Quick National Beer Day Interview on KARN

Here's a short 3-minute interview I did on local newsradio KARN 102.9 for National Beer Day. The worst part of these interviews is just not getting everything in I wanted to talk about! If you know me, you know I can blab about local beer at the drop of the hat for 30 minutes. 3 minutes is a travesty! But alas, I did mention a new location for Leap of Faith, Lost Forty Love Honey Bock, new beers from Stone's Throw and Diamond Bear and something about the soon-to-be booming North Little Rock beer area. Enjoy.

2015 Brewery Tour Rolls On

While I'm nowhere near on the level with beer gods like Brew Travelers, I do visit a lot of breweries during the year. Punxatawney Phil has just made his appearance and I've already been to 9 this year in 3 different states, with more on the upcoming schedule. My recent trip to Memphis this past weekend added 3 more to my list, and I've got Fort Worth in the sights for a few more.

Here's where I've been so far in 2015:

• Diamond Bear (North Little Rock, AR)
• Vinos Brewpub (Little Rock, AR)
• Stone's Throw Brewing (Little Rock, AR)
• Lost Forty Brewing (Little Rock, AR)
• Blue Canoe Brewing (Little Rock, AR)
• Marshall Brewing Companay (Tulsa, OK)
• Wiseacre Brewing Company (Memphis, TN)
• Memphis Made Brewing (Memphis, TN)
• High Cotton Brewing (Memphis, TN)

I love all my local breweries and pretty much a week doesn't go by that I'm not in at least one of them, but it's really become something fun to do when traveling as well. Lucky for me, my wife is also a craft beer lover so we really enjoy the road trips. At some point I need to go back and count how many I visited last year, but I'm going to do a better job of documenting this year's breweries. Hopefully I'll be adding Martin House (Fort Worth, TX), Rahr & Sons (Fort Worth, TX) and Pecan Point Brewing (Texarkana, TX) next weekend.

Here's a few pics from the past weekend :

My favorite Memphis brewery currently.

First visit to Wiseacre Brewing and found it to be a fantastic place.

Barrel room at High Cotton Brewing.

High Cotton Taproom

High Cotton Brewing

Memphis Made Brewing Company

Visit To Memphis Made Brewing

If you're from Little Rock and enjoy getting over to Memphis for weekends regularly as do I, I'm sure you've also had some frustrating trips on I-40. It's the interstate/parking lot that seems to have been under construction since prohibition. John Lee (Rebel Kettle Brewing) and I took a a quick trip over on Sunday, but the drive over was anything but quick. 4 hours and 25 minutes (and approx 200 curse words) later we got to town, and thanks to the super patient Drew Barton at Memphis Made Brewing, we still got to stop by the brewery and visit for a little bit as we'd planned. It made the drive seem like a distant memory pretty quickly.

Memphis Made Brewing is located in Cooper­-Young and it's just expanded, after less than a year in production (they opened in Oct 2013). They recently installed three new fermenters, doubling their capacity. These guys are just pretty much everything I want in a brewery, except of course I wish their location was much closer to my home. The owners/operators/brewers are just the type of guys you pull for to really succeed, I dig their marketing, and oh yes... the beer. Damn tasty stuff.

We got to sample the newest brew, Bearcat, an IPA (Simcoe, Chinook, Citra and Mosaic hops) that's very nice. Also had some Lucid, a Kolsch that's crisp and easy to drink, but with a spicy hop note from Herkules hops in the back end. And lastly, we tried the FANTASTIC Soulful Ginger, a 6.2% ABV golden saison brewed with candied ginger and peppercorn. This brew is just so completely kick ass, Elvis might come out of hiding to sing a song about it.

So find these guys on your next Memphis trip for sure. Their tap room at the brewery is hoping to be opened this fall (there's a picture down below of the future patio area). Until then, you can find the 750ml bottles in some stores (we did at Cash Saver) and they're on tap in plenty of places around town. Ask for them.

Here's a few pics:

This welcomes you to the parking lot

Yes, you're there

Inside the brew room

Rebel Kettle and Memphis Made talking shop

2 excellent brews here

Here's what's going to be the big patio area soon

Final Round of STL Photos

I've been swamped lately but had promised some more pics from the St. Louis trip over the 4th Of July weekend (see Charleville visit here and Alpha Brewing visit here) so I'm just putting the visits to Busch Stadium, Flying Saucer, Schlafly Tap Room, Morgan Street Brewery and Urban Chestnut (midtown) all in one. See how efficient I am? Also, it's the lazy man's way. Dang it, I've been busy I tell you! So here ya go, with some captions.

Here's the rest of my beer list:

Flying Saucer: Bell's Two Hearted Ale (one of my faves even more wonderful on draft), 4 Hands Reprise Centennial Red, Perennial Saison de Lis, 4 Hands Single Speed Session

Busch Stadium: Urban Chestnut Schnicklefritz, Urban Chestnut Winged Nut, Goose Island Honkers Ale

Urban Chestnut: Pierre's Wit, Apotheosis

Morgan Street Brewery: Virgin Territory, Summit This Summit That

Schlafly Tap Room: Oatmeal Stout, Dry Hopped APA, No. 15

 

This was my first visit to the newest Flying Saucer location, my 8th Saucer overall!

4 Hands Single Speed Session at Flying Saucer

2 Tickets to Paradise to me

Perrennial Saison de Lis is excellent

4 Hands Centennial Reprise Red at Flying Saucer

This is the selection of Urban Chestnut at Busch Stadium... $7.50 a pop (worth it)

Not a great view on the first night, but we were sitting in a bar basically

A Virgin Territory at Morgan Street Brewery

The tap selection board at Morgan Street Brewery

Better view day 2

One of my favorites in the Lou, the Schlafly Tap Room

A Delicious Dry-Hopped APA at the Schlafly Tap Room

Lots of choices at the Schlafly Tap Room

Beautiful tap wall at the STL Flying Saucer

Urban Chestnut beer garden area

Urban Chestnut tap selection

Urban Chestnut

Delicious Pierre's Wit at Urban Chestnut

Separate bar outdoors, all on same system. Your tab is running where ever you are.

Apotheosis with a fantastic brat and kraut in the garden

Brewing area at Urban Chestnut

We came to Schlafly Tap Room for the dinner and beer, stayed for some live music.

A Few Pics From The 1st Hot Springs Craftbeer Festival

I went down to Hot Springs for their inaugural craft beer festival last weekend and had a great time. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures but I'll share a few. I got to try a couple of the first beers from Superior Bathhouse Brewing (a Kolsch and a pale ale) and was pleased. Lots of excitement for them going on with huge wait lines to try out the new stuff. I sat around their tasting room a few times during the day drinking from their quality tap selection also. Great addition to Hot Springs IMO.

So you know the routine at these... walk around with your tiny cup, talk about beer, get tipsy, talk more about beer, pee a lot, etc...

Enjoyed an Evil Twin Low Life Pils at Superior to start

Some drafts at Maxine's, home of a Leaky Roof Meads tap takeover later in the night

Capone's Ohio Club is a cool old bar

The Copper Penny Pub has Founders taps

Rebel Kettle table

Piney River table

Stone's Throw table

The Founders All Day IPA truck

Founders table

Vino's table

Ended the day with a Founders Devil Dancer at Superior