Fake News but Real Good Beer!
Everywhere is coming up Craft
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| Drinking Braxton's Dead Blow Stout at Dewey's Pizza |
As I've mentioned in earlier blog posts Charita and I do like our holidays. Our first trip together in 2018 was to the States. This was, in part, family business. The weekend we arrived saw the first production for 40 years of the Gospel musical Little Willie Jr’s resurrection. The original show had toured the East coast of America and then crossed the pond to England. Charita was the stage manager of that production and when it closed in the UK she decided to stay here.
This new production was put together by her brother Craig, and friends and members of the family came from all over the country to see it. The following weekend many of those same family members gathered in Cincinnati for the 2018 Family Reunion. In between times Charita and I, accompanied by sister Cindi, niece Ciani and grandson Tyler, managed to squeeze in brief visits to Memphis and Nashville. I was aware that our itinerary would not provide much opportunity to hit the craft beer bars but, as I soon discovered, that scarcely mattered. Most of the restaurants and cafes that we visited, even those that had really short beer lists, had several very good ales to try.
My one and only opportunity to visit a specialist bar came on the first day. Gremlin Growlers is in Fayetteville, just outside of Atlanta, and about three miles away from where we were staying. Charita had headed to the Little Willie rehearsals to add her professional expertise. That left me, her best friend Robyn, husband Darryl, and Patti, who had driven down from Philadelphia with her husband Kevin. Darryl and I had not met before but were already beer buddies, having exchanged beers via reciprocal visits between Charita and Robyn.
My one and only opportunity to visit a specialist bar came on the first day. Gremlin Growlers is in Fayetteville, just outside of Atlanta, and about three miles away from where we were staying. Charita had headed to the Little Willie rehearsals to add her professional expertise. That left me, her best friend Robyn, husband Darryl, and Patti, who had driven down from Philadelphia with her husband Kevin. Darryl and I had not met before but were already beer buddies, having exchanged beers via reciprocal visits between Charita and Robyn.
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| Darryl on the threshold |
Saturday was Showtime. A two hour gospel musical that begins with a slave auction and then moves forward in time to track the African American experience, right up to the present day, is a helluva demanding piece to choose as your first ever theatrical production but Craig pulled it off. The audience, which included a delighted 92-year old Oscar Johnson, the show's author, loved it and many of us gathered the next afternoon, at the Sage Woodfire Tavern in Atlanta's Buckhead district, to celebrate the successful show. The food was good but I what I hadn't been expecting was that there would be any interesting beers to sample.
There was a short list of six on draft including a wheat beer, a Belgian amber, a locally brewed pale ale and two strong IPAs, both of which I tried. Jekyll's Hop Dang Diggity, was a very floral, fruity number but at a mere 6.7% was blown away by Skofflaw's Basement IPA. At a hefty 7.8%, this was a full-bodied whopper. Darryl, I later discovered, started and finished with this one!
There was a short list of six on draft including a wheat beer, a Belgian amber, a locally brewed pale ale and two strong IPAs, both of which I tried. Jekyll's Hop Dang Diggity, was a very floral, fruity number but at a mere 6.7% was blown away by Skofflaw's Basement IPA. At a hefty 7.8%, this was a full-bodied whopper. Darryl, I later discovered, started and finished with this one!
As we boarded a Greyhound for Memphis ...
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Tyler waiting in line for the Greyhound |
For those of you that have not visited the States, and have the idea that travelling across the country by road is romantic, let me disabuse you of that notion. I bet I'm not the only person that listens to Simon and Garfunkel's classic track America, and on hearing the lines
"Cathy", I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
thinks, or used to think "Wow! Sounds idyllic!" Well I don't, not anymore.
It's my private theory that Greyhound buses are actually decommissioned National Express coaches, shipped over from the UK and repainted. The drivers are mostly irritating jobsworths who expect passengers to behave exactly as they tell them to, or else. The good news is that the Megabus corporation has developed a rival network and their fleet is much superior but even comparative comfort can't compensate for the vast expanses of freeway with nothing to look at. And it takes forever.
Charita and I do have a track record of arranging itineraries that involve a couple of cities but not enough time in either and this time it was Memphis and Nashville. These were two major bucket list items for me and we didn't do full justice to either. For Memphis, at least, we did have a long list of key sites to visit. This included the National Civil Rights Museum. the Rock and Soul Museum, Stax studio and, of course, Graceland. The problem was that the entry fee for the Presley mansion was three times the price of any of the other museums. Still, we did do the gift shop. And the cafe. I like to think that Elvis would have approved.
