The Hot Dog King comes to Ft. Collins

In 1983, my family moved from Cleveland to Denver. I was seven years old.

My parents both grew up in Cleveland. If I count correctly, at least three generations on either side preceded them in Northern Ohio, before you get back to the old country. Except for my Uncle Dave who was in the Air Force and now lives in Columbia, SC, all of my parents’ brothers and sisters still live in Ohio. Looking back, it took some guts for my parents to leave all they had known for 32 years to embark on a journey West, just the two of them and a couple young kids.

All I really remember of my first six years in Ohio was playing River Raid on the Atari with my friend Eric, getting popped on the chin by a see-saw in kindergarten, and my sister falling off our second story deck when she was two, yet somehow landing square on her back in a sandbox without getting hurt.

I was a little sad to leave my friends Eric and Jeff when my parents said we were moving to Colorado, but I think I was up for the adventure. When we flew into Colorado for the first time and I saw the mountains as we descended into Denver, I was immediately struck with awe. I was amazed at how big they were. I’d never seen anything so magnificent. Instinctively, I felt a primal fear of those jagged, snow-capped peaks, yet even at seven years old I was drawn to them.

Even though we only spent three years in Colorado, the experience had a profound effect on the rest of my life. I’m still a Broncos fan, I love going up to the mountains and I enjoy cold weather.

Turns out I have another connection to Colorado that didn’t surface until I was in my late 20s: beer. All I knew of Colorado beer as a kid was the one time we went on a tour of the Coors brewery in Golden. The only thing I recall of that tour was that it stunk to high hell in the brewery. I didn’t know what was going on, but it wasn’t natural. Maybe that’s why I ended up waiting until I was 21 to drink my first beer.

My, how Colorado beer and I have both grown.

As fortune would have it, a few weeks ago Nicole and I went on a pilgrimage to the Mecca of beer during Craft Beer Week. As our plane approached Denver, I looked over the port-side wing and felt the same nervous excitement when I saw the front range as I did when I was seven.

The plan was to spend a few days in Denver seeing the sights (read: breweries) with our good friends the Harrisons before heading out for a mountain get-away at the tail end trip. The Harrisons are beer appreciators themselves, and Alexandra was in between semesters and had ample time to serve as our beer sherpa. In fact, the first thing we did off the plane was head to a downtown King Soopers to pick up some Deschutes and Odell’s.

Being mid-May when we left South Carolina, it was in the high-80s with the ever-present humidity. As we cracked open a couple Deschutes Hop Henges and sat on the front porch at the Harrison’s near-downtown craftsman, the sun was shining and it couldn’t have been more than 70 degrees. It was a little slice of heaven.

However, after that sunny afternoon, it must have begun the rainiest week in the history of Colorado. It rained at least 6 of the next 7 days. It felt more like spring in Oregon. But we wouldn’t let it hold us down.

Nicole and Alexandra drape themselves along with the hop vines outside of Odell in Ft. Collins

We visited Great Divide, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Avery, New Belgium and Odell over the course of four days. Each brewery and tasting room had its own character, from the tour-centric grandeur of New Belgium to the urban warehouse feel of Great Divide.

Oskar Blues tasting room, also known as the Tasty Weasel, had pinball, shuffleboard and four skeeball lanes with 200-barrel fermenters in the background. I continued my cornhole spiral at Left Hand, taking a beating at the hands of Alexandra and Emmett. Odell had a well-polished tasting bar, no doubt inspired by the friendly Ft. Collins beer arms race with New Belgium.

My favorite brewery to visit was Avery. Their tasting room has a mind-blowing 20 taps and a cask, including at least 8 beers that I had never tried. I ran the gamut on the rarities and one-offs that I could not find at home. My favorites were their sour and a bourbon barrel smoked beer. All-around it was outstanding. I always liked Avery, but after suckling on the teats of the brewery, my esteem has risen to new heights. Thank you, Adam Avery.

The wall of taps at Avery

On Wednesday of the week we loaded up a rental car and headed west on I-70. After surviving a snow-storm, we emerged on the other side of Vail in Edwards, the location of Crazy Mountain Brewing Co.

We stopped in around lunch time with a French bread loaf and salami, grabbed a couple pints of IPA and enjoyed the view of the Vail Valley. We also had the good fortune of meeting brewer and co-owner Kevin Selvey and Crazy Mountain’s agent, Jay. Jay also happens to be the inventor of the beer buckle. And yes, I will be wearing one at Brewgrass in September.

Me with Jay, the inventor of the beer buckle, at Crazy Mountain

Our final beer stop of the trip was at Revolution Brewing in Paonia. After driving through a couple of broken-down mining towns that bordered on creepy, we came into Paonia, a surprisingly quaint and active town of about 1,000 people. We learned that in town there’s a cool bar that has live music on weekends, an independent movie theater, a farm-to-table restaurant, and a brewery.

