Chris – Page 15 – thebeergeek.com

October 18, 2011

Completing Asheville

In three days on our short North Carolina visit, we visited almost a dozen breweries. But we still had a few more to go to complete our journey. On our last day with our fellow beer travelers, Matt and Michelle, we tackled the last remaining targets in Asheville and just beyond.

Since none of the breweries opened until the afternoon, we had a relaxing start to the day in downtown Asheville. After a leisurely lunch, we were ready to finish our important work.

French Broad Brewing was located across the street and around a corner from the Asheville’s famous tourist landmark, the Biltmore Estate. It seemed like a nice day to sit outside in their beer garden but the blazing sun forced us to retreat into the tiny but cool tasting room. To the sounds of Appalachian music, we went through the French Broad lineup.

There were six beers in the French Broad sampler including another excellent IPA. But instead of talking about another West Coast-style hop bomb that I really liked, I’ll mention two of their other brews.

Much to Merideth’s pleasure (and mine as well) French Broad had a Kölsch-style beer. Gateway Kölsch was an excellent American example of the style, light-bodied and refreshing.

French Broad Zepptemberfest was a Zeppelin-style Märzen brewed with a Kölsch yeast. Merideth and I argued about whether or not “Zeppelin” was a style of beer. I kept insisting there wasn’t, but apparently I was wrong. Zeppelin-style, from what I can gather is another way of saying Kellerbier. Despite the confusion, Zepptemberfest was a nice brew with the caramel maltiness that I enjoy in the style.

Members only at Southern Appalachian Brewery

Merideth and I don’t have the opportunity for too many “firsts” these days in our beer travels. But our next stop, Southern Appalachian Brewery in quiet Hendersonville thirty minutes south of Asheville, was a first for us. Due to a local ordinance, one had to be a member to drink the beer. We have never encountered this before, especially since we haven’t beer traveled in Utah.

Actually, only one of us needed to fill out the application form – the other one could be their guest. Since I’m a liberated guy, I had Merideth fill out the membership form and pay the $1 fee. Luckily, I was approved as her guest. We found this quirk to be quite entertaining and great fodder for video. In chatting with owner/brewer Andy Cubbin, the membership requirement, unfortunately, has also been a hindrance to business. They’re working on it and hopefully, the law will get changed.

Membership and guest issues taken care of, we settled in to try the beer at what was my favorite brewery of the trip. Served in a really cute, had-to-be hand-made wooden tray, the four beer sampler was comprised of an Amber, IPA, Stout and Belgian-style Blonde Ale.

I loved the beers, especially the Belgian-style Blonde Ale and the IPA, both 6.5% ABV. The IPA, a 95 IBU hop bomb. was triple hopped in the kettle and dry-hopped with five varieties. My kind of beer!

Southern Applachachian appeared to be a really locals hangout. While we enjoyed our beers, a group of parents were having a few beers before the Friday night football game (at least that was the story I created in my head). Meanwhile, an older gentleman, who I gathered was the local sand bag toss champion, drank a beer and practiced his sport, waiting for someone to challenge him to a game. Great atmosphere, great beer and nice people, Southern Appalachian had the winning formula.

The last brewery stop of the day and trip, Highland Brewing was only a few minutes from French Broad, but seemed worlds away. Nestled in the woods, the brewery’s tasting room was already bustling when we arrived in the early evening. It was quite an eclectic crowd ranging from the young hipsters that we had seen all over town to parents with their kids. While Mom and Dad had a beer or two, the kids used the large outdoor seating area as a giant playground.

The massive scale of the tasting room was something I hadn’t expected. Not only was there was the huge deck, but the interior was equally massive, looking like the live music venue that it was. Slowly spinning on the ceiling was the largest fan I think I have ever seen. Quite the contrast,the bar was tucked along the side wall, dwarfed by it’s surroundings.

