brewery tour

All posts tagged brewery tour

Jekyll Brewing tour


JekyllOn a whim I ended up heading over to Jekyll brewing since they had the fancy to a class today only drink for the tickets which is probably too much anyway but met some really nice people do from London named Paul and his girlfriend whose name escapes me now. I also met another older guy who lives right off the Greenway here in Alpharetta I can’t remember his name either started with an L.

The brewery has had some changes, they have gotten a better bottling line, although it’s still very manual.  They have increased distribution to include some of Tennessee and they will soon add some of Florida.  They already have all of Georgia covered.

partly cloudyOvercast and hazy with the clouds breaking up later in the a.m.

Got finally got out and went to that old drawbridge on capital Avenue. Walked on the Riverwalk which was more of a bicycle path but got a good view of the Broadbridge from there and Sofiya bums. drove down over toward the river city brewery which I found out the night before what had had a fire on Thursday and is now closed until at least Saturday. Then I went over to Rubicon brewery and got here at 10 o’clock in the morning and nobody’s around and it doesn’t open till 11. As I waited here and actually a nicer place in Sacramento it’s by the college lots of young people and lots of bums.

Started back to the hotel since Brian was going to be out after noon. I arrived there at noon and we headed out to Russian river and then Lagunitas. I had originally planned on. Hitting Russian River for lunch @ 11 but instead since it was not past 2pm I just went in, got two Pliny the Elder and a glass then took off to get to Lagunitas before 3pm and the last drinking tour. The parking lot was packed and the place was cool beyond measure. The dude who did the tour was funny as hell, they have lots of stories throughout the years, about drugs, cops and moving. The story about the undercover shutdown, then the censored, the moving incident were they got all their drunk friends together and told then to grab anything that wasn’t nailed down and walk across the street to the new location.

After the tour we sat down in the pub and had dinner, sat at a table with two other couples, both from Cali. Very nice and interesting conversation with both of them, bought a shirt and a glass, lots of cuties hanging out there, just had to add that.

Yesterday the River City Brewery in Downtown Sacramento had a fire, they are now closed on Friday and Saturday while they clean up and get an OK by the Fire Department before they can re-open. So I guess I will not be able to got there anytime soon.

Dear family and friends,. As many of you may have heard, we had a fire(03/27/2014) here at River City Brewing Company at the Sacramento Downtown Plaza.

The fire that began in a metal duct for a pizza oven at River City Brewing about 11:30 a.m. and was quickly controlled by Sacramento Fire Department

partly cloudycloudyOvercast and cool this morning I finally got out and headed up to see her Nevada and Chico.

Brian got up about 6 o’clock I continued to lay there for at least an hour I want to say before I finally got up and took a shower. Brian and I then went over to the breakfast area in the hotel and picked up our breakfast there I met to the guys he works with Scott and older dude from Minnesota and John (Brian’s mgr.) was also a younger guy from Atlanta as well.

The drive up to Chico was pretty uneventful it was overcast the entire drive. On 99 N. from Sacramento to Chico the road was lined with all types of fruit trees and nut trees (Almonds and Pistachios) as well as packing plants.

It’s rather well not rather but totally flat here I guess were in the valley and old the only mountainous area seem to be toward the west about halfway up to Chico.

Sierra Nevada

sierra nevada

The tour Sierra Nevada was wonderful the girl (Daisy) led us around the brewery, she had very very long dark hair & very thin very long legs. The tour was quite a bit longer than I thought it was going to be but very interesting and informative. Our group was really cool there were a couple of minors who were very nice in a lot of ways. I’m not sure if they were there with some siblings or with family. As I said we learned a lot about the beer especially at the end when we had all the samples we got to have the Audition Old Ale, the Hefewiese and the Torpedo, the snow White IPA and lastly the Black IPA.

After the tour I picked up a few souvenirs a book about beer tasting and a T-shirt for the Hoptimium beer. I then proceeded on to the Sierra Nevada restaurant and had myself a Black IPA which I should’ve passed on and the wonderful Torpedo cheese hamburger. Met a trio of beautiful women at the bar, in particular, Lisa Dion (her roommate was Tina, larger gal, brunette). The third gal was a young very pretty thing who is getting married soon, lucky guy, she loves beer and was as cute as a button. Lisa and I talked and chatted quite a bit. She actually had lived in Georgia for quite sometime. She has only just changed careers now working on some technical/web-based company whereas she used to work with horses.Mostly warming up horses, cleaning, grooming and training. She even worked @ times @ rodeos, including the one in Okeechobee. Lisa had been raised in Chico and only last year moved back. Oh and she worked with the horses @ the Medieval Times in Kissimmee, FL.

I stayed a little bit too long chatting and drinking my beer because by the time I recalled time we started to leave Brian called me and it was almost already 3:15 and there was no way I was going to get back to Sacramento before 4 o’clock.

Got back just a bit before 5pm and we all (Brian’s crew from work and I) went to Bella Brue and had some beers and dinner, I had the salmon with mashed potatoes, then a Ninkasi IPA and a brother ph. the waitress was a greek gal, with an interesting name, something that started with a “Grim…” no idea what it was now. Met Brian’s crew from work, really nice group actually, his boss John, the other Brian, Scott from Minnesota and the sales guy who’s name I forget now.

Back to the hotel for a beer and bed.

Feeling crappy this morning, nicki was at the house early and was wanting to get the car tow it and sell it to car max. I was pissed but decided to go ahead and get the car with her and then sell it to car max so I would be rid of it. She and I got into a discussion about why she isn’t very humble when someone does something for her. I guess it was what was expected when I was a kid and I equate that to being confrontational.

