Last Sunday, I went and got a rental car from Budget, we got a Chevrolet Cobalt sport, which was a kinda nice car, reminded me a lot of one of my old chevy cavaliers. On Sunday evening I packed up my bags and headed to Kriddy's around 9 or so. We left sometime on Monday morning, heading east.
Our first stop was in Columbus Ohio at Barley's Ale House No. 1. I got the pierogies and Kriddy got the mac and cheese. My first beer was a raspberry wheat, I followed that up with their cask ESB. The bartendress had stepped out and the head brewer was watching the counter for her. At some point a guy comes in and orders a beer, and starts talking about how he likes one of the beers, and how he really doesn't like one of their beers, and he's talking to the brewer about it. We were kind of flabbergasted that he would just start talking about it like that to him.
We jumped back in the car and headed east on Interstate 70. We got to Interstate 79 and headed south, then jumped on 68 east. That hooked back up to 70 and we followed that some more. It was really wierd for me driving on 70 towards Baltimore/DC. I used to live on Fort Meade, Maryland, every other time I had driven toward there, I knew exactly where I was going, what was on the other end, where my place was, this time, it was like... well, what do we want to do, where do we want to stay?
Monday night, we pulled off at Hagerstown, Maryland, and found a hotel. The place was relatively empty. We went down to the restauarant and I got a Reuben and Kriddy got the cheese stix (when she doesn't know what she wants off the menu, she gets cheese stix). I perused their beer selection, and noticed they had Chimay Red. So I got that. It was presented ice cold. It was so cold, it hurt my teeth to drink. They didn't offer a glass, so I had to ask for one. So, I had an ice cold Chimay in a frosted pilsner glass. What a tragedy. I held the glass until my hands felt frozen, to warm it up a little, but it stayed unpleasantly cold the entire time. I followed that up with a beer from Frederick (right down the street) from Brewers Alley. It was their pilsner, it was pretty good, and quite floral. The bartendress was rather impressed that it was from right down the street in Frederick and that they actually brew their own beer.
We then retired to our room. Got up on Tuesday and headed towards DC. After driving around the Mall for a bit, we found a place that had parking for $20 for all day, so stopped there, it was just outside the Art Museum, so we went in there, didn't see any art, but did walk through the gift shop. We walked down to the Museum of Natural History, and walked through that. Saw the dinosaurs, the gems and the rocks. I was thinking that the U.S. could sell all the stuff in there and pay off the debt, kinda like in Americathon (but not quite).
We left there and walked past the closed-for-renovations Museum of American History, you know, the cool one, with the fonz's jacket. We then walked past the Washington Monument, saw the Whitehouse, then went and saw the WW2 Memorial, Korean Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Vietnam Memorial. Then we walked back to our car.
We attempted to go to the Brickskeller for a beer, but couldn't find a place to park. So we drove off to my old stomping grounds by Fort Meade. We drove past the first bar where I played APA pool, which was kinda cool, man, that was 10+ years ago. Then we got on a road and headed towards Annapolis.
As we drove around, we looked in the GPS for brewpubs, and it pointed us to Heroes Pub. This was a nice little place, that had 48 taps. As we were on the eastern seaboard, I ordered the fish sammich. Kriddy went with chicken strips. I had a Brewers Art Resurrection. Followed that up with a Blue Point Hoptical Illusion, next was a Fordham Tavern Ale, and finally a "natty boh" or National Bohemian. Natty Boh is apparently the local Old Style, style beer, it's from G.Heileman, so it pretty much is Old Style.
We left and found a hotel in Annapolis. Woke up the next morning, and went by the state capital building. Then drove up to Baltimore. We drove past the football and baseball stadiums, then went to Fells Point.
Fells point is the cool/hip section of Balmer. We walked around for a bit, and then went into Max's on Broadway. Max's has an awesome beer selection. It's got like 100 taps and like 200 bottles, I kept a menu. I started with a Legacy Euphoria, Kriddy got their Fat Boy Lager. I then asked for a Brewdog Paradox (something) that they didn't have, and settled for a 009. This went pretty good with my mushroom swiss burger. I also had an Oscar Blues Ten Fidy.
