Bring Some Home to the Wives.

Well I must admit that my last several posting have ventured more towards a retrospective than prospective. Or the other way around. So I return to Beer.

As I have stated before, my current employment requires that I travel pretty much all over the USA. I have traveled to or through ever state in the lower 48 except South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Delaware. I have attempted to try a beer from every state in the Union. ( I have come close) Some I like, and some I do not. I have also attempted to visit as many "micro brewpubs as I could. I have been to Los Lunas, New Mexico and drank a Farmers Tan Red Ale and to Marquette, Michigan to enjoy a Vierling Blueberry Honey Wheat Beer. Although there are more and more "craft brews" available at the "local market" there are even more available at brewpubs. Some actually bottle their beer (such as the aforementioned Farmers Tan. (GET PLOWED!) and some others do not. If you want a Vierling Blueberry then you will have to go to the southern banks of Lake Superior and drink one there or fill your growler. They actually put real Michigan Blueberry s in the pint glass after the pour. There are literally hundreds and hundred of brew pubs out there. And there are chains too. BJ's Brew house is one. They actually brew good beer. Well actually they rarely brew beer. The restaurants are constructed to appear as a micro brewery. The beer is actually brewed elsewhere. They actually farm out their brews and have local or area micro breweries use their recipes and brew for them. Of all of the BJ's in Texas, St. Arnold's in Houston brews their beer. The food is great although slightly higher than your local Chili's or Applebee's. Then you have Rock Bottom, The Yard House, John Harvard's, Capitol City Brewery, Flying Saucer, Two Rows and Hops. All are restaurants that serve good food and sell tee shirts, bottle openers, pint glasses and caps as well. While working in Connecticut, I had the chance to visit a Hop's. The food was truly outstanding and I recommend them highly....but......stay away from what they call beer. Jeez, it was bad! While working near Allentown, Pa. I had the chance to eat and drink at Bethlehem Brew Works.The food was outstanding and the beer was amazing. If you are near there you got to check it out and also the C.F. Martin Factory located in nearby Nazareth. Oh yea, I play guitar (and mandolin). I have been playing for nearly 45 years. I have gotten G, C ,and D down real good. I have been to the plant twice. The last time I was there I was standing in the lobby and was about to go into the museum. "Excuse me are your Doug?" a fellow asked me. I turned around to see that the person asking me the question was none other than Chris Martin (C.F. Martin IV). He is the current guru at Martin. Standing next to him was someone I recognized. I nodded at him and said hello, he replied the same is a slight "English" accent. I replied to Chris,"no...sorry". They turned and walked away. It hit me later...wow that was Eric Clapton!


With the rapid growth of brew pubs and "thingsBEER", I am finding more and more Beer snobbery. You have your beer fanatics and your beer purists. You find those that live and breath because their particular liking is the one all should appreciate. Some sway towards the Belgium Trappist monk type beers. Others the Irish Stout. Some prefer hopped up hoppified beers, while other prefer fruity whit beers. Some prefer German or Deucth beer while others like ales, pale ales, (English Pale or American Pale), Bock, Double Bocks, Triple Bocks, Porters, Dunkelwiess' Ambers, Reds, Lambics, Mexicans, and so on and so on.....

John Denver once sang a song titled Berkeley Woman. The gist of the tune was about this guy who saw this "hippie girl" in a rocking chair and he fantasized about what it would be like to be with her. Only problem is his wife was standing next to him...


I saw a Berkley woman sitting' in her rocking' chair. A dulcimer in her lap A
feather in her hair. Her breasts swayed freely with the rhythm of the rocking'
chair. She was a-sitting' and a-singing' and a-swaying' her cheeks were red I
declare.Twas hard to believe what my eyes showed me then. The color in her
cheeks was just her natural skin she wore no makeup to make her look that
way. She was a natural mama with the red cheeks. What more can I say.
Well I finally realized there was hunger in my stare .In my mind I was
swaying' with the woman in the rocking' chair. But the lady I was living'
with was standing' right by my side. She saw my stare and she saw my
hunger and Lord it made her cry. So with anger on her face yes and the hurt
in her eyes, she scratched me and she clawed me, she screamed and she
cried. "Oh you don't give me near all the loving' that you should, yet you're
ready to go and lay with her. You're just no damn good". Well I guess she's
probably right. Oh I guess I'm probably wrong. I guess she's not too far
away. She hasn't been gone very long. And I guess we could get together
and try it one more time, but I know that wanderlust would come again.
She'd only wind up a-crying' Well now you've heard my story plain as the
light of day. It's hard to feel guilty for loving' the ladies That's all I gotta say
'Cept a woman is the sweetest fruit That God ever put on the vine I'd no more love just one kinda woman Than drink only one kinda wine

