us somewhat, but the group had changed a lot since then.

Again, the brews were really good. That’s one of my favorite parts of Beer Trip. You’re in a small city in a low populated state, yet you find delicious beers being produced there. The Cornstalker Dark Wheat is one of my favorites, along with their MacTawisch Scottish Ale. They also have begun canning a couple of their beers since the last time we had visited. The Goldenfrau Honey Wheat and the Cornstalker are both available to take home or, because they can instead of bottle, to take tailgating, to parks, or camping. It’s a good thing, in my humble opinion, that more and more craft brewers are canning some of their beers. Bottles will always have a place, but for portability, you can’t beat a can of beer.

After we finished up lunch and brews at Thunderhead, it was time to go to our final destination, Nebraska Brewing Company in Papillion, Nebraska. We had heard the buzz in the beer community about what they were doing there and were excited to finally visit. We’re only a few hours south of NBC, but they don’t distribute to our area, and none of us had found the time to go up there, even for a day trip. Thanks to social networking I had connected with the owner, Paul, on Facebook. I had told him what we are all about and that we were going to be visiting, and we all hoped we could meet him if it fit into his schedule. Luckily for us he said he would be there and was looking forward to it.

We arrived in the late afternoon. It is located in your standard suburban outdoor shopping center, but what goes on inside is anything but standard. Also, we were meeting with some fellow craft beer advocates, Chad who lives in the Omaha area, and Dave, who came up from KC. We were welcomed by Paul almost as soon as we got in the door. He had set aside some tables for us in the bar area of the restaurant and he, along with his wife Kim, were soon bringing us over a huge selection of their fantastic beers. Their Hop God IPA I could not get enough of. It comes as no surprise it medaled in the World Beer Cup. It’s a Belgian style Tripel but hopped like an American IPA. It was a beer of true beauty. Thankfully I wasn’t driving that day, so my only concern was keeping my taste buds alive. The Cardinal Pale Ale was another hit with me. Throughout the tasting experience Paul and Kim were both there telling us about the beers, telling their story, and making the experience even better. I feel like I say it too much, but it never fails, that you will never meet greater people than those in the craft beer industry. They even pulled out some of their special and limited releases for us to try. Again, they are worthy of the high marks they receive. The Melange A Trois, which just won a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival on Saturday, and Black Betty were amazing.

Before we ate Paul took us on a tour of the facility. I was oddly fascinated by the fact their brew system came from Japan. Maybe it’s because most everywhere you visit get theirs from Germany, so this was really cool to me. Also, they actually barrel-aged their beers right there in the restaurant. I assumed they were there for decoration, but no, they actually were filled with delicious brew.

After the tour we ate dinner (no surprise, awesome food too) and hung out with Paul and Kim some more. We ended up staying about three hours longer than we had planned, but that’s a very good thing. Paul and Kim humored us by each putting a sticker on the back of the EM-50. Without any doubt in this one Tripper’s opinion, the best Day Five stop in BT history, and one of the best ever on any of the Beer Trips. I was unable to go there for the Black Betty release this fall because work has me out of the country, but I don’t plan on missing any more of their releases.

It was the perfect end to one of the best Beer Trips we have taken. Now the planning for Beer Trip VII begins in earnest, and the hope that it will be as good as VI. No matter what, I know we’ll meet great people and have a great time. You’ll be hearing from me soon, I’m sure.
Cheers!
Tim

Beer Trip VI-Day Four

2010-08-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Day four started out somewhat rough. The previous day had involved a lot of driving, a lot of drinking (by those of us not driving, of course), and a late night. We woke up early in Laramie in order to get back to Colorado. This time we were headed for Longmont and the new-to-us Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids.

On Beer Trip III we had stopped at their original location in Lyons just a short drive north east of Longmont. The most striking feature of the new place is the large silo on the side of the building facing the highway that’s painted to look like their famous Dale’s Pale Ale can. OB was one of the early adopters of canning their craft beer.

Oskar Blues makes fantastic beers, and I was excited to see the new digs. Our pal Pfister from Wisconsin happened to be in the area so he met up with us there. He’s getting to be a regular on our Trips, and we always have a blast hanging out with him. As expected, the place was a bit trippy with crazy décor. Our server, Ganges, was very patient with us as we decided what all to try. Luckily for us she recommended their Smokin’ Wings which, not exaggerating, were some of the best wings I’ve ever had. Go there. Get them. End of story. They have a fantastic selection of brews on tap to try. I started out with a Pond Scum ESB that was really good. We shared an oak aged Ten Fiddy that is as awesome as it sounds. After eating we convinced Ganges to put the OB sticker on the back of the EM-50. In order to buy some of their beers we had to go a couple blocks away to their actual brewery. On the far side is their tasting room the Tasty Weasel. This place is even trippier than the restaurant. When you walk in, you enter the main tasting room with an awe inducing line up of their beers along with coolers filled with beers to buy. I didn’t notice at first, but just to the left of where you walk in, there was a doorway. You go through it and there’s basically a game room with couches and foosball tables. Oh, and it’s next to the canning line. We bought some cans to take home, as OB is still not available in KS (even though we’re right next door!) and headed out.
The second stop was to Avery Brewing in Boulder. A few of the Trippers had met Adam Avery earlier in the year at what was honestly one of the best tastings I personally have attended. Unfortunately, his schedule didn’t work out and he wasn’t able to meet us when we were at the tap room. We had a few samplers of their terrific brews, but didn’t take the brewery tour. We’ve been lucky enough to take countless tours, so we decided to pass on this one.We did meet up with some fellow Beer Trippers, although not part of our group. A husband and wife, they were driving around Colorado hitting every brewery they could. Always cool to meet others passionate about beer.
Next up was Dry Dock Brewing in Aurora. This was recommended by Pfister’s brother who lives in the area, and it was an excellent recommendation. I didn’t expect much walking up to it. It’s located in your standard suburban strip mall. However, my preconceptions were completely wrong. The beers deserved all the awards they had received. I had my second great ESB of the day, their HMS Victory ESB. I had a taste of their Trafalgar Braggot that weighed in at a hefty 12% ABV. It was good, but way too sweet for my taste. I’d recommend trying it though if it’s on tap. We spent quite a long time there enjoying their beers and just relaxing. A lot of times we end up just going and going on Beer Trips, so it was nice to just hang out.

From there we headed to our final brewery stop of the day, Bull and Bush Pub & Brewery in Denver. We were meeting up with friends of Dan and his wife that live in the area. Bull and Bush is designed to look like a genuine English pub. It was a pretty cool place. Little dark and dated, but that added to the experience, I thought. I have to be honest that by this point, I’d consumed copious amount of beer. I wish I could give names or an eloquent review, but alas, all I can remember is I kept wanting to drink more of one of them. Yeah, I’m cool. Dan’s friends were fun, even the pregnant one (just kidding, Amy!!) and we hung out in the parking lot for a while so they could check out the EM-50 and get some pics.

From there we headed north east towards Nebraska. Luckily for our livers and our waists, there weren’t any stops between Denver and the hotel. I fell asleep for the next few hours and woke up somewhere in Nebraska. Ironically the most expensive hotel of the trip was also the crappiest. Apparently hotels in Ogallala, NE are in high demand. We crashed for the night to rest up for the fifth and final day which turned out to be the best last day in all of our trips. More on that soon.
Cheers!

Beer Trip VI-Day Three

2010-08-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

Of all of the days of all of the Beer Trips, Day Three of Beer Trip VI made me the most nervous going into it. The reason was because I really wanted to visit Grand Teton Brewing Company, one of my favorite breweries whose beers are available in Kansas. Unfortunately for us, they are located in Victor, ID which is over 1000 miles away from my home. But since I am the one who plans Beer Trip, I decided that we were going there. Because of that reason, I was nervous about how cool it would be considering that it was going to make us spend more time in the car, spend more money on gas, and spend less time at breweries. Anyway, I decided that was the case, so we were doing it. I just hoped that this part of the trip, the portion that took us from Fort Collins to Victor, Idaho and back (about eight hours each way), and was initially created solely because I wanted to go to Grand Teton Brewing Company, was going to be worth the trip. It didn’t hurt that I also set up at stop for us at Snake River Brewing Company in Jackson Hole, not far from Victor.
We woke up in Pinedale, WY, after getting in late the night before. We did the normal routine, slowly getting up, having breakfast if we so choose, and head on our way. We had an appointment to be at Grand Teton at 10 AM, so the plan was to leave at 7:30 AM. One note that morning: it was really effing cold. I mean, really cold, and unexpected. Since it was July 16th, I figured it would be safe to wear shorts and a t-shirt like every other summer Beer Trip day. Well, this particular day, I was ready outside to go around 7 AM while the others ate breakfast (I’m not really a breakfast guy, especially on BT). Unfortunately, it was about 45 degrees outside. One of the guys said that they saw a thermometer that read 39 degrees, which I don’t think was accurate, but it was really cold. We hit the road on time, and headed over to Idaho.
The ride up to the Jackson Hole area was interesting for two reasons. The first and frustrating one was that they had heavy construction, and we didn’t move for about 15 minutes as they only had one-way traffic for about a five-mile stretch. The good thing was that we planned on arriving early to Grand Teton, so it didn’t put us behind schedule. The other thing dealt with Rob’s driving, as he is known as a lead foot. As we headed up, he was probably driving about 85 mph in a 70 mph zone, and a cop put on his lights as we were passing him going the other direction. He pointed down, to let Rob know to slow down, and then turned off his lights and went about his way. With the stash of beer that we had in the EM-50, it was a bit of a scare for us. Luckily, nothing came of it, and we were able to make it without any issues, which was great because we were all in a great mood driving through one of the most beautiful parts of the country. The drive around the Jackson Hole area is unbelievably gorgeous. For me, this made me feel better about the whole journey this far, because I knew everyone else felt the same. Even if Grand Teton and Snake River Brewing Company were so-so, it was worth it for the views.

We got to Grand Teton about 9:40 AM, so we took our time in their parking lot taking pictures and enjoying the views. Maybe five minutes later, the bartender, Abby, yelled for us to come in, so we did. I had scheduled the visit, but I wasn’t sure who was going to show us around. I knew that they were busy with a festival in town, so I was just happy someone was there for us. Abby was really, really nice to us, and she showed us around the place, which was smaller than I would have guessed it. I mean, they have their beers in California and even Kansas, so I figured it would be a bigger place, especially because they make such great beers. The tour was quick, and she poured us some samples. A few minutes later, one of the brewers, Marks, came out and talked to us. He was a younger guy, and was really cool to talk to. He knew a lot of stuff, and both he and Abby were really great. We probably spent about $300 as a group on their beers and merch, including some of their root beer. After Marks put a Grand Teton sticker on the EM-50, we rolled out about 11:15, ahead of schedule, and made our way to Jackson Hole.

Snake River Brewing Company has had a lot of success at the Great American Beer Festival. Well, that is an understatement. They are the most award-winning small brewery in the history of the event. Before this trip, I had only had bottles of their Pale Ale and Zonkers Stout, both which I really enjoyed. I joined the Snake River group on Facebook, and one day I got an email from Tim Harland about a new beer that was being released. I sent him an email back, telling him about us making our trip to the area for Beer Trip, and he seemed really interested in us stopping there. We exchanged a few messages, and told him we were looking forward to checking out Snake River and meeting him when we got there.

When we walked in, we walked up to the hostess stand when we heard, “Beer Trippers! What are you guys doing here?!?!?” It was Tim, and he had a big smile on his face and we introduced ourselves to him and shook his hand. He immediately took us to the bar, poured us a beer of our choice, and gave us a quick tour of the brewery. It was probably the best welcome to a brewery on any Beer Trip. Tim showed us around, and is basically one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. Just a guy who is proud of Snake River, as he should be, and about as friendly, upbeat, and cool as could be. Unfortunately, he had to leave early, so he only hung out with us for a few minutes at our table before leaving. We did give him some BBQ sauce, beers, and one of Kelly’s beer bottle holders, and he gave us each some stickers, free beer, and other things, and even gave me a really nice shirt and visor.

Then he rolled around with his sweet ride, and Kelly and the other guys were loving it. I’m not a car guy, so I don’t even know what it was, but it was pretty cool. He left and we had a really nice lunch there. It was phenomenal actually. Really good food, and the price was nice too, especially for Jackson Hole. As we finished up, their head brewer Chris Erickson showed up. For me, this was pretty cool, because Chris was featured in “American Beer.” He was the guy who said you could tell the head brewer at a brewery because he’s the one who’s driving the forklift. Not surprisingly, as he led us though another tour of the brewery, we saw the forklift and had to bring that up to him. Again, another great guy. Much like Surly Brewing Company was with Omar and head brewer Todd on Beer Trip V, Snake River had two of my favorite people that I ever met on a Beer Trip. We went back to pay our tab, and they even took money off of our bill. We bought a few bottles of beer to take home, although for some reason I didn’t buy any of their Pale Ale or Zonker Stout like I meant to. I am still mad about that. I wish I had gotten at least a case. Stupid me. Anyway, it probably doesn’t need to be said by me, but Snake River was easily one of my favorite Beer Trip stops of all time.

The next stop was Wind River Brewing Company in Pinedale, which we didn’t go to the night before because we got in town too late. It was a smaller place, but still rather nice. We had a light dinner there since it had been awhile since we were at Snake River about an hour and a half longer than we originally planned. That’s not a complaint either. If we didn’t have to end up in Laramie at night, I would have stayed at Snake River all day. Anyway, we ate a nice, light meal outside, had a couple of pitchers of beer, and even bought a few four-packs of their beer to bring back. While not one of the more memorable stops (probably due to how great Snake River was), but a pretty nice place nonetheless.
We left Pinedale around 5PM for Laramie, which is about 5 hours away. We didn’t do a great job in planning our next gas stop, as we spent about 30 cents more per gallon at a place that wasn’t open at 8 PM on a Friday night (but pay at the pump tanks) and had three cars there of people who knew each other. It was a weird stop, as they just stayed there. They were there before us, but were in no hurry to get going. One of the guys said it once we left (probably Ed) that it looked like people meeting for a drug deal. It really did. Just odd. We got to our hotel around 10 or so, and we were debating whether or not to go to one of their two brewpubs. Both Chris and Tim from Snake River said that both the Library and Altitude Chophouse had great beers (and that their brewers were good guys), and after calling to see how late they were open (both 2 AM), we went to Altitude. It was a really nice place, a higher end type brewpub. Our bartender was extremely friendly to us, even taking us on a mini tour of their brewing operation. Their beers were solid too, as I really liked their 9% ABV Grand Cru. After about an hour or so, the place was close to empty, so we decided to check out the Library, another brewpub. This place was more of a college bar to me, which is what I expected to find in Laramie. They also had nice beers, but one stuck out to us more than the others: a “peanut butter and jelly” beer. Andy asked if he could have a sample, but the bartender said that they weren’t allowed to give out samples of that beer, because everyone wants to try it but few buy it. I asked how much it was, and the $4 price was fine for me, especially since I’d share it. As gross as it sounded to me, I gave it a whirl. Well, I have to say, it tasted like a peanut butter and jelly beer. And not in a bad way. It was a very drinkable beer. Ed even liked it enough to order one of his own.

We hung out for awhile (I honestly don’t remember how long), and eventually called it a night. The only day with five brewery stops of our trip, and it ended up being one of the best Beer Trip days we ever had.

Day 2 of Beer Trip VI

2010-08-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

Day two started out early and that was my fault. Why? Well I saw on Man v. Food about at restaurant that has these very large pancakes that had sausage or bacon built into the pancakes themselves. In order for me to become fatter, we had to be at the Buff Restaurant in Boulder by 7am which everybody graciously agreed to. We plow through breakfast and we head towards Ft. Collins, Co. because our pal Adam set us up a VIP

Tour at New Belgium.

We show up a bit early which allowed us to take some pics of the outside of the place. We go in and we meet up with our awesome VIP guide Penelope. She asks if there is anything special we’d like to see, I ask if we can we pretty please head to the top of the fermenters outside which she says is no prob what so ever, so I’m stoked. Dan asks her if she could do her best to make me cry by the end of the tour. This stems from our first NB tour on BT II. You want to know what went down, read this: BT II New Belgium. She said she’d do her best. Then she almost got to me by telling me about how long she’s been working for them and how it’s changed her life. I’m immediately jealous of Penelope, but it’s a good jealous. Now 3 of the guys haven’t been on the fantastic journey we’re about to embark on so we ask her to start from the beginning and clue Ed, Kelly and Rob in on how New Belgium got its start. I have no problem hearing all of this a second time, and hope in the future to hear it a few more if I’m lucky enough to. We go in and check out the first mash tun, kettle, and bottler that they started with, followed up with visit to the computer room where everything is monitored and controlled. We head up the stairs to check out the mash tun, and kettle room where we stop and have another beer to get us through the tour. Next stop is my request of visiting the top of the fermenters. This is not

only kick ass to me because of the view up there but, the film that inspired Beer Trip, American Beer got to go up there, and well it’s kicks ass! I can’t believe how much this place has grown since we were here 4 years ago and you can really see a difference and standing on containers holding a few million bottles of New Belgium beer is extremely helpful. Speaking of bottles of New Belgium, we head over to the bottling building that was new for us to check out. We go in and I’m immediately shocked on how many bottles are flying around this place. Of all the brewery tours I’ve only seen one other working bottling line and this was probably quadruple the size of that one.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from it, it was just a fascinating operation to watch, and I would have no problem sitting there with a 12ver of Fat Tire and watch those bottles do what they have to do to get filled. We walked back into the main brewery where we allowed to do the spiral slide. On our first visit I for some reason opted out of going down the slide and I wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass me by again. It was even cooler than I thought! Just a very cool experience to say the very least. Now that we were slightly past two hours into our tour and we know Penelope needs to eat and move on with her day, as I’m sure she wasn’t planning on us taking up half her day. She could not of been better to us if she tried. We showed her a small token of our appreciation by giving her a hand made by Kelly counter balance bottle holder and a bottle of New Glarus Red for her to enjoy later. Can’t thank Adam enough for setting us up with Penelope, and can’t thank Penelope enough for showing us another amazing trip to New Belgium. If you are anywhere near Ft. Collins do yourself a favor and go see the incredible people of New Belgium, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

We left New Belgium but not until we luck out and catch a food cart that happened to be located in the parking lot. We grab a quick bite and head over to Odell Brewing Company which is all of a 3 minute drive from New Belgium.

We meet my friend Melissa and we head into O’Dell’s. We meet John who had been exchanging email and phone calls with Dan. We got the chance to meet John and Doug O’Dell about month or so before our trip which was extremely cool, but now we are at the brewery and it’s even better! We go into the new tap room and I have to say it is really sweet on the inside with plenty of room, much nicer than our last visit. We spot Doug on our way in and Dan went back to the EM-50 to grab his No. 37 bottle of Wood Cut that he’s had for quite a while. Doug O’Dell was cool enough to sign the bottle for Dan and I know for sure what bottle of beer Dan will be having on his 37^th birthday. The smile on Dan’s face after Doug signed that bottle was priceless. Now John is serving us up, asking us what we want and we didn’t waste a single second thinking about it.

John hooked us up and we were enjoying talking beer and enjoying each other’s company. John then took us on a private tour and we got to take a nice look, as everybody inside the brewery was pretty busy making beer. We got to go into the coolers where they kept the hops and let’s just say I’m pretty sure I had relations with a very large container of hops. I was getting upset when people were knocking the hop residue off of me I wanted that lovely hop aroma on me as long as possible. We make our way back to the tap room, and John starts busting out some of the Wood Cut series and let’s just say those beers are just absolutely wonderful. He kept pouring them and we kept drinking them. Everything we had was simply wonderful and we couldn’t have had a better time, when all of a sudden John comes out of the back cooler with a case of Mountain Reserve for us to take home. Man how awesome is that! What a wonderful stop with great people and fabulous beer! We made our purchases and headed off for a long, long driveup to Pinedale, Wyoming.

We all hop into the RV and get settled in for our trek north to the rocky dirt pile known as Wyoming. Along the way we stop off for dinner at a place called Bitter Creek Brewing in Rock Springs, Wy. Nice place with pricey food and decent beer. We finally pull into Pinedale at 11pm and enjoy a good nights sleep!

Another great day with the stops at New Belgium and O’Dell’s who both treated us better than we deserve, however it is greatly appreciated by each of us. We’re lucky guys and this is only day 2! I have no reason to believe there won’t be even more greatness on Day 3! Yeah I’m spoiled!

Andy

Beer Trip VI-Day One

2010-07-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 14, 2010. This was a day I had marked on my calendar for a long time. And not because it was Bastille Day or my brother’s 41st birthday, although those are cool. Nope, it’s because out of all of the Beer Trips to this point, this was the one I was looking forward to the most. Basically, the other trips all had one or maybe two private tours set up, while this one had five pre-arranged. So when the day finally came, I was up and ready about an hour earlier than I needed to be. Everyone else showed up pretty early as well for the 7:30 AM departure time. Well, except for Ed, but we’ll look past that.

We eventually hit the road not far behind schedule and headed west down I-70 towards Hays, Kansas. I-70 in Kansas is great for many things, but none more than the steady stream of billboards telling you about how Jesus is the greatest and abortion is the worst. I wonder how many people have changed their religion or viewpoint on abortion with this effective advertising. My guess is one person, at best. But I digress. Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company is one of the best brewpubs that I have ever been to, so whenever I drive through Hays, I make it a point to stop there. Not only does their brewer Gerald make phenomenal beers (and he really, really does), but the food and atmosphere of Gella’s would, as Andy likes to say, fit in any major city in the country like New York City or San Francisco. It truly is a gem of a place. We ordered our food, enjoyed a couple pints of Lb.’s beers, including their IPA which is my favorite, and had a really satisfying first stop on Beer Trip VI. We finished up, and drove west to Colorado.

As is the case for most people, eastern Colorado is one of the most boring places to drive through. It also doesn’t help that their highway roads are awful. And like most people, I never can resist the urge to say the now hack joke line from “Dumb and Dumber”, “That John Denver’s full of shit!” when driving there. Luckily, the boring part of Colorado doesn’t last too long before you get to Denver. Our next stop was in Nederland, Colorado, to Wild Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery. Our friend Adam, who works for New Belgium Brewing Company, told us that this was one of his favorite places in the area, so we decided to check it out. Nederland is located about 20 miles of beautiful scenery away from Boulder, and the views alone were worth the trip up there. When we arrived, we were lucky enough to get a table for six on the deck overlooking the mountains. The service there was great, and Mountain Sun’s IPA was one of the best I’d ever had. I mean this in the best way possible, but it was an unfiltered IPA (I couldn’t see my hand through the glass) that looked like orange juice and even tasted a bit like it. It was awesome. The food at Wild Mountain was great as well, as I think everyone enjoyed whatever barbeque-type plate they did. I had the pulled pork and it was solid. We hung out there a bit, taking in the view, before we headed back to Boulder to check into our hotel before heading out into town.