About 20 minutes from our final destination in Crawford, we rolled into Revolution weary from five hours in the car. It was about four in the afternoon and the tasting room bar, which is in an old church, was already full with about eight patrons locked in conversation. I totally expected one of those scenes where everyone goes silent and stares when the outsiders come in, but everyone kept on rolling. We were greeted with a smile from the woman behind the bar and were served a pint of Colorado Red and Miner’s Gold.

Nicole and me out in front of Revolution Brewing with brewmaster Mike.

We relaxed for a couple pints and filled a couple growlers to take on to our cabin in Crawford. After all, we couldn’t risk being snowed-in for a couple days without some local beer to stave off the cold. It was still only mid-May, after all! (We woke up Thursday morning to snow. It was May 20. Didn’t see that coming…)

After nine days in Colorado, drinking some of the best beer in the world, immersed in the most gorgeous mountain vistas, it was tempting not to get on the plane Sunday back to South Carolina. I dreaded the warm humidity hitting me like a wet blanket when I got off the plane. However, I boarded the flight, knowing there is unfinished business back home. I have debts to pay and beer to evangelize. My people are in Colorado, but I’m a missionary in South Carolina.

I now understand Grizzly Bear. I’ve been to the pinnacle and as much as I try to cling to it, it remains allusive. Yet how can I go anywhere else and be satisfied?

Colorado… what now?

The view from our cabin in Crawford. It was amazing.

While I was working the first part of the week, I was staying in Laguna Woods, about an hour south of LA. On Tuesday I was able to steal away for a post-work jaunt down to Laguna Beach for dinner at the Ocean Avenue Brewery.

Laguna Beach is a quaint little beach town, and is the only place in Southern California where the mountains go all the way to the sea. The beaches and small cliffs provide a beautiful setting. I was able to watch the sun set over the Pacific for the first time in almost four years. Ah, it’s been too long…

Sunset on Laguna Beach

After checking out some beach volleyball (players) and walking in the sand, I headed over to the brew pub. It was around 7 pm, but I was dog tired from the jet lag. It also threw me off that the Bulls-Pacers game was just finishing up. Stuff happens so early out there!

Ocean Avenue Brewery

The place was smaller than I thought it would be from the outside, with the bar on the left and a big projection TV on the right side. I got the feeling this place would be rocking during the peak of beach season, but tonight it was empty.

The dining area in Ocean Avenue Brewing

They had a good sized patio section along the sidewalk, but I decided to pull up a seat at the bar along with the other two patrons in the restaurant. As my father-in-law taught me, if you’re traveling by yourself, always sit at the bar. You’ll make some good connections that way.

I struck up a conversation with the bartender, Giovani, and ordered a sample flight of their four beers on tap. (They also had another four or five guest taps.) Of the brewery’s own beers, they had Watchtower Wheat, Red Sunshine, Ocean Pale and The Moors Scottish Ale.

Giovani told me a bit about each beer, in an awesome Italian accent, by the way. I started with the wheat, which would make a great beach beer. Light in body and flavorful, it came through with citrus and coriander.

The red was solid for a session beer. It had a nice malt flavor and dry finish. The pale ale was my least favorite, though it was decent. The Scottish was interesting. Smokey. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed an entire pint of it, as the smoke was too intense to make it a good session beer. However, the sample was tasty.

The food menu was creative and well thought-out. I ordered a pizza topped with fresh grape tomatoes, arugula, carmelized onions, garlic and shaved parmesan. It was delicious.

I wasn’t able to steal away to any more beer stops until I took my leave of Aliso Viejo and headed across town to visit for a couple days with my friends Jackie and Justin in Culver City, west of downtown LA. Justin is also a kindred craft beer spirit, and he proved to be a sage shirpa for my first foray into the SoCal beer scene.

Wally’s Wine and Spirits

Tactical Nuclear Penguin would have blown up my happy home.

I managed to leave the office early enough to avoid the worst of LA traffic, and I arrived at Jackie and Justin’s around 5 pm. Since Justin wasn’t getting home until around 7, Jackie took the opportunity to drive me over to Wally’s Wine and Spirits, a beer and wine shop a few minutes from their apartment. (They also had a separate small building dedicated to cheese. The world needs more buildings dedicated to cheese.)

Despite only having a few coolers for beer amid the wine and spirits, the selection was carefully chosen. No A-B here.

Somehow, I managed to restrain myself from buying the $100 bottle of Brewdog Tactical Nuclear Penguin, but I still came away with a good haul. Russian River Damnation and Supplication, Alesmith Old Numbskull and Odonata Saison. The 50 pound weight limit for checked baggage really puts a damper on a beer smuggler’s day.

