“Asheville” is the latest episode of One Pint at a Time.
We had visited North Carolina on two previous occasions, but beer travel was never the focus. With its growing beer scene, Asheville was the logical location for our first serious beer foray into the Tar Heel state. For our beer adventure in Western North Carolina, we were joined by our good friends and fellow beer travelers Matt and Michelle.
So enjoy our beer adventures in North Carolina…
For all the episodes of One Pint at a Time go to beergeekTV.
After averaging around 75 new breweries a year for the past four years, I predicted at the beginning of 2011 that the upcoming year would be a bit slower for us. Looking at our travel schedule, I guessed that Merideth and I would add 50 to 60 breweries to “The List” in 2011. Well, I was wrong. We visited 74 new breweries in the year just completed, leaving us poised to reach the 700 milestone next month in Australia.
Hill Farmstead Brewery
With the year just past fresh in my mind, here are my highlight breweries for 2011.
Alchemist Pub and Brewery – Waterbury, VT
Boneyard Beer – Bend, OR
Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen – Bellingham, WA
Craggie Brewing Company – Asheville, NC
Denali Brewing Company – Talkeetna, AK
Hill Farmstead Brewery – Greensboro Bend, VT
Redwood Curtain Brewing – Arcata, CA
Sound Brewery – Poulsbo, WA
Southern Appalachian Brewery – Hendersonville, NC
And I’ll go out in a limb and predict that Merideth and I will visit 75 new breweries in 2012.
Relax, grillin’, and chillin’. Three separate words that go great with beer. But put Relax! Grillin & Chillin all together with it and you create a friendly neighborhood bar with an amazing beer selection.
Coveniently located right off Hwy 156
Relax! Grillin & Chillin is conveniently located on Highway 156 between San Juan Bautista and Hollister. You’ve probably even passed it without even considering to stop and check it out. Admittedly, from the outside it appears to be just another roadhouse that one would assume is selling crap beer (it is in the heart of biker country after all). Heck, we must have passed it dozens of times before hearing through the hopvine that they had a great craft beer selection. They’ve even had Pliny The Elder on tap, which is absolutely unheard of in the area!
Relax! Grillin & Chillin is so much more than a bar with good beer, though. It’s a gathering spot for the community. It’s child/family friendly, the staff and clientele are welcoming, they have multiple TVs for the sports lover, and the food is terrific. They even have weekly Brewery Nights and a mug club for the die-hard beer geeks. I’d say that there’s something for everyone at Grillin & Chillin.
On a recent visit, Chris and I enjoyed Drake’s Aroma Coma (draft) and Tap It’s Pale Ale (bottle) with our starter of chicken sliders (fried chicken on small rolls with pickle and BBQ sauce). They have another slider option of drunk burgers with Guinness sauce, as well as other appetizers they call “kickers.” The menu includes the usual pub grub of calamari, chicken strips, hot dogs, burgers and zucchini fries, but there is so much more, including the apricot turkey sandwich with Monterey jack cheese and an apricot spread and a ham and cheese pretzel sandwich.
Tacos and Drake's Aroma Coma IPA
On a previous visit, a regular insisted that I have the street tacos because the dill sauce on them was amazing. “It goes on everything,” he told me. So this time, I took his advice and had the grilled shrimp street tacos. He was right. The sauce was light and had just the right tang. In fact, owner Chuck Frowein told me that it was after making a batch of his special sauce that he realized he had what it took to open a restaurant. From that, Grillin & Chillin was born. How lucky we are!
Gotta try a beer at least once...
We’re even luckier that Chuck has good taste in beer. The tap list on the night we were there included the aforementioned Aroma Coma, Deschutes Black Butte XXIII, and New Belgium’s Lips of Faith Kick, to name a few. And if you can’t decide on one draft beer, you can order a flight of 5 samples for $10. The bottle list was also impressive with Brew Dog’s Sink the Bismarck and Tactical Nuclear Penguin, The Bruery’s Autumn Maple and 4 Calling Birds, plus Firestone Walker’s XV and Batch 23 and Damnation from Russian River.
Years ago, when we moved back to the Monterey Peninsula from the Bay Area, we used to travel forty minutes to Hollister to visit San Andreas Brewing. It was an easy way to get our fill of good craft beer without going all the way to Oakland. Relax! Grillin & Chillin harkens back to those days by bringing craft beer back to San Benito County. Judging by the crowds there every night, the place has obviously filled a niche left vacant when San Andreas closed. With the Monterey Peninsula’s improving beer scene we don’t necessarily have to go as far as Hollister to get good beer anymore, but going to Grillin & Chillin isn’t just about the beer, it’s about embracing everything that’s good about a neighborhood watering hole, whether your from the neighborhood or not.
As the 700 brewery milestone began to appear on the horizon, Merideth and I starting thinking about where we’d like the magical moment to happen. With a trip to Australia in February already scheduled, it was a pretty easy decision. That simple decision had consequences, however. In order to make it possible for us to meet that goal Down Under, we needed to be in the 675 range by the time we left. Hence, the six-hour journey on Thanksgiving weekend to add just two breweries to The List.