926 rock the house!
The highlight came at the Stax museum, lovingly recreated on the site of the original studio. The exhibits were fascinating although the similar Rock and Soul museum was about as good. But the new Stax is more than just a repository of artifacts; it hosts a music academy and every Tuesday through June the alumni band, 926, treated visitors to the museum to a blistering set of classics from the golden age of Stax. They were fantastic!
In the evening we did, of course, hit Beale Street. Let's tell it like it is though. Exactly like the French quarter in New Orleans, Beale Street is a massive, gaudy tourist trap. How much it resembles the heyday of the 50s and 60s is debatable but I confess that I do enjoy hearing funky music blasting out of every doorway. Plus I definitely like the idea of buying beer to go from a window on the street. That's how I came to sample Memphis Made's Catnap IPA. Not the best beer of the trip but very drinkable and pretty strong!
Our second and last day in Nashville was a literal washout. The thing about the blistering heat in the Southern states of America is it is broken up on a fairly regular basis by almost biblical thunderstorms. We had just finished a hop-on hop-off trolley tour, which included so many different views of Taylor Swift's fabulous penthouse apartment that I swear the driver was on commission, when the heavens opened.
After cowering in various shop doorways, and considering a couple of way-too-expensive restaurants, we ventured out into what seemed like gentler rain. We'd only gone a couple of blocks before the rain got brutal. Soaked to the skins, we all piled into the foyer of the nearest public space, which just happened to be the Johnny Cash museum. Coffee seemed more important than culture at that point so we drank a toast to the Man in Black then went on our way.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Charita and Tyler for some of the pictures
Thanks also to Charita's family for putting up with me, especially when I started rabbitting on about craft beer
Getting in touch
If you want to comment on the blog, please do. Add your comments at the bottom here.
If you just want to follow me on social media (or email me), here are the details:
email: goateephil@hotmail.com
twitter: @goateephil
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goateephilbeer
"Cathy", I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
thinks, or used to think "Wow! Sounds idyllic!" Well I don't, not anymore.
It's my private theory that Greyhound buses are actually decommissioned National Express coaches, shipped over from the UK and repainted. The drivers are mostly irritating jobsworths who expect passengers to behave exactly as they tell them to, or else. The good news is that the Megabus corporation has developed a rival network and their fleet is much superior but even comparative comfort can't compensate for the vast expanses of freeway with nothing to look at. And it takes forever.
Charita and I do have a track record of arranging itineraries that involve a couple of cities but not enough time in either and this time it was Memphis and Nashville. These were two major bucket list items for me and we didn't do full justice to either. For Memphis, at least, we did have a long list of key sites to visit. This included the National Civil Rights Museum. the Rock and Soul Museum, Stax studio and, of course, Graceland. The problem was that the entry fee for the Presley mansion was three times the price of any of the other museums. Still, we did do the gift shop. And the cafe. I like to think that Elvis would have approved.
926 rock the house!
In the evening we did, of course, hit Beale Street. Let's tell it like it is though. Exactly like the French quarter in New Orleans, Beale Street is a massive, gaudy tourist trap. How much it resembles the heyday of the 50s and 60s is debatable but I confess that I do enjoy hearing funky music blasting out of every doorway. Plus I definitely like the idea of buying beer to go from a window on the street. That's how I came to sample Memphis Made's Catnap IPA. Not the best beer of the trip but very drinkable and pretty strong!
Shakin' it off in Nashville
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Acme Seed and Feed, Nashville |
After another gruelling road trip by Greyhound we arrived in Nashville around 6 o'clock in the evening. Having used up all of our mental resources thinking of places to go in Memphis Charita and I had no clue where to start in Nashville. I knew that Broadway was the centre of downtown so that's where we asked our Lyft [US rival to Uber] driver to drop us.
"Where's a good place to eat and listen to some music?" we asked him.
"Acme's right here," he said, pointing, so that's where we went.
Acme Seed and Feed is a restaurant, bar and live venue and it's massive. As the name suggests it was once an old grain warehouse. It now has four floors. The top floor has an impressive view across the river so that's where we headed. The food was fantastic and so was the beer. Their list ran to more than two dozen items and included the likes of Oskar Blues, Wicked Weed and Cigar City. I opted for Cigar City's Jai Alai IPA and boy, am I glad I did. It's a fabulously fruity, full-bodied beer and pretty much epitomises the hop-forward American IPA. It also went very well with my belly pork dish.
