Catchng Up, Part 3

So in an unlikely deviation from our usual travels, Meagan & Marlowe went to Napa Valley for 5 days with 6 other people-- and Marlowe learned to enjoy wine (Meagan already knew how to enjoy it).

We did a few touristy things: Winchester Mystery House and saw Steven Wright perform.

We enjoyed some amazing food: Falafel's Drive-In (excellent fast food), Eiko's (great food, lousy service), La Toque (very fancy, very delicious, budget plenty of time for a good meal), and Brassica (good food, and they do wine samplers as 2 oz. pours!).

    

But mostly, we visited vineyards, toured vineyards, and sampled wines.



Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards: Great tour! Great wine! Did you know that wine can be buttery, and that that's a good thing in some styles?!?

Louis M. Martini: Fun tour! Amazing cellars! Good wine!

  

V. Sattui: Felt like The Lab in Asheville; a ton of pretty people but too crowded and without any really impressive beverages.

Sliver Oak Cellars: Not to be missed! One of our favorite vineyards!



Alexander Valley Vineyards: Cool caves! Good wine!

   

Conn Creek Winery: Enjoyed this one a lot! Good wine and very knowledgeable tour guides!

  

Robert Mondavi Wines: Because of who we were traveling with, we got the red carpet treatment at several wineries, but this one was amazing! Wine was great and the grounds, tour, & facilities are just gorgeous!

  

Pine Ridge Winery: Another can't miss! Great selection of really excellent wines!

Franciscan Estates: Another one where we were completely spoiled because of whom we were traveling with, but some of the best wine we had on this trip. We also played boccie ball :-)

  



So all in all, Marlowe probably drank more unique wines this trip than in his entire life, and he enjoyed almost all of them. It's good to expand your horizons...

Catching Up, Part 2

In the last post I mentioned two visits to The Monk. The big visit, however, was the third one on Sept. 3. We were joined by Steve, Courtney, Claudia, Rowanne, Bianca, & Daniel. This was an impressive ASSAULT ON THE MONK in which 4 of us spent 8+ hours there sampling a wide range of beers and 4 others helped us for part of that time.

In total, we tasted 58 different beers! It's impossible to mention all of the ones that we enjoyed, but the highlights include:

Bell's 10000

Ommegang Aphrodite

New Belgium Kick

Evil Twin Soft Dookie (sounds bad, tastes good)

As well as some that we've had before but had to sample on tap, such as

Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron

Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous

Weyerbacher 16

Two weeks later we attended Brewgrass (our favorite alcoholiday). I may not have tried 58 unique beers at the festival itself (though I didn't count), so there's a good chance that the ASSAULT ON THE MONK ranks as my top beer event this year. That said, Catching Up, Part 3 will describe my top wine event of the year (a deviation from the blog's theme, I know). Coming soon... Marlowe and Meagan visit Napa Valley and learn to enjoy wine, too!

Catching Up, Part 1

Marlowe & Meagan had three major trips to THE MONK (or the Center of the Universe as we think of it, or the Thirsty Monk as it's officially known). Our work / school schedules have curtailed our usual outings, so visits to THE MONK are a good way to build in a lot of beer tasting into a single event.

2 months ago we went to Monk South for trivia (and won) and sampled 10 new beers. Highlight by far is the Southern Tier Creme Brule. We've since purchased several bottles of the delicious stuff. Other great ones included Brooklyn Concoction, Urthel Saisonniere, and the Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head co-brew Life & Limb.

We also had some great beers that we've had before, but had to try on draft:

Duck Rabbit Schwartzbier and Petrus Aged Pale being two highlights!

A week later we went to THE MONK with Pam & Frederick and sampled another set of new beers. Highly recommended is Unibroue La Terrible and Xbeeriment Black Force One.

Also had Liefman Oud Bruin, which we've had before but which remains one of our favorites.

Leinie

About two weeks ago on a trip to MN, we had some time to kill so....looking at the WI map and seeing how close we were to Chippewa Falls...we stopped at Leinenkugel's. It is just north of Eau Claire off I-94.
They have a large Leinie's Lodge with about 6 of their brews on tap plus a lot of cool merchandise. You get tickets for four samples. They also have tours but we did not have that much time.

