New Albany, IN - New Albanian Brewing Company

The New Albanian Brewing Company was great! They had some stellar beer here. After a house warming party for two friends who are getting married, we went to this brewery. They had a wide selection of beer which included not only their own in house beers made locally, but beers produced from other breweries. I didn't try anything that wasn't local of course (but they did have a few Saison's in the selection...)

The best beer was the Hoptimus Prime. The beer was not only a palatte killer, but incredibly drinkable and approachable for someone who is not into super hoppy beers. My guess is that the IBU on this was over 100.

Good story to this beer: We ended up buying a growler of this to take back to our friends house and give them the growler as a house warming present. When my wife and everyone else went to bed, one of my best friends and I were playing Wii baseball. With a full pint glass in his path, he took a huge swing and pulled a Sammy Sosa homer on that glass. We cleaned up the mess, but he left some paper towels soaked with beer. Oops.

The artwork was incredible! Every beer seemed to have a story behind it. There is a beer that uses a sexy she-devil which is always good to see on beer. Our friends knew the guy who brews the B-52 beer. The artwork on this was 1940's WWII propaganda-ish style.

The location looked like a pizza hut (Grantline location). There are two brewery locations so I can only speak for this one as I never made it to the second. Nothing too awesome, but the brewing tanks were visible and the food was tasty. Get the pizza as I liked it a lot.

Artwork: A
Beer: A-
Atmosphere: B-
Food: B+

Overall: B+

New Albanian Brewing Company
3312 Plaza Drive
New Albany, IN 47150

Indianapolis, IN - Broad Ripple Brewpub

This award winning brewpub is located in the fun, young district of Indianapolis known as Broad Ripple. This pub has a lot going for them like the fact that most of the population in the area is in their target demographic. Founded in 1990, they were the first brewpub in Indiana. This is not to be confused with the first brewery in Indiana though.

This brewery has had many brewers who later went on to open great Indiana breweries. The first brewer, Greg Emig, founded the Lafayette Brewing Co and the second brewer, Ted Miller, founded the Brugge Brasserie¹. They have large vegetarian menu which is cool. To top it off, their phone number is (317)ALE-BREW!

Although they have good beer, the food that we tried was just alright. If you like beer cheese, avoid theirs! The best way to describe it is to say that it had strong hints of keystone light and velveta cheese... yeah...

Their beer at time of visit: (lots of English style)

• Lawn Mower Pale Ale- GRADE: B
5.0% ABV


• Violet's Strawberry Blonde Belgian- GRADE: B
5.2% ABV. This is a good beer for people who don't like beer. Like the name implies.


• I.P.A. India Pale Ale- GRADE: B+
6.2% ABV


• Kolsch- GRADE: B-
4.6% ABV. Its a crispy, hoppy beer.


• E.S.B Extra Special Bitter- GRADE: B+
5.6% ABV. They are known for this beer.


• Black Heart Lager- GRADE: B+
5.9% ABV


• Diving Duck American Brown- GRADE: B
4.7% ABV. English style cask ale.


• Dual Citizenship Ale- GRADE: B+
5.5% ABV. English style cask ale.

This brewery gets a B. If they look really busy outside on a nice day, still find a parking spot (can be very hard) and go since there are a lot of people who drink outside of the pub.

Broad Ripple Brewpub
842 E 65th Street
Indpls, IN 46220

Piece Brewery & Pizzeria - Chicago, IL

Went to Chicago to go visit some friends and had planned on going to Goose Island Brewery. When we were ready to get going, we hadn't eaten and one person had a great recommendation for a pizza place. He lives up in Chi-town so I'm willing to trust what he says is good. And what is better than a good Chicago pizza? Nothing.

They are a 7 barrel brewhouse so they are very craft and don't bottle anything. This made the decision to go here instead of Goose Island a no brainer. They also had karaoke with a live band starting at 11pm. As much as I wanted to sing Sublime's Santeria, I decided against it. I would have absolutely destroyed

Arrived at the bar and there was about a 40 minute wait at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night. The wait was fine because you can drink at the bar as time passes. The beer was awesome. One of the winner was the 'Camel Toe', which was an awesome 9.5% thicker beer that came in a snifter. Not a chugging beer.

For the pizza, there were two kinds: red (traditional with pizza sauce) and white style (no pizza sauce, olive oil, garlic). I love pizza sauce so I thought I would only like the red. The white is what they were known for so we got a white, pepperoni pizza. Another in our party got the white with clam and bacon, which sounded gross, but was AWESOME! I don't like clams, but this was good. I would recommend it because it is unique and memorable. This bar gets a B+.

Other beers enjoyed:

Golden Arm - A friend called this the quintessential lawn mower beer. Its a german style Kolsch beer that can be best described as smelling like coors light but has a full body and good floral notes.

Top Heavy Hefeweizen - Strong hints of orange and very smooth. Like a blue moon but much stronger orange. If you like oranges, but don't like the taste of 'peels' in the beer, this is the beer for you.

Not tasted:
Worryin Ale - Rye Beer
Wingnut - Imperial/Double IPA
Dysfunctionale - American-style Strong Pale Ale
Fornicator - Bock
Full Frontal Pale Ale - Ameican-style Pale Ale
Dark-n-Curvy Dunkelweizen - German-style Wheat Ale

Piece
1927 W. North Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

Boca Raton, FL - Brewzzi

Took a trip to Boca with the 'rents and was trying to get over to Brewzzi the entire time. We were finally able to make it on one of the last days. Sure enough someone clipped the back of the family van so it put a damper on the dinner. Worse, it was kindof a hit and run situation.