Father’s Office

Once Justin arrived home from his hard days’ work, they took me to Father’s Office. I could only wish this were my father’s office. Nothing against my dad. He is a hard-working American.

Like most places in LA, Father’s Office has an upscale vibe, but in a way that makes you feel cooler for being there. It’s open seating, so there’s a predatory element that takes the excitement to a whole new level.

The wall of taps was impressive, and I went right in for a Deschutes Hop Henge. It had been over three years since I last tasted a Deschutes, and I felt like I was reunited with an old flame that I once shared a tryst with in Bend those many years ago.

I ponder the greatness of Pliney the Elder

After finishing the Hop Henge, Justin was able to score some seats at one of the outside patio tables. I then had the opportunity to cross one off my beer bucket list: Russian River Pliney the Elder. Yes, I’ve never had Pliney of any age. I now understand.

The food menu at Father’s Office is also on par with the quality of the beer. When he opened the place, chef Sang Yoon decided he was going to create dishes his way, so there are no substitutions. By the look of the dishes, I wouldn’t want to question his judgment.

I went with the burger, which was cooked a perfect medium rare, topped with guere, caramelized onions and arugula on a crusty baguette. We also got a basket of sweet potato fries, which were just sick. Oh, and don’t order ketchup with the fries. Just trust me.

Friday was laid back. While my hosts were working, I went for a run in Culver City Park, which put any hills in Greenville to shame. My calves are still sore. After lunch with Jackie at Native Foods Café, which was nutritious and delicious, I took a drive down to the beach in Santa Monica.

I stopped in for a beer at the Library Alehouse on Main Street. It was a neat little place and had 29 beers on tap. I chose the Firestone Velvet Merlin, a tasty oatmeal stout, roasty and chocolatey.

I stuck around long enough to watch the Broncos select Rahim Moore and Orlando Franklin back-to-back in the second round. I think Denver had a good draft, despite not taking a defensive tackle. If you want my full opinion on the draft, send me an email and I’d be happy to share.

Later Friday night, after sushi dinner, where I tried sashimi for the first time, we dropped Jackie off at LAX to catch a red eye to DC for a baptism. That is one dedicated godmother.

City Tavern

Justin and I then proceeded to the City Tavern back in Culver City. He’d never been there and wanted to check it out. It was packed when we arrived at 10 pm. There was patio seating, but was reserved for diners only before 11.

We went into the bar and ordered a couple beers. The atmosphere was lively. There was a bachelorette party and another group of guys that ordered a round of shots of brown liquor. It could have been one of those nights. The crowd seemed a little bit older, but as Justin put it, “People seem to grow up late in LA.”

The City Tavern is unique in that it is the only bar in California (or anywhere that I’m aware of) that has self-serve taps at three booths. I’m not exactly sure how it works, and I forgot to take a picture, but you have to reserve the booths and they offer three selections that aren’t available from the main bar. It’s a cool concept, though I’m not sure it would be good for my health.

Stone World Bistro and Garden

On Saturday Justin and I wanted to take a pilgrimage down to the Stone World Bistro and Garden in Escondido, about two hours south, just north of San Diego. When we first pulled up, there was a huge parking lot full of cars. I caught a glimpse of a sign that said “Trailhead,” so I figured that the brewery was next to a state park or something. Nope, that’s all for the brewery and garden.

Walking in, the place was teeming with people. It felt like bizzaro Disneyland for beer geeks. We were told it would be an hour and a half to be seated for lunch, so we took our chances with bar seating.

The dining room at Stone's World Bistro

I began by ordering an El Camino (Un)Real Black Ale, a collaboration between Stone, Firestone Walker and 21^st Amendment. It was fantastic. Rich chocolate malt with a terrific bitter finish. Justin got the Bashah, a collaboration between Stone and Brewdog.

We made our way up to the balcony area overlooking the huge patio area and garden. Unfortunately, the garden was being worked on, so we couldn’t go in.

I usually prefer places that are less populated and a little more rustic, but Stone created as close to a Garden of Beer Eden as I’ve seen. The garden is like an oasis among the desert of San Diego, and the restaurant is top-notch. Since we couldn’t order lunch entrees in the bar area, we did the next best thing, soft pretzels and sausages. Not a bad consolation prize!

Our lunch of pretzels and sausage, accompanied by Oaked Arrogant Bastard and Cali-Belgique

The pretzels were soft, yet crispy and buttery on the outside. We were given four sausage links: smoked cheddar bratwurst, spicy Polish, chicken florentine and hot Italian with provolone, all served over braised cabbage. Paired with an Oaked Arrogant Bastard and a Cali-Belgique, it was a heavenly meal.

I can’t speak highly enough about the Stone beer garden. I’m still in awe. However, if you do go, be sure to make a reservation.