I learned it is pronounced "Linies" (long i), not "Lennies"!

This brewery has never been high on our radar screen but after trying their Summer Shandy, they deserved our visit. This is now one of our favorite summer brews.

Arizona, Day 13 (8/2/11)

On our last day in AZ, there were only four of us left (Marlowe, Meagan, Barbara, and Barry). We had excellent food and beer-- a great way to end a very busy and event-filled vacation.

After visiting the Desert Botanical Garden and losing 3 lbs each in sweat, we went to the Mission for lunch. The Mission had excellent food and a good beer list and mixed drinks. Get the Peruvian clam soup if you go and be sure to order the guacamole made at your table. Our guac maker also knew his beer and chatted with us about options. Barbara and Barry both had very good margaritas. Marlowe and Meagan both had Hoegaarden White Ale, which was an excellent choice after wandering around botanical gardens in 106 degree weather for a couple hours.

Later, we visited another AZ brewery, Four Peaks Brewing Company in Tempe, AZ. The brewery was more about pretty people hanging out than about beer (Asheville residents should compare it to the Lab), but we all sampled all of their beers. Their flights are comprehensive-- covering everything on tap (11 beers, I believe!).

Several beers were quite good, including the Peach Ale, Hefeweizen, and Kilt Lifter (tasted previously). The Hop Knot IPA was the favorite of everyone except for Meagan. That said, the Oatmeal Stout was very disappointing. Meagan only had one sip of it, and she generally can't pass up a stout. For quantity, Four Peeks has a lot of beer. For quality, stick to the ones recommended here.


After our beer sampling, we found an amazing Indian restaurant-- the Dhaba. They had the usual Indian beer options, but the food cannot be missed! Adventurous eaters should try the karela dhamaka (bitter gourd), but everything we had was excellent! I washed mine down with a Kingfisher.

Arizona, Day 12 (8/1/11)

Unfortunately, our visit to the Grand Canyon ended today and we drove back to Phoenix. That said, we did find good beer at both lunch and dinner.

We stopped at Leff-T's Steakhouse & Grill in Dewey, AZ. Along with some amazing, home cooked desserts, Leff-T's had a decent beer list, including Stone Ruination IPA, which most of the beer drinkers had since it's a grade thirst quencher.

For dinner, a lot of us went to a hotel stake house that was very disappointing (and shall remain nameless), so Marlowe and Meagan broke ranks and went looking for good beer and food. We discovered that the best vegetarian food in AZ is found at the places that really appreciate beer. We'd discovered this with Raven Cafe and Papago Brewing and it was reinforced when we tried both an Indian and sushi place without success and ended up at the Yard House Tap Room.

We discovered that at non-beer friendly places vegetarians can either get (1) the spinach salad, hold the meet; (2) an avocado based sandwich (names may vary), or (3) Mediterranean pizza. While an occasional meal of these is OK, it gets old very fast. Thankfully, we found the Yard House.

While not a brewery, Yard House has an amazing beer selection and some really excellent food, including numerous vegetarian options. Unfortunately, we were so tired by this point that we each only had one beer. They were both beers we've enjoyed before, but never had on tap.

Marlowe had North Coast Brewing's Pranqster Belgian Style Golden Ale
Meagan had Breckenridge Brewery's Vanilla Porter

All-in-all, a very delicious way to end a loooong day.

Arizona, Day 11 (7/31/11)

Spent the day at the Grand Canyon. No words can do this natural wonder justice, so I'll write about beer instead!



Purchased a couple six packs, one of which was a sampler, and got to try the following:

• More Nimbus Brewery (Tucson, AZ) Oatmeal Stout (one of our favorite AZ beers)
• Nimbus Brewery Dirty Guera blond ale (a little roasty for a blond, adding a nice character to the beer)
• Nimbus Brewery Old Monkey Shine English strong ale (8.2% abv, so somewhere between a barley wine and an ale-- very tasty)
• Mirror Pond Pale Ale from Deschutes Brewery (Never had this Descutes beer before, but an excellent example of a pale-- great for after a hike in the hot AZ weather)
• More Cutthroat Porter from Odell Brewing Co., which I'm enjoying more with each sip