Day 3: Beaver St. Brewery, Flagstaff Brewing Co. (Flagstaff, AZ)

After getting our act together and getting on the road, we finally made it to Flagstaff, Arizona.  As my one-time residence, I can personally attest to the delight and enthusiasm that Flagstaff shares for beer, both in quality and in quantity of consumption.  And sitting at a comfortable 7,000 feet above sea level, it certainly doesn’t take much to inebriate your traveling beer snob.

Our first stop would be Beaver St. Brewery.  Beaver St. had always been a favorite amongst Flagstaffers, brewing a variety of craft beers like Brambleberry ale, Railhead Red, and the occasional American Strong Ale that boasted 10% abv.  However, Beaver St. was recently purchased by Lumberyard brewery, which pretty much took Beaver St.’s beer and put their Lumberyard label on it.  Now, what was once good beer has become sub-par, Wal-Mart brand garbage.

The Beer:

            Lumberyard Raspberry Ale:  I hate berry-flavored beers.  Hate.  Hate’s a strong word, but in this case, it’s not strong enough.  But what was once a passable berry-flavored beer, the Brambleberry ale, has been reduced to a monstrosity.  The Lumberyard version is a mix between Shlitz beer and grape flavored Dymatapp.  Really, you’d be better off just getting drunk on cough syrup.  I’m pretty sure that when they brew this beer, they dump a five gallon bucket of Grape #5 flavoring into the vats.  This beer tastes like it should come with a complimentary Ashton Kutchner and Jennifer Aniston DVD.  Did I mention this beer sucks?

            Golden Ale:  Unlike its baseborn companion, the Golden ale here wasn’t too bad.  Too bad.  The quality of golden ales is always tricky to judge because they’re usually so neutral and indifferent about having any characteristics other than being “golden” in hue that it falls on the brewer to actually make their golden ales distinguishable without being some other type of beer.  In this case, the brewer just brewed a yellow colored beer.  Good job, buddy.  Real show of effort.

            Oktoberfest:  Again, another pretty good beer.  But only ok.  Failed to stand out amongst others.  Failed in general.  Who am I kidding, this beer deserves no further luke-warm treatment.  BORRING!

            I.P.A:  Gross.  Tastes like hops and batteries. 

            Lumberyard Red:  Formerly the Railhead Red, this is yet another crooked bastardization of beer by Lumberyard where they took yet more Shlitz and just added red food coloring.  Maybe it isn’t even Lumberyard’s fault and really Beaver St. is entirely to blame.  Eitherway, they’d better serve their brewing vats by mixing their refuse food waste into compost instead of producing the garbage that comes out of them now.

So, after wasting our time at Beaver St. we headed to the reliable Flagstaff Brewing Co. 

Flagbrew not only has better burgers, better ambiance, and better live music than Beaver St., it also has way better beer.

            Babaganouche IPA:  Does it taste like fermented eggplant?  Does it matter?  This beer delivers such a clean and potent taste that you’d scarcely think it an IPA, but that doesn’t stop it from selling itself out within weeks of its completion.  My favorite Flagbrew beer.

            Weispread Wheat:  This beer tastes like a cornucopia of deliciousness sending my tongue Christmas cards.

            Bitter root ESB:  Tasty.  Beaver St. sucks.

Rating:  Beaver St.:  -69327%

               Flagbrew:  48 out of 51 power sucks.

Day 2: Nimbus Brewery (Tucson, AZ)

 

Time flies when you’re having fun.  Certainly.  One day down and already we’d feasted on a number of fine local brews and food with friends, and here it was, already day 2!  We’d managed to get up early enough to tag along for some climbing on Mt. Lemmon with Ali’s roommates and still get the car packed and ready to go by 2:00 p.m.  And there we were, gassed up and within a block of the I-10 onramp when Cinderella suddenly died on us.

Yep, time certainly flies when your ass is broken down and your grand beer trip hasn’t even started yet.  Our worst fears had come true.  Cinderella just wasn’t cut out for this trip.  She’d gotten cold feet, and in no time at all got skittish that her coach would turn back into a pumpkin and split the big show.  Fortunately for us, we were able to coast into an Auto-zone and begin triage. 

Three hours later, and thanks to the mystical powers of the Universe and Kyle of Auto-zone, Cindy was up and running like a champ.  Not the fuel pump.  Not the distributor cap.  It was a tiny 1-inch cube of bull-crap fuel relay fuse that if you take out and drop on the ground, it resets and makes all of your problems go away.  Seriously. Who said violence never solved anything?

Having narrowly avoided heart-breaking disaster, Ali and I were in need of strong drink, and could clearly see the writing on the wall: Nimbus.  We’d made a fatal call in not paying homage to Nimbus the night before, and the monkey god had retaliated in kind.  But hey, that ol’ burly ape is more than happy to forgive so long as you drink up all his fine brew.  And fine brew it is…

The Beer:

            Nimbus was started in 1996 by Nimbus Cuzie (don’t know if that’s how you spell his name) and apparently at one time was selling his budding beer out of his back door for .50 cents a glass.  Nimbus still bottles their beer using an old 1950’s style Coca-Cola bottling machine (Laverne and Shirley, as it’s called) and has become the largest microbrew distributor in AZ.  Did I mention their beer also kicks ass?