We left there and drove around for a bit, hoping my old boss would call back, but he didn't :(
We went to the Laurel Mall, to kill some time and maybe get a cheap souviner, which has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since I lived there. It seemed 75% of the stores were closed, and it was a lot darker than I remember. We left there and went to the nice mall in Columbia. This one was still nice. It was next door to the place where I had gotten my Microsoft certification, 9 years ago.
We left there and found a liquor store, and I got a 4 pack of Oskar Blues Ten Fidy (yeah, it's a Colorado beer, but we don't get it in Illinois, so I got some), also picked up a 6 pack of Troegs Trogenator, and I think their Hopback Amber.
Kriddy wanted BW, so we pulled that up on the GPS and headed north to Carrolton. There was a football game or something that had just ended, so the place was packed. I don't know why, but it seemed everyone there was staring at me. I had a hat on, so no mohawk, but still everyone looked at me like I had a penis growing out of my forehead. It was wierd. They had Sam Adams Octoberfest, so I got two of those. We left and found a hotel. I took in one of each of the beers, but we only made it through the Hopback. It's good, and is still ok in hotel plastic cups.
As we were driving toward BW, I saw signs that said Gettysburg was only 20 miles or so away, so that settled our plans for Thursday.
Woke up and headed north to Gettysburg. The visitor center was packed, so we drove around and saw signs for Auto Tour. So we followed that. It's amazing how many people died there. When you stop to consider everything that went on, in the heat of July, watching everyone die, that it only happened 145 years ago.
We stopped looked at monuments, took some pictures,
pondered what happened, then got in the car and drove some more. Right at the end of the auto tour, is a brewpub. The Appalachian Brewing Company, is based out of Harrisburg, but has a pub in Gettysburg, in sight of the battlefield. We went there after we went to the Gettysburg Civil War Museum. This place is also the Gettysburg Gift Center. It's not really a museum (to me), it's a $5.50 wax museum. It's really friggin creepy. Try to think of the creepiest place you've been, then add just a dose of creepy to it. It's really creepy. At the end, an animated wax figure of Lincoln gives the Gettysburg Address.So, we left and went to the brewpub. They didn't have all their beers, as it seems, the brewmaster has recently quit. So if you are a brewmaster and want to work in a place that's probably haunted, go to Gettysburg. We had all their beers except for the cask pale. They were good, nothing too exceptional, but all perfectly acceptable beers. It'd be nice to have that brewpub locally.
We left there and headed east again, towards Wilmington Delaware, as we had plans on Friday to go to breweries. As we got closer to Philadelphia, we started to get tired, so we looked for a hotel. We found one that was right next to a hooters, and a bar that had 50 taps and 100 bottles. We went in to the hotel for a room, but it was too much, so we went back down the street to get a hotel. Two miles saved us $40. We checked in, moved in our bags, and then headed down to Arbys for evening meal. Left there and went to Firewaters Bar (the one next to hooters).
I started with an O'reilly's Stout (like a Guinness, sadly), then switched to a Sierra Nevada Chico Estate Harvest Ale, on draft. I think that was it for the beer there, as it was getting late, and we were both kinda tired. If I lived around Concord Pennsylvania, this would be one of my favorite bars. Lots of beer, that wasn't too expensive, and (for when I do) smoking inside. They also had mixed drinks (Jack and coke) for $2.50, so it'd be my neighbor Eric's favorite bar too.
We headed back to the hotel, and woke up Friday and headed to Delaware. Our first stop was at Iron Hill Brewery in Wilmington Delaware. We shared the sampler platter, of 10 of their beers. Kriddy wasn't too enthused about the menu, so she ate my rolls that came with my bowl of seafood bisque, that was awesome!!!
We got two of their bottles to go. And then headed south to Milton.