But wait, there’s more…

Lost Abbey

We had one more stop left in us. About five minutes down the road from Stone is Port Brewing and their sister Belgian-style brewery, Lost Abbey.

Unlike Stone, Lost Abbey is no frills. You walk into the brewery, and it’s a brewery. There’s a small bar off to the left where you can sit on kegs with bags of dextrose for cushions. Everywhere you go in the brewery, you’re surrounded by oak barrels and aging beer. It is, in a word, inspiration.

There were oak barrels around every corner in the brewery

This was probably the most fun stop of the weekend. Combining the excitement of $1 four-ounce samples with other people who were equally excited about $1 samples, the atmosphere was festive.

I was wearing my Coast Brewing t-shirt and a guy from Mt. Pleasant who was also in California for a work trip came up and introduced himself. He and his other friend who lived in San Diego were also at Brewvival in February. Yes, it is a small world.

We also met a group of four girls who were chemists in graduate school. We compared tasting notes, and I learned that one of the girls, Jenny, was from Germany and had never eaten an avocado! Imagine!

At this point, Emma the Dog saved me. After trying several samples, including 10 Commandments, Avant Garde, and Carnevale, along with Port Brewing’s Old Viscocity, Mongo IPA and Santa’s Little Helper, I was in a good place.

I could have kept drinking samples like this was Brewgrass, but we had to leave to pick up Emma from doggy day care. I’d like to send Emma a personal thanks, as she prevented me from being hungover on an airplane for eight hours the next day.

The Lost Abbey beers were great, and I still have an unopened bottle of Red Poppy waiting for me in the fridge. I’m going to wait a few weeks to open it, after I’ve come down from my California high and need a little reminder of what the beer is like on the West Side.

Still only a two-brewery town, Greenville has taken a few steps closer to beerdom. Barley’s Tap Room has been a bastion of good beer for 10 years, and in the past year and a half we’ve had The Community Tap and Greenville Beer Exchange join the cause of bringing good beer to the scene.

This month, The Trappe Door opened, unlocking a gathering spot that has the same “cool” factor that the Brick Store Pub and The Thirsty Monk bring to Atlanta and Asheville. In the basement below Barley’s, it has that cozy, cellar feel that allows your imagination to teleport you 4,300 miles to Belgium.

Dimly lit, with low ceilings, big wooden doors and an amazing attention to detail create an atmosphere that feels as though they shipped a 200 year-old Belgian beer hall brick by brick to Greenville. It’s the type of place you could lose yourself in the bottom of a few pints and good conversation, and before you know it two hours have passed.

The dining room

Atmosphere is one thing, but the real question is whether it brings the goods. How’s the beer list? The baby of Barley’s owner Josh Beebe, there was little doubt that the Trappe Door’s selection would excite. 10 taps, 100+ bottles with everything from Belgian Wit to Flanders Red. As a sour beer fanatic, I was relieved to see about 20 lambics and sours on the list.

The final cherry on top is the food. There’s nothing more disappointing than boring food to accompany good beer. That is not the case here. They put a unique Belgian twist on the dishes, which include lamburger sliders with mint beet relish and goat cheese, sauteed duck breast with a cherry beer sauce, carbonades flamandes (beef stew cooked in Belgian beer), a variety of mussel pots, and yes, even Belgian waffles.

One corner features couches, a TV and faux barrels.

If I had one piece of constructive criticism, it would be that the fluorescent light from the kitchen in the back pierces the ambiance of the back three tables. I was even seated in the far corner in the back, but was facing the kitchen, and like a moth I found myself not being able to look away from the light. If they could find some way to put up a door or veil the light from the kitchen, it could save the back third of the bar.

AUTHOR’S NOTE, 6-26-2011: On a recent visit, I noticed they had turned off the moth light on the edge of the kitchen. It was much, much better.

Overall, I was very impressed with the Trappe Door in my initial visit. I felt like it brought the entire package: atmosphere, beer and food. I think it’s going to be a big step in Greenville’s continuing transformation into a beer destination. Now I don’t have to drive over an hour to get to a “cool” beer bar. I have one in my town.

The taps come from the ceiling. And sometimes, people turn into zombies.

That's my bike.

In November 2008, Scott Shor and Rich Carley opened the Charleston Beer Exchange. It was the first of its kind in South Carolina, a retailer totally dedicated to craft beer. Two years later, the store is ranked as the #2 beer retailer in the world for 2011 according to Ratebeer.com.

That is an amazing accomplishment. Greenville shall now reap the benefits of their expertise.

On December 31, 2010, the Greenville Beer Exchange opened its doors, a mere seven hours before the dawn of 2011. “It took us longer than we thought, but we were bound and determined to open in 2010,” Rich told me while working the Greenville store earlier this month on the Monday night of the Great Snowstorm of ’011, while most of the city was shut down. “We can’t afford not to be open.”

