ale tales and brewery bites
A: The beer rating sheets from our first Monthly Beer Club tasting, where we drank Red Ales till we were… red in the face?
Our first meetup was a grand success with only a few instances of confusion, lots of good friends, and varying amounts of beer-tasting experience.
Beer and food go together like… beer and food (or peas and carrots, whatever). And lesser-known, though growing in popularity, is the practice of pairing beer with food the way we do wine… beer is perfect in that its natural acidity helps the mouth balance the flavors of the food. But what if you had beer and food… combined (oh, and FRIED, yeah.)? Sounds pretty good to me, as long as there Read the rest of this entry »
A jaunt through Connecticut brought me to New Haven for dinner, which tossed me me back to college briefly. Wow. (My Boston days behind me, I’d totally forgotten the bustle of university traffic—students wandering the streets, meandering parents wavering around for a parking spot… not being able to find a parking spot.) It was a tad grating, but the energy of the city was refreshing and did make me a bit sentimental… and thirsty.
We’d planned to hit up Bru Rm. Bar since a little pre-trip research indicated it was a decent brewpub… but after walking past the hip, industrial windowfront and into the jam-packed entrance, we were told it was almost an hour wait. oof.
Sorry to use the over-referenced “Cheers” line, but there really is something
to be said for a place where everyone knows your name. I know I personally have always sought to be a “regular” somewhere special, and that’s because when you settle in and aren’t sure what to order, the bartender can make a suggestion of something new and you will love it. My spot is Moe’s Tavern in Lee, Massachusetts. It is small, casual, low-brow, varying in attendance, and unwavering in quality.
T
he food is unadorned and perfect that way (my favorites are the McDonald’s-Looking Fries, the (Dogfish Head) 60-Minute Wings, and the Philly Cheese Blunt—each of them simple and just what you want to go alongside a stellar microbrew). Moe’s has a wide-ranging, well-selected collection of craft beers, both on tap and in bottles. Owner Josh Cohen is longtime best-buds with Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione and so the house beer (marked with a Simpsons tap handle) is the 60-Minute IPA, which is a steadfast choice on any given night. Read the rest of this entry »
I had three main objectives in my otherwise carefree vacation to the Pacific Northwest last spring: visit with old friends, try excellent west-coast microbreweries, and see the Pacific Ocean.
Pelican Pub & Brewery in Pacific City, Oregon may have epitomized those goals perfectly (though there were plenty of other noteworthy moments in my two-week trip from Seattle, to Portland, to Bend, to San Francisco). Read the rest of this entry »
Franklin D. Roosevelt may have unknowingly made one of the most poignant–albeit simple–historical statements while sitting down to a dry (alcohol-wise) dinner in 1933:
“I think this would be a good time for beer.”
After that FDR drafted the repeal of Prohibition against beer, it was approved by Congress, and after that he received a truckload of Winner Beer, courtesy of the Pottsville, Pennsylvania, brewery Yuengling.
As a tribute to my grandpa, I took a trip with my dad to what could be considered the oldest craft brewery in America, to see what it was all about. Nestled in a sleepy coal-mining town, Yuengling’s rich-red brick building boasts both an official placard noting its historic stature and the only semblance of a crowd of people for miles. Read the rest of this entry »
Alison
From This Pint On 