The next place we visited was Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery in Boulder, another place recommended by Adam and was featured in the latest issue of Beer Advocate magazine. Not that we ever doubted him, but Adam steered us right again with this place. It was really packed, which was a little bit surprising because it was summer when school wasn’t in session. I think we were expecting a busy crowd, but this was beyond what we thought. Luckily, Stefan, a bartender there, spotted me and took our beer orders. Again, for the third time on Day One, the beers at the brewpub were outstanding. We had to stand up towards the back of the bar until a table finally opened up, but it was a really cool scene worth waiting for a table. Not too hipster like I had thought it’d be. Just a nice, laid back place, at least as laid back as a really crowded brewpub can be. After a few beers, someone suggested we check out Colorado Brewing Company a few blocks away.

Colorado Brewing was kind of a trip. First of all, I didn’t like the idea of paying a cover charge to go in, but it was only $1 and there was a band. I didn’t realize there was a band at first, so I was ready to go home and call it a night. This band was a reggae band that, per the lead singer, had no Jamaicans, but she was Hawaiian so it was close enough. They were interesting enough, and after ordering a beer (a decent pale ale) I went to the restroom. Innocently, I thought, but as I returned there was a really drunk 50-something year old guy dancing right by the stage. I stood at the edge of it, and said drunk guy (who was really drunk if I, after a day of solid brewpubs, thought he was) decided to push himself in front of me and proceeded to slam his ass into my crotch. It was around that time that I decided I had enough, which I think the rest of the Beer Trippers felt the same about. We walked back to the EM-50, where I felt it would be a good time to pull a “Teen Wolf” on the still-parked RV. And if you think about it, there really isn’t a better way to end Day One of a Beer Trip.

Cheers!
Dan

"American Beer"

2010-06-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Back around early 2005, I saw an event on either BeerAdvocate.com or RateBeer.com for an event where there was a showing of a documentary entitled “American Beer” in Columbia, Missouri. I believe it was on a Tuesday night around 8 PM, and I had seriously considered taking the two-hour trip to watch it. Eventually, common sense prevailed and I didn’t make the trip. Mainly because it was during the work week and cost $25 per ticket (which included beers from the local brewpub, Flat Branch Brewing Company). I researched the website of the company who made the film, Six Hundred Films, and I saw that the movie was like $20 after shipping, so decided to give it a shot. Now, five years later, the only movie I’ve probably seen more times is “Stripes” (although “Superbad” might catch up in a few years).

The movie was the brainchild of Paul Kermizian, who, along with four of his friends, decided to visit 38 breweries in 40 days. As a guy who scopes out local breweries whenever I make a trip somewhere, the concept of the movie was really interesting to me. If you’ve stumbled upon this website, the fact that I love visiting breweries isn’t a surprise to you. But if you watch this movie, you will see part of the reason why. Paul and his friends visited these breweries and got behind the scenes tours of each place from the people who not only make the beers, but more often than not risked their life’s savings to go into the beer-making business. And in almost every instance, the stories behind the breweries were pretty interesting, and the people behind the company were extremely cool people.

One of the surprising things about this movie in regards to how much I like it is that there isn’t a “payoff” at the end like in a lot of movies. “Bowling for Columbine” has Michael Moore confronting Charlton Heston. “Murderball” has the wheelchair rugby match between the U.S. and Canada. This movie doesn’t have the climatic ending those movies had, yet I found it every bit as interesting. Part of this is due to the likability of the guys in the movie. First of all, they aren’t know-it-alls. In fact, it seems like these guys are not all that familiar with craft beer at the start, at least not to the extent that you’d think five guys traveling the country to visit breweries would be. But they also aren’t idiots. There was a TV show on MOJO a couple of years ago called “Beer Nuts” that was crappy. It was two guys who knew nothing about beer, but weren’t interesting either. The concept of “Beer Nuts,” two guys going to a city and checking out the brewing scene, was a good enough idea. They just had two unlikable guys (actually one was unlikable and the other guy was okay, but whatever). The “American Beer” guys weren’t like that at all. They were smart enough guys who had a sense of humor. They seemed like regular guys that I would hang out with. I really enjoy this movie.

Anyway, this movie was the basis for Beer Trip. I saw this movie, and the following summer I had more vacation days than my wife, so I decided to go visit some friends and stop at some breweries along the way. I wouldn’t go as far as saying “American Beer” was a life changer, but it was a vacation changer.

I watched this movie again about two weeks ago, and it got me excited like it always does. I decided to see what Paul Kermizian was up to, and although I couldn’t see too much, I did see that he opened up a bar in Brooklyn called Barcade with two of the other “American Beer” guys. One of the other guys, Jeremy Goldberg is the head brewer at Cape Ann Brewing Company in Massachusetts. Our hope is to someday make a trip to both places on a Beer Trip (most likely Barcade next year on BT VII) because these guys are the reason that Beer Trip ever happened.

My Weekend at Dogfish Head Crafted Brewed Ales

2010-05-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

I recently had to spend 10 very long days in the DC area and was going to have to spend the weekend staring at the four walls of a hotel...yeah right! Rehoboth was just a mere 3 hour drive away, how could I not go and check out Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales. The week prior I book a room a 1/2 block from the Brewpub in Rehoboth . Dan suggest I take the tour in Milton where their brewery is located and I was lucky enough to grab the last ticket for the 2pm tour. Needless to say I was pretty stoked about my little adventure that I was about to embark on just seven days away.

left DC at about 8am on Saturday to make sure that I would not be late, A)due to the insane traffic in DC B)there was a NASCAR race in Dover, DE that weekend and C)possible beach traffic. I take the drive over the Bay Bridge and suddenly realize that this portion of Maryland and Delaware might be more flat than Western Kansas. I get to Milton at about 12pm. I drive around the town which took all of about 5 mins, find the brewery, and decide to grab myself a little lunch in town to kill some time before my tour of the brewery.

I pull in and the thing you notice first is how new everything around the brewery looks compared to the rest of Milton.I go into the breweries tap room and shop around until the tour starts. Trust me there is a lot to look at! The tour starts and the tour guide tells us the that "the quicker the tour, the quicker we get to the samples", so away we go. We first stop at the original brew kit that the founder Sam Calagione began with at the brewpub in Rehoboth. This kit is basically a 10 gallon homebrew kit that was dropped off the back of a truck. We next go over to the Grain Mill where they crack the base malts. we go into the room where they have a few stainless steel 400 barrel holding tanks and 3, yes 3 10,000 gallon wood holding tanks. Two were made of Oak and one was as the tour guide described as being made with a "exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood". They had a sample of this wood and couldn't believe how dense this wood was and that it is a wood that does not float! That tank was used to make their Palo Santo Marron. After about 30 minutes we were back in the tasting room where we got to try 60 Minute IPA, Palo Santo Marron, Wrath of Pecant and Rasion D'Etre. The 3 people at the tasting room were all extremely nice and knowledgeable. You could tell they loved working there. (I know, duh!) Off to the Brewpub!

I take the half hour drive over to Rehoboth where all this Dogfish Head, off-centered ale craziness started. I check in to the motel and take my 5 minute walk to the brewpub where I immediately see that this place is packed. I luck out and grab the last seat available at the end of the bar, where I spend the next 6 hours of my night. The dude next to me is asking the bartender for a taster of the Festina Peche. She hands it to him and he then looks over at me and says "here try this" and asks for another one. I tell him thanks and we proceed to taste our sample. Lets just say it wasn't either one of our cup of beers but hey, we HAD to try it. This guy (I wish I got his name) was a very cool guy and him and his wife had just recently moved to the Rehoboth area. He was kind of enough to introduce me to Matt, the Assistant Manager at the Brewpub. I tell him where I'm from and how I ended up here. We talked about Beer Trip and how DFH is on our list of "Must Sees" next summer. Luckily Matt tells me about their brewpub only beers which was why I was there. I hadn't seen the small list where the pub only beers were located.I had already had a Aprihop, which I really like, a Indian Brown Ale and a Life & Limb, which was a great beer in my opinion. I wish I could of found a 12ver of the Life & Limb, oh well I'm just glad I got to try it. Anyway, up next was Billy Budd! Billy Budd is a brew pub exclusive that is created by combining their Indian Brown, Palo Santo Marron, and the 120 Minute IPA. Let's just say Billy Budd was a bad ass at 14%. After Billy, I was starting to "feel it' a bit. Since I'm "feeling it" I just got 3oz sample of the Immort Ale, Burton Baton, and the Olde School Barleywine. All of these beers are 10% and above so needless to say that 9 ounces of beer was enough to do some more work on me. It's now about 10p and the band is starting up. Da Rezarekt out of Philly started playing and got the crowd amped up with their full blown funk-a-licous vibe. I had one more a 60 min and decided to head back to the motel. I had a wonderful 6 hour experience while I was at the Brewpub, the bartender, the wait staff and even the dude busting his ass filling the glass rack was a very cool kid. Best part, I wasn't done!

I wake up at the a the ridiculous hour of 5:15am. My thought behind this was I'm 2 blocks away from the beach, I should catch a sunrise while I'm out here on da East coast. I look out the window and what do I see? Clouds! No freaking way! I decide I'm up and it might do me some good to go for a little walk. I go down to the beach and stroll down it a little bit then walk up the main drag on my was back to my room. I have to say I'm quite impressed with the amount of what appears to be "mom and pop" type shops instead of a bunch of nauseating chains stores. Also saw a very confused deer window shopping. Luckily it was just me, the deer, and about 6 other older folks out doing their "mall" walking the right way outside on the boardwalk. The deer did find the beach and decided to take a jog, and I decided I needed to get ready for my breakfast!

Dogfish Head was nice enough to schedule their very first brunch on the Sunday that I was going to be there. How could I not go in and have a glass of their World famous World Wide Stout and some breakfast?!? Well I couldn't! The doors were to open at 9a so of course I got there at about 8:30a. I didn't know if this was going to be a huge event or not and I was not going to be denied. I go in and there was Matt. Matt being the nice guy he is walks me over to my seat at the bar and what do I see? RANDALL!!! Well Matt was kind enough to show me how Randall works. Well, if you don't know, Randall is, for lack of a better word, a contraption that to me, adds extra flavors to a beer. Matt tells me that usually Randall the Enameled Animal is stuffed full of hops and has DFH's 90min IPA ran over those hops to put a little extra hoppyness to it. Today, Randall was full of coffee beans and World Wide Stout was ran over those beans. Well, I had to have one, and from what I saw, it was the first one of the day! (from a paying customer anyway) I sat next to Randall at the bar and every time it was used I was simply mesmerized while he did his thing to the WWS. The taste of the Randallized WWS was unreal. The coffee just enhanced the already wonderful tasting WWS. I could tell after just one sip that I needed some food! I got down with some Biscuits and Gravy to help me out. Later, I couldn't resist ordering up some French Toast loaded with some Immort Ale apples. It was a great decision.

Now during all this I intentionally didn't mention that after I had been there about a half hour Sam Calagione walked in with his family. As I mentioned before Sam is DFH's founder, and has a reputation as being one of the best people in the Craft Brew world. I had zero intention of talking with him because he was with his family and I know that he is extremely busy opening a new place in NY and travels quite a bit so any family time he gets I could only assume would be time he relishes, as would I. It was finally time for me to remove myself from this brewpub after spending roughly 8 hours over the past 18 of my life. I go over to Matt and thank him for his time and hospitality he showed me while I was there. I truly appreciated the kindness he showed me. He asked me if I had seen Sam walk in and I said yeah, if he wasn't with the fam I'd say hello but I felt weird with his fam there. Matt assured me he wouldn't mind nor would the family. I still felt weird about saying anything to him. Well, as I was leaving, I still wasn't going to stop and say anything but at the extreme last second, I pull the trigger and decide to say hello. Before I could even say anything his hand was extended and he's asking me my name. We talk about a documentary called American Beer that was Dan's inspiration for Beer Trip, and how DFH is our main focus of BT VII next summer. We talk for about 10 minutes or so and let's just say he was as cool and nice as anybody could of been. Two things here, 1) I'm 100% sure Sam's rep will always be very well intact as being a great craft beer ambassador 2) Beer people rule.

I had a great time with, fantastic food, phenomenal people, wonderful weather, and of course killer craft beer!

It's Craft Beer Week! Go enjoy a craft beer!!

Andy

PS Click on the pics and they'll magically get bigger!

World Beer Cup and Beer Trip

2010-04-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, the 2010 World Beer Cup took place. The World Beer Cup is an event that takes place every other year, and this year’s event had 642 breweries competing in 90 different style categories. I didn’t attend, nor do I even know much about how the event is done. Honestly, it’s not that important to me. The Great American Beer Festival I know a lot more about, mainly because it’s every year, but also because I know people who’ve attended, volunteered, and worked the event. Plus I’ve seen TV shows about it too. Seems like a cool event, although I’m not 100% that it is something for me. I would love to attend it, but I think the large crowd might take me out of it a bit. Probably why I like Beer Trip so much, since there I can actually sit around and talk to brewers and brewery owners for awhile and not have people pushing me around trying to score a two-ounce sample of an organic raspberry wheat beer from Modesto. But I don’t know. I do hope to go sometime. I just think I’d be disappointed.

The thing I like most about these competitions though is that several of the brewpubs and breweries that we’ve visited take part in it and have won. I get really excited about this fact, probably more than I should admit to. The first thing I check is to see how some of my favorite breweries did. The 2010 World Beer Cup was really good in my opinion because a lot of my favorite places did well. Twenty of the places we’ve visited over the five Beer Trips and four “Point-Five” Beer Trips won medals, and that’s pretty awesome. I even think it’s cool that Miller Brewing Company won something since we visited them on Beer Trip I, although I do get much more excited when places like Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company in Hays, KS, Choc Beer Company out of Krebs, OK, Goose Island Beer Company from Chicago, and Great Divide Brewing Company of Denver win because those places have really treated us well when we visited them. And our friend Drew is a brewer for Saint Louis Brewing Company (a.k.a. Schlafly), so I was happy to see them win for their Kolsch.

There are an additional eleven breweries I’ve visited while not on a Beer Trip that won as well. Local-to-me brewers Boulevard out of KCMO and Blind Tiger Brewery and Restaurant out of Topeka (or is it Google now?) also were recognized which I think is great for the local beer scene. There is a local brewers’ festival coming up in a couple of weeks on April 24th in Parkville, MO, although due to another commitment I can’t make it. It should be a good place for people to check out the beers that local places have to offer. Just a suggestion, though. You do what you want, even if it’s having a Miller Lite at a local sports bar. Because we checked them out on Beer Trip, so it’s good with me.

Later!

Dan

Hank Is Wiser 5th Anniversary

2010-04-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hank Is Wiser Brewery is located in downtown Cheney, KS. If you’re wondering where that is, you’re not alone. I was born and raised in Kansas, and until a few years ago I’d never heard of it. Then I heard of a brewpub that had opened up there, and that all changed. Located about 25 miles west of Wichita, Cheney is a classic small Kansas town. And Hank Is Wiser is located in the heart of its historic downtown.
This past weekend, they celebrated their fifth anniversary, and I was fortunate enough to have the time to travel down for the event. Even though it’s only three hours from where I live, I don’t get down there often. Unfortunately no other members of Beer Trip were able to go as it was a holiday weekend and they had family obligations. So I set out about noon on Friday. Cheney isn’t large enough for a hotel so I had to stay in Goddard, about 20 minutes east. I checked into my hotel and grabbed a bite to eat. The celebration didn’t start until 5:30 that evening so I left for Cheney around 5.

When I got there, there were quite a few people but nothing crazy. I said hi to Hank, the owner, and Steve, the head brewer. It’s a father and son operation and a true family business. I grabbed a barstool and ordered my first beer. Steve had brewed up a total of 29 different beers for the weekend. Their seven year-round beers were available all weekend, and then they had 11 special beers on Friday night and another 11 different for Saturday night. The first one I ordered ended up being my favorite, Tortured Toad Imperial IPA. I love hoppy beers, and this one was awesome. I wanted to order another, but with so much to choose from, I couldn’t limit myself.

By the time I finished that beer, the place started to get packed. And it never seemed to die down. It was really cool to see such a huge turnout. Before the night was over, I had tried their Crown Oak Aged Old Ale (OAOA), V-Stout, Buffalo Trace OAOA, Wisdom Wit, Cardinal Red, Utopias OAOA, and Mocha Man Imperial Coffee Stout (a close second to the IPA). Before you worry I had all those beers and drove, they offered all of their beers in 3oz “nips.” So I was able to limit my intake and it was spread out over time. Although, I did have 12oz glasses of the IPA and coffee stout. Too damn good for just 3oz.

When they got to the first drawing for prizes, the place was literally filled. I think most adults in Cheney were there. I sat next to a retired couple from Oklahoma, Mildred and Bob, and they travel around going to breweries and brewpubs, so of course, we hit it off. I was also next a local, Matt, who talked about how Hank Is Wiser had become sort of a community gathering spot for the town. I mentioned I was hesitant to come down alone, and he explained that you could come in, pull up a chair at any table and be welcomed, and you truly get that feeling. I’m a city guy, but small towns like Cheney definitely have their advantages. By 10:30, there was a line to the men’s room, it was five people deep at the bar. And Hank’s wife was sweating from how busy she was being kept. A couple of the special beers were starting to run out, and I decided to call it a night. I filled a growler with their year round Krippled Kangaroo IPA and headed back to the hotel.
Originally I had thought of only going Friday night, stopping by Saturday, and then heading home. I decided that was dumb and booked the room for another night the next morning. For lunch I drove to Wichita to visit River City Brewing Company in the Old Town district. I had their Ace’s IPA and a really good pizza. I filled my growler, then headed to Goebel Liquor which has a huge variety of beers and bought a few bottles to take home. I went back to the hotel, napped for about an hour, and then at 3 headed back out to Cheney.

When I got there, the seats at the bar were already filled as were several tables. Luckily I saw Mildred and Bob at one of them and pulled up a chair. They were there with a couple people from Wichita, Glenn and Rhonda. We talked about Bob and Mildred’s travels and the breweries and brewpubs they had visited. After an hour or so they all had to go, and a seat had opened up at the bar. This night, since I got there early and had more time, I was able to enjoy even more of Steve’s brews. The Wounded Wabbit Imperial IPA, 300th Batch Barleywine, Buffalo Trace Oak Aged Imperial Stout, Big Buckin’ D, Dark Wheat, Hop Shadow Ale (like an IPA, but dark, very trippy), Merlot OAOA, Noble Pale, and Stranahan’s OAOA.

My bartender for the night was Brett, Steve’s best friend, and he was very patient with my orders of water then beer. Hank’s other son, Henry, and his wife Sandra (sorry if that’s misspelled) had also come down to help, along with Brett’s wife. I talked to a few more people from the area, and I actually won one of the drawings, a beer glass and a Big Sky Brewing bottle opener. They weren’t packed full like they were on Friday, but they were still busy and the beer started running low. It was not crazy so I was able to talk to Steve for a bit. Again around 10:30 I decided it was best to call it a night and make the drive back to the hotel. On a sad note, I only got to enjoy half of my growler of Krippled Kangaroo and my dumb self left it in the mini fridge when I left. I’m telling myself the cleaning crew found it and finished it off and didn’t waste it. It’d be a damn shame if they didn’t.

We try to not make this a typical beer site where we praise places and knock others. We simply want to share our experiences and advocate for craft beer. However, I have a soft spot for Hank Is Wiser. My dad, whose name was Hank, owned his own business. My mom ran the office and growing up I spent a lot of time there, so I’m a big fan of family owned businesses. Kansas is referred to often as a fly-over or drive-thru state. If that’s the case, and you find yourself driving down to Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, make every effort to detour off I-35 and visit them. Congratulations to them on five years and here’s to many, many more!

-Tim

Tim's European beer experience

2010-03-30T07:33:00.001-07:00

So I’ll admit I’ve only traveled overseas once since I found out what “real beer” is. I’d traveled through Western Europe before in high school and college. The high school trip was through France which, even though I love, is a beer wasteland. They’re all about their wine, and only being 18, was closely watched. We did manage to score some booze, but it was only wine. The second time was in college and my idea of great beer was a “30 Stone” for $9.99. I can’t wait to get another chance though. The bier gartens in Munich may be the best places on Earth. You’re in a beautiful park, there are women bringing you litre mugs of beer, and Germans are the nicest people you will ever meet. Nothing against any other cultures or peoples, but from my experiences it’s true.
Unfortunately because my only concern as a 19 year old college student was getting as drunk as possible, I didn’t explore the true beer scene. However, I probably was too young and dumb to appreciate it. From my naïve experience though, I will say, take any chance you can to get over there. If not for the beer, then for the experience. I always liked Europe, but until that night in Munich I didn’t love it.

When I decided to actually concentrate on school and went back as an adult, part of my program was to travel overseas. I was fortunate enough that my university sent me to central and Eastern Europe. My first stop was in Budapest, Hungary. My second shot at college was at a Christian university that forbade drinking by their members and their students. I was fortunate again that the professor leading the trip knew we were adults and she allowed me to explore a little bit. We were only there for two days and were busy actually learning. I did stop into what I’d call a bodega here on the first night and grabbed the first beer I saw, Dreher Classic. Lager beers are the predominant style in this area, and that’s what this was. I bought another six pack to bring home for my friends to try. Unfortunately in the post-911 world my bags were searched and it magically disappeared between Amsterdam and New York City.

The bulk of the trip was spent in Bratislava, Slovakia. It’s like Prague without gangs of tourists. We had an apartment in the old city for the two weeks we spent there and around the corner from it was a bar called the Dubliner. Obviously this is an Irish pub with an Irish theme and décor. The comments on the site about it being scary I don’t remember. Lots of Brits there, and they do tend to get crazy. It was there though that I discovered Zlaty Bazant which is Slovakia’s national beer. Another light lager, but when you find all you have to say is “Pivo prosím” and they give you a pint for what equals $1 you don’t question it. It's available in the States under the name Golden Pheasant.

Another night I convinced a few of my classmates to go with me to a Belgian beer bar a few blocks away, Café de Zwaan. There I enjoyed fresh beers from the best Belgium has to offer. I have to say though, I still didn’t know enough about good beer to truly enjoy what I was drinking, but I feel I learned a lot.

The Heineken Brewery in Nitra, Slovakia where they brew Zlaty

I, along with another student, took a day over the Easter weekend to travel up to Prague, Czech Republic. I have to say it’s probably one of the most beautiful cities to which I’ve ever been. Sadly though, you’re asses-to- elbows with tourists. The Charles Bridge, which is amazing, I was literally shoved across. While we were stuck in a mass of people we ran down a side street to escape the old people in tourist groups and went into a small pub. I have no idea what I drank there to be honest. I just needed out of those crowds. It was a Pilsner, the Czech Republic being the birthplace of the style, and it was delicious, either because of the craft behind it or the relief of not being in a mob.