Milton is the home of the Dogfish Head Brewery. We took the tour, got to see their facilty, which is very nice. To the right you'll see a picture of their Palo Santo fermentation tank. During each tour we went on, they seem to always ask some of the same questions... 1. What are the 4 ingredients used in making beer? 2. Is anyone a homebrewer?At the end of the DFH tour, you get four samples of beer that they have selected for the day. Our four were, (1) 60 minute (2) Punkin (3) Pangea (4) Theobrama. I asked the guy behind the counter if I could try their Shelter Pale, and he was nice enough to let me try that. I got a new beer bag, a hat and a shirt, Kriddy also got a shirt. We finished up the tour (the guy in the picture in the cream-ish shirt seemed to have gotten drunk on the 4 samples, as did some of the girls who also took the tour... geez, it was at the most 8 oz of beer), and headed to Rehobeth Beach, to go to the Dogfish Head Brewpub.
There, I had the Lawnmower beer, and followed it up with a Piston Honda, which was a brewpub only. Kriddy ordered a pizza, and I went with the fish and chips. What arrived was two of the largest pieces of fish that I've ever seen. One piece was enough for me, so we took half the pizza and a huge ass piece of fish with us. We left and drove down to the beach, Kriddy had never seen the Atlantic, so we went there. Found a spot just off the beach and parked. Then walked down to the beach. Kriddy was afraid she wouldn't be able to see the ocean, but there were little white caps and you could easily see the entire thing was water. We walked up to the edge of the furthest back wave mark to touch the water, as a wave came in, Kriddy stayed back further than I did, and I touched the water and had to run back to her, because it came in further than all the previous little waves. We walked down the boardwalk for a bit, then walked down the area with all the shops, books, jewelry, tshirts, candy and ice cream. It's probably the same in every beach city.
We left and found a hotel in Rehobeth. Thank goodness it wasn't the summer, because we paid $99 for the room, and the price on the door was $400. Woke up Saturday, threw away our leftovers, and headed north to Pennsylvania.
Saturday's agenda was two more breweries. First stop was in Easton Pa, at Weyerbacher. Weyerbacher is one of my favorite breweries, even though their beer isn't distributed in Illinois. I normally pick up their beer when we go to North Carolina, or any place else that I see it. We got the tour, and sampled the Winter Ale. Also bought an Old Heathen shirt.
We left there and headed for Victory in Downingtown. We got there a little early and went to the bar to have a beer. I went with the cask BP Porter and Kriddy got the Bags Packed Porter... had I realized that cask BP porter was pretty much the same beer, I would have gotten something different. They were two totally different beers, but still, somewhat the same. We took the tour, found out that the restaurant manage
r (who gave the tour) has family in Pontiac Illinois, and then were going to sit down to eat. The menu wasn't appealing to either of us, and Kriddy wasn't feeling well, so we left, and started heading to home.We stopped and ate on the Penna Pike at one of their pull offs, and had Burger King, I had seen their ads for the new mushroom and swiss and it looked good, but didn't live up to the commercial. Kriddy slept for most of this, and I decided we'd stop just after we left Pennsylvania and did the West Virginia stretch, and got into Ohio.
We didn't want to go too far into Ohio, as Penn State just got done beating OSU, and we didn't need to try to get a hotel near Columbus.
On Sunday, I called From the Vine to find out their hours, they open on Sunday at 1, so I figured we'd stop and have a leisurely breakfast and kill an hour, and we'd get there right at one. Kriddy was more interested in getting home, so we stopped at McD, and we figured we'd pick up some beer at another place on the way. Remember, I only got 2 bottles from Iron Hill, 2 six packs and a 4 pack. We thought about stopping in Dayton, but that's more out of the way. So I thought we'd go to some of our favorite liquor stores in Indy.
Indy liquor stores aren't open on Sunday.
So we drove home. I dropped Kriddy off and went home to do laundry.
All in all, we covered about 2,200 miles. Stopped at 7 breweries/brewpubs (2 DFH). Went to some really good beer bars, saw 41 different state licensce plates (we kept track), and saw some interesting sites.
It was busy, even though we only really had plans for Friday and Saturday.
The updated list of my beers will be on the right soon.
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