Co-owner Rich Carley explains how awesome this beer is to a couple customers in the "far-out beer wing." Only one of the customers is visible, but there were two. The other one was a lot smaller than the nearer guy.

That night Nicole and I stopped in after having dinner at Barley’s, which is adjacent to the GBX, a very convenient pairing for beer aficionados. We picked up 2007 and 2008 vintages of Rodenbach Oak Aged Flanders Red. Yes, they were both amazing.

Cameron fills a growler of Ommegang Zuur for me from among the 16 taps.

It’s those type of rarities that the guys at the Beer Exchange bring to the table. In addition to the extraordinary variety of bottles, they have 16 taps to fill growlers. You heard me. Sixteen.

Scott and Rich took all that they learned opening the Charleston store and put it into the Greenville location. It’s a bigger store and has more taps than Charleston. And while they aren’t doing any events yet, they do have plans to do beer tastings and rare beer events as they do in Charleston.

Rich is working the store for the next few weeks while they get everything settled. After that, they are turning the store over to Cameron Read, the general manager, and Zach Shollenberger.

While Cameron and Zach have big shoes to fill, I think they’ll be ok. After all, Cameron recommended the Rodenbach and that was a hit. He’s off to a good start in my book.

Out front of Front Street Brewery

Over New Year’s weekend, I went on a family trip with my in-laws to Wilmington, NC, where we met up with some long-time family friends from Columbia. It was a fun three day excursion to welcome in 2011. We went for a walk on the beach, ate seafood at the Fish House Grill in Wrightsville Beach, watched bowl games. And drank. A lot. Of beer.

In true Zokan fashion, when we rolled into town on Friday around 1:00, the first thing we did was stop at Front Street Brewery for lunch. This brewpub has a special place in Zokan family lore. My father-in-law had a good bit of business in Wilmington back in the day, so he frequented the brewpub often. (Rumor has it that Nicole may have accompanied him on a couple of these trips and had a beer or two when she may or may not have been of age…)

The brewpub’s facade is unassuming among the historic storefronts on Front Street, however the fermenters and brewhouse immediately greet you on the left upon entering, reassuring you that you’re in the right place.

While waiting for a table, we had our first round at the bar, which had seating for a dozen. I began with The James Brown, a seasonal brown ale. I’m not sure the Godfather of Soul would have enjoyed this one. I found myself slightly disappointed, as it was a little too bitter, lacked enough body and had a dusty character. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. It reminded me of a rye brown I once brewed that I wasn’t too fond of.

However, my faith was restored when I tasted Nicole’s IPA. This IPA achieved legendary proportions according to my father-in-law, so there was a lot of hype surrounding this beer. I must say, it lived up to the billing as a solid choice. Nice malt backbone with a gripping bitter finish. Not spectacular, but I was impressed.

We had lunch upstairs, which was a cozy, compact area with a low ceiling. The food menu wasn’t cutting-edge, but featured a lot of Irish bar-style classics. I chose the Brew-BQ burger, which included Scottish Ale BBQ sauce.

Of course, I had to get the Dram Tree Scottish Ale to go with my BBQ burger. The Scottish was miles above The James Brown. It had a big, sweet toffee malt flavor with a substantial body and lingering finish. I enjoyed it immensely with my burger.

On Sunday afternoon, the entire group of us, 12 deep, commandeered the front corner of the downstairs dining area to watch some NFL football. The Zokans were on pins and needles as the Packers were fighting for their playoff hopes against the Bears, and I was watching the one spec of hope I have as a Broncos fan, as Tim Tebow went up against the Chargers.

The Hot Dog King holding The James Brown

I started out my afternoon with the Coastal Kolsch. This was a tasty golden Kolsch with a bready malt flavor and clean finish. If I may be so bold, I would say it reminded me of the Kolsch I brewed last summer, so that made me feel pretty good.

Next it was onto the American Amber, which like The James Brown, didn’t seem to achieve a good hop/malt balance. I didn’t care for that one. I tried a sip of someone else’s Tiny Tim’s Christmas Ale, an Imperial Java Porter, a 9.2% coffee-malt bomb. Tasty, but so intense it would probably take me two hours to drink a pint.

I ended up coming full-circle and going back to the IPA to finish up the session. My palate was shot by this point and I needed a can’t miss closer to continue cheering on Tebow and his comeback of futility. Luckily, the Broncos came up just short and secured the number two pick in next year’s draft.

Even though Front Street Brewery had a few misses, there were more than enough hits that it did not come up short. It’s a great place to hang out, eat dinner, watch football, whatever you fancy. It has a solid lineup of beers, good food, a cool atmosphere, and waitresses in short jumpsuit skirts, which make it a place where I could become a regular, if I didn’t live 5 1/2 hours away.