One final note. Budweiser is actually named for the city of Budweis, Czech Republic (Ceske Budejovice) that has their own beer. Here it is called Budvar. In CR and Slovakia it is sold as Budweiser. The American version is sold as “Bud.” Just an interesting factoid I learned while there.

I hope to make it back to Europe in the next couple years and fully experience the beer scene in Belgium and Germany. In the interim though, I count myself lucky to have enjoyed the beers that I have.

Western Kansas Beer Trip-Dec. 2009

2010-03-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

In late December, we took a quick trip out to Western Kansas to visit some of the great breweries and brewpubs the Sunflower state has. We left on a Friday morning and headed towards Manhattan. We had the full crew except Ed for this trip. Our first stop was Little Apple Brewing Company located on the western side of Manhattan for an early lunch and the first beers of the trip. We met with the head brewer, Kris and he chatted with us for awhile as we waited for our food. He was really friendly discussing the beers they had on tap, including almost everyone’s favorite that day, a seasonal brewed with hazelnuts. After we had lunch, Kris showed us around their brewing facility while we finished up our brews. It was a really good stop as Kris was great and the staff was really helpful.

After lunch, we drove about two hours to Gella’s Diner and lb Brewing Company. I mention that it was just two hours at that was a topic of discussion. A lot of people think Hays is further out, when in fact it’s about four hours from the KC metro area. We’ve been to Gella’s before, as it was the first stop on Beer Trip II. It’s located in Hays’ old downtown in a historic building, but inside is new and modern. An absolutely beautiful place. The brewing facility is the cleanest I’ve ever seen. Every piece of equipment sparkles. Unfortunately, the head brewer, Gerald, was feeling under the weather. He said he didn’t want to get us sick so he just stopped by and said hi real quick before going home to recover. Gella’s always has a huge selection of beers on tap, including their 2009 GABF gold medal winner Liberty Stout. Kelly, knowing this was his last bit of fun before tax season, probably had the most fun of us all and ended up having to curl up in the EM-50 to wait the rest of us out before we went back to our hotel in Hays.

The next morning we were up and headed to the tiny town of Beaver, KS. Even native Kansans have never heard of it. Just for future reference, it’s located about 20-30 minutes south of Russell, KS. Huge help, right? Anyway, Len and Linda Moeder run a tiny oasis in the middle of BFE Kansas. It’s a small town establishment where people know you’re from out of town (although, in a town the size of Beaver, not a hard accomplishment). Len and Linda run it all themselves, but they still found time to come over and talk to us both times I’ve been there. He’s even growing his own hops now, and the beers are great.

After Mo’s, we headed back to Manhattan, this time the east side, to Tallgrass Brewing Company. We met up with Jeff Gill, the owner and head brewer, before their regular tour. He showed us around the brewery keeping us supplied with beer the entire time. Tallgrass has expanded rapidly in the few short years it’s been open. It’s always good to see another Kansas brewery succeed and start distributing to other states. Jeff let us try a beer that he was experimenting with, and even asked for our thoughts about it. We all agreed that we hoped it was in their future line up. We shared some of the beers we brought as well with him in their tasting room, and had a great time talking with Jeff for a couple hours until the normal tour people started showing up. He even put the Tallgrass sticker on the back of the EM-50 for us, which was pretty cool.

The final stop of our quick trip was to Blind Tiger in Topeka, KS. They’re a perennial GABF winner and they didn’t fail to impress us either. It was getting late so we had just a quick meal there before we headed back to KC. Overall a great trip to the great breweries in Kansas to the west of us. They’re not far off I-70 so anyone traveling out to Colorado needs to make the effort to stop and support these great locally owned businesses.

Tim

Why Beer Trip Goes To The Places They Do

2010-03-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I hope you are having a great 2010. It has been pretty good on my end, with Beer Trip 5.5 being one of the best trips we’ve taken. Speaking of 5.5, when we were coming back home after the last stop that trip, I was thinking about our stop at Front Street Brewery. Saturday night, we went to the Quad Cities and stopped at Bent River Brewing Company. You may recall that we stopped at Bent River on the very first Beer Trip in 2005. It was just Tim and I on that trip, and we were actually the only two people in the place when we arrived on a Sunday morning for an early lunch. There, I had one of the best burgers I’d ever had in my life (a patty melt) and enjoyed samples of some really good beers. It was a really good stop. We were all looking forward to going there this year, but the vibe was a lot different. The place was packed, which I was fine with, but there was a band playing that was not very good (to state it kindly) and the people at the brewpub were a little on the tool/bar trash side. It wasn’t a good scene that night. To be fair, their beers were still very solid and we didn’t order food, but the experience wasn’t what we were hoping for. We stayed there for maybe 45 minutes before we decided to check out the lesser known Front Street Brewery. When we got there, there were a few people hanging around the bar, which was a very esthetically pleasing interior (it was too dark to tell you how it looked from the outside). We sat down, were greeted by a very cool bartender who set us up with some beers. He even came over and talked to us about our trip, and even came back a couple of times to bring us some free samples. The beers were pretty good, but nothing like a barrel aged Imperial Stout or something like that. The thing is, this stop became one of my favorites because the bartender treated us really well and the beers were enjoyable.

This is one of the points that I try to let people know about Beer Trips. Often when I tell someone about where we’re planning to go on the next Beer Trip, I get a lot of weird and confused reactions from people like “Why are you going to that place?” A lot of “The beer at Beer Bar A is way better than the beers at Brewery X!” comments come in my direction. And I get that completely. It’s just that for me, having the best beer isn’t necessarily the most important thing to me. Now it is really important, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t make me enjoy one stop over another. For example, Rogue Brewery in Newport, OR makes some really great beers. I have enjoyed their beers for a long time, and we all were really looking forward to making the visit from Portland on Beer Trip IV. But the tour was one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had on a beer trip. The tour guide was pretty bad. She wasn’t that informative, she was a little rude, was really boring, and at the end of the tour she said, “No samples but you can buy beers upstairs.” That was the only tour without samples that I’d ever been on, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if the tour itself was good.

On the other hand, for Beer Trip V, we were driving up from Milwaukee to Green Bay, and we wanted to have a stop along the way. We randomly decided to stop at Hops Haven Brew Haus in Sheboygan, a stop that was questioned by several people. When we arrived there mid-afternoon on a Thursday and were greeted by our wonderful bartender Amy. She was great, knew her stuff, and was absolutely pleasant. We asked her if they had any stickers to but on the RV, and she went and spoke to the brewer. Jeff, a great guy who made us a laminated sign in lieu of a sticker (they didn’t have any) showed us, along with our new friends of about 10 minutes Colleen and Grant, around their brewpub, even showing us a video they had of the place. Amy and Jeff couldn’t have been cooler to us, and this was a stop that most people wouldn’t have made. It was one of my favorite stops on any of the Beer Trips. And it didn’t hurt that their beers were fantastic, either.

So that is the story to why I do what I do in terms of Beer Trip planning. To me, I’d rather have an above-average beer at a brewpub with great people than have a fantastic beer at a snobbish beer bar (which I have found several to be). The people I’ve dealt with at the brewpubs are a lot more passionate about what it is that they are serving because it is their hard work behind it. While I appreciate the finer beer bars a lot, especially the ones that support their local breweries (the Twin Cities are phenomenal in my opinion when it comes to that), I’d rather have our guys go check out a place where we can ask the brewers direction why and how it is that they do what they do than have a server tell me that the IPA I’m drinking is 93 IBUs. But that’s just me.

Anyway, that’s what I have for you this week. We are going to be doing a better job of keep this site updated, so check back.

Cheers!

Dan

Beer Trip 5.5

2010-03-05T19:52:00.000-08:00

Beer Trip 5.5 would be different than our previous "Point Fives". Usually we left on a Friday morning and came back on Saturday night. This year we extended the trip by one day and didn't come back until Sunday. We set out Friday morning heading north. This trip we had myself, Dan, Andy, Rob, and Dave the newbie. Our first destination was Court Avenue Brewing Company in Des Moines, IA. Located in an older area of town, CABC has a great atmosphere, with brews to match. We enjoyed a delicious meal with our brews and then set back out, this time headed east. Our next stop was in Rock Island, IL and the Blue Cat Brewpub. Located near the river, it was obvious this was a popular gathering spot. We sampled their offerings and moved back out to the RV.
From there we headed towards Chicago. There, we were to meet some good friends we met through a beer site, John and Travis. They’d hung out with us on BT V when we were in Wisconsin and they were driving down to Chicago to enjoy the Beer Trip experience once more. We met them at Two Brothers Brewing in Warrenville, IL. To say the location was odd is an understatement. It was dark but it appeared to be in the middle of an industrial/office park. The restaurant itself seemed to be a cookie cutter office building. Fortunately the inside didn’t match the drab outside. The place was packed and we had to wait for quite a while to get our table. It was worth it though. We stuffed ourselves and tried several of their beers. From there we checked into our hotel and went to our last stop of the night, Lunar Brewing in Villa Park, IL. They were what I think of as a local hangout bar. It’s a small place, but hopping. We were able to get a quick look at the brewing setup. It was very small which made it even cooler. There was a somewhat heated argument about beers being liked solely on the label. Unfortunately one of the group’s favorite breweries was used as an example. It ended up okay though, ‘cuz beer people are about the beer and we still had a great time.

The next morning was the biggest stop on the trip. We were able to get a private tour at Goose Island’s brewery which usually doesn’t give tours. Our tour leader was Tom, the brewing manager at the facility. He started out by handing out safety glasses which is always a good sign. There was an area on the top floor of the brewery with tap handles set up. He gave us all some glasses and said to help ourselves before we set out on the tour. To say the tour was thorough would be an understatement. We’ve been on dozens of tours, but this was the first one we actually got to enter the lab where they test, grow their yeast strains, QC, etc. The bottling line wasn’t running that day so we were able to get an up close and personal look at that. I nerded out a bit when we were in the barrel aging room. I fought the urge to hug the Bourbon County Stout barrels. After the tour we hung out for a bit talking with Tom. We convinced him to sign a Goose Island sticker and put it on the back of the RV. Yeah, we’re cool…

After Goose Island, we made a quick stop at Molly’s Cupcakes so Dan could get some Ron Bennington cupcakes, named in honor of the host of XM’s The Ron & Fez Show, 11AM-3PM XM 202, Sirius 197. After enjoying those, we moved on to Revolution Brewery. They had only opened a few weeks previous, but had heard nothing but good things. We were lucky enough to have a friend hook us up with one of the investors, Matt Rollins, formerly of Southern Tier Brewing out of New York, and the “Matt” of Phin & Matt, one of Southern Tier’s beers.. He met us at the bar there and took us through the whole operation. Very cool place and can see it becoming one of the big brewpubs in the city.

After Revolution we stopped at Half Acre Brewing for a few quick samples and to buy a couple of bombers. Then we went to Piece Pizzeria and Brewing. Again, another packed brewpub. Chicago is really moving up in the beer world and the people are going with them. Great pizza as we had heard and great beers as well. We had to say goodbye to John and Travis at this point. They were staying the night and hitting the beer bars like The Map Room. We, on the other hand, piled back into the RV and headed back west to end the night in the metropolis of Moline, IL.
In Moline we went to Bent River Brewing. There was a band playing and the place was standing room only. We managed to snag a booth and had a few beers before deciding to see if there was more room at Front Street Brewery in Davenport, just across the river in Iowa. Cool little place that was nice and quiet. Hung out with the bartender for a bit and then headed to the hotel to crash.

The next day we only had one stop on the way back to KC, Olde Main Brewing Company in Ames, IA. This was the very first brewery stop on the very first Beer Trip back in 2005 so it was pretty cool to be back. We had a few beers and gorged on the buffet before packing it in and going home.

An awesome trip overall and much nicer having that extra day so we weren’t so rushed. Looking forward to Beer Trip VI in just over a hundred days. Look out Colorado. We’re coming back!

Coming up on Beer Trip 5.5

2010-02-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been awhile. Sorry about that. But coming up in one week is Beer Trip 5.5! This year, we are going to head up to Chicago, home of Goose Island Brewing Company, along with a host of newer breweries and brewpubs. We'll be leaving the morning of February 26, with scheduled stops at Des Moines’s Court Avenue Brewing Company and Rock Island’s Blue Cat Brewpub as we head into the Chicagoland area. Friday night, we will be hitting Two Brothers Brewing Company in Warrenville for dinner before finishing the day at Lunar Brewing Company in Villa Park. A couple of our friends from Wisconsin that we met on Beer Trip V will be meeting us at Two Brothers, and they'll be with us through all of the Chicagoland stops. We're looking forward to it.

Saturday will be a really busy day, starting with a brewery tour at Goose Island around 10 AM, followed by lunch at the Goose Island Clybourn brewpub. After that, the plan is to make stops at the new Revolution Brewing, Piece Brewpub, Half Acre Beer Company, and possibly Metropolitan Brewing. Chances are all of those stops won't happen, but we have them mapped out anyway. We'll leave Chicago that evening as we head west with our final stop in Moline, IL, where we will spend the night and visit Bent River Brewing Company.

Sunday will be a light day, as it’s basically a travel day back to Kansas. Our only scheduled stop is Olde Main Brewing Company, which was the first ever stop on the very first Beer Trip in 2005. So yeah, it’ll be historic. Plus we might have a tour with the brewer, which will be cool. And then, we head home.

That’s it. Just wanted to give you an update of what is going on. We’ll be posting while on the trip (and maybe even before), so check back.

Cheers!

Dan

Beer Trip 4.5

2009-11-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

Beer Trip 4.5 would take us south again, this time to Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The crew this time consisted of Dan, Andy, Kelly, Rob, Ed, Tim, and for the first time a seventh member, our pal Adam. We set out Friday morning with the first stop being Tulsa, OK, about a four-hour trip, where we met up with our beer friends Brett and Hannah. The first place we hit was McNellie’s Sidebar downtown, probably the most well-known place for good beers in Tulsa. The best part about McNellie’s was that they had a cask version of Marshall Brewing Company’s McNellie’s Pub Ale, which was pretty tasty. We had a great meal and met some of Brett and Hannah’s friends there, including a generous guy named Chris.
After McNellie’s, we went to the first brewery of the trip, Marshall Brewing Company (http://marshallbrewing.com/home.asp). There we met up with the owner, Eric, and he led us on a tour of the brewery. Marshall’s is a fairly new brewery, so it was pretty cool to have the main guy show us around and here all about his history (including a stint at Pennsylvania’s Victory Brewing Company). After the tour Eric poured us some samples, which I think is one of the coolest parts of the beer world, where owners or head brewers rarely act like they’re above doing things like that. Marshall’s beers were great, with my particular favorite being Atlas IPA. We left Hannah and Chris there, as Hannah went to meet some friends and Chris stayed in Tulsa where he lives. Before saying by to him, Chris gave us a rare bottle of a cave aged Ommegang, which we cracked open during Beer Trip V. We gave him a jug of Free State beer in return, which was the least we could do.
After Marshall we headed out to Krebs for beers and dinner. Choc Brewery and Pete’s Place Restaurant and two separate entities, technically, but located at the same place (http://www.petes.org/ ). First up was a tour at Choc where head brewer Michael Lalli took us on a private tour of the brewery. It was one of the best tours we ever had on any beer trip, to say the least. We thought it would take about an hour or so, but ended up hanging out with Michael and some of his friends for a few hours, as we all talked about beer and he shared beers with us from his private stash in the brewery. Some of the beers shared were his friend’s hombrewed Helles, some Choc seasonals, or just experimental beers Choc is considering releasing. We probably could have stayed and talked to Michael and his friends the rest of the night, but we were in desperate need of something in our stomachs besides beer. We went over to Pete’s Place, which is an Italian restaurant that serves Choc’s brews. It’s an interesting set up, where you basically get your own private room to eat. The waiter came in to our private room and asked us what beers we wanted because all beers were on the house, courtesy of Michael. When they started bringing out the food, we realized that it was an insane amount of food, even with Brett’s warnings that that would be the case. It was all excellent, as we gorged ourselves on it. And the beers kept coming. We felt like royalty the way they were treating us. Choc and Pete’s Place could not have treated us better.
Eventually and unfortunately, we had to leave Pete’s, so we headed over to Brett and Hannah’s house which was pretty close. Brett and Hannah had generously offered their house for us to crash at, saving us money as we didn’t need a hotel. After a quick stop for ice and some Teen Wolfing by Dan and Kelly, we finally made it to their home. We had brought some beers down to share with them as we knew Brett, being the great home brewer he is, had some of his own to share with us. I brought a sixer of Hopslam from Bell’s Brewery for Brett and Hannah because they weren’t able to try it before. Having enjoyed a few too many of Marshall’s and Choc’s beer and being who I am, I didn’t think to hold the bottom of the six pack holder. The cooler had some water at the bottom that went unnoticed. Next thing I know, the bottom had fallen out of the holder and the wonderful aroma of fresh Hopslam hung heavy in the air. Unfortunately, all six were shattered on the marble floor. Besides that buzz kill, the rest of the night was a blast and we all had a great time with them playing cards, talking beer, and enjoying their hospitality.
The next morning we went on to Oklahoma City for lunch, which wasn’t the original plan. A Beer Trip first occurred that day, as for the first time ever, a scheduled stop on the agenda was missed. We were supposed to go to Coach’s in Norman, but due to the heavy drinking the night before, the group was not feeling tip-top and we left Brett and Hannah’s about two hours later than we had intended.
The first stop of Day Two, we decided to try out Belle Isle Brewpub, which was located in a mall. Belle Isle had some decent brews, but nothing that stood out. The collective condition of the group might have played a part of it, but because of the time we didn’t hang out long as we were excited to get to Cheney, KS and Hank Is Wiser (http://www.hankiswiserbrewery.com/) .
Hank is Wiser is one of my favorite places. Located in a stereotypical Midwestern small town, it’s owned by Hank Sanford, and his son Steve is the head brewer. We sat at the bar drinking beers and talking to Hank and Steve. Hank’s wife showed up at one point and talked to us as well. It is a great family-owned and family-run establishment that makes some phenomenal beers, with Krippled Kangaroo IPA and Porter Potty Porter being the two year-round offerings that I recommend. They also have a shuffleboard table, which we love, and a large selection of bottled beers too. Plus Rob and Dan really enjoyed the pulled-pork sandwich. The Sanfords treated us very well (as they always have), and if it wasn’t so far from where we live, we’d be there all the time.
After Hank Is Wiser, it was time to head over to Wichita for our final stop of the trip, River City Brewing Company (http://www.rivercitybrewingco.com/). River City is located in the Old Town area of Wichita, and they make some phenomenal beers. There we met up with Andy and Ed’s dad, Bill, who sat down with us and enjoyed some beers and a late dinner. We were treated rather well there, even if some of the boys couldn’t sneak by the bouncers to check out the night club area upstairs. For free, that is. We probably could have paid to go up there, but it was getting late and we still had a three hour drive to get back. We finished up our beers, said bye to Bill, and drove home.
The “Point-Five” Beer Trips are always a good time, as we usually have a pretty good experience. For BT 4.5, we had three memorable stops, with Eric at Marshall, Michael at Choc’s, and the Sanfords at Hank Is Wiser all treating us great. Not to mention Brett and Hannah, some of our favorite people, and Chris, who was a really cool guy, especially for only having met him for a couple of hours. While Beer Trip 5.5 might take us to the Chicagoland area, in the back of our minds a return trip to the stops on 4.5 would all get us pumped up come February. Possibly for 6.5.

Surly's Darkness Day Experience

2009-10-27T16:49:00.001-07:00

Rob and I start our day out at 7am on Friday on our way to Brooklyn Center, Mn just north of Minneapolis. We get about 20 minutes out where I make a phone call to the brewery like I was told to do the day before. We were hoping that we would make it up in time to dip some of the beloved Darkness bottles. The tops of the bottles are dipped in wax because it looks cool and to keep any possible air from getting into the bottle. At first the person who answered the phone said they didn't really need us which bummed me out. I ask if it was Omar or Todd, and luckily it was Omar. (It would of been just as cool if it was Todd.) I tell Omar it's Andy from Beer Trip and he tells me to just come on in when we get there. Now I'm stoked, very stoked.

Rob and I go into the brewery and talk to some of the other people who are already dipping bottles. We get the low down on what to do and before we get started I wanted to talk to Todd and Omar. Rob and I go over and talk with Todd, which might sound sappy, but I really dig talking to him. He just comes off as a really down to earth, and despite what the beers are named, nice dude. I truly enjoy the time, though it's only been a few times, that I get to talk to him. We go back to where the dippin' is going down and see Omar. This is another dude I really enjoy shooting the shit with, good sense of humor, another down to earth guy and very busy dude the day before a Darkness day, everybody who works for Surly is the day before.

Rob and I jump in and start helping out anyway we can. We are also told by some of the guys dippin' that we need to go get ourselves a glass of the Wet Hop Ale that was on tap. Well, who are we to turn down a beer? We grab some and if you get the chance to try it, and you like hops, do your taste buds a favor and get yourself a glass of it. I have to admit, it felt weird rolling into the tap room and helping myself, pouring my little plastic cup full of Wet Hop. It was that same feeling where you might be in somebody you've only hung out with once before and you're in his/her house just reaching into their fridge, not because they said it was cool, but somebody else said it was ok. It just felt a little weird to me. Rob and I spent from 2:30p to 6:30 dipping bottles with a couple others and we did about 5 or 6 pallets worth. We did work!

Now we had heard that about 3ish that "Eddie" had brought in an RV and big towable smoker. Omar had come in about 5 to inform us that "Ed" had a bunch of chicken and ribs going. Now I'm thinking well that's cool, but I had no intention of going out there and having any. I figured Rob and I would head out to a place called Stub and Herbs to grab some food and get some Surly brew to drink. Well, Omar tells us to go out and grab some food. Rob and and Matt head out to grab some grub, and I end up talking to Surly's marketing guy, Alex. Well anybody that knows me, knows I love talking about my beer fridge, well because it's freaking awesome! So I pull up a pic of it on my phone, and I think dude was impressed. He pulls out his video camera and starts recording a vid of me showing him my fridge on my phone. Sorry but that is funny to me. Then he starts "interviewing" me for lack of a better term. Well we talk about home brewing and what's cool about the beer. I end the little deal by telling him that I'm pretty sure that my 12 year old daughter knows more about good beer than any Coor's Light lover ever will. He turns off his camera and says "That was the perfect way to end that." Those guys were very cool.

