Denver - GABF

It's been two years since Bob and I attended the granddaddy of all American beer fests. So it was time to go back to the Great American Beer Fest in Denver (GABF). Last time we brought the kids and found a babysitter on-line. She was one of the best babysitters ever! So when we were planning this trip, I crossed my fingers when I emailed her. To my great surprise, she was still at that email address ... and was available!! It's also a bonus that both Bob and I have family in the Denver area and were able to see them.

The beer fest was amazing as usual. I found my personal favorite, New Glarus Brewery and sampled some of their Raspberry Tart and Belgian Red. They really excel doing fruit beers, yummmy! Friday night we were able to get samples from them with little effort (maybe a 15 minute wait in line). Then Saturday afternoon, the line was at least a 30 minutes to 45 minutes wait. All for a one ounce pour! I was very happy that I already sampled New Glarus and didn't have to wait in that line.

I tried a lot of pumpkin beers, and a couple gluten-free beers, but I have to say that I was extremely happy to discover Dogfish Head's Midas Touch. And more importantly, this beer is available in the Atlanta area (unlike New Glarus).

Day 1 - Enjoying the fest Friday night.


Mexican Beer Dudes - Notice the pretzel somberros and pretzel bullet holders. Many people would wear pretzel necklaces to munch during the fest. These guys took it a step further!


Day 2 - Bob and I were the Alesmith reps with our matching shirts!

Bob's birthday

Happy birthday to Bob! We celebrated by going to our newest favorite place in the whole wide world -- Th Porter, a beer bar that just opened and is stumbling distance from our house! Who could ask for a more perfect birthday present.

Here is a birthday card that Bob received that captures the moment perfectly:

Beer engine?

Bob mixes beer and business when he designs a PXI-Beer Engine for use at NI Week in Austin, Texas. Too bad we couldn't serve Bob's own home brew in it!

Munich - Day 2

Day 2 for me in Munich and my last day. I started the day good by doing a 10 mile run along the river. After we had lunch with Dave at Ayinger. The next stop was the infamous Hofbrauhaus where I had my first Radler beer, yummmy!

Radler beer is a mixture of lemonade and a lager beer. Interesting story behind the origins of Radler beer. Radler is German for cyclist and apparently back in 1922, 13,000 cyclists were visiting a tavern. When the beer started to run out the tavern owner started diluting the beer with lemonade saying that this was done so the cyclists wouldn't have to worry about falling off their bicycles. tee hee

For dinner, Bob ordered a number of things that I would normally never even try (I can't even remember there were too many Radlers that day), and I ordered something that was described as "scrambled pancakes with apples and raisins" in English. The stuff that Bob ordered was good, I'm shocked that I ate it, but the scrambled pancakes were to die for!

Things to note from that day. We were walking through Marienplatz and there were police every where you turned. We were confused and didn't remember so many the last time we were in town (about 10 years ago). But during some conversations at the Hofbrauhaus, we found out that there was a NATO conference in town, thus all the police presence. I've never seen so many police in one place.

Additionally to note. In the airport after landing, I noticed a "No Smoking" sign that indicated there was no smoking in the airport after January 1, 2008. For a European city, I found this very interesting. Then we discovered that the whole city of Munich was no smoking!! Amazing! And very nice for us none smokers!

The next morning was my last day and travel day back to Atlanta. Upon my return I didn't get quite the running hug welcome from both boys that I was used to. Nathan was excited to see me and gave me a running hug, but Colin was asleep with a fever. Just that morning, Colin started getting sick, so I was glad that I came home to be able to comfort him during his sickness.

Munich - Day 1

Bob had a conference in Munich and invited me to join him for the weekend prior to the conference. Of course, I couldn't resist going. We lined up the nanny to stay at our place and take care of the kids and off we went! It was a short trip for me, leave Thursday afternoon, get into Munich Friday morning and get back on a plane Sunday morning. But I made the most of the trip and had a great time. Didn't get a chance to shop and replace the coat from the Netherlands that was retired during the San Diego trip. Too many beers to try!

So Day 1 begins with the plane landing at 8am or so in the morning. Check-in at the hotel, and we decided to take a little nap. Didn't really feel like it, but we figured it was better to do it then and be rested for the remainder of the day. Bob talked to the conceirge who recommended going to Kloster Andechs, a monastery brewery.

It was an hour train ride to Kloster Andechs, but was definitely worth it. Kloster Andechs is a monastery that sits atop a high hill. The church was beautiful and the beer was delicious. Unfortunately I forgot the camera so I'm stole this picture from Kloster Andechs' website. My favorite beer at Kloster Andechs was an apfelwiesse beer (apple wheat beer), and Bob's favorite was the winterbrew.