It was too crazy to order a taster set so I ordered pints for Merideth and myself. While Merideth started off with their Gaelic Ale, I began with the 60 IBU Kashmir IPA. Both beers were well-made, but lacked the “Wow” factor that we got from beer at some of the other North Carolina breweries.

Beer travel is best done with friends...

We finished up our North Carolina brewery tour sharing a pint of Areola Ale, a beer that Merideth was too embarrassed to order. Made for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the pinkish hue was achieved with beet juice.

We visited fifteen breweries, learned about a new beer style and joined our first beer club during our abbreviated trip to Asheville. We also took a hike on a Cherokee reservation, visited our 650th brewery and ate loads of hummus. Asheville was good to us and we had a great time. Hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity to return someday.

View all the Asheville images

October 15, 2011October 15, 2011

The Expanded City Beer Store

It’s been a busy six months for new parents Craig and Beth Wathen, proprietors of San Francisco’s beloved City Beer Store. Their latest milestone was the store expansion, taking over the space next door. Prior to the Cal football game yesterday, Merideth and I had the pleasure of taking a quick visit to the new and improved City Beer.

The new City Beer Store isn’t quite complete, but it’s already a stunning place to drink beer. Fortunately, the expansion has maintained the intimacy of the original, especially with the throng of beer geeks who were there for the soft re-opening. The expanded draft offerings (15 taps!) and beautiful wooden bar are located in the new space. Bottles, refrigerated and shelved, occupy what was the old City Beer, with the focal point definitely being the “Pliny Fridge.” Just as the name implies, it is a fridge full of Pliny!

Congrats once again to Craig and Beth! Merideth and I look forward to being able to spend more than 20 minutes on our next visit to the new City Beer Store.

October 12, 2011

Asheville Urban Beer Hike

It was our first full day in Asheville and what better way to introduce ourselves to its beer scene than an Urban Beer Hike. With six breweries located in the downtown area, Asheville is perfect for a walking brew tour.

A beautiful day for an Urban Beer Hike in Asheville

We began our hike just past noon in the heart of downtown Asheville at Lexington Avenue Brewery. We never like starting a beer hike with a glitch but glitches happen. LAB was debuting a new menu on this day and their opening was delayed to 1pm. Despite ruining my planned 6-mile loop route and causing a double back-track, we quickly reconfigured the hike and headed to our new first stop a short five minute walk away.

Asheville reminded me a lot of Portland, OR and Asheville Brewing was the first indication of the similarity. It wasn’t only the hipster crowd, but the eclectic former industrial-looking building converted into a brewpub that had me thinking of the Rose City.The ample space was dominated by a huge covered outdoor seating area filled with a mish-mash of reclaimed chairs.

Armed with an eight beer sampler selection, our quartet grabbed one of the available tables outside. If I had to guess, I would say our chairs, which were tandem, came from the Greyhound bus depot that was by our hotel.

Rocket Girl, a Kölsch-style brew, was a perfect beer for a day that pushed 80 degrees. Escape Artist ESP was a middle of the road Pale Ale, especially in comparison to it’s brother Fire Escape Pale Ale. Finding out the hard way, I grabbed the Fire Escape and took a big gulp. I quickly realized the “fire” portion of the name was provided by a healthy dose of chili pepper. Asheville’s flagship brew, Shiva IPA, was probably my favorite beer in the lineup.

Finished at Asheville, it was now time to backtrack to Lexington Avenue Brewing. LAB was quite a different vibe from the hippie-ish first stop. A large and open space, the brewpub was very modern. The brew kit shined in the back of the room behind glass walls and a 92 foot curved bar dominated the room. Given the gorgeous weather, we sat in the bright front room that was open to the street.

Given that LAB messed up my brilliantly conceived Urban Beer Hike route with the new menu delay, I declared that the food better be darn good or I would be angry. Fortunately, the food was quite delicious. Merideth enjoyed the Flatbread pizza while I had the Hummus Quartet, a plate with four different flavors.