I finally make it outside, where everybody else was at and I was shocked to see the set up that Eddie had going on. Omar tells me to grab a plate and get served up. Again, it feels like I'm totally crashing this party uninvited and it just feels weird asking somebody I have never met to grind on some of his food. Well let me just say that when Eddie opens his smoker, my eyes got huge! There was probably 30 slabs of ribs and 20 half chickens on this smoker, it was just awesome looking. He gives me a huge chunk of chicken and ribs. It tasted as good as it all looked. Well Eddie owns a liquor store and he had gotten a keg of Dogfish Head 60 min IPA and Todd brought out a keg of Smoke Ale. Well there is about 15-20 people all chilling out at Eddie's compound just outside the gates of Surly and the beers started flowing. There was one more pallet left to dip and it was getting chilly so we all go in to finish the last pallet. Well I figured there was enough people going at it and so I'm basically just standing around where Omar and I are chatting, when he says, hey let's me and you go get me a beer. Well, Omar is a busy dude like I said before and for him to pick me out of all the people there and for just me and him to have a conversation between the two of us is pretty meaningful to me. We go to the tap room and he asks what I'm drinking I said well since I can't buy the Wet I better get as much of that as I can. I hand Omar my plastic cup that I've had since 2:30, he looks at me and says "Dude you love good beer, we need to get you a glass man" He hands me one of the new Darkness glasses full of Wet. We go check out the keg room and he asks me "How did you get into drinking good beer?" I tell him I've always drank different stuff but that Dan pushed me past the brink of never looking back to the macros. Then the inevitable happened, a beer nerd attack.

I'm going to interrupt this story by venting about beer nerds. Now I'm sure I've been described by some as one, along as everybody on Beer Trip Crew has. I'm here to tell you, that nobody in the BT crew nor anybody I've met on Beer Pal, or in any of my travels has ever even sniffed beer nerdness like this dude that interrupted I and Omar's convo. This guy was a the type of guy that keeps me off of the more popular Beer websites and makes me love BeerPal. I just couldn't stand this dudes vibe, and it bothers me when somebody can clearly see two dude talking then just comes in starts talking, then mid-sentence says, "Oh did I interrupt?" Jathink smart guy. Well unfortunately for me he didn't get the hint that he should of walked away, so I did. Later on in the evening I offered up some New Belgium La Folie, and another beer nerd asked what vintage it was. Really? How 'bout the free kind slick. Now what really got my goat was that I didn't see either one of these nerds offer anything up to the party. NOTHING. So here is a tip, if you don't bring anything don't be picky or pull out your pad and begin to rate it. Just say "hey thanks this is great" and move on. As a side note on top of a side note and not to steal any of Rob's thunder if he writes his version of this but he was telling me a couple day afterward that he saw one the dis-liked beer nerds actually pour himself a big glass of Cran-bic, which this dude was very, very graciously sharing the next morning, only to dump it out after a sip. I'm glad I didn't witness this, cuz I'm pretty sure I would of gone into dick-mode and said something I shouldn't have. These dudes in no way diminished my trip, but the did need to be called out. Now back to the FUN!

We all end up back outside at Ed's party palace and that's when the beer really starts to flow. I bust out the Free State beers and I was very happy that everybody really dug all three growlers that we brought and I'm super happy Dan had the great idea of bringing some up. It was a hit and it ended up getting Rob and I some new nicknames. Mine is Kansas and Rob, Kansas2. Ed's crew couldn't of been cooler to us if they tried, everybody treated Rob and I like rock stars. We continue to drink awesome beers and I wish I had a list of all the great beers people were pouring to share. Next thing I know it's 1 am, only 11 more hours till the gates open for Darkness Day! Rob is a trooper and stays up to drink, and I head into the Tahoe for some cold sleep.

5:30 am Rob wakes up to use the port-a-potty and informs me that the line is already past the Tahoe. I get up and see that there is a line that is already about 50-70 people deep. I'm stunned, shocked, and not 100% sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. I go and grab the chairs and get ourselves in line. Rob goes back into the Tahoe to sleep and I watch the sun come up on a very frosty Minnesota morning. About 7:30a the Ed crew starts to come alive, so I'm hangin' out with them checking on the chairs from time to time. Then I'm asked, dude are you in line? I say yeah, then I'm laughed at. Dude you're with Ed's crew and he's the line leader! Again, I didn't want to assume that, it's not how we roll. Well I get our chairs out of line, a line that is now about 400 deep at about 8a. Yes I'm blown away by this. By 9a I'm guess the line is at the max of people who are promised a wristband that gets you a max of 6 bottles. By 10:30 you're chances are that of a snowball surviving in hell, because the line has to be around around 1100 or more. The line at this point in the morning is easily over a half mile long. I just can't even comprehend this, it's a sight that pictures won't do justice, you have to see this for yourself.

Well the gates are getting ready to open and, and Rob and I are two of the first 10 to get our wristbands. Once the gates open we go in grab a quick bite to eat, grab out Darkness bottles, say our good byes to all our new friends, Omar and Todd. Unfortunately, we were able to try some of the beers they were having on tap, due to us have some earlier that morning and having a 6 to 7 hour drive in front of us. Rob and I take off at about 1:30p and head to a liquor store where we proceed to drop another $300 bones on nothing but Surly beer.

I was an awesome 36 hour trip with little sleep, but I think Rob would agree that it was so worth it. The new friends we met, the beer we got to drink, and the purchase of Surly's Darkness was all a very cool experience. Omar and Todd once again treated us better than I could of, would of ever expected. There is no way I will miss a Darkness Day. As for next year I CAN'T WAIT! Andy a.k.a Kansas!

Beer Trip Crew Update - 09.10.09

2009-09-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Blame in on our post Beer Trip V hangover, if you will. Right now, nothing has been set yet for Beer Trips 5.5 and VI, but right now the thoughts are that we will be heading up to Chicago for 5.5 (Goose Island Brewing Company) and over to the east coast (primarily Delaware for Dogfish Head Brewing Company) for VI.

As for the last month, some of us have made some visits to some of the local brewpubs. 75th Street Brewing Company recently celebrated their 16th Anniversary, and had some solid beers on tap for the occasion, including a wheat wine which was available in 750ml bottles to bring home. I picked up a couple of those. Free State Brewing Company also has some nice seasonals on available, including Big Sea E.S.B which I now have on tap in my kegerator. Also, Free State is brewing at their new production facility in east Lawrence that I got to check out last week. While it’s not quite ready for public tours at this time, I did get to go there and meet with the brewers Steve, Geoff, Kevin, and Luke, Chef Rick, and owner Chuck, all who were very hospitable. I have also visited Boulevard Brewing Company twice, and spent time with some of the brewers and John from their Smokestack Series. There should be a couple of new seasonal Smokestack releases this year, which are terrific. Believe me.

Some possible trips that we might take in the next few months include a return trip to Surly Brewing Company for Darkness Day in October. Another possible destination is the Midwest Beerfest in Wichita, also in October. And because of my beer writing job, a visit to many of the Kansas brewpubs and breweries is a likelihood. If I’m lucky, that is. Should be a nice fall.

That is where we’re at right now. Stay tuned, as Tim should be posting about Beer Trip 4.5 soon. Cheers!

Dan

Surly Brewing

2009-08-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, this trip was insanely busy, with us constantly on the go, so we haven't done well keeping everyone updated. I apologize for that. We'll recap the rest of the trip, but for now, I wanted to take time to describe what may be one of the best tours we've ever had on a Beer Trip. We arrived at Surly Brewing in Brooklyn Center, MN about 15-20 minutes before the start of their tour. Dan had contacted them several months early to ensure we had a confirmed tour. We got out of the RV and started walking toward the entrance when someone came out of the warehouse section and goes "Is this the Southwest Brewing News guy?" I think all of us instinctively pointed at Dan. Turns out it was Omar, owner of Surly Brewing. He talked to Dan for a bit, shook our hands, and then went back inside.

We got into the line to have our ID's checked and and get our wrist bands and tokens. We were next in line when Omar comes back out and says "Hey, come this way." Yeah, he's taking us out of the regular tour and giving us a private one. I had an internal beer dork freak-out as we walk into the warehouse. He gives us our wristbands and tokens for samples. Oh and a can of one of their kick ass beers for each of us.

He then brings over Todd, the head brewer for Surly to take us around while he talks to the people on the regular tour. We chat with Todd for a while and he takes us down to the gift shop and tasting room ahead of the regular tour. There we get a pic with him and enjoy samples of more of their stuff. Honestly, they do not brew a bad beer. In fact, every one is top notch. No exaggeration. Also got to talk to some of the very cool volunteers they had working in the gift shop and talked beer to them. After the tours shut down we went to the parking lot and hung out with Todd some more. Kelly makes these cool cantilever bottle holders and he got one out. We all signed it and gave it to him as a very small token of our gratitude. Omar came back out and started talking with us some more. As any regular readers of our blog know, we put stickers on the back of the RV for anyplace we visit. We put a Surly sticker on there, but he had given us a label for their Darkness that they only release one day per year. Omar humored us and put the label on the RV for us while we took pictures as is the norm. Omar even checked out the RV to see how we travel. As we're talking to him, an older man approaches. Turns out it's Omar's dad! He was the original owner of the warehouse the brewery is currently located in. He turned over a small portion of it to Omar to start his brewery. That was three years ago, and it's now the entire building. He talked to us for a while and was just as cool as his son. Omar then proceeded to bring us out some free gifts for us to split and share including some very hard to get stuff. He then took us back inside to give us an even cooler gift...a sample of a brand new beer they haven't released yet.

Needless to say, you will not find a bigger group of Surly advocates. Unfortunately it's basically only available in MN right now, so if you're in the state, buy it. You will not be disappointed. The Crew cannot thank Omar and Todd enough for how they treated us. It is truly appreciated and they deserve all the success they've accomplished and future success they're sure to have.

-Timmy

BEER TRIP V DAY 3

2009-07-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

We all had a great nights sleep at the Hilton which was in a really old builing downtown Milwaukee. We drive the 1 mile to Milwaukee Ale house that is right on the river that runs through downtown. Even though it was a bit overcast and had a few sprinkles we sat outside and enjoyed some decent beer made by, as far as I know, our first encounter with a woman Head brewer. The beers were solid as was their food. We aslo got to meet some people we work with as well which was very cool. We climb back into the EM-50 and head off to Hops Haven in Sheboygan. We go in and we were the only people in this huge place. We get a few samplers and as I'm sitting at the bar drinking them I'm thinking to myself "this is one of the best overall beer samplers I've ever had". I'm not a huge Wit fan but their Wit was incredible. I'm also not a fan of Dopplebocks, but this was so freaking good and smooth that I ordered up a couple pints of it. Jeff the Head brewer told us he didn't have any stickers to grace the EM-50 but he made us our very own personalized sign, printed it out then laminated it for us. Then he showed us around the brewery even showed us a little video that somebody made him of the brewery which was really freaking cool. We even had a very cool couple from Chicago that we met and found out that he was going to be in Leavenworth next week and hopefully we can meet up with him to have a beer. I think it's very sureal how much people are interested in our beer travel. We have met some really cool people along the way and that to me make the trip so worth it. We leave Hop Haven about 2 and a half hours later than was scheduled but Jeff made it worth our while with his incredible beers and his love of people who knew good beer. We headed out to Titletown Brewing Co. where we were to meet up with another Beer Pal, Beerhunter (aka Shawn) his wife and their friends. I had an incredible Pot Roast along with a really nice IPA and what they called a Studded Tire, sort of a Fat Tire clone. Titletwon was in a really old train depot and was a cool little setup. We go across the street to Hinterland Brewing Co. for a couple pints. This place was like no othe brewery I had been to before. I think their electric bill each month could only be at the most $7.56 since they had around 400 candles lit all around this place. We were able to go upstairs and talk with Shawn and his crew. Now were running so far behind it no longer matters, Shawns wife Kristen slaps a Titletown sticker on the EM-50 and we get on our way to Stone Cellar Brewing, but we can't really go to through Green Bay without stopping at Lambeau. It was late and dark but we'd be fools no to stop by there to check it out. What was amazing was how many people were there taking pics just like we were that late at night. Very fancy upgrade they gave that place. Looks cool. Rob was the man guiding us through our day and even longer night. We show up to Stone Cellar at around 10p or so. We go in and Dan tells me that their Smoked Porter is their flagship beer so we get a pitcher of it. Unfortunately Kelly and Rob suddenly are feeling as though they are in tip top shape. We drink a pictcher of the smoked porter which was really good but it was one of those beers that one glass is plenty. Just as we get done the bartended comes over and give us a free pitcher of the smoked porter and there was just no freaking way we could drink it, espcially since there was another pitcher of IPA on the table that we had to finish off. We decide that we better get moving because it's about 11:30p and we still have another 70 miles to drive before we get to the hotel. Rob again pulls us through and we arrive at the LaQuinta at about 12:30ish wiped out but loving the awesome day we had.

BEER TRIP V DAY 2

2009-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

We woke up to half the room missing it's electricity and the water being turned off. At 7 we noticed the water was back on but it had a serious brown color to it. It actually looked as though somebody pissed in the toilet after a serious bladder infection right after we flushed it. I think I let the water run about 10 minutes before it became clear. I'm just glad Ed and I filled up some cups of water the night before so that we could brush our chiclets this morning. Well I'm couldn't be more sure that tonight's Hilton experience will feel like the lap of luxoury. We headed out to New Glarus and we pull up to one HUGE freaking facility. This place was simply incredible. We walk around and take a few pics then head in to take our own self guided tour. We all get a few samplers as we wait for Dan's buddy (and now ours) Six Pat. New Glarus has an array of beers, but the one that seems to stand out to me is the Belgium Red made with cherries. This is an amazing beer and is very expensive for them to make. We start on our way and we get to the mash tun and kettles and I look over and see a dude just hangin out. I have a few questions and ask him if I can bother him for a couple minutes answering questions. He was super cool said it was no bother at all and walked over to where I was at and answered my questions about their water tanks. Another empolyee of the brewery walks by and the dude I'm talking with says "Hi Dan". I knew the founder of the New Glarus was named Dan but I'm thinking no way...Well sure as I'm overweight it was "him". I introduce myself and kindly ask him if he wouldn't mind taking a picture with us. (we were kind of spread out at this time throughout the brewery) I go gather up the other for what I consider a fantastic picture with a maker of amazing beer. He then tells the dude I was tallking to, to get Jean to give us our own little personalized tour. I have to brag here, as I was suddenly given the title of Gov'nah of Wisconsin title by the rest of my Beer Trip brothers. Jean the Plant Manager took about 45 minutes out of her day and showed us all around the brewery. It was simply awesome. Kelly had made some bottle holders for people who took time out of their day and treated us better than good, and we made sure Jean was indeed a receipent. We all signed it and we could all tell that she really appreciated the gesture, as we truly appreciated her time and knowledge that she was so willing to share. I think it was cool that she just once again reaffirmed to me that people in the business of beer are the coolest people ever. We went down to there store and I think we all bought some beer that is only sold in Wisconsin. We were about 40 minutes late to our next destination which was Great Dane Brewing in downtown Madison. We were meeting a couple Beer Pals, John and Travis. These two guys also proved to me that there are nothing but cool Beer Pals, as these two guys were both awesome dudes! We have a great cask IPA and really good lunch. Downtown Madison is a very cool place but we are already a running a little late as we have a date with Tyranena. We take our Beer pal John with us in the RV as it's on his way home and we head off to Lake Mills. Now, since beer people are awesome Tyranena had one of their bar tenders show up and hour early to take care of us so that we could try out their beer. This place was super cool and very accomadating to us. Our bartender was awesome and she treated us like superstars. There beers were freaking great and I think between the 8 of us we tried everything they had to offer and according to Ed even the root beer was fantastic. I got the mrs. a hoody and my self a shirt that says "I love a bitter woman". Now if you know my wife she is far from bitter but that T shirt made me laugh it was actually a name of their beer. We also got to talk with the Head Brewer and was able to get a photo with him as well. Yes, we were having a killer day! So now it's time to head to Milwaukee and drink some of Sprecher's fine beers. We show up a little to late to join the tour, but since we home brew and have been on countless tours, we kind of know the lay of the land, but we do make it in time for the tasting portion and that's all we're really concerned with anyway. We each got four drink tickets and a taster glass, well I'm not sure if people just saw in our eyes that we were lovers of beer or what but they kept handing us their drink tickets and we did our best to to use them all up. We stay until they quit serving us beer and we head out to the Brewers baseball game. Well Dan and Timmy will have different versions of the Baseball game the the other 4 of us, but that is only cuz we got seperated driving in and Timmy and Dan, especially Dan are big Brewer's fans and were more concerned with the outcome than the rest of us might be. We needed to meet up with Dan and Tim to get our ticket but when we showed up we ended up on the complete opposite side of the ballpark than Tim and Dan. We start off on our hike, but then run into a dude in a golf cart who we somehow start shooting the shit with. I decided what's it going to hurt if we ask him for a ride to the other side of the park. He says he can't but he'll get somebody to take us around. I was blown away and within 40 seconds here come Rex in his 6 person golf cart. We give the dude who made the call in a Hopslam and climb into Rexs ballpark limo. The four of us kind of walk around and take in some scenery insided Miller Park. We decide that we're hungry and want good beer and end up in a Friday's. I got into a fake fight with one of the biggest dudes I've seen in a while and I of course took him down quickly. As you can tell by the picture, this dude was a pussycat and could of just destroyed him if I wanted to. We get shown to a table that was just in a killer section of the ballpark. We were basically looking down at the bullpen of the Brewers and we happened to be sitting about 100 feet away from where the Brewers hit a home run to go ahead and ended up winning the game. There were some 10-12 year old kids not sitting to far away from us and were asking for a ball from what I can assume is 3rd string catcher but the dude denied them. The four of us were giving dude a load of crap his whole way out to the outfield when out of nowhere comes along one of the bat boys and flips the kids a ball. We I look at the bat boy and say thanks man, that's what it's about, treating the kids kids right. Next thing I know dude is flipping me a ball! That was great and completely unexpected. We finally meet up with Dan and Tim and head off to a killer nights sleep at a Hilton. It was the complete opposite of where we stayed the night before.

Im never going to Sveedin

2009-07-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

A poem on how Sveedin sucks

The Sweden House Lodge is a place to avoid
If you happen to be passing through Rockville Illinois
Upon our arrival there was no way to know
Just how bad this place would blow

Not even to our room we pass a guy in the hall
who was without question tripin balls
Orange Juice he claimed was what he be needin
What is wrong in this fake lodge from Sveedin

Upon entering our room “what is that smell?”
we should have know right there it was gonna be hell
My bro thought cleaners, myself I thought piss
Either way there was something amiss

The place was dated and kind of old,
Wondering if under the sheets lurked some kind of mold.
Well good news for us no mold was found
but the stains on the sheets, well they were brown
Perhaps not brown but more of a tan
The frightening result of a strange woman and man

Upon further inspection the place was a disaster
Stains on the toilet seat and no toilet paper
Not wanting to find anything else that was vile
We went and had excellent beers at the Carlyle

We drank our beers even played connect four
Soon it was time to head for the door
Back to the sveedish house to get some sleeps
there is no F'in way I'm sleeping on those sheets
So on top of the wool blanket I go
pulling half over myself like a giant burrito

Over my fears and settling in
That’s when the sirens started to begin
A door slams and the siren stops
Uh-oh Mr. Orange Juice is meeting the cops
Thinking that’s funny and drifting off to my slumber
What else could happen tomorrow I wonder

I forgot to mention upon check-in Dan was mad
from 6am to 7am there was no water to be had
We tried to understand how could this be
dont people get up and have to shower and pee
By morning water was not the only thing in doubt
During the night the power went out

Its a very good thing we don’t sleep in
Cause the fun of the morning was about to begin
The water was back but still no power
Andy went in to take a shower
Within a minute he came out with a bellow
He says “Dude the water is coming out is yellow!”
I jumped out of bed, this I couldn’t miss
Yep, it looked like the tub was filling with piss.
With pictures of proof taken it began to clear out
I took the fastest shower of my life without a doubt

All packed up and ready to be leavin
Ready to get out of the shitty lodge from Sveedin

Ed

DAY 1 BEER TRIP V June 28, 2009

2009-07-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well I personsonally woke up entirely to early after going to bed to late. Basically, every year I have the same feeling the night before Beer Trip, and that is one of massive anticipation. Like I'm 8 again and I know that the next morning I'm getting to go to Disney World. This morning of course was no different. I woke up at 5am ready to get this trip going. I had, for the most part, gotten everything ready the night before so I decided that since it was technically Beer Trip I would go ahead and start drinking. I cracked open a Tallgrass IPA and got on with my day. Ed showed up right at 7am to pick me up and we got to Dans about 15 after, where i promptyl cracked open my second beer of the day. We got our annual pre-leave pic, loaded up and off we went. We got on the highway and cracked open a Cave aged Ommegang Abby Ale, while being seranaded by Lidnsey Buckingham and Holiday Road, our theme song. That bottle lasted all of 7 minutes with 5 of us drinking it, as Timmy was the DD for the day. Up next was Kelly busting out some of his spent grain bread and a incredible bottle of Stone Brewings Sublimly Ale. That was some very incredible beer and we were well on our way to St. Louis and Mattingly Brewing Company where our buddy Drew is the Head Brewer. It took a bit to get there since they had a highway or two closed but we got there and that's what matters. We go in and it's kind of a smallish place but nice decor with about 8 or so beers on tap. We get a couple samplers and order some lunch. As we're eating this dude walks in and I notice him noticing us and he kind of disappears for a bit. The beers are all solid and I thought it was really cool that somebody I know and have brewed with created these beers. Well, after about 10 minutes the dude who was checking us out comes by with a bunch of samplers of what he called a Uber APA that was very nice and hoppy. He introduced himself as the Assistant Brewer and that this was his very own creation. I thought that was really cool of him. Usually what happens is we get treated special after we tell somebody about what kind of trip we're on. He must of had a sixth sense about us or something. He even took us down to the brewery which was in the basement of this older building and showed us around. It looked like a homebrewers place on steriods. It was a really cool set up and I was personally impressed they get 90% effieciency from it. (sorry went all homebrewer geek on ya there). We ate and Jerid brought us another beer of his, a ESB, which again was very nice. We finshed our lunch and headed off for Bloomington, Il and Illinois Brewing Company. We had a couple of hours drive and we got there around 4 or so. Looks like Bloomington is revitializing their downtown as they had some cool looking places. We go in to IBC and we all order something different. I got the brown ale which was probably the best of show. We hang out there for about 40 minutes or so....long enough for two bad pool players, Kelly and myself, to have the worlds longest game of pool. Kelly asks some people at the bar if there is a decent liquor store around. We get to the liquor store and well it was very, very cool. They had lots of stuff we couldn't get back in KC so we all bought some "treats" and headed our way to Desthil Brew Works. We pull up to Desthil and there is this massive crowd dressed way better than us standing outside. I was nervous thinking we might not be able to get in. Luckily it was some sort of Mayor reception that was being held outside and the resturaut had plenty of room for us. I order up a sample and the beers were really good. They had a wit that was outstanding to me, and I'm far from a fan of the wits. The whole line up they had was rock solid. We were told by our hostess that the appetizer of beer battered bacon was a must and well, since I'm fat, I was down. We got two orders and it was a japaleno bacon, beer battered, fried then had maple syrup drizzled on it. I thought it was quite good, but thought it could of been stepped up a notch with some Thai peanut sauce, but hey that's just me. The food there was some of the best I've had on Beer Trip I think everybody was very happy with their choices. We head off to Rockford, Il. and we stayed at the far from spectacular Sweden House Lodge. Dan goes to check us in and comes out with what I know is unhappy Dan face. He says that we won't have water from 6am - 7:30am, which is extremely uncool with us needing to be leaving by 8:15. Well we go in to put our stuff in our rooms before we head out ot Carlyle's. We stroll in and the place is looks old with new decor. This place had fantastic beers. Dan ordered up a Bourbon Barrel Creme Brule' that was silky smooth. I get their IPA and the aroma was one of the best, the taste didn't dissapoint either. There was only two beers we weren't impressed with but out of the 10 we tried that's damn good. We get back to the Sweden House and noticed that we needed to make a small change to the sign out front. Then there happened to be this dude that was, well to be quite blunt, fucked up. Not sure what he was on but dude was on something. We Ed told me this morning that the cops came later and could hear in the hall that the cops were asking this dude all kind of questions about what he was on and things like that. I'm just glad we had a great first day with some seriously outstanding brews.