Dinner was at the klostergasthof where Bob and I watched two little girls that reminded us of our little guys. They must have been 4 1/2 years and 2 1/2 years old, same spacing as Colin and Nathan just 6 months older. Made us miss our guys, but then when they started getting restless, we were glad we didn't have to worry about that. We just smiled and nodded to let them know we understood.

While waiting for the bus back, we started talking to a family from Australia. At first they assumed we were German and started talking to us in German. Communication went much better when they spoke English! They were the coolest people, and we talked to them the whole way back to Munich. It was a family vacation for them with their daughters who were 26 and 24 (or something like that). They were so close and got along so well. They are the model of what I hope our family will be like when the kids grow up. You know, still taking family vacations when the boys are in their 20's with everyone laughing and joking and having a great time together. It takes a really special bond to be able to do that.

For dinner, Bob and I went to this little German pub that was the coziest little place. It had a table for the regulars where everyone ate together and all knew each other. I forget the name of the place, but it was probably "Cheers" in German!

Tomorrow we hit the pubs. So stay tuned for more.

San Diego - Day 3

In the last post, I made a comment about how easy mornings are when you live in the East coast and travel to the West coast ... not so on the third day in San Diego after consuming way too much strong ale at the Strong Ale Festival. But I was able to put the previous night's mistakes behind me and go forth with the journey.


Our beer tour continued with a visit to Stone Brewing Co. which is the most polished beer establishment I've ever seen. WOW! The brewery is brand new and has a gift shop that you go through first, then you see the restaurant that has a wall of glass on one side that show cases the brewery. It's breath-taking! At the bar where Bob, Dave and Larry sampled, I could only drink cola at this point.

This is just Stone Brewing's growler filling station in the gift shop.

So many taps ... we couldn't figure out how they remembered them all.
Next stop was Port Brewing. We were spoiled at the last place so the lines and the waiting and the make-shift bar stools (grain bags on top of kegs) seemed so ... how do I say it ... so much like a let down. Oh well, I still was not drinking beer, but I'm sure the boys enjoyed their samples.


Then it was time to go back to the Strong Ale Fest. I finally drank some beer, but funny nothing really seemed to appeal to me like it did Friday night. There was no repeat performance, thank god! We hung around some friends that we met last year, Deanna and John. Last year Deanna was pregnant so she was happy to be drinking this time.

Deanna making up for last year!

It was an early night for us (again!). Our flight was early in the morning, and we didn't want to miss it. I was really missing Colin and Nathan by this time, and couldn't wait for my running hugs when I got home!

Some San Diego beer tour links to remember:
www.BrewHop.com
www.brewerytoursofsandiego.com

San Diego - Day 2

When you live on the East Coast and travel to the West Coast, mornings are so easy, at least easy to get up early! On the other hand, it's very difficult to stay out late.

So Day 2 of our Beer Fest Adventure in San Diego started at 6am for me. My goal was to go running on the beach. I planned out a long run so that I could stay on track for my marathon training. Well, 6am it was still dark but I did notice some mist in the street lights -- yuck! I hoped the mist didn't mean rain. At 7am I checked again, it was light but also raining. At 7:30am I finally convinced myself to just do it anyway, I might not run as far as I was planning on, but some running is always better than no running. The run was shorter than I planned, but I was really happy that I got out there. I saw lots of neat condos, some for rent. I also saw some porpoises along the shore -- very cool!

Then we checked out of the Surfer Dude hotel at Pacific Beach and headed up the coast to the not-so-good hotel in Carlsbad. The Strong Ale Fest is located in Carlsbad which I just don't consider as interesting of an area as Pacific Beach. Oh well, you gotta go where the beer fest is. After checking into the hotel, Bob and I grabbed a quick lunch then joined Larry and Dave in their room for a beer tasting pre-beer fest event. I tell you, the beer geeks are serious about their beer.


Time to go to the Strong Ale Fest. Remember that rain from the mornings run? Well it was doing the same thing in Carlsbad. We figured this meant that only the really hard-core, die-hard beer geeks would go so the crowd would be small and lines short. We were right. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was STRONG ale that I was consuming and by 6pm was done for the night. I won't go into the details involving my exit from the festival -- it was not pretty.

Tomorrow, more breweries and the last day of the Strong Ale Fest.