From the six beer sampler, three of our group had the GABF bronze medal winning Porter. Merideth, the odd person out, ordered their Oktoberfest.

Having a nice buzz going, I was able to ignore the fact that we passed by Asheville Brewing again on our way to our third stop. Craggie Brewing was in a smallish industrial space just around the corner from our first stop. Thanks to Zaq in the tasting room for letting us in a few minutes before opening so we could get out of the heat.

Six breweries into our North Carolina trip, Craggie Brewing was the first “WOW” stop. Three of the six beers really stood out. Toubab Brewe, a 4.2% ABV Bavarian-style Zwickelbier, was probably Merideth’s favorite beer of the trip. Cherry Belafonte, a Belgian-style brew with Sweet and sour cherries might have been the best fruit beer we tried all week and Yo La Mango IPA, a wonderfully hopped brew with a slight Mango taste, was one of my candidates for beer of trip.

Craggie was Merideth’s 650th brewery and one of the brewers honored the occasion by giving her an acorn squash. We liked Craggie so much that we returned two more times (and no, our repeat visits were not influenced by the hopes for more gifts of squash).

Just down the street and around the corner was our next stop, the soccer and dog-friendly Green Man Brewery. With a big rolling door for a main entrance, I was again cognizant of how much Asheville reminded me of Portlandia.

Walking into the tasting room which fronted the brewery, the first thing I noticed was the plethora of green men, the mythical deity (not the silly guys in the green suit), decorations on the wall. OK, maybe I noticed them after I saw there was soccer showing on both TVs.

The four beer samples, IPA, ESB, Porter and Stout were all well-made and very English in their makeup. The IPA was my favorite of the four but quite a departure from the previous hop bomb that I enjoyed at Craggie. Despite it being my favorite, the pint I ordered was the nutty ESB on cask.

From Green Man, we embarked on the longest leg of the day’s Urban Beer Hike. It was a little over a mile to the River Arts District and Wedge Brewing.

Our foursome had some trouble finding the brewery. After locating the street address, we could hear people but couldn’t figure out where to go. Turns out, Wedge was on the opposite side of the building down some stairs.

Given the district’s name, I was hoping for a river view, but instead we got a train track view. Of the 660 breweries I have visited, Wedge had one of the more unique settings. It’s bustling beer garden was quite spacious, basically being the dirt open space between the building and the tracks. The multitude of happy customers were spread far and wide, enjoying the Wedge brews and watching the trains pass by.

Merideth enjoying the Wedge Witbier sans orange slice

After grabbing some beers, we plopped ourselves around a table in front of a semi trailer painted with a stage on the side. Hillbilly Hawaiian music provided by a local band played in the background while we enjoyed the beers and played with dogs. Both Merideth’s beer, the Wit, and mine, the IPA, were very nice.

Oyster House Brewing in the Lobster Trap

In the dimming light of the Asheville evening, we returned to the downtown area for our final stop. Oyster House Brewing is a half-barrel brewery, located in the Lobster Trap restaurant, the “Best Seafood Restaurant in Western North Carolina.”

We were there for only one beer, their Moonestone Stout, an Oyster Stout brewed with five pounds of the crustacean in each batch. This was the third Oyster Stout I have had and it was just as good as the others. Especially when paired with a dozen raw oysters.

Our feet a little sore, we took a taxi back to our hotel. Beautiful day, wonderful beer and good friends was a recipe for an amazing day and the Urban Beer Hike was a great way to acquaint ourselves with Asheville beer scene.

View all the images from our Asheville Urban Beer Hike

Map of the six stops

View Asheville Urban Beer Hike in a larger map

October 7, 2011

The Road to Asheville

We began our latest beer adventure by landing in Greensboro, North Carolina, several hours east of our final destination. While not the most convenient, flying into Greensboro did give us the opportunity to visit a few breweries on the road to Asheville, North Carolina’s beer mecca.