2009-07-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

We decided that we would highlight some of what we considered “special” places to us. I asked to write this particular segment because what the others will surely tell you is that our VIP tour of New Belgium seriously affected me and I’m not even embarrassed as most would be about how I truly got emotional over this visit.

We deliberately took it easy the night before so that we would be fully rested and very sharp for this tour that Dan was able to set up. We go into a fairly crowded tap room area and there is quite a line to wait in. We shop around while Dan waits it out for us and we get ushered off to the corner. We have absolutely no idea what to expect or do we really know what VIP means here, but we were excited to find out.

We were greeted by Matt our tour guide and surprised that he said “So you’re here for the VIP tour? Let’s get you guys some safety glasses and we'll get on our way.” Right then and there I knew this wasn’t going to be a ho-hum run of the mill tour. We grab our glasses and we get on our way.
Matt tells us about the history and informs us that New Belgium was started by a college graduate who was going to take a tour of Europe on his mountain bike and he was starting in Belgium. Well to make a long story short he never left Belgium and came back here with a new fondness for beer with flavor. Matt takes us over and shows us the first mash tun and kettle along with this crazy heating element he designed. Matt shared with us how they used to shove 29 cases into their car and would hand deliver the beers to those who were in my opinion were smart enough to purchase this beer. We go over to the newer areas and up some stairs to what I would say is probably the most beautiful mash tun, and kettle area there is in the brewing industry. It was a huge area with beautiful stainless steel kettles with polished concrete floors. Around each kettle is a mosaic that tells a story and the one that hits me was an interpretation of an employee’s first day. After Matt decided that was have been at this for about 15 minutes and asks us if we were in need of a brew, well we’re on Beer Trip and of course we said a resounding YES. Matt handed us a wonderful Abby Grand Cru and I believe the 4 of us were all blown away of how buttery smooth that beer is. We marched on through a few rooms and then up some dark stairs then Matt opens a door and suddenly we’re on the first level of the roof. We then take a few more steps up and we’re on the very top of New Belgium’s fermenters. What a treat, we were where the group that inspired this trip was standing in the film American Beer. This was an epic moment for me. It was simply amazing and I would say at that point and time I was officially hooked on the concept of Beer Trip. As we were standing up there Matt points out to us off in the distance that was New Belgium’s very own waste water treatment center. Apparently, the City of Ft. Collins wanted a ton of money from the local breweries since they are using and disposing so much water from all the brewing that was being done. NB had a employee meeting and asked if anybody wanted to go to school to learn about waste water management. A couple dudes thought that would be something new and different, so they gave it a go. Now NB is a very, very green company and these guys were following along that same path. They came up with an incredibly brilliant idea. Yes, I might bore some of you to tears describing this, but I’m going to do it anyway. The waste water goes into a collection pond, where enzymes eat away at the bacteria in this water. When this happens there is methane released into the air. Well instead of letting this methane gas slip into the atmosphere it is collected into a “balloon”. When the kettles need to heat the water, this gas is used to do just that. To me, that is simply brilliant, but these guys decided to go full circle with their brilliance. The steam coming off the kettle is collected and used in the radiant flooring. Simply amazing. Now the city of Ft. Collins must have been strapped for cash because they came back to NB and says you sure do use a ton of electri………Well, I’m just going to stop right there because you should know what happens next. NB decides I’m not writing these clowns a check, we’ll figure this out on our own. So they purchase a wind farm in a town nearby in Wyoming. Every bit of electricity used at the brewery is wind powered, and as I understood it, Ft. Collins writes NB a check since they put electricity back onto the grid. If that’s the case, way to stick it to the man, NB!
We then start to go into what I would call the warehouse, we’re getting to leave to go into the employee only area where we suddenly see these huge wooden casks and Matt tells us that this is where they ferment their La Folie. I noticed there were these little chalk boards next to the taps and asked Matt what was up with them. He told us that when somebody want to check out some, they have a taste, and they write down what they think about it. So we kind of ask Matt if we can take a little sip from the taps….He looked around and gave us the OK. I’m thinking to myself, “ Holy crap, is this really freaking happening?” We each get our turn and we move on to what I would call the employee area. They have this gourmet kitchen where employees can fix themselves a freshly cooked meal instead of nuking a left over, which I thought was an extremely novel concept. We now are heading into a very interesting area, where the employees are to come in and grab a wireless tablet and head over to a personal booth where a door slides up and they are given a tray with samples to rate. There are very specific instructions while sampling these beers and when they’re done they head off back to work. How freaking cool is that!!!! On our way over to a large meeting area Dan and Jerry can’t resist the spiral slide, so they go at it.
We head into their meeting room where Matt explains to us their philosophies and what it means to work at this brewery. This is where the story hits me, and it hits me hard. Matt proceeds to inform us that on your first day you are handed a key to the shop and are welcome to a case of beer a week. After a year of employment you are given a bike, and you are then a part owner of New Belgium, but not until you stand in front of every other employee and explain to them why you should become apart of this family. He explained that there is rarely somebody who doesn’t break down after this explanation. Next you continue to stand there and give each and every employee a big hug. He then told us that the CEO, the founders wife, hand makes you a piece of “mojo”. So I’m hearing this and I’m thinking to myself, people are breaking down in front of their co-workers because they enjoy what they do, who they work with, and what they create, not to mention they are treated so well at their workplace that expressing their gratitude is bringing these people to tears. Matt tells us that people don’t quit, they either pass away, or get fired. Something tells me he wasn’t joking. After 5 years of what I can only assume would be, fabulous, fun filled employment, you get an all expense paid week long trip to Belgium where, oh you guessed it, they drink delicious Belgian Beers. From what I can remember after 10 years, they just kind of ask you what you want and get it for you. For instance back where the La Folie fermenters were located there was a full blown climbing wall. Why? Well one the guys who works for them said that he loved climbing, but since he works full time and now has family that he loves to be around, it just doesn’t leave very much time for climbing. So they hooked dude up, so that on his breaks, he climbs. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! Where are we at? Fantasy Island? Now the thing to ask for from what I remember, is to have a tree planted, which is awesomely unselfish to me. Matt finishes up by telling the four of us that he enjoyed taking us around and that it would be their pleasure to fix us up some samplers and a six pack each to take along on our journey, along with a major discount on anything we purchased. I was simply blown away by their gesture.
As I wrote this I’m not afraid to say that yes, my eyes welled up tears just like they did while I was there hearing the passion and excitement coming from our tour guide Matt, and we took this tour in 2005. So yes, four years later I still get teary eyed thinking about it.
If you are reading this and happen to be an employee of New Belgium, we are jealous of you. From what I can tell your are part of a family not a corporation, we should all be so lucky. The kindness you all showed us is something I will never forget and for that kindness I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I will always have your product in my home. So please know that for the past 4 years I have kept my promise.
If you happen to be the CEO of New Belgium, I can’t explain to you the how lucky we were that Scott Poore happened to strike up a conversation with Dan and offered us this opportunity. You run an amazing company, with from what I saw, you have amazing employees. I promise you that if you ever needed four more employees, I’m pretty sure we would be there before you finished asking. Thank you once again for an amazing time and one that we will surely never forget because you truly treated us all like like VIP's.

Dan, Timmy, Matt, Jerry, & Andy

More Ramblings BT IV days 2-4

2009-07-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

More Ramblings BT IV days 2-4

OK so day one of BT IV was a little weak on the beer exploration. Just 3 breweries/pubs checked off unless you want to count the veterans' stop at Rock Bottom in the Denver Airport and the virgins' stop at Gordon Biersch in the Las Vegas Airport. Yes, we spent almost the whole evening of day one at Amnesia but it was soooo good. This was not a normal beer trip because we had left the venerable EM-50 back in the Midwest. So a beer aficionado would think that we would take advantage of the public transit in Portland and start knocking out places on our list. Well, all beer trips other than a .5 have always included attending a Brewers game because the founder of the BT crew has a fondness for this team. Ok it is more of an obsession but as luck would have it the Brewers were just starting a 3 game series in San Francisco. Tradition is well tradition though, so we packed into a rental car and headed up Interstate 5 to the next best thing, a Mariners game at SafeCo Field.

Day 2

We kind of got a late start on the day due to some over indulging the night before but on the way to the game we stopped at a couple of places that were quite memorable. The first stop was in Olympia Washington at the Fish Tale Brewing Company. Fish Tale Brewing prides itself for fully supporting the local organic farmers and buy all of their ingredients from them. I believe their Mudshark Porter was my favorite and as I recall the rest of their beers were very solid as they are in the heart of Cascadian Hop country. It was lunch time already and the food was also very good. The next stop was alluded to in a Random Thoughts post. I'm not sure about the brewers at this establishment but at least the owners liked what they brewed. The building was very cool but the beers were not quite average. I think we all headed back to the minivan after our sampler trays. We found our way through downtown Seattle and dropped off the minivan at the hotel so that our faithful DD would not have to navigate his way through the game day traffic. After checking in, we piled into a couple of cabs and headed off to the game.

Since there were 6 of us on BT IV we had to split up into 2 cabs and I'm not sure what got into the cabbies heads as we made our way towards Safeco Field. They appeared to be racing except that just about everybody in town was converging on the Seattle Sports Complex. Although there were short bursts of speed on cross streets, the merges into the virtual parking lot of the collector streets was a big equalizer. Our cabbie tried another short cut down past Pikes Place Market but wound up having to circle back due to streets being closed for the game traffic. We eventually hooked up with the rest of our group at the Pyramid Alehouse (conveniently right across the street from Safeco). Well the alehouse itself was packed so tight we couldn't find enough room for all 6 of us so we just hung out in the beer garden for a sampling of their offerings. Ok it was more than just a sampling as it was still an hour before game time and we all needed to flush the taste of our last sampler trays. Unfortunately they were catering to the game crowd so the beer garden only had their most popular brews on tap. However it was a vast improvement and all of us were satisfied before we stumbled across the street to the game.

Well it had been a while since I have been to a MLB game as I kind of lost interest during the strike era but what a great stadium to rekindle some interest. OK the interest was not really in the MLB but in the excellent selections offered by the concession vendors. I've never seen a selection like that at a stadium without having to retreat to my tailgate. There were many micro brews represented such as Red Hook, Alaskan, New Belgium and of course Pyramid. The food selection was also outstanding. There were all of the standard ball park fare but just about anything you could have a craving for was represented from garlic fries and deep fried Twinkies to Asian stir fry or sushi just a short stroll along the concourse. However, beer and baseball were what we were there for and we were not disappointed. The variety of beers being hawked by the vendors walking the stands brought back vague memories from my childhood of an uncle from St Louis shooing away the guys hawking Iron City Beer or Rolling Rock when we took him to a Cardinals game at Pittsburgh. He kept complaining that Auggie Busch should have pulled some strings to get their swill distributed since the Cardinals were in town. I think he eventually settled for a Pabst Blue Ribbon which oddly enough I believe was available at SafeCo too. The only negative on this stadium is that you could get a 12pk of PBR or a micro brew 6pk for the price of 1 beer respectively at any liquor store. The Mariners trounced the Indians so the local crowd was quite happy and we still had to struggle to find a table at a bar on the way back to the hotel where we feebly tried to up our brewery/pub count. I can't recall what the name of the place was but all they had on tap or bottled was pretty much the same as what we had at SafeCo Field. Alas, day 2 of BT IV was a meager count of just 5 but I guess that was not too bad considering we traveled most of the day again and hit a MLB game.

Day 3

I woke the next morning with great anxiety because the plan was for another long travel day. I was feeling mislead by the maps promising 43 breweries or pubs in Portland and 16 in Seattle. It wasn't that we had not had plenty of beer so far and most of it very good beer. It just was that I was expecting to visit more of these breweries, seriously evaluating their beers and the trip was nearly half way through. However, the pot-o-gold at the end of this day was to be Rogue Brewery in Newport Oregon. Andy and I ventured out early on foot to find something to calm our nerves as we waited for the rest of the crew to drag themselves out of bed. Since we do have a fondness for supporting the micro vs. macro establishments, we skipped the big local franchise for our coffee and happened upon a great little place called the Top Pot on 5th Ave for our morning brew fix. I know it is a little off topic but this place was awesome. They served a unique variety of donuts from the routine to the extraordinary, good coffee and had a semi-retro atmosphere most of which was due to the antique neon. After satiating our cravings for sugar and caffeine we loaded up the minivan and headed South Southwest.

On the way out to the coast we stopped in Corvallis, Oregon at a place called Block 15 Brewing Company. This was a very surprisingly good find. Everybody enjoyed all of their beers we sampled and the food was outstanding. They didn't really have any procedures setup for giving tours but when we told the waitress what we were doing she informed the brew master and he came out to BS with us for a while. Andy also convinced the waitress to get the chef to come out as she had created an excellent BBQ black bean chili and we wanted to thank her for this wonderful concoction. Unbeknown to Andy, the part time chef was virtually petrified when he asked to get a photo with her. We had to take several before the terror diminished from her eyes. The Belgium Ale and Cask Brown were superb and the IPA and Red deserve honorable mention. I never would have thought we would encounter the end of the rainbow so early on Day 3 as Block 15 certainly was a pot-o-gold find on the way to Newport.

We got to Newport just barely in time for the 3 PM tour at Rogue we were hoping to make. This was the first actual tour of any brewing facilities on BT IV and it was a pretty standard tour according to the veterans. However a good portion of the spiel focused on the owners’ reinvestment in the business. The facility was huge which I guess when you make such a good variety of product with the right supply and demand it is quite lucrative. The most surprising fact was how many other microbreweries from the area were acquired. I don't recall whether any samplers were available at the end but we did slip over to the hotel to check in before returning for dinner, which was followed by a whole lot of sampling. After all, the next closest brewery was 1.5 hours away and our DD was ready to catch up after only a few sips at lunch. Fortunately the hotel was a reasonable distance from the brewery and in keeping with a BT IV tradition we walked back over to Rogue. From what I can remember dinner was good but the number of taps at the bar was incredible. We started slow on the samplers with the good intention of trying to find the best they had on tap. The owners seem to be pretty adamant that each of the acquired breweries retain their individuality. Therefore they had about 50 taps so each of the creations and experimentations that the brew masters concocted at the acquired locations could showcase their talent here. After sampling so many it is difficult to recall without having taken notes but I think there was definitely some distinction between each corresponding style from the Rogue, Eugene (Track Town) and Issaquah brewery variations. Unfortunately I don’t think anybody could determine the best as everything we tried was great. Also we were on vacation in a small coastal town with not much else to do so we kept the beer flowing. The bartenders were lively and provided plenty of banter to keep all of the customers happy until last call. And so our day came to an end and the count was only increased by 2 more breweries/pubs. But what a day we had, a couple of rainbows, each of them offering their pots of gold.

Well the day almost ended, some of us were pretty wound up and decided to head down to the hotel pool and hot tub to soak our aching bones from the long ride and crowded benches of the tasting room. It was a nice relaxing end to the day albeit with a similar distraction to that of BT IV day one. It turned out that there was a bachelorette party in one of the suites and the bride and 4 of her friends came down and joined us in the hot tub. We did our best to play it cool and ignore them. Eventually they initiated a little innocent flirting. They were impressed by the fact that the sole purpose of our trip to the area was Beer Trip IV and that we all could find the vacation time to dedicate to this endeavor. The red head seemed to be interested in something more than conversation but alas most of us were happily married. So we congratulated the bride for her upcoming nuptials and bid the group farewell as they decided to head to the local maid of honor's house to find some more liquor. The bride graciously invited us to attend the wedding the next day but we declined because we were planning on having breakfast up the coast in Pacific City.

Day 4

Dawn arrived quite a bit earlier than we desired but we were all loaded up in a reasonably good time for the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. What a beautiful, rugged section of coast. I'm much more acquainted with coasts having barrier islands like the Outer Banks or South Padre. The northwest coast is not near as pleasant for water sports or people watching but the scenery is still breath taking. We made good time on this leg and arrived in Pacific City a little early for the 8 AM breakfast start at the Pelican Pub and Brewery. No worries though as this awesome brewpub is right on the beach and we were entertained by some of the locals trying to finish last minute preparations on their parade vehicles for a local festival. We wandered around for a little bit before heading in for a breakfast that can't be beat. I ordered up a great hangover cure of biscuits and gravy with a couple eggs as well as a pint of Tsunami Stout to chase it down. We all sampled most of their beers and I don't think anyone was disappointed because we headed out front to the gift shop and bought a couple of cases of bombers between all of us. Then we walked out on the beach and waded out to a sand bar at low tide since some of the crew had never been to the Pacific Ocean before. As I said the scenery is great and the brewery gets its name from a very large rock out cropping in the bay that looks like a pelican sitting on the water, reaching its bill in for a bite of fish. After a few pics to commemorate the occasion we loaded up to get back to the task of our 40 remaining breweries/pubs in the Portland metro area.

Well as nice as the Pacific Coast is when you are driving along it, the problem always arises when you are headed back east to the valleys where the large metro areas lie. There is no decent road that runs between Pacific City and Portland. This leg of the trip was excruciatingly painful with countless hairpin switchbacks, loose gravel, road construction and a couple of guys that get car sick very easily. Due to that problem as well as an issue with extremely small bladders our fearless (I hoped) driver was constantly on the lookout for wider spots in the road and quickly maneuvered on to them whenever the need to stop arose. Eventually we did make it back to more civilized roads and since this was the final day with the rental minivan we stopped at John's Market to stock up on whatever packaged microbrews we thought we could get into our luggage. We each grabbed a cart and dashed towards the back, giddy with excitement as we thought we had reached nirvana. Seriously the selection was incredible and as we browsed the aisles snatching a bottle here a bomber there trying to maximize the variety of quality beers we would be packing into our precious space, the curiosity of the staff was aroused. These guys were very knowledgeable about the distribution zones for the local products and really helped steer us to some excellent beers that were not available in the Midwest. They even pulled a case of bombers of a limited release stout they were reserving for preferred customers out of a storeroom for us. We strolled out with quite a haul and had to redistribute almost all of our other luggage to our laps for the remainder of the trip to the hotel. Now I know what you are saying. Here it is most of the way through day 4 and we had only been to about 11 or so breweries/pubs and barely touched that lofty goal of 43 locations in Portland. Keep an eye out for the conclusion of BT IV.

Rob

Beer Trip III-Part Two

2009-07-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's taken so long for the rest of the Beer Trip III. Here you go. Hope you enjoy and please comment.

Day Three

The next day we set out early for our first destination of the day, Arbor Brewing in Ann Arbor, MI. College towns are always cool and Ann Arbor didn’t disappoint. Arbor had some great brews and a nice bar and restaurant in an area not far from campus. From there it was on to Kuhnhenn Brewing in Warren, MI. This is the closest I’ve ever been to Detroit, and it was close enough. All I know about Detroit is what I saw in RoboCop as a kid, and that’s some scary shit! Kuhnhenn was located in what looked like an industrial area and I wasn’t expecting much. We were all pleasantly surprised though and they had some fantastic beers and had some cool people there.

Next on the tour was Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, MI. It felt like this place was out in the middle of nowhere. The building itself was really impressive with a big entrance into a reception area. Off to one side were offices and the other a huge tasting room. The brewery was through some doors on the backside of the building. We met our tour guide and went through some doors into the lab type area where they handle the yeast strains and the sort. They gave us leis w/ Michigan Brewing Co logo tags on them. We did our brewery tour and headed to the tasting room. They had several beers on tap and the place, to sound douchey, was hoppin’. There was this hippie-type couple singing songs with an acoustic guitar. They were really fun though and we hung out there for quite awhile. At one point I was talking to the brewer and telling him how amazing their Pumpkin Ale is, and he said to hold on, he’d be right back. He came back with a case of low/high fills for us. Surprisingly I didn’t hug him in my drunken state. That was way cool of him, but he knew who we are.

From there on to Founders in Grand Rapids, MI, the cultural center of America (inside joke, sorry). We were all feeling pretty good with the exception of our DD, Jerry. Founders has fantastic beers, and the Kentucky Breakfast is probably in my top 10 beers. We tried to get growlers of it, but they wanted like $70 for one so that was a no-go. Oh well, it was still great to have it there. Founders is also where we first met Mr. and Mrs. Cock-knocker. The name will be explained shortly. They were locals and enjoyed having a good time to say the least. They said they’d meet us at out next stop; we kinda laughed it off and went on to New Holland, MI. This is where the “incident” occurred we blogged about earlier.

Holland Brewing Company was very modern, very nice, and almost pretentious. They do make excellent beers though and we enjoyed them greatly. We were shocked to find Mr. and Mrs. Cock-knocker did actually drive to New Holland to party with us and brought their friend, the ginger Amazon. Chick towered over all of us. Now, I started calling the wife Cock-knocker because she was a fan of….well…she liked to smack, grab, reach for, etc, the “fellas.” Constantly. Her poor husband just accepted it I guess. I think she got us all. Dan claims she never grabbed him, but I can’t imagine she missed anyone. She did make the night funnier and her cuckhold of a husband was cool. From there I think we went to a bar across the street, but it’s hazy and then back to the hotel where we all collapsed from drinking.