It’s not that we don’t have good beer available in Greenville. Thomas Creek and Blue Ridge represent us well on the brewing side. We have a great beer bar in Barley’s Tap Room.

What’s been missing is the beer store. Sure, the big boys have a good selection, but I’m talking about a craft beer store, run by owners who are as passionate and more knowledgable than I am, who are willing to stock a beer than only 10 people in the city are likely to try just so they can say they carry it, and who are around and actually want to talk beer with their customers.

The void has been filled. On July 1, The Community Tap opened on Wade Hampton Blvd. Mike Okupinski and Ed Buffington not only had the dream, they took the leap, and the rest of us are here to reap the spoils.

The 1,600 square-foot shop was built out entirely by Mike and Ed, along with their fathers and the help of a few other friends, including Josh Beeby, the owner of Barley’s Tap Room. According to Mike, “We wanted to build a store we’d expect to find in a residential area, that we would want to walk into ourselves.”

The store features a wide range of beer, which is sure to get more diverse as they get more entrenched in the market. Whenever the pair has some downtime between customers, they are working the phone, talking to their distributors to get new products, or contacting breweries directly to get them to send their latest and greatest to South Carolina.

In some cases, Mike and Ed also contact breweries that don’t even distribute in our state to let them know there is a market if they want to bring in their beer. It’s good to know we have beer lobbyists out there working tirelessly to bring exciting new beer to us.

Mike and Brian in front of the growler station

While the bottle selection is good, the highlight of the store is the growler filling station. Built out like a real bar, there are six taps to choose from. You can use one of the Community Tap provided growlers or bring a container of your own.

Mike also stressed the fact that they can special order beer, even if they don’t usually carry it in the store, “Anything out there you see, odds are we can get it.” So if you have any requests, let them know.

Also, with the next beer tasting laws that just passed, The Community Tap will be having their first in-store tasting around the last week in July. Check back with their website for more info.

What, Wine at a Beer Store?

In addition to beer, The Community Tap also has carries a selection of wines in the store. As a beer apologist, part of me was, let’s say, curious when I heard about the wine. I’m sure some of you may be thinking, “They better have a good excuse for this, other than higher margins.” Ok, I was thinking that.

Rest assured, they do have a good excuse. In addition to loving beer, Ed also has a passion for wine. Understanding the intricacies of wine helped form the bridge that brought him into Craft Beer Land.

Ed talking wine

The Community Tap doesn’t carry any Yellow Tail. The wine inventory consists of small, independently owned wineries. Ed and Mike have personally tasted and approved each bottle. Wine is not simply a token gesture to increase profit margins and cater to high-maintenance women.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part. Almost every wine bottle in the store is under $25. I say bring it on!

I highly recommend that you check out the store. They’ve got good beer, a cool atmosphere, and Mike and Ed are very helpful. Don’t be shy about letting them know what you want to see on the shelves, either. They are committed to uniting us with the beer we want to drink, and the entire beer community will benefit.

One of the highlights of my weekend in Atlanta was having lunch at the Brick Store Pub in Decatur on Sunday. The Brick Store is one of the most renown beer bars in the Southeast, if not the country. It’s been on my list of places to go for at least three years, but I’ve never had the chance to make it. Since I was on a beer mission this weekend, it seemed like the appropriate time to swing by.

Meeting our friends and fellow Brewtopians Bobby and Shelly C, Nicole and I arrived around 12:15 pm. In a strange quirk of Georgia law, they could not actually serve our beer until 12:30. So we put our beer orders in the queue and patiently sipped  on our water for 15 minutes while perusing the menu.

Being a lover of draught beer and in the mood for a sour, I decided to start with an Echt Kriekenbier, a Flanders Red. It was tart with cherry fruit, a slight funk and a creamy body. It went exceptionally well with our baked brie with apples and cucumber appetizer.

The lineup of our first beers. In true beer bar fashion, each beer was served in its own special glass.

The Brick Store boasts of having 17 draught and 75 bottle selections in their downstairs bar. They also have an upstairs Belgian bar, which has an additional 7 taps and 120 bottles. While 24 taps isn’t going to break any records, the Brick Store focuses on quality over quantity.

For instance, Bobby C heard a rumor they had Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout. Fortune shined upon us, for the rumour was true. What an amazing blend of bourbon, coffee and chocolate. Holy crap it was good. If we didn’t have to drive back to Greenville later that day, I would have allowed that 10% ABV beer launch me into orbit.

The food menu was almost as good as the beer menu. It’s not typical American bar fare. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw they had pierogi primavera. Pierogi are Slavic-Midwestern delicacy, potato and cheese dumplings. You just don’t see pierogi down South too often, so I had to get it.