Blue Frog Grog & Grill in Fairfield
Merideth and I unsuccessfully visited our first destination, Blue Frog Grog & Grill in Fairfield, years ago. Returning from a trip visiting friends in Northern California, we unfortunately arrived well before the pub opened. We decided to wait but thinking about the long drive home, my impatience got the best of me. We ended up continuing on our way before opening time.
On this drive up, I began to worry that impatience could get the better of me again. Being Thanksgiving weekend, I had visions of Blue Frog’s mall location being a hub of gridlock for miles around. But failure a second time just wasn’t an option. Thankfully, the beer gods looked on us favorably this day and the mall seemed deserted when we arrived late morning.
The taster set at Blue Frog
Taking our customary seat at the bar, we ordered the taster set. Admittedly, I was a bit disappointed to learn that their IPA and well-known DIPA were not available. Being a complete professional, however, I sucked it up and moved on to the five beers offered to us.
Merideth enjoying the Blue Frog Red Ale
Ranging from a light-colored Hefeweizen and Blond Ale to the seasonal Oktoberfest and Irish-style Stout, it was a familiar brewpub lineup. The two standouts were the Blond and Red Ales. The unexpected assertiveness of both these brews, while not satisfying my IPA craving, was a pleasant surprise. Both were hopped well beyond what we expected from the usually mild styles.
My lunch was delicious. The thick cut ham on my sandwich had the comforting feel of eating Thanksgiving leftovers. Merideth also enjoyed her pulled pork sandwich.
We’d like to thank Brewmaster Nick Campbell for the gift bottles of the DIPA and 10th Anniversary beer. We look forward to trying them soon.
A short 20-minute drive away on the outskirts of Napa was our second and final stop of the day. Located in a business park, Napa Smith Brewery’s brand new tasting room shares a building with Bourassa Winery. We bucked the trend of most entering and chose beer over wine.
The taster set at Napa Smith
I thought I was very familiar with the Napa Smith lineup as their bottled beers are quite prevalent in Northern California. Much to my surprise, however, there were eight beers to try in the sample tray. Besides their standards, including the GABF silver medal winning IPA, the samples included a Wheat, Amber Lager, Red Ale and Imperial Porter.
The belle of the ball, Hopageddon
The star of the show was the unique Hopageddon. The Imperial IPA, weighed in at 9.2% ABV and 144 IBUs. It’s distinct flavor came from a combination of being wet hopped and aged in Chardonnay and Cabernet barrels. Its hop character was conversely pungent and subtle. There was a hint of Chardonnay and a slight tannic quality. Certainly one of the most interesting brews I have tried in a long time.
Finished at Napa Smith, it was time for the three-hour drive home. We only spent a little over an hour total at both breweries, but adding two breweries brought us closer to our 675 target. Stay tuned as we begin the countdown to 700…
This past weekend, Chris and I attended the 3rd annual BevMo! Holiday Beer Fest at Fort Mason in San Francisco. I was supposed to write a blog about the fest, but as Thanksgiving Day approached, I became more introspective and thankful. The fest and giving thanks may seem like two completely different subjects. However, as I started thinking about what I was most thankful for, I realized what made the Holiday Beer Fest so special to me this year.
The 2011 Bevmo! Holiday Beer Fest
I could say that I am thankful for the mothers of brewers or for the brewers who make good craft beer. Heck, I could even say I am just plain thankful for having craft beer in my life. But what I am really thankful for is the wonderful craft beer people I know. Starting my craft beer life in the Bay Area, events up there are often like old home week. This year’s Holiday Beer Fest was no exception.
At the fest I clunked plastic cups of Almanac’s latest offering, Autumn 2011 Farmhouse Pale, with friends like Bruce “the Beer Chef” Paton. We first met Bruce close to 20 years ago when Barclay’s was our local and he has been a special person in our life ever since. I also received a big hug and a kiss from Betsey Hensley, beer woman extraordinaire and the wife of Marin Brewing Company brewer, Arne Johnson. She also gave me a bottle of Underberg, something I was especially thankful to have at the end of the festival!
Monterey Bay represents at the Holiday Beer Fest
Running my beer crafts table I didn’t have a whole lot of opportunity to walk around the fest and taste beers, so I was grateful to be next to our friend Kevin Clark, brewer at Peter B’s in Monterey. Kevin has done an amazing job revamping Peter B’s line-up and I was all too happy to drink his Sundown Hazelnut Brown for most of the night. I appreciate counting Kevin and his wife Corrie as good friends, as well as Kevin’s contribution to boosting our local beer scene down on the Monterey Peninsula. So I guess, I actually am thanking a brewer for making great craft beer. I’ll stop short of thanking his mother for giving birth to him.
I can think of numerous others who I saw during the fest that helped me realize how grateful I am to be part of the craft beer community, but I don’t want to bore you all with an endless list of thanks reminiscent of an Academy Award acceptance speech.
At the risk of being totally mushy, Chris and I would like to say how much we appreciate all our friends with whom we have shared some very special times and beers with, as well as all thebeergeek.com supporters that we may not know personally. You have all enriched our (beer) life in some way and for that, we thank you. We hope you have a very Hoppy Thanksgiving!
View all the images from the 2011 Holiday Beer Fest…