Day Four

We started the day a little later this time and headed to Kalamazoo, MI to visit one of my favorite breweries, Bell’s. Kalamazoo is an eccentric town, so Bell’s Eccentric Café is a fitting name for their bar. I was bummed they didn’t have beers on tap unique to the brewery, but you can’t complain when you’re getting Two Hearted and Expedition on tap. The brewery was a trip, and had some crazy art and sculptures around. Very cool place and definitely worth the stop.

From there it was on to Arcadia Brewing in Battle Creek, MI. I really wanted to tour the Kellogg factory, but alas, no such luck. Someday Tony the Tiger mascot, I will meet you! Arcadia wasn’t able to set us up a tour in advance because they were getting ready for the Michigan Brewing Festival. So we expected to just go, have some samplers and then move on. While we were there though, the bartender was talking to us and found out what we were doing. Dan was talking to him about their beers and said, “I like your flagship beers, but your big beers are phenomenal.” As he said that, head brewer Bryan Wiggs came by and heard him. He started asking us which of the bigger beers we liked best, with almost all of us saying Shipwreck Porter. He then took us on a private tour where he let us climb up and look into the open fermenters, very in-depth stuff. We get back to the bar and he said he’d be right back and went downstairs and comes back up with some seasonals that weren’t available yet because they were still aging, as well as a couple of bottles of two-year old Shipwreck Porter. He opened them up, shared them with us, and hung out talking beer. Very cool experience. He’s at Dark Horse now, and brewing excellent beers for them. Oh, and the bartender had a signed bomber of their Big Dick’s Olde Ale that he let me buy from him! Great time and Kelly and Rob have actually gone back to volunteer there to help them bottle.

From there we went to Benton Harbor, MI to try out the Livery. Benton Harbor is, to be PC, “economically depressed.” It was sad. Talking to the people there most of the population reads at a 4th grade level and unemployment is rampant. This is before the current recession, btw. To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the Livery, but their beers were really good. Definitely stop by there if you’re in the greater Benton Harbor area. As a funny side note, I’m sitting there drinking and some dude at the bar keeps looking over at me. I’m pretty hot, so I’m used to this, but this was different. He comes over and goes “Did you go to Olathe North?” And it hit me. This was a dude I graduated from high school with! Who now lives and works in Benton Harbor. Small-ass world out there, luckily this was a rare friend from high school and I enjoyed getting to see him. We left the paradise of Benton Harbor and drove on to Munster, IN and the famous (at least to beer dorks) Three Floyd’s Brewing. We ate dinner there and bought an obscene amount of their beers to take home since we can’t get them in the KC metro. It was really crowded there so we honestly didn’t stick around too long. We bought a lot and left after we ate. From there was our last stop of the day, Flossmoor Station in Flossmoor, IL. This was in the Chicago ‘burbs and was more restaurant than brewery. Really good beers though, and they didn’t kick us out when Dan grabbed the microphone when the band was on break and started talking and I believe singing. Yeah, we’re that cool.

Day 5

We set out on our final day of BT III. There always seems to be a cloud over day five. Most of us ‘cuz we’re upset it’s almost over, some ‘cuz they’ve been away from their families too long, generally not the best day of the Trip. Our first stop was a few hours down the road at Old Capitol Brew Works and Public House in Iowa City, IA. Located not far from the famous John’s Grocery Store it too was in an old building in a college town. Decent beers, but samplers were in plastic cups which was odd to me.

We made a stop at John’s Grocery store to check out their beer selection and pick some up that we weren’t able to get elsewhere on the trip.
Next stop was the Amana Colonies, IA and Millstream Brewing, the oldest brewery in Iowa. It’s located in an Amish village and looks almost like an old school house. Beers were good, and they had a great set up where you could get your beer and sit out on a front porch or in a gazebo. Our last stop was kind of a downer. It was the chain brewery/restaurant Rock Bottom in West Des Moines, IA. They’re ok, but you don’t go there for great beers. But a brewery is a brewery, and it added a stop before going home. Nothing stood out there really, pretty much all middle of the road stuff. We headed back home to KC, and pulled into town just as a huge storm hit our convertible EM-50. Luckily Dan has huge oak trees over his drive and we were somewhat covered while Kelly re-patched what had blown off on the highway. We were all soaked trying to get our hauls sorted and into our respective cars. We wrapped it up and another Beer Trip was in the books.

-Timmy

Beer Trip V Tentative Schedule

2009-07-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here it is, for those wanting to know:

Tuesday, July 28th

11:45 AM –Mattingly Brewing Company in St. Louis, MO.
4:00 PM – Illinois Brewing Company in Bloomington, IL.
5:15 PM – Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works in Normal, IL.
9:15 PM – Carlyle Brewing Company in Rockford, IL.

Wednesday, July 29th

10:00 AM – New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, WI.
11:45 AM – Great Dane Brewing Company in Madison, WI.
2:00 PM – Tyranena Brewing Company in Lake Mills, WI.
4:00 PM – Sprecher Brewing Company in Glendale, WI.
5:45 PM – Miller Park for Brewers game.

Thursday, July 30th

11:00 AM – Milwaukee Ale House in Milwaukee, WI.
1:45 PM – Hops Haven Brew Haus in Sheboygan, WI.
4:00 PM – The Courthouse Pub in Manitowoc, WI.
6:00 PM – Titletown Brewing Company in Green Bay, WI.
8:15 PM – Stone Cellar Brewpub in Appleton, WI.

Friday, July 31st

9:00 AM – O’so Brewing Company in Plover, WI.
11:00 AM – Red Eye Brewing Company in Wausau, WI.
2:45 PM – Das Bierhaus in Menomonie, WI.
5:30 PM – Surly Brewing Company in Brooklyn Center, MN.
8:15 PM – Barley John’s Brewpub in New Brighton, MN.

Saturday, August 1st

10:30 AM – Summit Brewing Company in St. Paul, MN.
12:00 PM – Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis, MN.
3:30 PM – Worth Brewing Company in Northwood, IA.
7:00 PM – Raccoon River Brewing Company in Des Moines, IA.

Potential stops

Horny Goat Brewing Company in Milwaukee, WI on Thursday morning.
Flat Earth Brewing Company in St. Paul, MN on Friday afternoon.
Rush River Brewing Company in River Falls, WI on Friday afternoon.

Cheers!

Dan

Beer Trip III- Part 1

2009-07-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Beer Trip III was July 25-29, 2007. This trip was the second with the EM-50 and would take us east this time. The trip started out with a black cloud over it, as our founder and leader, Dan, was sick beyond belief when we rolled out of Overland Park. The trip this time had me, Dan, Andy, Jerry, and new inductees Kelly and Ed.

Day One:
Our first stop was across Missouri to O’Fallon Brewing Company in, you guessed, O’Fallon, MO. We arrived a little before 11AM for our tour and tasting. Our tour guide was Fran Caradonna, co-owner with her husband Tony, and she could not have treated us better. Small, but definitely growing operation.
From there it was on to Schlafly’s Taproom in St. Louis. Great food and great beers as expected. Dan had a sickness spell, but being a trooper, he soldiered on. No tour there as it’s their brewpub as opposed to the brewery itself. We enjoyed several great brews before heading out to Evansville, IN to Turoni’s Pizzery and Brewery for dinner. We arrived about 5PM and Dan immediately went to use the facilities. The rest of us sat around feeling horrible that he was so sick. We ate and tried a few beers and decided to get going on to our final destination of the day, Louisville, KY.

We arrived in Louisville pretty late due to the time change from Central Time to Eastern Time. We checked into our hotel which was way nicer than expected, a high rise in downtown Louisville. We decided to just hit Bluegrass Brewing Company since it was late. The cab ride there was terrifying on the way there. I’d expect that in Chicago or another huge city, but we were flying through Louisville like we were being chased by cops. We managed to safely arrive despite the ride over. We were split into two cabs, and the other half had a similar experience. Have to say BBC was an awesome place. I wasn’t expecting much, but it blew me away. The beers lived up to the reputation and were great. But the atmosphere itself made it all the better. Basically they had open jam sessions where people bring their guitars and jam out on the patio. The crowds were crazy as well, and that just added to the fun. After that we cabbed it back to downtown and crashed to rest up for the next day.

Day Two:
The next morning we were up early and ready to start heading north into Ohio. Our first stop was Cincinnati and BarrelHouse Brewing. The brewer treated us great and took us all through the operation. We all know the process very well, but it’s always fun to see at the same time. We all bought a case of bombers, and loaded up for the traditional Brewers game over at Great American Ball Park. The game was a loss, so we’ll move on, except to say they did offer some beers besides Bud/Miller/Coors at the stadium.

Next was Columbus and Barley’s Brewing. This is the point Dan seemed to be at his sickest. He looked awful and spent most of the time in the restroom. Surprisingly good brews and food, although Dan still being sick was a huge bummer. We headed on out for Cleveland, hoping for a leader that felt better and good times. Like all things though, it must get worse before it can better.
We arrived in Cleveland after dark and headed to the downtown Holiday Inn. We passed an exit for Parma en route, and I being drunk had spent the whole time singing “Moon Over Parma” from the Drew Carey Show. Surprised no one punched me. There were huge crowds in the lobby, and something felt off. I go to check in as the rooms were under my name. I stood in line for probably a half hour before getting to the counter. I give her my confirmation info and found out they had overbooked the hotel and we had no rooms. They had a Postal Service convention in town, and they took all the rooms. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, we were sent a half hour south to another Holiday Inn out in the suburbs. No apologies and acted like we should be grateful they did that for us. We decided to hit Great Lakes Brewery before going to the hotel since they were on the way. Great Lakes was in a great area of Cleveland and had a cool set up. The manager couldn’t have treated us better, as he took Dan (who finally was feeling better) and Andy to the already-closed-for-the-night gift shop and gave them a GLBC banner and some free schwag. They let us hang out for a bit even after they closed, giving us a couple of pitchers of whatever we wanted. Ed was cool enough to drive for us so I could drink away my frustration with Holiday Inn and the rest could live it up. We drove out to the ‘burbs and checked in to the hotel and passed out, not suspecting the next day would be one of the most memorable in Beer Trip history….

-Tim

"Bill Clinton" and Tasing

2009-07-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, one of the best days of any of the Beer Trips was Day Two of Beer Trip 3.5. Day One was a good day, as Andy, Ed, Jerry, Kelly, Tim, and I went to a couple of places in Springfield, MO. We had lunch at Springfield Brewing Company, who were kind enough to let us in early and label our tab as “Drunk Early Guys” on the bill. After lunch, we headed over to the now-defunct Hickok’s Steakhouse for a sampler of their beers, which were nice enough. After that, we left Springfield and headed to Bootlegger’s in Aurora for another round of samplers. The day ended with us in Little Rock, having dinner at Bosco’s before walking over to end the night at the Flying Saucer for some quality brews.

But really, Day Two is what made the trip. We started out going over to Vino’s for some of their pizza and beers. Really, really good pizza, and even better beers. The place itself is a grungy building with the pizza joint and brewpub up front, and a rock stage in back. I keep telling my brother-in-law that his band needs to play there, because I imagine they have some pretty good crowds there. After that, I had scheduled a tour with Diamond Bear, not only for Beer Trip, but because I was writing an article and would be discussing them. Whenever I schedule private tours, I am usually a little weary about how they will turn out. I don’t know why, but I am.

Well, Diamond Bear ended up being one of my favorite brewery stops in my life. Our tour guide was Russ Melton, the president and owner of Diamond Bear. When we arrived, he gave each of us a pint glass to keep, and he filled them up with some of their tasty brews while he just chatted with us. Russ was one of the friendliest and entertaining people I have ever met. He treated us so well, and even did his Bill Clinton impression (the best I had ever heard, including Phil Hartman). He took the six of us all around the brewery, chatting away and really just acting like one of the crew. I am really glad that Ed was driving, because the beers kept coming, and I wasn’t refusing them. Eventually, we had to leave because we had another stop before heading home. I got some nice quotes for my article, but more importantly, we all got to hang out with Russ, have some awesome beers, and have a tour that we’d never forget.

Normally, the Diamond Bear tour would have been the most memorable part of a Beer Trip, yet it ended up not even being the most memorably part of the day. Our next and final stop would be in Fayetteville, where we were meeting our good pals, Brett and Hannah, at Hog Haus for dinner and beers. We got to town, and it was a Saturday with a home University of Arkansas basketball game, so the town seemed to be jumping a little. We had to park in a lot pretty far away, and then we made the way towards the brewpub. Tim and I both have small bladders (although mine not as bad as his), so we were leading the pack. The other four were all behind us. As we walked around a building, some dude (known here on out as “Dude”) ran past us like he was being chased. Sure enough, he was, as two cops were running after him. We turned and laughed, and I jokingly said to Tim, “Don’t tase me bro!” Within two seconds, dude had two red dots on his back as one of the cops yells, “Freeze!” like in a 1970s cop show. Dude should have stopped. POW! He got tased, and dropped like a rock. Fittingly, he fell face first into a rock and was out cold. The ambulance came to take him away, but Jerry made sure to go around the area and take some good pics.

After that, we met Brett and Hannah, and I remember having a good time and some tasty beers with them. I love Brett and Hannah, two of the best people I’ve met. I only wish I would have remembered more, but the combination of Vino’s and Diamond Bear before we met them made the rest of the night a little foggy. But I’m sure it was fun for all. We left Fayetteville, and I promptly fell asleep in the back of Ed’s van while Ed drove. That pretty much sums up why Ed is the most popular guy among the Beer Trip crew.

Your pal,
Dan

Beer Trip Crew Presents "Their Dirt"

2009-07-09T14:06:00.001-07:00

For those of you who know me, you know that my favorite book of all time is Motley Crue’s The Dirt. If you don’t know The Dirt, it is an account of the band’s rise to the top of the world of rock and roll, and the trials and tribulations they encountered along the way. It is written by the members of the band themselves, and the stories are told with the different guys in the band giving their recollection of the events. Andy thought that for this blog, it would be cool to do a The Dirt-style recap of the most famous Beer Trip incident, the time that Jerry smashed the RV into the hotel. So for those confused by Ed’s poem, read this and then go back and read his.

Tim

The 27th of July started out pretty average. The night before had been a pain due to hotel issues, but I was looking forward to a fresh day. We were hitting some cool places, so I was ready to get going. Jerry had gotten destroyed the night before since that day would be his day to be sober and drive us around. Never the best day for that person, but it has to be done. Unfortunately for Jerry, he was going to have the worst designated driver day in BT history.

Kelly

The day of beer touring went as usual, and we were on schedule.

Dan

Day Three of Beer Trip III was pretty typical. We woke up in Cleveland, had lunch and samples at Arbor Brewing, more samples at Kuhnhenn, even more samples, some peanuts, and a mini-tour at the Michigan Brewing Company, and then more beer at Founders in Grand Rapids. So far, so good (especially after spending the first two days as sick as I have ever felt in a long time, and not even because of beer), and the designated driver that day was the guy who knows and cares more about cars than anyone I know, Jerry.

Jerry

So as a second year veteran of navigating the RV, I was feeling cocky. All the fellas appreciated the grace-like skills I had with the beast, and at this point I felt like a rock star. That is...until the "mishap".

Kelly

For me the memory starts with our fearless leader (let’s call him Dan) climbing up the ladder to the top of our rolling oasis – his parents’ RV. Seeing his ascension to the top, I grew concerned that something may be wrong with the RV. Once on the roof, he quickly started goofing around…. Surfing and the like. Soon Andy was rooting “Go Teen Wolf!!” This joyous occasion, turned quite different the next time Dan climbed those stairs.

The EM-50 only a few short hours before the "incident"
Andy

We had a great day, we had been to four really great breweries, we were on a roll, and couldn’t wait to “hit” New Holland. Jerry, who prides himself on being a fantastic driver, as he should, chose to be the DD that day. We decided we’re going to check into the hotel before we head to New Holland Brewing Company.

Tim

We made it through most of the day without any incidents. We were having a blast at Michigan Brewing Company that afternoon. They had a great tasting room and there was a crazy hippie couple playing music. We then drove over to Founders and had even more amazing beers. Met some funny/insane people, and from there we were going 30 minutes down the road to Holland, MI.

Dan

Just so you know, when I am not driving during Beer Trip, I am in the front passenger seat because I get motion sickness. Doctors won’t prescribe Dramamine for Beer Trips, those jerks! So I am sitting in the front of the car, and our best driver is leading us in to the Country Inn in Holland.

Jerry

Dan had brought the Garmin this year and it was working like a charm....everyone was laughing, being silly, and ready to drop the luggage off and hit up the local bars with our new beer friends we had just met. When I pulled around to the front of the hotel, I noticed the "home feel" it had with a front porch and a few people sitting in rocking chairs enjoying the beautiful evening. I set my eyes on the front door of the hotel to properly line up the RV door with it for easy access for the fellas, and then it happened. The sound of the hotel awning ripping into our beloved RV sounded like the Hiroshima bomb had went off. Slow-motion ensued, and as I hit the brakes I look over at Dan, and we are both ducking and looking up. Before we could get stopped, I feel the RV suspension load up from the pressure of the hotel roof. The sky light explodes, I see daylight out the top, and finally, as icing on the cake, when I do completely stop, I finally hear the AC unit drop off the back of the rig.

Dan

Keep in mind, we had just left Founders, and they had their Kentucky Breakfast Stout on tap, one of the best beers you will ever have. Also, it tips in at over 11% ABV. So Jerry pulls up to the overhang, I realize what is about to happen, yet I am speechless. I have no idea why, but everything is in slow motion as the top of the EM-50 smashes into the hotel and I don’t make a sound.

Andy

I know I’m sitting in the middle of the bench behind Dan. We’re just bullshitting with each other when out of nowhere this very loud cracking/popping sound erupts, and then plastic pieces begin to rain down. The cracking and popping continues for all of milliseconds. I think we all realize at the exact same time what had just happened.

Tim

Things get fuzzy for me at this point. It went from all of us talking and being happy as hell to a loud noise, stuff falling on us, and then silence. I was sitting in back on the passenger side on the bench facing the driver’s side. I remember the vent in the center had fallen to the floor, and I got up and thought picking it up and holding it to the ceiling would fix it or make what just happened not so bad. Jerry and Dan were up front and the only memory I have is both of them sitting in silence looking straight ahead.

Kelly

I was in the rear with the gear, and did not see the hotel, nor the low overhanging “A” frame entrance. It started with an unusual sound – that of bending and snapping metal. Then a small snap, and then the sound of air pressure being released simultaneously with a few more plastic snaps. To this point, there was only the sound of a collision, yet no feeling of impact or even stopping… it took several seconds for the catlike ninja reaction time of our driver to stop our traveling beer bus. Now remember, that most of us were not driving, therefore sobriety after four brewery stops was not possible. I looked up and found a new skylight where the rooftop air conditioning unit was.

Andy

I was the first one out of the back of the now damaged EM-50, and what I noticed first was Dan’s face in the rearview mirror. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes were open but I’m sure he couldn’t tell you what he was seeing. It was the most deer-in-the-headlights look I have ever seen on another human being.

Kelly

All thoughts come back to our leader – you remember Dan right?? -- We just wrecked his father’s pride and joy. His face showed no emotion. This seemed like a poker game, and we just met the master of the table.

Tim

I get out, and there’s a loud hissing noise, a weird smell, and some giggly girls hanging out of one window of the hotel pointing. I finally see what had happened. Behind us lay the A/C unit, hoses spraying air, liquid...I don’t remember exactly. I was numb. Those little awnings are amazingly strong. It scraped the top off pretty cleanly. I turn towards the front, and I see in the rearview mirror, Dan still sitting, staring straight ahead wide-eyed. I went over, opened the door, and got a “Just leave me alone.” I understood, shut the door, and walked back to help pick up the debris.

Kelly

Typically when you look at a road-side hotel, you see shades covering the windows of every room. This time, all I could see were faces peering out to see what just happened. Still peering out above the RV deck, I turned toward the back of the RV and saw that almost the entire vehicle had passed under the A-frame before stopping, and there was about ¼ inch of room between the top deck of the RV and the frame of the overhang. Everything on the top deck was missing. The antenna, the A/C, the skylights that bubble up about one-inch from the deck, the ladder…all were gone. It was as if a giant Tiger Woods swung a big stick and cleared everything off the RV.

Jerry

Cursing starts to ensue on the fact of "Did this REALLY just happen?!?!?" We all get out and assess the damage. It's not good! As stated, the skylight and AC are no longer. The upper luggage rack and ladder to the roof are in shambles, and I am pretty sure the RV roof leaks. There were some young teenage girls in their room a couple flights up that opened the window and laughed (loudly I might add) for the next ten minutes.....and I could have slowly killed each of them for that!

Andy

We all empty out of the EM-50, and an old geezer says something like, “Gonna have to let the air out of the tires to back that out.” I looked at him and promptly ignored his advice. There were enough fatties to jump on the back bumper and have Jerry back out. What I remember seeing next was shear and unbelievable amazement. We could literally fix the damage done to the hotel with a thimble full of grey paint!!! We couldn’t have been more lucky, and the MOD of the hotel couldn’t have been cooler. He was all of 20, and he looks at me and says, “As far as I’m concerned, this didn’t happen. And there is a janitor’s closet at the end of the hall where your room is at, so help yourself to whatever you need to fix your RV.”

Tim

The manager at the Country Inn was very cool and got us trash bags to help clean it up. Not much damage to the awning except some scrape marks. I honestly have no memory of what everyone was doing. I remember Jerry walking out to the middle of the huge parking lot by himself. Dan had to call and tell his parents we just crashed their RV into a hotel awning. We loaded the A/C unit into the storage compartment on the side, taped up the gaping hole in the roof, and locked it up.

Dan

Calling my dad up was odd. I mean, they lent us their RV for the trip, and we (the Beer Trip crew, not just Jerry) had damaged it. I told my dad what happened, and all he said was, “Is everyone okay? Good. Well, patch it up as you need to, have fun the rest of the trip, and we’ll take care of it when you get back. That’s why we have insurance.” Once I heard that, there was relief. And honestly, I should have expected that to be his response, but I still needed to hear it. Especially after two days of being every kind of sick possible and not being able to keep anything in my body, I didn’t want a damaged RV to keep me from having more than a half a day of fun on Beer Trip.

Andy

As Jerry and Dan drive off to park the RV, Ed and I proceed to die laughing because we had been holding it in for Dan’s sake. But holy crap was that some extremely funny stuff!

Jerry

After Dan talked with his dad to let him know what just happened, the teamwork and camaraderie of the Beer Trip fellas kicked in. Everyone pitched in to patch up the RV, put the broken pieces in the RV, and try to comfort my busted ego.

Kelly

I jumped into problem solver mode – trying to take care of the RV for the night – hoping that Dan would play his card, and let us in to his thoughts. We grabbed tape and plastic and covered all the holes in case it rained for the night, threw the A/C into the storage compartment. Dan climbed the stairs to look at the damage.