We got to the U-Haul place where we were going to pick up a tow thing to get the car but they had just rented it out. Emotions were HIGH and some crying was done. Instead we just went to the car and I decided we would try to move the car. I had planned on just driving down to the next shopping center there off of Satellite Blvd & SR120 but the temp stayed just below the red so long as I coasted most of the time and didn’t accelerate much. I decided then to go to the ‘Shroom and give the car a rest while we had lunch and tried to decide what to do next. Nicki had intended to take it to CarMax and see what they would give her for it.

While @ the ‘Shroom we realized that the belts were not moving and one outside one was no longer there. Nicki also mentioned that the belts were making noise (squealing) and that had stopped on Friday morning, yes that must have been when it fell off or broke. She googled and found someone else saying that this will make the car overheat. We then got extra conformation since the battery light was on as well. Decided to get to the Auto Zone and get a new belt and install it. After quite a greasy time it was installed and everything seemed to be fine, I’m still worried about the power-steering unit and since she isn’t putting any fluid in it the belt will more than likely crap out again really soon. Nicki slept most of the afternoon away after that.

I decided to head out to the Red Hare Brewery for their Saison Release Party. It was a lot of fun, good beers, nice people and some nice music by the 4 Monkeys, three guys and a gal singer.
Ended up at the Fred Bar downstairs of the Prado Taco Mac, met a couple that were also at the Saison Party, Steve and Kate I think, really nice folks. They told me about the Tiny Toast that they were having for La Chouffe beers, got a mall gnome sized pint glass and we all toasted @ 6:66pm or 7:06pm. Had the RWS Fred Fries which were slightly undercooked IMHO but the dipping sauce was so good I wasn’t even worried about it.

Brasserie D’Achouffe celebrates 6,666th anniversary with Gnome Week. Huh? You’ve seen the Chouffe gnomes right? It goes that – 6,666 years ago, a village of gnomes were found in magical water in Belgium they were using to make beer. In 1982, the last surviving gnome pasted the secret recipe on to two aspiring Belgian brewers, giving birth to Brasserie D’ Achouffe.

The Fred

all the taps @ the Fred


I then stupidly went over to Taco Mac by the mall to have some dinner and a couple of more beers there, namely the Innis & Gunn Independence Day Ale.

Brew Your Cask Off 2011

It was getting close to 6pm so I printed my ticket to the “Brew Your Cask Off” and headed on down to the Sweetwater Brewery. It was just beginning to rain again, not much but enough to give you pause. They were ready for that, it whole area was under cover but the area wasn’t as big as it needed to be. I’m not sure how many people were there, must have been over 2000 I’d say maybe closer to 3 or 4K. It was beginning to actually warm up outside and it was wall to wall people in the tent with all 89 Casks lined up on one side. There was an area in the SW parking lot were there was food and tables for “sponsors” The Beer Connoisseur folks were there along with a few others.
 

I don’t really think that the event was worth the $35 that I spent for the ticket. I wish I had been able to drink a few more beers than I got to. It was just so crowded and I really didn’t research enough of the beers to know what to drink. I found out on Sunday that Jason from the MallOfGA T-Mac had a brew, a Porter that I wish I had gotten a taste of. I’m going to have to get a digital recorder to “tape” my thoughts on beers during these types of events.
 

Chatted with the gal at the Spring Beerfest (at the Masquerade) about photography, she was a bit of a photographer herself and I gave her one of my cards.
 

The people on the right brewed what I thought was the best beer I tasted at the event. It was a Pumpkin Porter, very chocolaty with a bit of pumpkin spice to give it a unique taste. They also gave me a $5 off coupon for their establishment.

JailHouse Brewing Co.
Beer So Good…It Should Be Outlawed

Started the day by getting up, thats about all. Well I did do some things around the yard and decided I need to get something done about the weeds in the front.

Finally Brian and I got going and first stopped in for some lunch at the Mellow Mushroom, he went a bit wild, maybe being a bit too much for little ole Lauryn, but I was happy to get him out of the house. He has been staying in too much due to the job thing (lack of one). We had our “normal” and even though I had a beer he didn’t. We figured we would be a bit late for the 2pm start of the tours, not that we really needed to worry about it, it didn’t matter when we arrived so long as if was after 2 and before 6pm.

We arrived there at almost exactly 2pm drove past the place several times and finally arrived realizing that the road (Cherry) was a one way only street. The downtown of Hampton, GA is revitalizing and they even had some interesting “lofts” for sale/rent at about $100K for a 1 bed 1.5 bath. The Jailhouse Brewing Company is in a cool building, actually has jailbars on the windows. The beers were asouse and the owners even better. Glen, the brewmaster is a storehouse of knowledge about brewing and beer and will tell you anything you want to know. Heard some interesting plans for the future as far as beers from JailHouse and look forward to seeing the beers at other places I go. I’ve read on there site that they will be at the East Atlanta Beer Festival, the Great Decatur Beer Festival, and the Hotober Beer Fest during the summer, I really look forward to seeing them.

I went out to Taco Mac for dinner and a few beers, got to see Monica (Jason’s g-friend) for a bit and also chatted to this dude who was from Ohio. At the end of the evening a brunette in a Budweiser shirt stopped in for a few bud light limes and to see the end of the NASCAR race, we talked for awhile (Allison) but I couldn’t really get past her country redneck feel, I really need to more down closer inside the perimeter.