As Rudyard Kipling is quoted " A woman is just a woman but a good cigar is a smoke." Well, that is the way I feel about beer. Hell they are all good. Well lets say most of them are good. Nowadays brewers are beginning to get pretty fancy and creative with their brewing arts. You can find beer made from pumpkins and other forms of squash. Beets, all sorts of fruit including raisins, pears, figs and even coffee and chocolate are now flavoring or are added to beer and ales. They add all sorts of spices too. Remember the one I mentioned from Portland Maine? I once drank a chile beer in Arizona. A real chile was inside the bottle. Not bad if you are only going to drink one of them.

I have this friend named Anne. She is from the Florida Parishes. She considers herself a true Cajun cook. She claims, and both of her sons agree, that she makes a very good Neutra chili. I do like chili and I am from Louisiana It is true , a coon ass will eat anything that don't eat him first. But I draw the line when it come to eating Louisiana Neutra Rat. the Maninna boys can have all of their momma's Neutra chili they want. I shall not get in their way. Since I tend to ramble, I do have to admit that when I was a small "boy child" my mother's father (my Pap Paw Boone) used to go squirrel hunting and and kill young squirrels and take their brains and mix with eggs. he would then scramble them and feed to me. I am told I loved it. What I am trying to say is like I have quoted many times before, "...everyone is entitled to his own stupid opinions"

I was in the Detroit, Michigan airport once. Now you really have to go there too. They have this passage way between two terminals and you can ride on the moving floor. On both sides of the tunnel is a really neat light and sound show. The music is some "space age music" lifted from a Disney amusement ride or the sound track of Logan's Run. I bet it would be amazing if one was truly "loaded". Anyway, I sat a bar waiting on my next flight and drank a $ 7.00 beer. (At least it was 20 ounces.) It was a Samuel Adams Lager. Later while enjoying the light show or riding on the airplane to my next destination, I belched and I could taste the aroma from the beer I had recently consumed. That taste was the taste of hops. After nearly 40 years of drinking beer I finally realized what the true taste of beer was supposed to taste as. Now I am not a complete idiot, I realize that beer actually only has a few ingredients. I realized hops was one of them but I truly never appreciated the essence of hops.

Ales, Pilsners, Lagers, Stouts. I.P.A's are term for beer that frankly most have no idea or do not want to know anything about. I can prove it. Find 10 people at random and ask them if Budweiser is a lager, pilsner or ale. You will be very surprised with the results of your survey. Funny thing is that Bud's advertising promotes Bud as the great American Lager.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to travel to the Portland Or. area ( for a job). My loving wife knew how much I loved the area and she suggested that I arrive a few days earlier and visit a few micro brews. I had been there about two year earlier and took advantage of the Brew Bus. http://www.brewbus.com/ I strongly recommend it. I plotted out about 18 brew pubs for my two day "pub crawl". Sunday, the day of my arrival I would spend in the Pearl District on the West bank of the Willamette and Monday would find me on the East side of the river. I was driving so I planned the trip so that I could park my car and walk to most pubs and I was determined to make sure that I ate plenty and watched myself and not get behind the wheel if I was even close to being intoxicated. My ultimate goal was to finally get inside of the Hair of the Dog Brewery and actually drink some of the brewery's beers and ales. As I may have stated before, I tend to collect tee shirts, caps, bottle openers and pint glasses. I really wanted Hair of the Dog tee. Long story short.....I now own a black "Fred" shirt. It is way too cool. I did have some time to visit with Alan and drink some samples of his beer. The cool thing was that it was just him and me there. I helped him put beer bottles inside of cases. I still have three of the beers I purchased in a six pack "mixer" (Ruth, Adam and of course Fred).
My 2008 beer crawl in the Portland area was one I shall long remember. Thanks Tony. I was not able to visit all of the pubs on my pub crawl list but I feel satisfied I at least made a dent in it. I did get a chance to visit the Rogue Public House, Deschute's new pub in the Pearl, Bridgeport, a new pub called HUB or Hopworks Urban Brewery, The Green Dragon, The HorseBrass Saloon, The Lucky Labrador, Roots, a McMemamins pub, and of course Hair of the Dog. If you ever get a chance, you have got to check out the men's room at the Bridgeport Brewhouse. the urinals are huge. I took a pic of one and sent it to my wife. She deleted it. I guess that is a guy thing.