Kelly fixing 'er up

Damage done
Tim

At some point, Dan came out of his understandable stupor, and he was soon chasing Jerry around the parking lot trying to hug him to show no hard feelings.

Kelly

I don’t remember Dan’s words, but the message heard was – “It happened – no reason to stop now.”

The show must go on.

Andy

We actually had a great night of continued beer consumption.

Tim

We went on to New Holland Brewing after all of that and drowned our sorrows. We had some fun with our now convertible roof the rest of the trip. And of course, it’s given us a story that everyone, except Jerry, gets a great laugh out of.

Dan

We really needed some beers at the end of that day, and New Holland was just the place to get them!

Ed sticking his head out of our new sun roof

A Roof Poem by Ed

2009-07-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

She drives like a car but her roof is tall,
that's when the plastic started to fall.
The skylights, the rails, the cabin AC,
freon blowing about precariously.
What had happened, what could it have been?
We are now wedged under the awning of the 5 star Country Inn,
Gasps of guests, 17 year old girls laugh'in
and the infamous quote "dude, that just happened".

Trying to keep Jerry from coming apart,
Kelly is off to the local Walmart.
Tape and plastic wrap to hold her together,
no one would expect the the grand finale of weather.

Before that story there is more to this tale,
stories of porters, stouts and India pale ales.
Awesome places like Arcadia, Michigan Brewing,
3 Floyd's and O'Fallon.
Could it all be ruined by this set back, this challenge?
The solution was easy to get Jerry back on track,
fill him with beer, no less than a 6 pack.

The trip will continue, we will carry on,
free from the burden of sky lights, the AC gone.
The temp it climbed in the last couple days,
sun blazing down its unmerciful rays.

As we continued to more and more places,
the smiles started to return to our faces.
Forgotten were the problems of the Country Inn,
sticking our heads out where skylights had been.

In the final miles the storm let loose its fury,
we tried to unload the RV in a hurry.
To wrap this up the trip was nifty,
the beer trip when Jerry tried to
make a convertible out of the EM-50.

Random Beer Trips Thoughts

2009-07-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about Beer Trip, and some random thoughts were in my head:

We’ve been to a brewery/brewpub that starts with every letter of the alphabet except Q, X, Y, and Z, and that is something we have to work at.

Holy crap was I sick during the beginning of Beer Trip III (pun intended)!

Pictures of Timmy and statues make me giggle.

The morning of Day Two is always, without a doubt, the worst morning of the trip, especially for me. I believe I have thrown up on every morning of Day Two.

Ed is always the most popular guy among the BT crew during Beer Trip.

Kelly is always the most popular guy to those outside of the BT crew during Beer Trip. He is the “Guv’nuh of Michigan” to those in the know.

Seeing Jerry drunk on Beer Trip is one of the best things you will ever witness (see: Beer Trip II Day One postings).

Beer Trip experiences have almost made Andy cry on more than one occasion, but most notably New Belgium.

The RV only got in one wreck (which will be discussed later in a future blog).

We’ve met some really great people in the “industry of beer” during our Beer Trips, including Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog, Russ Melton of Diamond Bear, tour guide Matt at New Belgium, Bryan Wiggs of Arcadia (now at Dark Horse), the brewer at Capital who gave Timmy and I the Oktoberfest and Double Oktoberfest, Eric Marshall of Marshall Brewing, Mike Lalli of Choc, Hank and Steve Sanford of Hank is Wiser, Gerald Wyman of Liquid Bread, the brewers at Great Divide who gave us a case of low-fills/high-fills, the brewer at Jobber’s Canyon who gave us a round on him, the manager on duty at Great Lakes who gave us a banner, bottle openers, stickers, key chains, and a couple of pitchers and told us not to hurry after they closed down the rest of the brewpub for the night, and the Michigan Brewing Company brewer who gave us a case of low-filled pumpkin beers (loved especially by Ed). Comment, guys, if I’ve forgotten anyone.

There are also some really big tools at some of the places as well. This isn’t a site to slam places, but one quote we all enjoyed was “We like the beer we brew!” arrogantly said by the owner of a certain place, who also had a Mercedes 500sl with a license plate bracket that read, “My other car is….who the hell cares!” on it. The thing is, their beer was drinkable at best.

You’d never know it, but some of the best beer we’ve had was from places like Little Rock, Kearney, and Hays.

Beer Trip was the best idea I’ve ever come up with.

Cheers!
Dan

Beer Trip V is Shaping Up!

2009-07-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Dan here!

I just wanted to update everyone to let you know that so far, we have had some really positive responses from some of the breweries we've contacted about Beer Trip V (and some not as good, but I will keep that to myself). We have confirmed tours scheduled with O'so Brewing in Plover, WI, Sprecher Brewing in Glendale, WI, Surly Brewing in Brooklyn Center, MN, Summit Brewing in St. Paul, MN, and Tyranena Brewing in Lake Mills, WI, and we have a couple of other things shaping up (hopefully New Glarus and another Twin Cities or western Wisconsin brewery). We'll also be going to several brewpubs along the way, such as Mattingly's Brewpub in St. Louis, where our pal Drew is the head brewer, and scheduled stops in such places as Green Bay, Rockford, New Brighton, MN, and my son's favorite city in the world, Des Moines.

We are only three weeks away, so we'll keep you posted.

Cheers!
Dan

New photo site

2009-07-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful readers. To make you all more jealous, we've created a Flikr account with pics from Beer Trip. So far only BT I and II are up and we've maxed out the upload limit on free accounts. Once the corporate overlords release more funds on Friday the fee for unlimited uploads will be paid and later Beer Trips will be added. Enjoy and feel free to comment!

www.flickr.com/photos/beertrip

Ramblings from a Beer Trip Newbie re: BT IV day one

2009-07-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

So I was a little apprehensive about what to expect from a trip to the craft brewing heaven that is the pacific northwest with 4 beer geeks I barely new and a great friend who had introduced my taste buds to the joys of great micro brews merely a year or so before. The prior year I participated in my first RAGBRAI with a group who clearly loved alcohol but not the glorious tastes that can be provided by a good brew master. On RAGBRAI we drank the swill of the big 3 breweries all day and for the 360 miles I rode those 4 days I averaged 1 drink for every 3 miles with an average speed of 19 mph on the bicycle between each bar stop. I thought that if I could do that then how difficult would it be on my body to hit as many breweries in 5 days as possible so I accepted the offer to join Beer Trip IV. I was relieved to learn that due to the rental car contract I would not be required to take the wheel as the DD for a day and risk the humiliation of being hung over and having a minor mishap such as clearing the humble EM-50's roof of all accessories. However a week before departure I got a map from Andy identifying the locations of the 43 brew pubs just in Portland that we would be attempting to visit. Oh what did I get myself into!

Well the first day started out just as ridiculous as could be expected for a bunch of guys flying out on a trip to hit as many brewpubs as they could. Everyone in the group had at least one shipping container for beer as a checked bag on the return flight and some had several as they packed light enough to get all their clothes in their carry-on. All those years of tetris sure paid off as I was able to pack all of these boxes, luggage, carry-ons and 5 of us into my Tahoe. We were off to a good start fortified with round of Arcadia HopMouth IPA before sunrise @ 6:28 AM CDT. At the airport the flight was overbooked and another newbie and I elected to ease our way into the trip by taking the travel vouchers since we booked late and got ridiculously large voucher figures. We arrived in Portland 1.5 hours later than the veterans and found them well into their mugs at Widmer Brothers brewing. We were informed we had some catching up to do.

After a quick sampling of the veterans recommendations at Widmer we were off to explore the bounty of the area. Portland has an excellent public transportation system of which we had a brief exposure to in getting from the airport to our hotel for dropping off our luggage. However based upon the afore mentioned map and a trail type GPS with all breweries entered as way points we decided to walk the mile to the next closest brewery. Well the trail GPS measures in a straight line and unfortunately there were a couple of major highways in between, so the walk was a lot farther than we anticipated. Amnesia was certainly not trying to focus on appearances. The bar was just a counter in the front of a warehouse building with one table inside. Outside there were picnic tables under somewhat permanent tents in what used to be a parking lot. From the crowd of locals packing the picnic tables we assumed were in for a treat. We were not disappointed and definitely worth the walk! These brew masters certainly had their priorities straight. Every beer was outstanding but unfortunately no bottling operation. Of course there was a bus stop right in front and must of been a transfer point as there was a bus stopping every 6 minutes or so.

Nobody really wanted to leave Amnesia but we were on a mission and the next brewery was only .5 mile away so we headed north east to The Fifth Quadrant. We were a little wobbly and had yet to pick up any transit system maps so we hoofed it on over. A short cut down an alley brought us past a house party that was just setting up that we made note of to check out later on. The Quadrant was like most of the brew pub establishments that I had been to with the typical pub food that was good but with solid brews. Of course being in Portland the weather was nice and we chose a table in their patio area. Well I guess waiting til 10:00 PM PDT was a little late to have dinner with all the great beer we had been having so a few of the veterans called a cab to pack it in while the rest of us wandered back towards that house party. It was a 21st birthday party for one of the gals living there so we popped back over to grab a growler or two which turned out to be Mason jars just before last call. There was a nice fire pit and they were all very friendly even though we were at least a decade or 2 older then the median. It was a great way to wrap up day one of Beer Trip IV.

Rob

The First Point-Five Beer Trip: Beer Trip 2.5

2009-07-01T11:15:00.001-07:00

Beer Trip 2.5 was just something for us to do in February to get away from the hullabaloo that is the Kansas City metro area, but also it was to make a trip to South Dakota to mark that state off of Timmy’s, Andy/Caddy’s, and my list of states where we’ve been to and had a beer from. So the three of us, along with our little Omani friend, Fez, headed up I-29 on our quest for adventure. And what we expected to be mediocre beer.

We left in the morning on a Friday to go get some lunch and Weston Brewing Company beers at O’Malley’s in Weston, MO. It isn’t too far away from where we live, and I think we arrived just as they starting serving lunch. The first thing out of Fez’s mouth at O’Malley’s was, “Are we going to get appetizers?” which was also the first time I think Andy began to lose his patience with Fez, as he responded, “You’re a grown-ass man! Order whatever the hell you want!” After that dilemma, we each ordered a beer and our food, although to this day, I’m not sure what happened after the appetizer drama in terms of whether we ordered one or not. Which is odd because it was such a big issue at the time. As for the beer, well, they only had one at the time, a cream ale that was served on nitro. I like nitrogen served beers sometimes, but this was not a good decision in my opinion (notice how I didn’t say “in my humble opinion” since I am an arrogant jerk who isn’t humble?). We ate our meals, which I think were good, and went about our way. Then the fun really started!

About 20 miles outside of Weston, good old Fez said, “Are we stopping soon? I need to have some choc-o-late!” Oh hell no! Actually, I just laughed out loud (or LOL’d as the kids like to say and type) and said, “We’re not stopping until Omaha unless someone has to piss or we magically run out of gas.” Or something like that, at least. I think there was a little bit of whining about chocolate and whatever we were playing on the radio, but eventually we made it to our next stop, the now defunct Jobber’s Canyon Restaurant and Brewery in downtown Omaha. Once I parked, we got out and went in, where Andy and Tim both seemed rather displeased with our Middle Eastern pal. I, on the other hand, was fine because this was Beer Trip 2.5, and whining by others about minimal shit like chocolate and talk radio/music wasn’t gonna ruin my fun. Jobber’s Canyon was okay. I liked it more than the others, probably because I wasn’t in a bad mood and the owner/brewer came and sat with us and bought us a round of beers. We didn’t stay for too long as we had to head up to Watertown, South Dakota, and that, my pals, isn’t a short trip.

I don’t remember much about the drive to Watertown except South Dakota was chock full of casinos (even at gas stations), and that Sioux City, Iowa smelled like horse poop. And not the good horse poop like what I imagine Secretariat or Affirmed would have dumped, but more like what I imagine the horse poop from some poor horse pulling tourists around in a carriage around Central Park would smell like. Anyhoo, we got to Watertown, and as our luck would have it, the hotel shared a parking lot with Dempsey’s, the very brewpub we came to see!

Dempsey’s was a really cool place, to be honest. Their beers were all drinkable at worst and pretty nice at best, although nothing was blowing us away. They apparently had a casino in their basement, but I really have no idea why I didn’t go there. I think I was expecting to see some dungeon looking room like in “Rounders” where John Malkovich would intimidate me with Oreos and weird accented words in his sentences, so I stayed clear. The food was nice and the service was great, but the place was really loud. Some cover band playing Scorpions and Firehouse songs was playing about 20 yards from us, and while that normally is a treat cherished by all, it was a bit much at 747-like decibels. After our dinner, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before going to the hotel bar. This is where I finally joined Andy and Tim in their annoyance with Fez as he started to get ready for bed. It was around, I believe, 10 PM. On a Friday. In Watertown. South Dakota. On Beer Trip 2.5. I wasn’t having any part of that either, so we berated him until he finally gave in, which took us a lot longer than it should have. The highlight of the hotel bar, besides the usual horrible karaoke that can be expected at every hotel bar, was the fact that when it closed, they said we could by buckets of beer to go. I think this was around 3 AM or so, so naturally we weren’t done yet and ordered a bucket of five Miller Lites for $11, a bargain at any time of the day. We enjoyed our tasty beverages and fell asleep.

We awoke the next morning to see that a nice ice storm hit Watertown, the kind that makes it nearly impossible to get inside of the car to even start it up. With some help of the hotel neighbors, a group of Harley guys who we expected were getting to Sturgis really early for that summer’s celebration, we finally were able to get going. My navigation skills were better than I thought they would be, and we were able to get on our way. The first stop of that day was Granite City Food and Brewery in Sioux Falls, which is not as stinky as its pal Sioux City. Granite City is what it is (I love to say that), a place with drinkable beers shipped in from another place and fermented on site. But as always, GCFB has great food. So if you think about it, it’s a good move for them to put “Food” in their name and before the “Brewery” part. Again, the people of South Dakota provided us with great service, and really, besides being in South Dakota, South Dakota had a lot going for it. (Yes, that was a record for using “South Dakota” in one sentence, breaking the previous record of two from the 1978 South Dakota state slogan “South Dakota is more South Dakota than Greenland”, whatever that meant. Oh man, I just broke it again!) Basically, I liked South Dakota a lot more than I think anyone has ever liked it. Unfortunately, we have to leave, and we stopped at a Hy-Vee in Council Bluffs to get some beer to bring home.

The last stop on the trip was at little known Depot Deli and Lounge in Shenandoah, Iowa. This place was a rather odd little place, as it was a renovated old train station with not a lot of renovation done to it. To me, it looked like nothing was changed in it from the 1930s, including the world’s smallest sink in the men’s room. I am not saying this as a bad thing, just as a matter of opinion. We ordered samplers, and they weren’t the best, to state it kindly. I remember liking the food, but the sampler was odd. They had a sampler with a wheat and a bock, I think, but also an alcoholic root beer that was not too pleasing. But I’m not one to complain about it, because I think it’s awesome that a small town place tries to make their own beer. I wish their beers were as good as Hank is Wiser Brewery in Cheney, Kansas or Mo’s Place in Beaver, Kansas, but they weren’t. So, it wasn’t the ideal last stop for a Beer Trip, but it was the last stop for this one. We got home, said our goodbyes to one another, and Fez was never again seen on a Beer Trip.

Love,
Dan

And I Bet You Want to Know All of the Breweries That Beer Trip Has Gone To

2009-06-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, then, you came to the right blog:

Beer Trip I

Olde Main Brewing Company in Ames, IA
Bandana Brewery in Mankato, MN (RIP)
Great Waters Brewing Company in St. Paul, MN
Moosehead Pizza and Brewing Company in Wisconsin Dells, WI
Capital Brewing Company in Middleton, WI
Angelic Brewing Company in Madison, WI (RIP)
New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, WI
Randy's Fun Hunters Brewery in Whitewater, WI
Sprecher Brewery in Glendale, WI
Miller Brewery in Milwaukee, WI
Bent River Brewery in Moline, IL
Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewery in Des Moines, IA

Beer Trip II

Gellas's Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company in Hays, KS
Sandlot Brewery at Coors Field in Denver, CO
Breckenridge Ball Park Brewpub in Denver, CO
Great Divide Brewing Company in Denver, CO
Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver CO
Boulder Brewing Company in Boulder, CO
Pumphouse Brewery and Restaurant in Longmont, CO
Left Hand Brewery in Longmont, CO
Oskar Blues Grill and Brew in Lyons, CO
Odell Brewing Company in Fort Collins, CO
Fort Collins Brewery in Fort Collins, CO
CooperSmith's Pub and Brewing in Fort Collins, CO
New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, CO
Shadows Brewing Company at Snake River Pub & Grill in Cheyenne, WY (RIP)
Thunderhead Brewing Company in Kearney, NE
Lazlo's Brewery and Grill in Lincoln, NE
Upstream Brewing Company in Omaha, NE

Beer Trip 2.5

Weston Brewing Company at O'Malley's Pub in Weston, MO
Jobber's Canyon Restaurant and Brewery in Omaha, NE (RIP)
Dempsey's Brewpub, Pub, and Restaurant in Watertown, SD
Granite City Food and Brewery in Sioux Falls, SD
Depot Deli and Lounge in Shenandoah, IA

Beer Trip III

O’Fallon Brewing Company in O'Fallon, MO
Schlafly's Taproom in St. Louis, MO
Turoni’s Pizzery and Brewery in Evansville, IN
Bluegrass Brewing Company in Louisville, KY
BarrelHouse Brewing Company in Cincinnati, OH
Barley's Brewing in Columbus, OH
Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, OH
Arbor Brewing Company in Ann Arbor, MI
Kuhnhenn Brewing Company in Warren, MI
Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, MI
Founders Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, MI
New Holland Brewing Company in Holland, MI
Bell's Brewing Company at Eccentric Cafe in Kalamazoo, MI
Arcadia Brewing Company in Battle Creek, MI
The Livery in Benton Harbor, MI
Three Floyds Brewing Company in Munster, IN
Flossmoor Station Restaurant and Brewery in Flossmoor, IL
Old Capitol Brew Works and Public House in Iowa City, IA
Millstream Brewing Company in Amana, IA
Rock Bottom Brewing Company in West Des Moines, IA

Beer 3.5

Springfield Brewing Company in Springfield, MO
Hickok's Steakhouse and Brewery in Springfield, MO (RIP)
Bootlegger's Restaurant and Brewery in Aurora, MO
Bosco's Brewpub in Little Rock, AR
Vino's Brewpub in Little Rock, AR
Diamond Bear Brewing Company in Little Rock, AR
Hog Haus Brewery in Fayetteville, AR

Beer Trip IV

5th Quadrant in Portland, OR
Alameda Brewhouse in Portland, OR
Amnesia Brewing in Portland, OR
BridgePort Brewpub and Bakery in Portland, OR
Concordia Brewery at Kennedy School (McMenamins) in Portland, OR
Deschutes Brewery & Public House in Portland, OR
Full Sail Brewing Company in Portland, OR
Hair of the Dog Brewing Company in Portland, OR
Laurelwood Pub and Brewery in Portland, OR
Lucky Labrador Brewing in Portland, OR
Rock Bottom Brewing Company in Portland, OR
Roots Organic Brewing in Portland, OR
Tugboat Brewpub and Cafe in Portland, OR
Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, OR
Block 15 Restaurant and Brewery in Corvalis, OR
Rogue Ales in Newport, OR
Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City, OR
Fish Brewing & Fish Tail Brewpub in Olympia, WA
Elysian Fields Brewery in Seattle, WA
Pyramid Alehouse, Brewery and Restaurant in Seattle, WA
Engine House #9 in Tacoma, WA

Beer Trip 4.5

Marshall Brewing Company in Tulsa, OK
Choc Brewing Company at Pete's Place in Krebs, OK
Belle Isle Brewing Company in Oklahoma City, OK
Hank is Wiser Brewery in Cheney, KS
River City Brewing Company in Wichita, KS

Well, friends, if my math is correct, that makes it 87 breweries/brewpubs on Beer Trip so far. So it looks like in about a month's time, Beer Trip will see it's 100th brewery visit! That is pretty exciting, huh?

Love ya!

Dan

Where Has Beer Trip Been?

2009-06-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Well, let me be the one to tell you:

Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois
Kansas
Colorado
Wyoming
Nebraska
South Dakota
Missouri
Kentucky
Ohio
Michigan
Indiana
Arkansas
Oregon
Washington
Oklahoma

This year will be Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa again, but where will we go next? Stay tuned....

xoxoxoxoxo,
Dan

Andy's tales of BT II

2009-06-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hi! This is Andy...aka Caddy depending on which version of trips you are reading. I would of loved to say I've been apart of this endeavour from BT I, but sadly enough I wasn't able to get the time off to go with Timmy and Dan, so i start out on BT II.

Day 1
We head out in the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, and I have to say, I wasn't sure what was going to happen on this trip. I just knew that good beer was involved and that I wanted to be apart of it. I knew who Jerry (Cruiser) was and had talked to him before but in short micro bursts of time. I didn't know Jerry, and I have to admit wasn't sure how all this was going to pan out. I'll just say this up front. I came away from this trip much closer friends to the other 3 guys on this trip than I thought i ever would and that is very cool!We get on the highway, Jerry and I look at each other and I could tell we were thinking the same thing, "we're on Beer Trip it's time to start drinking BEER!". We cruise through the middle of Kansas and the whole time I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is Dan doing. He's got us all over the road, swerving back and forth. (later i find out that these winds were causing bigger RV's an rigs to flip over on the same stretch of I-70.) We finally get to Gella's Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Co.. Here we are in Hays, Ks and I walk into this place and my jaw drops. This place was amazing. Killer set up. Wood and brushed aluminum decor and then the most important part the brewery. Not sure what was spent on the brewery portion of this place but I'm sure there are much bigger breweries who have to be massively jealous of this set up. Best part was that the beers didn't disappoint. We talked to the waitress told her what we were up to, that they had the distinction of being our first stop, then we told her, the all important, we're homebrewers, and asked if the brewer would happen to come out to talk to us. Once again they didn't disappoint and he shows up carrying a bucket of hops out, there is no way he knew how cool we though he was at that point in time. We finished up a wonderful lunch, fantastic sampler and headed on our journey to Denver. We go to a baseball game on all the trips that don't end in .5 and we were able to go see Dan and Timmy's team the Brewers play the Rockies at Coors field. Awesome ballpark and Coors actually put in a micro brewery in the stadium. The beers were what they were but, I'm going to tell you, they had one of the best bartenders EVER! I was stupid, bought 3 beers and my total was $18, I thought I threw out a $20 and walked away. Later, and by later I mean like during the 6th inning I realize I threw out a hundy and not a twenty. I go back fully expecting for that bartender to have taken the rest of the night off after getting a $80 tip. I see her walk around the corner and she looks at me and says "missing a few bucks?" I smile and she lifts up a glass and hands me my $82. I told her that I loved her and promptly gave her $22 and told her that if she didn't stick all of that in her pocket I'd be pissed. She refused to do that and said I wasn't the first and won't be the last. Needless to say she made my night. After the game, we walked across the street to Breckenridge Brewing and had a fun time. We again told the waitress we were on a Beer Trip and she was super cool and gave us some glasses and stickers to put on the EM-50. Most of their beers are ok except for the Vanilla Porter, good God that's a rough beer. We headed back to the LaQuinta where we saw Jerry scale down from floor two to ground level to do some swimming, even though the pool was closed. That was just a rocks star move on his part. Sorry sir the pools closed......um not if you're Jerry...that pool is always open!!! The next year I ended up staying at the same LaQuinta and made sure I pointed out to my wife and kid that is where Jerry scaled down the wall to swim. The more impressive part was the climb up now that I think about it. Jerry, that was one hell of a way to end day one!