Nicole chose the Shepherd’s Daughter’s Pie, which consisted of ground lamb, beef and pork, barley wine ketchup, fennel, scalloped potatoes, gruyere sauce, mesclun greens with lemon vinaigrette. Both dishes were delicious, but I have to give the edge to my pierogi.

The view from upstairs looking down at the main dining room.

The Brick Store is not that large, but it’s comfortable and has a lot of intricate detail and ambiance. On the downside, I can imagine that cozy atmosphere would get crowded at peak times.

The Belgian bar upstairs is bad-assed. They have a lot of exposed brick and no windows to the outside, so even though it’s upstairs, it has the feeling of a basement or cellar.

Behind the upstairs Belgian bar

If I lived in the area, I’d probably be at the Brick Store every night and I’d probably be broke. Broke, but happy…

Now that’s a doorknob.

The Brew Kettle is a three-in-one establishment. It’s a smokehouse, a brewpub and a brew-your-own for homebrewers. Is there a downside to any of this? As long as the products are tasty, not that I can see. I had heard from my dad about this place, as he went there on a visit to Ohio a couple years ago, and he’s been raving about it ever since.

What I did not realize until going there myself was that they function as a brewpub, sell their own beer on draft in the bar and in bottles for you to take home. I thought it was simply a place that you went to brew your beer and you could have a sandwich while doing so. It’s a far better experience than that.

There are a few pluses and minuses that I see to this type of set up. On the plus side, you basically get to use professional-grade equipment to brew your beer. They have copper brew kettles, a grain mill, a counter-flow wort chiller, refrigerated fermentation storage, a filtration system, a kegging and bottling system, and label design, among all the other odds and ends that you’d need.

I would estimate that to buy all this stuff yourself, it would take at least a couple grand, not to mention where the hell you’d put all this stuff. Oh, and they do all the cleaning and sanitation for you, which is the most time-consuming and annoying part of homebrewing, by far.

The downside comes from the fact that since they are legally a brewery, you have to make one of their recipes. From a legal standpoint, I’m sure due to FDA/ATF/NCAA regulations or whatever, you are renting time at their brewery to make “their” beer. They do have over 80 recipes, and they said they could tweak some here and there to make it your own, so there are a lot of possibilities.

However for me, a lot of the fun I have is in coming up with recipes on my own. It’s more than simply going through the mechanics of brewing beer. I love the creative process that goes into building a recipe, combining styles and attributes from beers I like, tweaking and evolving recipes over time until it’s just right. That’s where the art comes into play.

One other thing The Brew Kettle has going in its favor is that from what I tried, their beer is really good. (You can make the same recipes yourself that they make in the real brewery.) I only had about 20 minutes to sample a few of the beers they had on tap, but I would venture to say that they were my favorite beers of the trip. They were very flavorful and delicious. It makes me sad that I didn’t have more time to enjoy them!

New World Brown
This brown had a sweet, coffee aroma along with a roasted molassas malt flavor. It was slightly bitter, but well balanced. Very tasty!

Belgian White
Pale, cloudy color. This had a very pleasant fruity aroma. It had a very light and refreshing body with pronounced coriander and orange peel.

4 C’s Pale Ale
Not much hop aroma, but hops are definitely present in the flavor. It had an amber color and moderate body. Hop flavor is present throughout and it finishes bitter.

Olde 21 IPA
This one may have won the gold star for the week. It had a wonderful grapefruit aroma explosion. The flavor was all about citrus hops, but it had a solid malty backbone to balance it out. They said they used all Simcoe hops. Excellent, excellent beer.

My parents are not the biggest drinkers. As a matter of fact, I never remember having beer in the fridge or liquor in the cabinet. My mom would occasionally have a Bartles & Jaymes, but that was the extent of it. The only beer my dad would drink was Corona, and he averaged about two a year. Despite this inauspicious history, my parents have been pretty receptive to trying all these “crazy” new beers I keep bringing around.

Surprisingly, my mom has liked a lot more of the craft beer that I’ve given them to sample than my dad has. She really enjoys the roasted coffee flavors of stouts and the citrus hopiness of some IPAs. My dad can’t seem to get past the bitterness of hops, but at least he’ll try a sip.

Cornerstone is located in the heart of downtown Berea. It’s a quaint little square and a nice place to sit and have a beer out on the sidewalk. It was a bit sunny and warm, so we didn’t sit outside.

The food at Cornerstone was very good. I appreciated that they used their own beer as an ingredient in many of their dishes. To me, that’s a no brainer for any brewpub, and I would not trust a brewpub that didn’t do that. It shows a lack of imagination, or at least a lack of collaboration between the brewery and the kitchen.

We all enjoyed our meal selections. I had a beer battered hoki sandwich, although I got half way through the sandwich before I realized that I enjoyed the fish more without the bun. The bun took away from the flavor of the batter. Nicole got a tasty beer onion soup that used Cornerstone’s dark lager.

