Microbrewed Adventures (15 page)

Rolling out Samuel Adams Triple Bock Barrel in Boston

Sandra and I duck out later in the evening with Peter and his partner JoAnne for a quiet late-night meal of delicious spicy-hot Thai food downed with—of course—local microbrewed ale. The food burns, and it feels good to chase it with a cold one.

Day 12:
A snowstorm is impending. We move on to the Boston area, staying with my brother Rich's family in Lexington. That evening they join us and 50 others at the Cambridge Hyatt Hotel for a beer tasting organized by local homebrewers and a gourmet dinner arranged by Jim Koch and his Boston Beer Company. There is always more to say, but let it suffice to tell you: good food, good company and the small oak keg of Sam Adams Triple Bock is something special for all of us. It goes well with the crème brûlée.

Day 13:
A day off. We chill out and watch the snowstorm arrive.

Day 14:
With eight inches of snow and still falling, we drive the last leg slowly to Boston's Logan airport, return the car and know that we will soon be back home in Colorado. Sandra and I are both a bit worn, but energized. As she put it, “The people we met gave us a lot of energy all along the way.”

Beer in America's Heartland
Fargo to Cleveland

A
S SANDRA AND I
slowly descend the airport escalator I'm staring downward, wondering what the small group of crazy, fanatical people are cheering and waving about. Sandra whispers in a worried tone, “Are these your friends?” I shrug, unknowingly. As we approach, I begin to make out the signs: “Welcome Charlie.”

Day 1:
This is the beginning of an eight-day journey though America's homebrewing heartland, from Fargo to Cleveland, in 2002. First stop—Fargo.

It doesn't take long to figure it out: this small group of folks is representing the legendary Prairie Homebrewing Companions beer and homebrew club. It's Monday, April 1, 2002, and they are not fooling around! There are already five inches of snow on the ground and it's still snowing as they escort us into an awaiting stretch limousine, complete with a bar stocked with homebrew.

Every homebrewer in Fargo—and there are a lot of homebrewers in Fargo—seems to have taken the day off. As we stop by the Country Cannery Homebrew Shop, we walk through to the rear into a nearby woodworking shop where more than 30 homebrewers are actively brewing and finishing four separate batches of homebrew. The sweet, tantalizing aroma of malt and hops fills the air and fogs the windows as the snow continues to fall outside. There are dozens of different homebrews offered in bottles and on tap.

Next limo stop on the prairie: the Granite City Pub and Restaurant, a unique brewpub importing unfermented brewed wort from their sister brew
pub in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to lovingly ferment in the tanks at Granite City. The cask-conditioned dark and English-style bitter are magnificently welcome. It is still snowing.

Limos with the Prairie Homebrewing Companions
Limos with the Prairie Homebrewing Companions. Courtesy Prairie Homebrewing Companions.

Prairie Homebrewing Companions' ringleader and brewster supreme, Susan Rudd, leads us to the club meeting at the Hjemkomst Center, where we are greeted by 65 more club members. Two commemorative beers were brewed, bottled and labeled for the evening's events.

Beer'd, it is 10:30 in the evening and still snowing as we wrap up the first day of our tour. Tomorrow is going to be another workday.

Day 2:
We arrive in Minneapolis. It is still snowing. We check into our hotel, visit two homebrew shops and rendezvous at the Minneapolis Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurant with 40 members of the Minneapolis Homebrewers Association, local brewmasters and beer enthusiasts. It's a long day.

Day 3:
In the morning we're off early, heading for Madison, Wisconsin. I'm deeply disappointed about not having allowed enough time to visit the Summit Brewing Company and brewmaster Horace Cunningham, whom I had met many years earlier while he was the head brewer at Banks Brewing Company on the Caribbean island of Barbados.

On our way to Madison, we stop for lunch at the legendary all-American Norske's Nook in Osseo, Wisconsin—an absolutely
must
stop for any person who considers himself a pie aficionado.

With no time to check into our hotel, we head directly toward the Wine and Hop Shop, one of the oldest and most supportive homebrew shops in the country. Then on to visits at brewpubs JT Whitneys, Angelic Brewing Company and Great Dane. It's a day and evening filled with meeting new friends and reunions with those who have continued to be involved with homebrewing for more than 20 years. I recognize Dean Coffey, the multi-award-winning brewmaster at Angelic Brewpub, as the guy who years ago had worked at Lolita's delicatessen, across the street from the Association of Brewers' office in Boulder, Colorado, often making my lunch sandwiches to go. Dean had begun homebrewing years ago. Inspired by the experience, he moved to Madison and became a brewmaster, going on to win several medals at the Great American Beer Festival and more awards at the 2002 World Beer Cup than any other brewmaster in the world. The essence of microbrewing has trickled into our souls.

We leave late in the evening to check into the Landhaus Inn by 11
P.M
. in New Glarus, 30 minutes to the southwest.

Day 4:
After our morning visit and lunch with New Glarus Brewing Company owners Deb and Dan Carey, we head east to Chicago. It was snow
ing when we left New Glarus, but the warmth of our journeys made us oblivious to the cold April weather.

