The Original Charleston Pub Tour



I'm on night float this month, so if I look tired
 it's because I'm good at hiding my exhaustion. 
If I look exhausted, well, shut up.

     Having recently been deemed the #1 Top US City by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine, Charleston has no shortage of tour companies ready to tell you things about the city.  There is a relatively new kind of tour, however, that merges history with drinking.  My brother-in-law and I recently went on one of these Pub Tours and, I must say, enjoyed it thoroughly. 

Our tour guide, Alex, playing a drinking
 game called Bimini. He's had beer before.

    Ever since I went on a b.s. ghost tour in high school, I've been skeptical about the veracity of information on these tours, and that's how I started out this time.  But, as the slogan of our tour company put it, "Tours are better with beer."  Our tour guide, Alex, took us to some local pubs and bars: Mad River, Tommy Condon's, Blind Tiger, Pearlz, The Griffon.  He told us a lot about the history of the Charleston and how the pubs played a vital role.  To be honest, I don't remember many details, but it was fascinating to hear at the time.
    My first libation of the night was Holy City Brewing Pluff Mud Porter.  The brewery is local, which makes me an automatic fan.  The beer is a dark brown with a smooth, light taste and mouth feel.  Not too hoppy, the main flavors are toasted chocolate and roasted malts, both of which are lighter than you'd expect based on the look of the beer. 
    My next was COAST Brewing Company's 32/50.  A good way to describe this is that it's exactly what you think of when you think of perfect beer.  It's not got fancy ingredients or oak barrel aging.  It's just a well made kolsch using simple ingredients.  A light, opaque yellow with a white head, the malt is slightly honeyed and is well balanced against some floral hops.

Evidently, Wait is gay.

    I also had a Newcastle Brown Ale.  Whatever.
    Most of the people in our tour group were from out-of-town, and even though these were all places I've been before and beers I could get any time, the pub tour was really fun.  I could see it being a cool way to see the city with out-of-town guests or with a group of local friends.  As our tour guide put it, Charleston is a drinking city with a history problem.  I like it here.
Until next time, Cheers!

Winnie, You're an Alcoholic...

     I recently joined a new department at work and found out that two of my new colleagues have just started brewing!  I found out when they called me for an urgent "consultation" that turned out to be a blow out of their primary fermentation.  Their krusen (the thick bubbles on top) had just gotten up into the airlock and clogged it.  I was able to reasure them that not all hope was lost and that the sterility was uncompromised.  They cleaned it up and it proceeded nicely.

This is what an AA meeting looks like in the Hundred Acre Woods. 
Eeyore isn't there because he's a pot-head, and he overslept.

     This first offering, Honey Hole, debuted at the department welcome party.  I'm not sure what to make of the name, but the beer was pretty good.  They used 1/2 light malt extract and 1/2 honey for the fermentables, which made for a nice summer beer (though I suspect the abundant simple sugar from the honey was the cause of their vigorous fermentation and subsequent blow out).  Light yellow, very clear with a medium head of white.  Not too sweet or hoppy, it was a perfect match for the Charleston heat. 
     The other thing to consider is that this was a pretty bold and creative undertaking for their first batch; I'm gonna have to step up my game.  They did recommend a collaboration later this summer, which I was thrilled about until they told me they want to call this batch Monkey Hole.  With a name like Monkey Hole, it's gonna have to be delicious.  In any case, I'm happy to have welcomed two new brothers into the fold.  May their dedication to the craft be maniacal.  Until next time, Cheers!

Bottling Day

      Brewing is a fun pastime.  You're really just taking the carbohydrates God made through the power of the sun and letting the Lord's yeast ferment them into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol.  Just as only God can make a tree, a brewer has very little hand in the actual process by which beer is made. 
      But then there's bottling day.  Bottling day sucks.  Tediously sanitizing bottle after bottle; transferring the brew to the bottling container; filling; capping; and then cleaning everything those retarded yeast have messed up.  It's mind numbing.  It's like washing the dishes after a nine course dinner party for 12.  I curse the Sumerians or whoever first mashed and fermented barley.  They should have kept their discovery to themselves.  Recipes for brewing always miss a step: between secondary fermentation and bottling, you should take 800mg of Zoloft to prevent the severe depression bottling causes. 


I get PTSD when I look at bottles

      I'm exaggerating, but just a little bit.  However, as hard as it is to muster the strength to bottle, the recovery from the process is always made easier by partaking of the fruits of the previous batch.  In this case, it's a simple, toasty porter I made this spring before the heat set in.  I like it, enough even to go through this again, which as you may surmise is saying a lot.  Until next time, Cheers!