Day 2

We woke up in good spirits and that’s easy to do when you’re on Beer Trip! I was particularly excited because I was going to see my pal Mel and we were hitting a couple breweries that made some of my favorite beer. First stop was Great Divide. Makers of Yeti, Fresh Hop, Old Ruffian, and Hercules to name my favs, so yes, I was extremely excited. We walk into what was going to be their new tap room, but when we were there it nothing but a bunch of electricians and remodelers working on an old concrete block room. There were a couple of grain sales reps who walked in before us and so the guy talking to the grain guys kind of looks at us confused as to why there are 4 dorks standing in his brewery and says in what I took as a not so pleasant way “Can I help you guys?” We tell him were here for a tour and he gets the bottling guy to show us around. When he comes out the first question he asks is “You guys want a beer?” Well DUH! It’s already 10 am and I haven’t had one yet, so hells yeah, I’m ready! He pours us what ever we asked for and they had everything on tap except the Fresh Hop I believe. It was very informal but the dude couldn’t have been more cool about all our questions and about showing us everything there was to see. We come back out to where we started and the dude who seemed put off at first asks me what going on. I proceed to tell him that we’re on Beer Trip and what it’s all about. I also work in, once again, the all important statement, we’re also home brewers. Well dudes eyes kind of light up a little bit and then he tells me he’s the brewer for Great Divide. Well then I get a little giddy because standing in front of me is a dude who makes some of my favorite brews and I’m shooting the shit with him. Well he was brewing a beer when we showed up and he takes me up to the mash tun and the kettle and lets me check out all his stuff and how it’s done. We continue to talk for a bit and suddenly he says “Hold up….I have something for your journey” I’m thinking he’s going to go grab us a bottle or two, oh no, I was way off. He comes back with a case of bombers for us. He has all our favorites too! He tells us he wishes he could join us which I thought was very cool. He wanted to be us…..that is just cool! We left there four very happy dudes, we proudly slapped a Great Divide sticker on the EM-50 and off to Wynkoop Brewing we go. We meet Dan’s friend who I’ll refer to as Buttons for lunch and more, yeah you guessed it, beer! The beers and food were decent, but the best part to me was just how much fun we all had just cutting up each other and ourselves…not sure how the button convo got started but the image of seeing 4 dudes sporting buttons while on a beer trip just makes me laugh. I’m still waiting for my button by the way!!!

We arrive at Boulder Brewing, makers of my beloved Mojo IPA. We were there a bit before the tour was to start as this was more formal than GD had been. They offer us up and beer while we wait and who are we to turn down a beer. The chic giving the tour was super cool and there were only 5 people on the tour. It was us 4 and a dude from Germany whose wife was in Boulder at a conference. So he was there to tour breweries while his wife worked, well done my man. We got a nice tour and we even got to talk to the brewer who came up with Hazed and Infused, which was really cool. Our tour ended in their tap room and since they were out of a bunch of taster glasses they decided to just start filling us ¾ pitchers of each of their beers they had on tap. We are a bit responsible on these trips and do designate a driver for each day, so Jerry was just taking baby tastes of each beer. So, four guys drinking what seemed to be endless pitchers of their beer, and quickly pushing us over the edge into beer drunk bliss. It was a nice easy going tour with lots of beer treats at the end that I’m sure the dude from Germany and us won’t soon forget! On to Pumphouse Brewing where we me up with my gal pal Mel. Nothing make a old, fat, married guy feel cooler than having a cool, good looking chic run up and give you a big ole bear hug, so for that Mel, Thanks! Well I’d love to tell you how much I loved the food and brews at Pumphouse, but I was at best foggy at this point. I didn’t dislike anything and I do remember the atmosphere being really cool since we sat outside enjoying our meals and more beers. We all climbed in to the EM-50 and headed to Left Hand Brewing. Well we get there and are greeted by a bitchy bartender. I’m not sure why she was so unhappy, because we were far from unhappy. I remember we all shared a few samplers and one of the funny parts to me was when I went up to get a pint there was this older couple sitting at the bar. They looked at me and asked “Do you like French fries?” which might have possibly been the last question I expected out of dudes mouth. I looked at him and said, “Look at my stomach, what do you think?” with the obvious answer being yes since the furthest thing away from me is skinny. This dude kept going on and on about fries and since I was feeling really good I just let him yap about it, as my passion is beer, his must be fries. We got ourselves nice a lathered up at Left Hand and our intentions were to go back to the Radisson and sleep off our 5 brewery day, but that wouldn’t be very Beer trippy of us. Luckily or unluckily depending on how sick you were the next day there was an Old Chicago in the same parking lot as us. Well we decided that we needed to grace this place with our presence. We go in and well do what we do best, order a beer. We sat at the crowded bar area and proceeded to get even more hammered at this point. There were some great pics taken during this point of the evening. Dan was probably smart and went off to bed, while the rest of us thought our intake of beer wasn’t enough, so we kept drinking. Well we finally hit our limit and somebody suggested we go swimming. Of course any idea after this much drinking sounds like the greatest idea in the history of the world. Timmy and Jerry make it to the pool and legend has it that they swam so much they felt a burning desire to go out to the EM-50 and polish off a growler. Needless to say we all felt beyond rough the next day.

Beer Trip II Notes from 2006

2009-06-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hey pals,
It's Dan again, letting you read about Beer Trip II from my blog when we got back. This will be the last of these, because I didn't write about Beer Trip III or Beer Trip IV (or any of the Point Fives we took). I hope you love this more than you love breakfast burritos:

Day One

The plan was to leave the house at 7:30 AM on Wednesday, and we were actually ahead of schedule. We (Caddylac, Timmy, the Cruiser, and I) pulled out of my driveway at 7:19 AM, so Beer Trip II was off to a great start. The first stop was in Hays, Kansas, so I’ll not bore you with tales of the road from my house to there, because besides the four of us bullshitting each other (which was entertaining to me), it’s a pretty boring fucking drive and nothing happened. The highlight was probably Caddy and the Cruiser cracking open a beer once we got on the highway at about 7:30 AM. Eventually, around 11:10 AM, we arrived at Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company and right away we were impressed. The brewpub is located in a renovated Western Union building, and it was beautiful and spacious on the inside. I think Caddylac was the one who said it best: “You could drop this place anywhere (New York, L.A., wherever), and it would fit in and look great!” It was a great looking place. We sat down, ordered some sampler trays of beer, and ordered our lunch. A huge plus for this place was that they had garlic fries. I’m a big fan of the garlic fries, and these were very good. If you have access to adding a menu item to a restaurant, you need to add garlic fries to it. Anyway, lunch went along just fine (we even got to talk to the brewer for a couple of seconds who made us a sticker for the RV) and their beers were outstanding, and we asked for four growlers and our bill. This was at 12:18 PM. Granted, the place was pretty crowded and they seemed understaffed, but we didn’t end up leaving the place until 1:03 PM because it took so long to get our bill and change. Yes, I did keep track of the time like that, because we planned on leaving Hays at 1 PM, so we thought we were going to be way ahead of schedule for our ride into Denver when we asked for our bill. Instead, we were a little behind (since we also had to stop and get gas). Anyway, all it all, it was a great experience, and would recommend anyone driving along I-70 in Kansas to make a stop at Gella’s if you want some really good beer and great food.We left Hayes and headed to Denver. Wow! Did that ride really suck as well! Western Kansas has a much deserved reputation for being a boring, boring drive, but I think Eastern Colorado needs to be given some credit too. Holy shit was that a boring drive! I must have quoted “Dumb and Dumber” at least ten times saying, “That John Denver’s full of shit!” I didn’t know that Denver was pretty much where the mountains started. I do now. We planned on getting to our posh La Quinta Inn in Downtown Denver at 5 PM, and that was about right. Maybe 5:15 PM or so, but we had plenty of time to take shits, change shirts and put on a new layer of deodorant, and then walk to Coors Field for the 7 PM start. We got to the stadium, and it made me remember why I loved downtown ballparks. It was less than a mile from the hotel to the stadium, and there was so much to do all around the stadium. And inside the stadium too, as we hit our second brewpub of Beer Trip II, the Sandlot Brewery. The place was kinda cool, but I was thinking it was going to be a sit down restaurant with servers, when instead you had to go to the bar to order beers. Now, the bartenders were great, but it just wasn’t what I thought it’d be. The beers were okay, I guess, nice for a ballpark, but nothing too exciting. As for the game, well, it sucked. There was a rain delay before the game, but the actual game is what sucked. The Brewers lost 8-2 and it was never really close. The park was cool, and I even had a Coors Beer at Coors Field, which I always think is a must. I’ll always have a Busch at Busch Stadium and a Miller at Miller Park too. See, I’m not a complete beer snob. Just mostly.After the game, we went to our final brewpub of Day One, the Breckenridge Ball Park Brewpub. We were all feeling pretty good, but it was so close to the park that we had to go. The place was really cool, and it had a nice crowd for a Wednesday. Now let me state that I am not a fan of Breckenridge beers, but the beers here were pretty good. At least they were to my recollection. It was a long day, and I had had a few, so my memory isn’t 100%. I do know that our waitress was awesome, as she gave us each free tasting glasses and stickers (for the back of the RV). After a few samples and a beer, we walked back home to crash for the night. But not before the Cruiser decided that since the gate to the pool was locked that he’s climb down from the second floor (where our room was) to inside of the pool area and go for a little swim. It was pretty impressive way to end day one.

Day Two

Thursday’s activities started earlier than any other day, as we arrived at the Great Divide Brewing Company in downtown Denver (a couple blocks from Coors Field) around 9:50 AM. It was located in a building that you wouldn’t know was a brewery if you just walked by it. Inside the brewery, there was a ton of construction going on. Great Divide doesn’t have regularly scheduled tours, so you just kinda walk in and see if someone can give you a tour. We got in, talked to one of the brewers for a bit, had a couple of samples, and then the head of bottling showed us around. For those of you who don’t know, Great Divide makes some of my favorite beers, and after the tour we got, I like this place even more. The tour guide couldn’t have been any cooler, as he showed us all around the place and just shot the shit with us for about a solid hour. He and the brewer who was on duty just talked about whatever with us and were solid guys. They said they were jealous of us for going on Beer Trip II, and we were all jealous of them for working at a kick-ass brewery. They gave us free stickers, coasters, bottle openers, and on top of all that, they gave us a free case of their beer! So needless to say, I really love these guys now. After the tour, we were going to have lunch at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, where I was excited to go because my friend and Lulu’s former roommate Dahlbeeyotch was meeting us there. Whereas the beers weren’t my favorite and the food was pretty good but nothing amazing, this was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. Basically it was everyone making fun of each other and themselves all lunch, and we were cracking up the whole time. We had to be the loudest table in the place and I’m sure the rest of the restaurant weren’t loving us because of that (and we were there for about an hour and a half). Dahlbeeyotch said that she was going to make us all buttons for Beer Trip III, and I thought Caddy was going to piss himself (he actually may have; I didn’t check). We had a great time, but unfortunately, Dahlbeeyotch had to go to work and fortunately, we had three more breweries to hit. Next up for us was a trip up the road to Boulder where we hit the Boulder Brewing Company. Boulder makes two of my favorite beers, Mojo and Hazed & Infused, so this was another place I was really looking forward to. We had another really great tour guide, and we had a lot of free beers. Too bad for the Cruiser, because he was the DD that day and only had sips. Our tour consisted of the four of us and a guy from Germany who was in town with his wife who had a work conference (who was a really cool guy), so our tour was pretty much whatever we wanted her to talk about. She even poured us some beer right from the tanks, which was pretty good also. Basically by the time we left Boulder, all of us were feeling really good. Especially me.For dinner, we drove over to Longmont for the Pumphouse Brewery and Restaurant, where we met Caddy’s friend Melissa. From the best of my recollection, dinner was really good, as were the beers. I’m not sure what else to tell you about that because I don’t have memories of anything specific that was interesting (I was kinda drunk). From there, we hit yet another place, the Left Hand Brewery. I remember thinking the place was nice, the service wasn’t too friendly, that I ordered a sample tray, and called my wife. And that’s about it. When we left Left Hand, we went back to the hotel. Right next door in the same parking lot as our sweet Radisson Hotel was an Old Chicago, and for some reason we decided to go in and have some more beers. I ordered some Sicilian Pepperoni Rolls and a Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. I think I had two of the Pepperoni Rolls, half of my beer (if that), and decided that it’d be best for me to go back to the hotel and pass out. Which is exactly what I did. Apparently I missed a lot of interesting things after I left, rumors of which I cannot prove actually happened, so I will just end Day Two’s recap with this: holy shit, was I really fucking hung-over the next morning!

Day Three

So yeah, I didn’t have a good morning on Day Three. As my friend Fittsie used to say, I was over-served. Anyway, after a sluggish start, we were ready to start the beer drinking at 11:30 at Oskar Blues Grill and Brew in Lyons, Colorado. Oskar’s is famous among the beer dork community for being a solid microbrewer and selling their beer in cans, instead of bottles like most microbreweries. I kinda think it’s pretty cool. The place was nice, as Lyons is a really cool little down at the base of the mountain. We sat on the deck and had a nice view. After a little “hair of the dog” with some tasty beers and some really good food, we all were feeling a lot better and were on our way. Our next stop after lunch was in my new favorite city in the world, Fort Collins, Colorado. What a great town! Also located at the base of the mountains, Fort Collins has several really great breweries there. They also have an Anheuser Busch brewery on top of the good places, but who gives a shit! Our first brewery stop in Fort Collins was Odell Brewing Company. It was located on a side street and was a nice looking place. The people there were cool, and I actually got carded THREE times there, which I thought was funny. The tour was the same as every other tour basically, but since I’m a member of the American Homebrewer’s Association, I got to have the $3 sample tray for free! Yeah, that $97 membership is already paying for itself! The beers were good, but I can get them here so it wasn’t anything too exciting. Good tour if you’re in Ft. Collins, but nothing too cool.After Odell’s, we went to the cleverly named Fort Collins Brewery just down the road. Well, it would have been just down the road but I’m a moron and gave Caddy the wrong directions. We got there eventually, and the place was kinda hard to find anyway unless you knew where it was. It was basically a warehouse with a taproom. Although the taproom was really nice, and the people and beer there were really good. The beers were better than we expected, and the waitress and bartender could not have been cooler. They even sold the Cruiser and me jugs of their Brewlesque Brown, which was only available in jugs to members of their “Jug Club.” I have to really thank the Cruiser for his pouting, because that’s what sealed the deal on that one. We hung out there for a sampler tray and a pint, and then we headed to the hotel to check in. We stayed at the world-famous Fort Collins Motel 8, and that lived up to all the hype.For dinner, we took a cab to our final brewpub of the day, CooperSmith’s Pub and Brewing, for dinner. It was pretty well-hyped by several people that day, and when we got there we were excited. It was a cool looking place. We went to check in with the hostess, and we were told it’d be a 35 minute wait, so we just sat at the bar. Well, the food was good, but the beers were just so-so. Not nearly as good as we were lead to believe they’d be. We had our dinner and left, and then we walked to another Old Chicago for a beer before Caddy’s friend Mel picked us up and took us back to the sweet Motel 8. And that was pretty much Day Three. Three breweries visited, and basically just a day to recover from the day before. So really, it was a pretty good day.

Day Four

Day Four of Beer Trip II was a really, really good day. We started up later than usual, because we had a 11:30 AM VIP tour at the New Belgium Brewing Company. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from a “VIP Tour” at New Belgium. You see, a while back, I was at a liquor store where I was buying some New Belgium 1554 (because we were brewing a clone of it). I was looking to see what else was at the liquor store when I overheard a couple of guys talking about New Belgium. I looked up, and one was an employee of the liquor store and the other guy was wearing a New Belgium jacket. The employee walked away, and I went up to the New Belgium guy and said, “Sorry, but I overheard you talking. Do you work for New Belgium?” He said he did and told me his name was Scott. We were talking about their beer “Two Below,” because I wondered if they were going to bottle it. He said it was just on draft only for now, and then we proceeded to talk about beer for a few minutes. At the end of the conversation, he said, “If you ever go to Fort Collins, you’ll need to stop by the brewery for a tour.” I responded, “Actually, I’ll be going there in August on a beer trip with some friends, and we are definitely going to be going there.” He seemed kinda surprised, in a good way, we talked for a few more minutes about Beer Trip II. Then he said, “Here’s my card. Send me an email when you know when you’ll be there, and I’ll set you up with a VIP tour.” And we went on our ways. A couple days later I emailed him thanking him for taking the time to just talk beer with me for a few minutes. Back in April, when we locked down the time when we’d be in Fort Collins, I emailed him again, and he told me he’d work on setting up a VIP tour for us. He emailed me later that same day with a day and time. That was about the extent of it. A couple weeks before we left on Beer Trip II, I emailed him again, just to make sure everything was set, and he said it was fine, just to show up there a little before 11:30 AM to check in. So we get up to the brewery about 11:10 AM and go to check in. One thing we weren’t expecting though: the place was packed. I mean, really packed. We had to park on the street because the parking lot was full. I waited in line to tell the bartender we were there, and the line took forever. And you could see that there was a huge tour (probably 40 people) in progress already, so I was a little concerned that we’d get the same deal. Eventually, I got to the bar, told the lady why we were there, and she seemed really excited about it and went to the back. She came out a few seconds later, told us to wait at the side of the bar, and that Matt would be coming out to give us our tour. Matt came out, and we (just the four of us and Matt) started the tour.Let me start out the tour portion of this entry by telling you that this wasn’t a typical tour at all. This was a genuine VIP tour. Many of the things we did are not allowed on most tours, for safety reasons. The tour started out like most tours with the history of the company. In New Belgium’s case, it wasn’t too different than other companies’ beginnings (the founder liked the beer he had when he was on vacation in Belgium and decided to make his own beer because he couldn’t get that style of beer here in the States). Matt explained the history more in depth because the tour ahead of us was still in the main room, but it was pretty interesting still. We eventually went into that room, and Matt showed us their first equipment. Standard tour information, really, yet it was still kinda cool. We walked to the main room of the tour, and Matt showed us the tanks where they brew a batch occasionally, but they weren’t at that time. As the other tour went ahead, Matt pulled us over to a bar on the side and said that since we were homebrewers and knew our stuff, he was going to give us some samples earlier than they normally do of stuff you can’t get get or outside of the brewery, as well as their flagship beer, Fat Tire. The first beer was their Saison, and while I’m not a fan of the style, I did like theirs. Next was the Fat Tire, which I’ve had plenty of times before and think is pretty good. The last was a sample of their Abbey Grand Cru, and it was awesome. One of the best beers I ever had. I wish they sold it, but unfortunately, they don’t. Awesome stuff. We went on the tour a bit further, seeing and talking about typical tour things. Then Matt told us to put on our safety goggles. We did, and then he led us up a staircase to the roof. On the roof, he told us to start climbing, as we had to go up about four more flights of stairs to the very top of the brewery. Up there, you could see a beautiful view of Fort Collins and the Rocky Mountains. You could also see the Anheuser Busch brewery up the road, but who gives a shit? Up there we saw all of their brewing vessels, which contained about 12 million bottles of beer in them. We also got to see their water treatment plant from the roof, which they built themselves for themselves to not take a burden on the city’s treatment plant. The whole thing was really impressive, and not something you get on the standard tour. We came down and back in, and next went through the bottling area, something that is a no-no on most other tours due to safety reasons. It was pretty interesting, for me. We walked around some more, and we went to their ten 500-gallon oak barrels where New Belgium makes their La Folie, a rare and expensive beer that is famous among the beer dork community. Matt told us not to tell anyone that we did it (so don’t tell anyone), but he let us drink some of the La Folie from the spicket of one of the barrels, and it was pretty yummy. He showed us around a lot of the normally “off-limits areas” to tours places, and even let Cruiser and I go down the employee slide. At the end of the tour, Matt said, “Well, Scott wanted me to treat you well, so we’re giving you guys six samples of our beer instead of the normal four that other tours get.” We thanked him, and then he said, “Also, we’re giving you guys each one free six-pack of your choice.” We were all pretty shocked about that, and thanked him again. Then he said, “And finally, we’re giving you guys 40% off of whatever you want, beer included.” We were really shocked. I was dumbfounded. Not only did they just give us by far the best brewery tour that I ever had been on with the coolest tour guide (although not as hot as the Boulder chick), but they were giving us free beer and a huge discount. Needless to say, I was in love with the place. I really want to move to Fort Collins and work for New Belgium. It was awesome.After we left the brewery (where we probably spent about $250 combined as a group), we went to a liquor store on the way out of town. I only spent about $10, but the others got several boxes worth of beer. Then we were on our way to Cheyenne, where we went to the Snake River Pub and Grill, where the Shadows Brewing Company is located. The place was really cool, although they only had one beer of theirs on tap. Apparently they had a big festival a few days prior, and that was all they had. The one they did have was really good, as was the food, and soon we were on our way to North Platte, Nebraska where we were calling it a night. We did go to the hotel bar for a couple of beers (including a Fat Tire), and we called it a night.

Day Five

For Beer Trip II Day Five, it was a fun day, but pretty uneventful. Basically, we went to three breweries in Nebraska. The first brewery we went to was Thunderhead Brewing Company in Kearney, Nebraska around 11 AM. It was located in a cool little part of this little town, and surprisingly the beers were outstanding. Very, very good. I was shocked how good they were, considering that this was just a small town that actually had two breweries. We only ate appetizers, but they were good too. Our next stop was in Lincoln where we had a light, late lunch at Lazlo’s Brewery and Grill, which featured Empyrean Brewing Company’s beer. The place was cool, food was good, service was very good, and the beers were okay. Nothing much to write about there. Finally, we got into Omaha around 4:15 PM where we had a light dinner at Upstream Brewing Company. Most of the beers were weak, some were pretty good, but again, besides being located in a cool building in a cool part of town and having good service, there wasn’t much to say about it. Then we drove through a ton of rain the three hours back to my house.