Foothills Brewing in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem

Thanks to a red-eye flight from San Francisco, Merideth and I arrived in North Carolina at noon a bit tired but ready to drink some beer. Our friends, Matt and Michelle, picked us up at Piedmont Triad International Airport and our foursome was quickly headed west to the nearby city of Winston-Salem. Foothills Brewing, our first stop, was located downtown in a beautiful brick 1920s era building that originally housed a car dealership.

After I had a quick jolt of coffee, we delved into a sample set of their brews. Their six regular beers were augmented by four seasonals. It’s always great to start a trip with a double-digit sampler.

Our only prior experience with Foothills was drinking a one-ounce sample of Sexual Chocolate at the Great American Beer Festival a few years back, so we weren’t sure what to expect. Their line-up was the typical brewpub range, from the golden-colored Salem Gold to the jet-black People’s Porter. All the beers were clean and well-made with the overwhelming Bourbon barrel-aged People’s Porter being the only brew we didn’t care for. It had too much barrel for only four hours of sleep.

While Merideth favored the Torch Pilsner, my highlight was the seasonal India-style Brown Ale. At 7% ABV and 70 IBUs, it was the beer that most satisfied my West Coast palate.

We’re not vegetarians, but kudos also goes to Foothills for their non-meat fare. Merideth really enjoyed the DIPA Glazed Tofu and I thought the Black Bean Cake Sandwich was delicious.

Heading west on I-40, it was an hour before we reached the second stop of the day in the town of Hickory. Situated in the town’s main square, our destination was easy to spot with it’s large green awning proclaiming “Olde Hickory Tap Room.”

Gazing at the beer list on the chalkboard, two beers immediately caught my fancy. First was Cookville Blonde, a pretty typical Golden Ale but made with local hops. I would like to say that I could taste the North Carolina terroir in the Cookville Blonde, but it was an pleasant, sessionable brew nonetheless.

My second beer at Olde Hickory, Death by Hops, was the winning entry in the brewery’s first Pro-am competition. Brewed with five varieties of West Coast hops, the 7% ABV Death by Hops was a competent West Coast style brew.

Our final stop before we reached Asheville was Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain. North Carolina’s first certified organic brewery, Pisgah was located at the back of a somewhat dilapidated industrial park a few minutes off I-40. Well, a few minutes if your GPS doesn’t crap out and you get lost, that is.

We joined a crowd of about a half-dozen fellow beer drinkers enjoying the beautiful afternoon weather in the beer garden out front. One of the most anticipated stops of the trip, I quickly ordered a taster set of their beers.

There were nine beers to sample at Pisgah. It was an eclectic mix of brews ranging from an American Wheat and Solstice, a Belgian-style Tripel to Nitro, Coffee and Imperial Stouts.

The Imperial Stout probably was the best of the lot, but given the bright sunshine and warm day, not the best beer for the conditions. The other two that stood out for me were Solstice and the Red Devil, a 9% ABV Belgian-style Pale Ale with cherries and raspberries.

Pisgah was one of those places where we could have spent hours relaxing in their beer garden. The beers were nice and the neo-hippie vibe pretty cool. But Merideth and I were starting to fade a bit and we thought it best to continue on the road to Asheville.

View all the images on the road to Asheville

October 1, 2011

Following Aussies Around the North Bay

Since it’s our primary mission to add breweries to “The List,” we often overlook old favorites in our efforts to add new ones. So, it’s always nice to beer tour with other people and let them set the agenda. A visit to the North Bay with our Australian friend Todd from beermen.TV and a couple of his friends was a great opportunity to re-experience this beer mecca from a fresh perspective.

Merideth tasting the beers at Elevation 66

Before we hooked up with the Aussies, we couldn’t resist making one quick stop to add a new brewery. Elevation 66 in El Cerrito opened a scant three weeks ago. I’m not sure there is a new brewpub smell, but the long and narrow, bright and shiny space had the distinct feel of being new. The first customers of day, Merideth and I bellied up to the bar for a quick taster set.