The people that clipped them said they didn't realize that they had done it, but I was in the seat where the car rammed backing up (in the middle of the street). I had a great view of it and I don't see how you could not know. They ran in the Brewzzi and we couldn't find them. We located them as they were leaving and worked it out. They were a nice couple with kids on their adults night out. I always give people the benefit of the doubt since they felt bad and seemed genuine. It could be buffed out, but its the concept of the hit and run that made me mad.

This is a great place to go with a group of people who may not normally like breweries. They have a great fruity beer called Tropical Madness ( a crisp, blonde lager with hints of apricot, blueberry, peach, and raspberry). My wife doesn't drink beer but she said she liked it when she tried it. The food is very good too which appeals to the people that don't like beer in general. My favorite was actually an IPA that is a rotating 'Brewzzi Reserve' out of the brewmaster's reserve. I can't remember the hops that were used, but it wasn't over 90 IBU's. My bro and sister-in-law are beer fans too and loved the brewery.

I'd give this brewery a B+. If I am ever in Boca, I would definitely head back there again. The staff was accomidating with the hit and run situation, the beer was great, and the food was stellar. I have no complaints. The '+' was because they have something for everyone which is a big factor for me since I visit some breweries with people who don't like beer.

Brewzzi
2222 Glades Rd
Boca Raton, FL 33431

Blog Traffic Dilemma

It's funny writing a blog in the first 7 days knowing that no one will read what you're typing. I could say anything and I wouldn't get any complaints. Blah blah blah yackity smackity. I've had 19 vistors so far. I think I've been about 4 of those.

My demographic so far:
US - 13 hits
Mexico - 2 hits
Germany - 1 hit
Indonesia - 1 hit
Cyprus - 1 hit
Brazil - 1 hit

I like to pretend that my international vistors are real people and not remote server farms. In reality, I think I am the only person that has visited my site since the US visitors are probably bots.
<- This kind of humor is lost on bots

If you are a person and are reading this, make sure you come back or refer friends so I know people are reading this. I will have an email people can send me stuff at later. I'm drinking too much beer at the moment and catching up with posts until then. Stay tuned. All zero of you are super psyched I'm sure...

Since no one reads this blog, we recently found woodchucks in our backyard. No joke, we saw them chillin' outside our shed not looking that different than the photo on the right. They've been tearing our yard up in the worst way. I'm trying to fend them off with Fox urine, but its not working. On a side note, I wonder if they're making woodchuck cider much like the keebler elves make keebler cookies...

Sun King Brewery - Indianapolis, IN

So I was looking up the address of a brewery in Indianapolis and saw a search result with 'Sun King Brewery' and 'Indianapolis' in the description. The brewery is the dream child of two Indiana brewers who worked at downtown breweries (Ram/Rock Bottom). I have had their beer before, but did not realize they were the ones who made the beer. There is some extreme talent brewing this beer that's for sure.

I think I will absolutely love this brewery since there was a blog that mentioned that they have Belgian Saison and wheat beers.¹ I will be totally psyched to have a Saison brewed consistently in Indy (esp if its commercially sold).

The brewery is not yet open, but has started brewing beer from their 15 BBL system. BBL? A BBL is 'barrel' unit of liquid measure (Volumes). A US barrel is 31 gallons (117.3 litres) while a UK barrel is 36 gallons (163.7 litres). BBL used in a sentence: "Rodney Farva's litrecola was actually 0.008525 BBL's of cola"¹



Everyone needs to make sure that if they see this beer on the menu, order before they get a non-local beer and if they don't have it, ask the bar to order from this company. That is the kind of stuff that creates a following like Fat Tire has. I would love people to throw parties and stuff when an Indy brew is finally served in their state.

Sun King Brewery
135 N. College Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46202

Beerbike? Where do dreams come true...

Not Disney World. In a place where open container doesn't matter, how does an open-sided bar/bike sound? Yeah. I know pretty awesome! Where else other than Amsterdam? Where dreams come true... You drink and bike in the US and its a DUI.




<- awesomely seats 1



disaster waiting to happen with 10-22 of your closest friends ->




Amsterdam is awesome! Got to go there back in '06 and it was totally worth it. Didn't know about the beerbike then though. They just encountered some problems with the law after three women were hurt in a beer bike incident in May 2009. ¹ We'll see if they're still there when I head back. (the beer bike, not the hurt women)

If you are going to ride the beerbike, there a few helpful things you need to have with you for a fun and safe adventure:

1. Bring your pedaling shoes unless you plan on flintstone-ing it

2. Metro-sexual euro-clothing so you blend right in to the locals

3. Stoner Hat - Lighters are harder to find there than these

4. If you're overly self-aware, just tell yourself they're only staring because you're not wearing wooden shoes...

PS: They also have a karaoke bike which I don't like since karaoke is annoying outside of a bar and what's the point of being outside in Holland on a bike and not turning around and enjoying it all... just saying...

Check 'em out at Happy Beerbike Sightseeing Tour if you can stop laughing long enough to buy a ticket. They are called 'Coffeeshops'.