"Where's a good place to eat and listen to some music?" we asked him.
"Acme's right here," he said, pointing, so that's where we went.
Acme Seed and Feed is a restaurant, bar and live venue and it's massive. As the name suggests it was once an old grain warehouse. It now has four floors. The top floor has an impressive view across the river so that's where we headed. The food was fantastic and so was the beer. Their list ran to more than two dozen items and included the likes of Oskar Blues, Wicked Weed and Cigar City. I opted for Cigar City's Jai Alai IPA and boy, am I glad I did. It's a fabulously fruity, full-bodied beer and pretty much epitomises the hop-forward American IPA. It also went very well with my belly pork dish.
Our second and last day in Nashville was a literal washout. The thing about the blistering heat in the Southern states of America is it is broken up on a fairly regular basis by almost biblical thunderstorms. We had just finished a hop-on hop-off trolley tour, which included so many different views of Taylor Swift's fabulous penthouse apartment that I swear the driver was on commission, when the heavens opened.
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| I snapped a man in Nashville just to watch him dry |
Shake a tail feather!
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| The new Three Degrees? Tanya, Charita and Cindi strut their stuff |
The last leg of our itinerary took us from Nashville to Cincinnati for the 2018 Family Reunion. We all had rooms at a swish new hotel called Aloft on the Levee and, as the name suggests, it was right on the Ohio river. The actual city lies to the north, and is in Ohio ; the area to the south is called Newport and is in Kentucky. That's where we were.
We had set off from Nashville at 4 in the morning. By the time we got to the hotel it was after midday and we were starving. Accordingly we poured into the nearest tolerable looking eaterie, in the mall next to the hotel. This was Dewey's Pizza. I am not generally a big fan of pizza but this was good.
It was also great beer. Like the Sage Woodfire in Buckhead Dewey's had a short but impressive beer list and the two that I tried were both excellent. The first was yet another heavy-on-the-hops IPA that American microbreweries seem to do so well. It hailed from local Mad Tree and had the amusing name PsycHOPathy (see what they did there?) But even that was put into the shade by one of the few dark ales I had chance to try on the trip: Braxton's majestic Dead Blow Stout.
From heavy beer to heavy culture: the next afternoon a large group of us headed across the river to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It was as much about the history of slavery as about the freedom movement, but it was impressive nonetheless. After the frequently upsetting exhibits it was a pleasant change to finish the trip with an evening of family shenanigans: dance contests, karaoke (no, I didn't ...), catching up and general merriment.
The function room at the hotel was only booked until 10 so those of us that didn't have early flights the next day repaired to the Johnson Bros Grill at the mall for a nightcap. Mine was a pint of Bell's Two Hearted IPA. A fine hoppy end to a busy but enjoyable trip.
We had set off from Nashville at 4 in the morning. By the time we got to the hotel it was after midday and we were starving. Accordingly we poured into the nearest tolerable looking eaterie, in the mall next to the hotel. This was Dewey's Pizza. I am not generally a big fan of pizza but this was good.
It was also great beer. Like the Sage Woodfire in Buckhead Dewey's had a short but impressive beer list and the two that I tried were both excellent. The first was yet another heavy-on-the-hops IPA that American microbreweries seem to do so well. It hailed from local Mad Tree and had the amusing name PsycHOPathy (see what they did there?) But even that was put into the shade by one of the few dark ales I had chance to try on the trip: Braxton's majestic Dead Blow Stout.
From heavy beer to heavy culture: the next afternoon a large group of us headed across the river to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It was as much about the history of slavery as about the freedom movement, but it was impressive nonetheless. After the frequently upsetting exhibits it was a pleasant change to finish the trip with an evening of family shenanigans: dance contests, karaoke (no, I didn't ...), catching up and general merriment.
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| Last night on the Levee |
The function room at the hotel was only booked until 10 so those of us that didn't have early flights the next day repaired to the Johnson Bros Grill at the mall for a nightcap. Mine was a pint of Bell's Two Hearted IPA. A fine hoppy end to a busy but enjoyable trip.
Thanks to Charita and Tyler for some of the pictures
Thanks also to Charita's family for putting up with me, especially when I started rabbitting on about craft beer
Getting in touch
If you want to comment on the blog, please do. Add your comments at the bottom here.
If you just want to follow me on social media (or email me), here are the details:
email: goateephil@hotmail.com
twitter: @goateephil
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goateephilbeer
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Very very Kool.
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