Elevation 66 only had three brews of the planned six available. The almost 7% ABV British IPA was a bit strange, our issue mainly being the alcohol content in a “British” version of an IPA. The standout of the three was Golden Age Ale, a 5.5% ABV Golden Ale that was very refreshing on a soon to be hot day. However, the beer with the most promise might be Esther Vanilla Stout. A true session beer at 3.5% ABV, once they get the recipe dialed in, this Stout could be a real winner.

Given the newness of the brewery, I think it’s best to reserve any sort of judgment. But there was enough there to warrant a return visit in several months. Our visit to Elevation 66 was not the shortest ever, but 20 minutes after sitting down, we were back out the door headed to the other side of the Bay.

Back in the day, when Merideth and I lived in Oakland, I worked in Point Richmond. A few minutes drive across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was Marin Brewing Company, a place my co-workers and I visited on a regular basis. Those post-work beers sitting on Marin Brewing’s patio were some of my fondest memories of that job.

Until a few days ago, it had been almost 20 years since we visited Marin Brewing. Meeting the Aussie trio a bit past noon, Merideth and I relived those happy afternoons from the last century. While drinking the wonderful Mt. Tam Pale Ale, our group bathed in the sunny Marin weather on the patio. Just like in the old days, our crew joked about the people working out in the gym across the way. There’s nothing like eating fried food and drinking beer while watching someone sweat it out on the stairmaster.

Merideth enjoying Moylan's Kölsch-style beer

Despite its convenient location just off Hwy 101, our one and only visit to Moylan’s Brewery was in 1995. I guess our only defense for not making another visit since is that whenever we pass through Novato, we are always on our way to some place else.

Wednesday I realized what we have been missing. While Merideth drank their very nice Sommer Kolsch Bier, the boys indulged in one of Moylan’s better known and favorite beers, the Hopsickle Triple IPA. It had been several years since I drank the 9.2% ABV well-balanced hop bomb. I think the next time we’re in the North Bay, we just might have to make sure we stop.

I’ll admit that I’m not always the brightest bulb in the firmament. When Todd was planning which breweries to visit this day, I tried to convince him to bypass Lagunitas in favor of Bear Republic, a brewery I like better overall. Luckily Todd didn’t take my advice. Lagunitas was the stop of the day.

Our only prior visit to Lagunitas was in 2008. Back then, the tasting room was in a funky loft above the brewery. I knew they had built a new tasting room but wasn’t prepared for the amazing new setting for enjoying their beer. Despite its industrial park location, the beautiful beer garden was quite idyllic in the California afternoon sun. Throngs of happy beer drinkers were enjoying the Lagunitas brews on what turned out to be a hot day. We opted for a table inside the bright, airy tasting room.

A number of beers were sampled: Czech-Style Pils, Oktoberfest, Hop Stoopid and Fusion VII to name a few. But my favorite beer of the whole day was the wet hop version of Maximus. Wet hop beers the last few years have disappointed me. For the most part, they have been missing that resinous quality that made the beers so special. Wet Hop Maximus harked back to the brews that I fell in love with. I could feel the oily hop resins covering my tongue.

The encore stop for our day was, of course, Russian River Brewing Company. As usual, the brewpub was packed and hopping when we arrived mid-evening. We quickly acquired a table and let the fun begin.

After a point, the evening became a blur with beers continuously being ordered and consumed. Pliny the Elder, Defenestration, Supplication, Temptation, Little White Lie were among the great Russian River brews we drank that evening.

With the Aussies catching a morning flight to Denver, the night was ended on the relatively early side. With a full day of drinking fantastic beer, it was probably best that way. An always fun day in the North Bay was made more special hanging out with a few Aussies. Thanks for that, mates!

View all the images from our day…