We spend the rest of the evening visiting at Chicago's Goose Island Brewpub with one of the nation's largest beer clubs, the Chicago Beer Society. More than 80 beer enthusiasts and relations turned out for the event, presentations, food and beer. I'm greeted by two Korean women as I enjoy a glass of Honker Ale. They introduce themselves as the wife and daughter of the Korean brewmaster from the Oriental Brewery in South Korea who had won an award in the 1996 World Beer Cup. He had asked his daughter to get me to autograph a copy of my book
Homebrewer's Gold,
in which he was featured.

Day 5:
Leaving Chicago on Friday, we stop at Beer Gear Homebrew Supply Shop on our way out of the suburbs and then visit the Flossmoor Station Brewpub, where several more homebrewers are awaiting a luncheon. Onward we drive to Lafayette, Indiana, where the Tippecanoe Homebrew Club is hosting an evening at the Lafayette Brewing Company. We have dinner, talks, beer and good times with more than 40 area homebrewers, some whom I knew when they joined the American Homebrewers Association in 1980.

Day 6:
The Great Fermentations of Indianapolis homebrew shop is our next stop, with lunch across the street at the Broad Ripple Brewpub. In the evening we join area homebrewers at the Ram Brewery in downtown Indianapolis to enjoy award-winning beer and dinner extraordinaire.

Day 7 and 8:
On our final days we cruise to Cleveland, where we rendezvous at the Association of Brewers' annual Craft Brewers Conference. There's dinner with local club members at the Great Lakes Brewpub and another evening event at their brewery tasting room to speak to 200 homebrew and microbrew enthusiasts. Beer maven Michael Jackson and I tell stories of beer digressions and the experiences that brought us to Cleveland.

Eight days of beer, beer and more beer. Sandra and I are tired, yet strangely energized from our experience and the endless welcomes across the prairies and rolling hills between Fargo and Cleveland. Homebrewing and microbrewing has indeed woven itself into the fabric of a quality lifestyle for the thousands of people we met on our journeys.

Completely Joyous Tour
Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas

W
HILE EACH OF THESE
short stories offers you a taste of one of my adventures, words can never express the delights of every beer, every homebrewer and every unexpected brewing encounter. Four and a half days seems like an eternity when you are on the road tasting all those beers, searching for the ones that scream “ultimate.” The 14 stops on this trip really don't signify an end or a beginning. The beer just flows into one continuous beer experience when your mission is beer in America.

We visited eight different breweries on this southern sojourn but as I said, we never seemed to really stop as we tasted our way through 32 microbrewed beers. And in between this continuous flow we squeezed in visits to two homebrew shops and five homebrew clubs, tasting more than 130 different homebrewed ales, lagers and meads.

Sleep? What was that, we often wondered? We knew it was precious, for there was very little of it. We were compensated for lack of sleep by the quality of beers all along the way. With 300 people visited and three states, four cities and 525 miles driven, we all felt the experience was priceless.

Day 1:
Our trip begins as the “Completely Joyous” Association of Brewers On-the-Road expedition in Nashville, Tennessee, where we visit Boscos Restaurant and Brewery, Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery, Bohannon Brewing Company and All Seasons Gardening & Brewing Supply. Great places, great food, great people, great microbrew and great homebrew in April 2003.

Day 2:
From Nashville, we continue on, driving to rendezvous with the Rocket City Homebrewers and Birmingham Masterbrewers in Huntsville, Alabama. Our traveling entourage, my wife Sandra (who brewed her first homebrew, a Belgian Witbier, two weeks earlier), Boscos Nashville brewmaster Fred Scheer and super host, driver and organizer Chuck Skypeck, owner
of Boscos, is welcomed by a massive turnout of homebrewers and homebrew. The beer seems to flow from endless taps and a bottomless well of bottled homebrew.

Rocket City Homebrewers

Day 3:
From Huntsville, we drive to Memphis, stopping at Hops Restaurant Bar and Brewery and Boscos Restaurant and Brewery, tasting masterly impressive beers and gathering insights from the brewmasters themselves. The evening eventually ends at a rendezvous with the Bluff City Brewers. Of course, it's homebrew emerging at every opportunity that provides the evening's nightcaps.

Day 4:
We cross the Mississippi River as it flows its meandering way toward the delta country of Louisiana. I can't help feel as one with the river, one long ribbon of liquid that has been the lifeblood of the population. Surely beer seems a lifeblood of these impassioned southern brewers who are brewing some of the most excellent and memorable beers I've ever had. Like the river, our adventure seems to meander endlessly. We roll toward Little Rock, Arkansas, to meet its homebrewers and craft brewers. There we experience the taste of mighty fine microbrewed beers at Vinos Pizza Pub and Brewery, homebrews at Fermentables Homebrew and Winemakers Supply and a packed brewhouse finale of pride and passion, beers brewed at the Diamond Bear Brewing Company.