The beer selections that we sampled were good, but unspectacular. Although, I feel that our experience was handicapped because they were out of the Seven IPA and their stout. If you ever read my blog, you know those are my two favorite styles, so my perspective on the beer is incomplete.

Here’s what I thought about the beer that I sampled:

Grindstone Gold
Golden lager with a creamy malt body. It had a bready finish with a tinge of bitterness.

Sandstone
An orange amber Marzen lager. It was much maltier than the Grindstone. It has a sweet, bready aroma with a floral hop character. It finished dirty. I don’t know exactly how to explain dirty, other than it wasn’t bad, just dirty. Anyway, I don’t know what I’m talking about. (A bit of history, Berea was at one time the sandstone capital of the world. Until a couple decades ago, there was a huge sandstone quarry there. Now it’s a lake.)

Union Station
A “steam” ale. You don’t see much of this style, so I give them credit for branching out. There wasn’t much aroma, but it did have a caramel malty flavor and a bitter finish.

Wallace Wheat
Apricot aroma and flavor in this wheat ale. Not a lot of spices like coriander or bitter orange peel that you often find in wheat beers. It was focused mainly on the fruit profile.

Blind Faith
By far the most interesting Cornerstone beer. This one had deep yellow color and a floral, lavender aroma. The flavor was very herbal and spicy. Ginger and lavender were apparent. No bitterness was detectable. I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of the gruit I brewed, except not nearly as pungent. This one is much more “pleasant” than the gruit, which will likely knock an unsuspecting drinker on their ass.

Blu
Slight blueberry aroma. The flavor had a tart blueberry flavor. It was a sweet beer and was a bit medicinal, almost like cough syrup. The more I try different blueberry beers, the more I find how difficult they are to successfully pull off. A very challenging style.

Pint-o-Plain Porter
Biscuit malt aroma. It had a slight roasted toffee flavor and was very sweet. It finished pretty bitter, but the balance swung heavily to the sweet side.

The Beer Engine featured three selections from Buckeye Brewing on draft, as well as over 20 other draft and 100+ bottled craft beer selections. In a sense, it’s the best of all worlds. You get the brewery’s selections as you would in a brewpub, but you also have the variety of the rest of the craft beer world.

By the time we arrived at the Beer Engine, I had successfully worked up an appetite. It took about 6 hours to digest the chicken aglio e olio I had at Dadonna’s for lunch. (By the way, I literally got four meals out of that lunch portion. It’s no wonder we have a weight problem in America! But I digress…)

I naturally ordered the Buckeye Brewing sampler. To accompany my beer, I went with the schnitzel dinner. Not only do I search for beer I have never had, but I often look for the most rare and interesting food on the menu as well. It keeps life interesting. Since it’s rare to find schnitzel in South Carolina, it seemed only appropriate that I order it.

The schnitzel did not disappoint. It was delicious! It also came with potato pancakes, sauerkraut, applesauce and Martian Lager mustard. I love it when restaurants add fruit to dishes. When paired well, it always adds an unexpected sweet twist to a dish. The applesauce was a perfect contrast to the salty, fried schnitzel. (Try adding strawberries or blueberries to a salad. It always takes it up a notch.)

I also want to mention Nicole’s meal. She ordered the fried bologna sandwich on a pretzel bun. 5 ounces of bologna. That’s a third of a pound! Of bologna! As you can see from the picture below, she was beside herself. It was glorious!

Here are my thoughts from the Buckeye Brews that we sampled:

Buckeye Wheat Cloud
The cloudy yellow color lived up to the beer’s name. This wheat beer had spiced fruit character in the aroma and palate. Unlike Rocky River’s wheat beer, which finished sweet, the Wheat Cloud had a tart finish. It reminded me of an orange sweet tart.

Yuppie ESB
Amidst the IPA hop explosion we’ve had over the past few years, English bitters have been brushed aside, so I was happy to see this on tap. There wasn’t much to the aroma, but true to the style, the Yuppie finished tart with a moderate bitterness. The flavor was bready with caramel malt.

76 IPA
A well-done IPA. The hop aroma was great. It smelled like a bowl of fruit loops. The strong citrus hop character was balanced out by a sweet, candied malt flavor.

Beer Engine Strong Ale
This was a cask ale selection on tap. I never got a clear answer as to where this beer came from, if it was one of Buckeye’s own, or another brewery’s strong ale, but either way I had to mention it. For one, I love cask conditioned beer. It is so velvety smooth, without all the CO₂ bubbles getting in the way, the flavor explodes from the beer. This selection was no exception. Dark amber and menacing, it was a hoptastic beer, with hop aroma and flavor abounding throughout. I don’t know what the gravity was, but it had a very sweet malty body. It was well-balanced and big. It was definitely my favorite beer of the night.