So I shall finally state that as of today, my favorite beers. are shown below. Things change you know. Also at any given time any one of the top ten could be my number one .

Number Ten

Big Sky Brewery (Montana) - Moose Drool Brown Ale

I have purchased this in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma area

Number Nine

Bell's Brewery (Michigan) - Two Hearted Ale

I found this in Michigan and Illinois

Number Eight

Hair of the Dog Brewery (Oregon) - Blue Dot Imperial IPA

This is only available in the Portland area

Number Seven

Steven's Point Brewery (Wisconsin) - Special Lager

Only available in Wisconsin and the U.P.

Number Six

New Glarus Brewery (Wisconsin) - Spotted Cow

Only available in Wisconsin

Number Five

Harpoon (Massachusetts) - I.P.A.

I purchased a sixer last week near Gainesville Florida

Number Four

Firestone Walker (California) - Double Barrel Ale

I have only found this in California

Number Three

North Coast Brewery (California) -Red Seal Ale

I have found this in Austin, Texas

Number Two

Deschutes Brewing Company (Oregon) - Black Butte Porter


This has recently gone on tap at my favorite pub in my home town



and

and

and

Number One

Magic Hat Brewing (Vermont) - # 9

the closest I have found it to Texas was in Cleveland Ohio and or the Washington D.C. area


Honorable Mention (any one of these could be in the top ten)

Magic Hat Brewery (Vermont) - Circus Boy
Schafly Brewery (Missouri) - Irish Style Extra Stout
New Glarus Brewery (Wisconsin) - Fat Squirrel
Stone Brewing Company (California) - Pale Ale
Karl Strauss Brewing Company (California) - Red Trolly Ale
New Belgium Brewing Company (Colorado) - 2 Below
Flying Fish Brewing Company (New Jersey) -Extra Pale Ale
Deschutes Brewery (Oregon) - Mirror Pond Ale
Odell's Brewery (Colorado) - 10 Shillings
Smuttynose Brewing Company (New Hampshire) - Old Brown Dog Ale
Boulevard Brewing Company (Missouri) - Bully Porter
Sierra Nevada (California) - Summerfest Lager
Oskar Blues Brewing Co. (Colorado) - Dale's Pale Ale
Goose Island Brewery (Illinois) - 312
Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery (North Carolina) - Amber Ale
Summit Brewing Company (Minnesota) - I.P.A.



I suppose a special category should go to beers that have really "cool" names. Shmaltz Brewing Company (New York) - Messiah Bold come to mind or Polygamy Porter from Watasch Brewery (Utah) is another. Hell why just have one when you can bring some home to the wives.


As you can see they come from all over the United States. Most of the above beer are not available where I live. But depending on which direction I travel, I am probably going to find some of them . I have found the the Southeast part of the United States has the poorest overall selection. Travel into Colorado provides the best selection I have found. There you can find a huge assortment of both Colorado, California, Washington and Oregon beers

Four regions (states) tend to be the best beer producing areas

Oregon/California/Washington

Colorado/New Mexico

Wisconsin/Michigan/Illinois

Vermont/Massachusetts/New Hampshire


My next posting will address beer laws and other odd and strange things that I have encountered in my travels. From there I am not sure what will be penned so stay tuned.....

Sláinte



The Third