Beer Luvvas,
Yes, I've finally recovered from yesterday's Pub Crawl as part of my Phoenix Farewell Beer Tour! First I much give thanks to both MCO & The Hobbit for bailing out of work to join me on this quest, and special thanks to MCO for volunteering to take it easy on the brews and drive The Hobbit & I around Phoenix all afternoon.
Did I mention that the need to drive is one of the HUGE drawbacks for Phoenix??? Oh well, maybe their new light rail transit will make future pub crawlers avoid the need to drive - in 2010-15 or so! Anyhoo.....
First Stop: Sonora Brewhouse & Brewer's Den
Until we arrived just before noon, I had forgotten that Freebird and I had been here before when we first moved to AZ with our friends Elise & Tom, and a few of their West Valley friends. Yes, Sonora B&B is on the other side of the valley, and therefore extremely out of the way for those of us on the East Side. If we started The Crawl after work, there's no way we'd be able to make it out and back due to traffic. But MCO, The Hobbit & I were sooooooooooo glad we started @ noon!
I went right to their supreme specialty beer: Hopglow Triple IPA! Why not start The Crawl with a 10.2% abv BANG! Luckily we were planning to only have one brew per stop, otherwise I might have had to fight our server (she was wearing a knee brace, so I would have won w/the first sweep-the-knee move!) to exceed the mandatory 2 glass (snifter) limit on this XTREME IPA! It was so smooooooooooooooth that I wouldn't have known it was 10.2% until I tried to sweep-the-knee after glass #2.
MCO went with the tamer, regular, version: Trooper IPA. "Thumbs up!" Another very smooth, and quaffable IPA. MCO went as far as to say, "It's my 2nd favorite AZ beer." Behind what you may ask??? Read on my friends. Read on.
The Hobbit chose the special Cream Ale with Vanilla Beans on cask. This beer was also very smooth, and light with a nice vanilla finish. We felt that a wedge of orange, or some orange zest would go well with this beer. But if orange was added to the brew process, one might end up with a beer version of the orange creamsickle....although that might be tasty too!
After tasting these quaffs, remembering the Brewer's Den Porter from my previous Sononra B&B experience, and discovering that they have a rotating cask tap; it became obvious that Sonora B&B had to be in the Top 3 Places to get Beer in Phoenix - but it couldn't unseat Papago @ the top. So hence forth, Sonoran Brewhouse & Brewer's Den is the #2 Place to get beer in Phoenix!
Second Stop: Delux & Lunch!
It was only fitting to stop at Delux for an exquisite, but overpriced, burger and pint of beer. I chose the Stone IPA rather than the Arrogant Bastard since my previous round was 10.2% abv. One of the reasons we like Delux is because of the solid tap list.
MCO sat this round out (what a champ!). I convinced The Hobbit to sample the Rogue Hazelnut Brown, and he liked it much. "It's a bit nutty." Was followed closely by, "It's better than Newcastle because it doesn't have the funky aftertaste." What else could you look for in a Brown Ale?
I had too minor disappointments at Delux. The first is that I wish I tried the turkey burger served with fresh avocado slices and a chunky salsa. The second was when The Hobbit convinced me to try New Belgium's Mothership Wit. It had two strikes against it: Belgian hops and wheat. But it's The Pub Crawl, so I though i should be open....."Belgian yeast-ed 7-UP." Nuff said.
Third Stop: Papago Brewing
I love it when I get to go to Papago twice in 24 hrs! Unfortunately, the tap list hadn't rolled over much so I went for an old staple: Dogfishhead 60min IPA. MCO wouldn't get off my case on how light this beer was, "I could read a newspaper through it!" Which may have been the beginning of my demise. However it was an expected fine pint o' beer!
The Hobbit went wild with Green Flash's Le Freak: a Belgian IPA. I believe this may have been the best find of The Pub Crawl, although MCO & The Hobbit would most likely disagree (read on....). "It leads Belgian, but closes hops." according to The Hobbit. And the Belgian bite was overpowered by hop notes as the beer warmed to room temp, a redeaming quality if I do say so myself.
MCO joined in again with a pint of Bridgeport's IPA. The quintessential IPA that it is, made for another good pour.
During this round, MCO & I talked much about Rogue Glen from the previous evening, and The Hobbit convinced us to deviate from Pub Crawl standards (The Third Rule of Pub Crawl, is there are no rules in Pub Crawl!) and stay for another round. In hindsight, this was a mistake.
The Hobbit chose Glen, I found a 22oz Bomber of Moylan's Hopsickle: Imperial Triple IPA. If I didn't share this bottle with my two drinking companions, I could have never finished it. The hop nose alone will knock you on your arse. After choking down the last XTREME swallow, I was asked if I'd ever purchase this beer again; either as a tasty quaff, or just a novelty beer due to it's XTREME IBUs (not listed on either the bottle or the website). I had to answer, "Only if I was tricking someone else to drink it." Never thought I'd say that about an Imperial IPA.
Well, I've got to go pick up Freebird at the airport. Tune in next time for the second half of Pub Crawl!
Prost to Sonora Brewhouse & Brewer's Den, The #2 Place to get beer in Phoenix!
Prost to Pub Crawl!
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