            I.P.A:  This is easily one of my all-time favorites now, not just amongst IPA’s but beer in general.  Dark caramel colored, rich in taste but still smooth, this isn’t an IPA that’s going to assault you in a dark alley with its over-abundance of hops.  This IPA will instead do some juggling act, tell a funny joke, or maybe free-style for you, but either way you’ll be left feeling a little exuberant and awkwardly satisfied.  “What a charmer…and an IPA!”

            Red:  Ali nearly swore off Nimbus beers when she had a bad encounter with a bottled Red once, but after getting it straight from the source, she’s a born again believer.  Not just red for namesake, the beer boasts (incoming pun!) colorful taste close to a pale or an amber. 

            Evil Blonde:  Some breweries might wince and shudder at the thought of mixing their beers together, but Nimbus defies conformity at all corners.  The Evil Blonde is a mix of the Red and blonde ales, and snaps and clacks her femme fatal heels as she struts down your throat.   If the blonde wasn’t good enough for you, it’s probably because she wasn’t evil enough.

            Baboon’s Ass:  Another mixer, combining the Monkey shine and Red ales.  Its as erotically hypnotizing and morally affronting as its namesake. 

           

            The Stumble:  Combines the Monkey Shine and the Stout.  Be warned, this beer might assault you in a dark alley.  Yeah, its all charm and laughter at first, then it’s asking to borrow a hundred bucks and making eyes at your girlfriend.  A good pal, just watch your back.

Though not all of Nimbus’ beers are listed here, I highly encourage you to quite your job(s), move to Tucson, and take up residence under one or more of the tabs at Nimbus brewery.  Your life will not have been wasted.

Rating:  219 out of  223 flying feces.

Day 1: Barrio Brewery (Tucson, AZ)

Having finally finished my six-month long fire season with the Silver City Hotshots, I was eager to get on with my real job: drinking lots of great beer (which is what I do anyways, job or no job).  I had been looking forward to this trip since it’s conception sometime in June, and certainly every day since while slaving away on the fire line.  Now that I was free and handsomely paid, I made my way back to Tucson to rendezvous with Ali and friends to kick off our grand tour at Barrio Brewery. 

Tentively we had planned to do both Barrio and Nimbus brewery that same night, but given their geographical inconvenience to each other, we settled on Barrio.  Barrio, located a few blocks south of downtown Tucson, has often been the logical next-step for many of the rock-climbers at the climbing gym a few blocks away for many years now, and Ali and I are no strangers to this step.  After working up a hearty sweat at a climbing gym, who doesn’t crave a nice cold beer?

The food was of an exceptional carb load that allowed for such conversation about vaginal ovular therapy devices (or what can I put up my vagina next?)  Plus, if you’re ever in need of a quality shuffle board arena, there is bar-none next to Barrio Brewery. 

The Beer: 

            “Holla Bock”:  I’m not too sure if this is some toxic mimic of the term “helles bock”, but given Tucson’s penchant for wily college youths and placating them at every turn, I wouldn’t be surprised.  Nonetheless, a quality brew that keeps you crawling back.  Dark, malty, sweet and strong, it reminds me of high school when I used to mix whiskey with Mom’s brown gravy.

            The rest of the beer was either above or below par, or both.  Either way, we can’t really remember.  I think it means we just got drunk with our buddies Brooke and Wade and forgot about being accurately snobby.  Good beers, good times, good company.

 Rating:  29 out of 37 derailed train cars. 

Intro

 Greetings.

After long months of careful planning and anticipation, our royal beer tour of the Western U.S. has finally begun.  We have trained hard and methodically, each consuming a minimum of 1 US gallon of premium crafted beer per night over the last month.  We have scouted our routes carefully, in search of only the finest micro-brews.  The bags have been packed, Ali’s Jeep Cinderella has been stocked and loaded, and now it’s high time Ali and I (Daniel) got nice and loaded too. 

It should also be known that this beer tour serves a dual purpose.  The primary mission is for Ali to drive Cinderella the two-thousand odd miles from Tucson, AZ to Billings, MT.  Since graduating from the UA in Tucson in May, Ali’s been working a mind-numbing and morally degrading job entering tree-ring data all summer.  The effects have left her poor liver healthy and in the prime of it’s life. 

So now the more primary mission is to drink a lot of quality beers along the way.  As Ali’s drinking advisor and coach, I suggested that I tag along, and that together we sample the plethora of micro-breweries that dot the landscape en-route.  Ali enthusiastically agreed after hearing my wise council on the relationship between healthy livers and boring conversation.

And so begins our journey, the Tasteless Beer Snob tour 2011.  Some beer snobs would go to painstaking and vomit inducing lengths to comment on the color, flavor, smell, alcohol content and IBU levels of a beer, but being the know-nothing Know-It-Alls we are, we’ve elected to critique each beer in our own fashion.  You know, keepin’ it real.  Together we shall update you fine looking readers on all the great kegs from the Sonoran desert to the big sky of Montana.  Enjoy the ride, wish us luck, and keep an eye out, because we might need to crash at your house along the way.  Cheers!