San Diego - Day 1

This series of blogs will diverge from the normal bragging and reporting of Colin and Nathan. Instead, I will follow our trip to San Diego without the kids where the Strong Ale Festival was our goal. But being that San Diego is in the heart of beer country, there were lots of side stops to make before we even hit the Strong Ale Fest. Now, some folks may say that Oregon is the home of the microbrewery which is not true, anymore! Something I read during this trip really put it into perspective for me. At the 2006 World Beer Cup, San Diego County alone won enough medals to place 7th if they were their own country.

So on with the trip details, our trip was with Bob, Dave, Larry and myself. The itinerary for Thursday included a stop at a beer store, two breweries, and a beer bar. First the beer store which was actually a convenience store/pharmacy. Larry found the place on the web and has been ordering beer from them. It is the South Bay Drugs & Pharmacy. Funny to go all the way across the country to buy beer at a convenience store/pharmacy, but that's what beer geeks do!



Next stop, Ballast Point Brewery where we finally were able to consume some beer! Lots of samples here.



Time to check into the hotel, the Surfer Dude, well that's what I call it, it's really Surfer something but I can't remember. I love this hotel. It's right on the water where all the rooms have an ocean view. It's also on Pacific Beach which has so much charm.

Then off to Alesmith! Yum, yum, yum! Alesmith does not do a bad beer, or even an average beer. Everything at Alesmith rocks!



Next O'Brien's, an awesome beer bar where we see a lot of the people that were pouring beers for us at the breweries. We meet up with some more Atlantans and beer friends here too.


After O'Brien's I turned in for the night. Larry, Dave and Bob went on to find more beer but I was done. Tomorrow, the Festival begins.

Asheville road trip

Looking at a baby chick at the Farmyard of Biltmore Estate
This past weekend we made the annual trip to Asheville so Bob could judge beer at the MALT Homebrewers Competition. It's the second year that we have done this.

We left Atlanta Friday afternoon, getting into Asheville with time to check into the hotel and get settled a little before going to an early dinner at the Asheville Pizza & Brewing Company. What a fun place! Surprisingly, it was very enjoyable considering that Nathan didn't nap in the car. Actually, Nathan didn't nap the whole weekend except for 30 minutes in the car on the way back to Atlanta on Sunday. But I digress, the Asheville Pizza & Brewing Company had an excellent Porter and yummy dough-knots (aka bread sticks tied into knots!)

Saturday was the competition. So we loaded everybody in the car bright and early to take Bob to start drinking! The way back to the hotel took much longer than anticipated. The car has a GPS navigational system that I relied solely on to get me back to the hotel. This was a mistake! At one point Colin asked if we could go to the hotel and I replied (while sobbing) "I'm trying but I'm lost!"

When we finally got to the hotel, Colin says, "I had fun, I'm glad you took the long way." I think he was trying to cheer me up ... it worked.

Once we had breakfast at the hotel, another car trip to try to find a swimsuit for me. The plan was to go swimming with Colin in the hotel pool while Nathan napped. I did not consider how tough it would be to find a swimsuit at this time of year. But as you recall, Nathan didn't nap at all this trip, so a swim session with Colin didn't happen anyway! I did find the mall (and my way back!) where there was a kid's play area for Colin and Nathan. They had a great time.

The afternoon nap was a disaster. I really need to work on modifying the plan when things don't go as planned. I was so counting on Nathan napping, then taking Colin to the pool (still didn't know what I was going to do about a suit though.) Things got real ugly, but I won't go into details because this blog is all about things I want to remember. I don't want to remember things getting ugly.

Finally the babysitter arrived and I was off to retrieve Bob from his beer judging thing to go drink more beer! We went to Carmel's in downtown Asheville with Ellen, a friend who used to live in Atlanta but now lives in Asheville (lucky girl!). Carmel's was amazing! I highly recommend it. Then off to Jack of the Wood, a brew pub and Barley's, a beer bar. Have you noticed that everything we do revolves around beer?

On Sunday, we went to the Biltmore Estate. Only one day left on our annual pass that we got last year! We were going to check out the winery but it didn't open until 2pm, so we checked out River Bend Farm on the estate. The best part of the farm is the farmyard where the kids got to meet chicken, sheep, horses and donkeys up close and personal. It was actually a little too up close for Nathan, although not napping in two days, I'm sure was taking a toll on his temperament. Every time one of the sheep would bleat really loud, Nathan would cry and cry. Colin was even a little apprehensive about getting too close to the animals but by the time we left he had petted a chicken, sheep and some little chicks. I was so proud of him! Boy, what city kids we have!

Time to drive back to Atlanta, which was not a fun trip but no sense in going into that which I don't want to remember anyway, huh?! Next weekend we are driving to Destin, Florida. I really hope Nathan decides to nap for that trip!