No School Like the Old School

     My friend Jana at work saw me looking at brewing stuff on line last year, and it got us talking about some great beers we'd tried recently.  She told me about this black lager (Kostritzer Schwartbier) from a German Brewery, Kostritzer, that her husband brings home from Germany when he travels over there, and a few days later she brought me a bottle!  I was touched that she would share it with me, even more so after I tried it.  It's a delicious, smooth black lager with a medium tan head.  The hops are light and the predominant flavor is that of the toasted malts.  As with many deutsche beers, it's a clean, no nonsense example of the type of beer it says it is. 
     Now, I don't speak (or read) German, but I'm pretty sure the label says the brewery (brauerei) was established (seit) in 1543 (1543).  That means they've been making beer for almost 4000 years.  I don't do math in German either. 
     A little over a month ago I got a message from Jana saying her husband had come back from Germany, this time with a CASE of Kostritzer for me!  Once again blown away by Jana's thoughtfulness, I've had enough to share with friends and family who all agree that this old school brewery knows what they're doing.  Their 4 millennia of practice has certainly payed off.  Until next time, Cheers!

Lauren's Generous Reward

     As I've mentioned before, my wife Lauren is pregnant (with my child).  She's about 12 weeks along at this point, and since she's not yet showing we wanted to take one last little vacation, just the two of us.  We made our way down to coast to Jekyll Island, GA and stayed at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, a really nice turn-of-the-last-century hotel with charm and style. 
     Vacations aren't really my thing, but being married to Lauren I understand they are necessary.  I usually have a good time anyway, but to sweeten the deal for me, Lauren usually finds a pub to take me to wherever we go.  This trip she took me to Vincent's Pub on the hotel grounds.  It's a tiny little place (its 2 rooms couldn't accommodate more than 20 people) with an 8 foot bar, 1 tap, and 18 beers by the bottle.  The atmosphere here is very cool, they have autographed photos of past Masters winners and towels from past Ryder's Cup winners (dried sweat and all) framed all over the place.  The beer selection includes a couple offerings from Terrapin Beer Company, a Georgia brewery.
     I ordered a Terrapin Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout.  The bartender felt the need to warn me that it was an $8 bottle of beer (she seemed to have PTSD from a previous patron's response to the bill), but it was worth every penny.  It's dark-brown to black with a creamy brown head.  The overwhelming flavor is that of dark roasted coffee with hints of chocolate and toffee.  Not too much of alcohol taste despite a high gravity.  Epic.  Delicious.  I wish I had one right now.
     Until next time, Cheers!

Beer, roasted

     So, my department at work has a Roast every year (the thing where people get up and say really mean but hopefully funny things about one another), and this year I got invited to speak.  I hadn't attended in years past because I heard that the roasters were really offensive and mean, and I didn't want to participate in that.  But since I was part of it this year, I got to hear about half of it before hand and it wasn't so bad (and it was hilarious).  Well, the half that I didn't hear beforehand turned out to be pretty vulgar, crude and mean spirited, but that's beside the point.
     The point IS that I met a guy named Dave Cave (husband to one of my bosses), who's a promoter and distributor of craft beers in the Charleston area.  He didn't as much as say so, but it sounds like he's responsible for many of the amazing beers we enjoy in Charleston being available there.  Example, he was telling me about when New Belgium was wanting to break into the Charleston market and he convinced several pubs and restaurants to start carrying it.  Now you can get a Fat Tire just about anywhere.
     Needless to say, after 2 hours of going back and forth between laughing and cringing during the roast, it was refreshing to talk beer with a guy who really understands and enjoys it.  He had a cooler with him and introduced me to 2 brews I'd not had before.
     The first is Merry Monks' Ale from Weyerbacher Brewing Co.  It's a tripel (take my car keys) that is yellow/orange with a thick white head.  The flavor is slightly sweet with fruit flavors I couldn't quite place, something like banana.  The hops are more citrus-y than floral and are pretty strong.  I liked it very much, even though tripels and doubels aren't my thing.
     The second was Palm Export from Brouwerij Palm NV.  That's a brewery in Belgium, which I think is why it's called Palm Export.  Anywho, it's a really nice pale ale, very clean and tasty.  Yellowish copper in color (or colour if we're being European), it is not overly hoppy.  Dave Cave described it as "sessionable" and I can see what he means; I could definitely drink a couple-three of these.
     Until next time, Cheers!

Something's Brewing...

Since my wife is about to start blogging about our first child (due New Years Eve), I decided it might be fun to start a blog of my own.  And rather than take time to come up with a "good" concept, I'm going to write about what I like, what interests me.  I really like beer.  Therefore, this will likely be a topic that gets blog time.  Follow my blog and hear about home brews I'm making, new beers I've discovered, and what's going on in the Charleston area for beerophiles. 

Me at a brew pub on Prince Edward Island