4/20 at Mellow Mushroom

Mellow Mushroom on Peace St

Today is 4/20 so of course I had to celebrate by partaking in the Grooviest joint I know of... Mellow Mushroom! Mellow Mushroom is a pizza place... but it's so much more than that. Mellow is based around a classic culinary couple... Pizza and Beer. Then toss on an extra large topping of Psychedelic and Groovy... and you are in a totally awesome, 'far-out' place. Today I went to the Mellow Mushroom in Raleigh, NC since I am in the area for my cousin Mary's wedding. This Mellow is especially rad since it's located on Peace Street :)

 I was lucky enough to grow up in Charlottesville, Va where we have a Mellow of our own, so I am very well acquainted with these delicious pies. One of the coolest things about Mellow, is that they can be extremely accommodating to all sorts of dietary needs. As a vegetarian, I always have plenty of awesome options... such as the Kosmic Karma or Magical Mystery Tour specialty pizzas. They also offer a choice of gluten-free pizza dough or vegan cheese. So lactose-intolerant folks can have their pizza and eat it too!

Kosmic Karma

This was perfect for this particular outing, since my cousin +Bennett  is lactose-intolerant AND allergic to gluten. So needless to say, it isn't often that she gets to eat pizza. As an eclectic bunch, my family has a variety of different tastes... but Mellow was able to supply a pizza to make everybody happy.

Dad and Bennett "Mellowin Out"

 In addition to the awesome pizza, I was extremely excited to see one of my favorite beers on draft... Sweetwater 420! There couldn't possibly be a more appropriate place or time for this beer, so of course I had to have one.

Sweetwater 420 on 4/20

This is a special treat of a beer since Sweetwater Brewing Co. is based in Atlanta, and Raleigh is actually the farthest north that it is distributed. When the day comes that this beer makes it into VA, we will immediately put it on draft at 909. Until then, I am forced to travel south to enjoy it.

'Shroom Bros

So in conclusion, if you are ever down south and looking for a fine place to grab some grub and a cold delicious beer... look to Mellow to satisfy your tastebud's wildest cravings. Happy Holidaze y'all!

Smuttynose Brewery Tour

Arguably one of the coolest parts of our Boston Road Trip was the private tour we got of the Smuttynose Brewery in Portsmouth, NH. This was arranged thanks to +Glen Bulloss who is the local Smuttynose rep in Fredericksburg. Glen put me in touch with JT, the head PR guy at Smuttynose, who agreed to meet us on Sunday for a tour... even though the brewery is not normally open to the public on Sundays. Very cool of both of them. One of the many reasons that Smuttynose is awesome.

Smuttynose Brewery

We met JT at noon, or slightly before... after a quick 45 min car ride from Boston. On the way we shared some of John's homemade fried rice for breakfast, in order to at least have something in our stomachs before we started drinking more beer. It wasn't much though compared to the amount of beer we were about to taste. That's alright, there's plenty of tasty calories in beer :)

Brewery Beer List

JT treated us well. He introduced himself, welcomed us to New Hampshire, and then promptly checked all of our IDs so that we could begin tasting some of the many delicious beers they had to offer. There were 8 of us total... the 5 road-trippers plus Officer Love, Chubs, and one of Officer Love's roommates whose name I forgot (sorry dude). We all got little tasting cups (about 3 or 4 oz) and he gave us samples of whatever beers we were interested in trying from the list. Meanwhile, he explained a bit of the history behind the brewery... how they got their name (based on Smuttynose Island in the Isle of Shoals), when they were founded, etc.

Dan inside the brewery

JT then offered us upgrades to "Big Boy Cups" (14+ oz) before we started walking around. Told ya he was good to us! It would be a crime to go thirsty for beer in a brewery. So I loaded up my cup with Noonan, the new Black IPA that Smutty recently released, and we followed JT to the corner of the brewery where the malt was kept. Unfortunately, not being a brewer (yet) a lot of the specifics about the brewing process were over my head. We did get to try a variety of different types of malts though, and learned how the length of time that they are roasted can change their color and flavor... sort of like the dial on your toaster changing the color of your toast from white to black. Thankfully John and +Dan had plenty of brewery related questions which made our group look very intelligent. JT was quite the informed PR guy too since he originally started his career at Smuttynose as a brewer.

Lots of malt

From the malt corner, we moved to other parts of the brewery as JT slowly walked us through the brewing process. This was the second brewery that I have actually toured, our hometown Blue & Gray Brewery in Fredericksburg being the first, and it was definitely the most educational and interesting. JT did a great job explaining things in a way that Mo and I (non-brewers) as well as the RVA brewers found interesting.

JT explaining the brewing process

This brewery tour couldn't have been more perfectly timed, since only a few weeks in the future we were going to be hosting a Smuttynose Tap Takeover at 909. We had been lucky enough (thanks to Glen) to get a keg of Noonan allocated to us, as well as one of their extremely rare short-batch series beers: ParadoX. As JT explained while we were at the brewery, this was a sessionable IPA brewed with an unnamed experimental hop variety that came with large X's on the box. Hence the name. He let us taste a bottle of it at the end of the tour, and it was awesome! I was even more excited for the Tap Takeover after the tour, and everyone agreed they'd be making the trip up from Richmond for the event. Officer Love even said he'd try to make it down.

A shot from a previous Smutty Takeover at 909

Half-way through the tour most of us had reached the point of needing to "hit the head" so JT took us back to the office area where the restrooms were located. While back there we met Peter, the brewery founder... who welcomed us to Smuttynose and thanked us for drinking their beer. Cheers to that! JT also took that time to tell us about the new brewery in the works at Smuttynose, which sounds like an awesome improvement. You can see pictures of it on the wall below. The new facility will be much bigger, located on Towle Farm, and include it's own brew-pub and restaurant. Projected opening date for the new brewery is 2014, but for those anxious (or curious) ones who like to watch the water boil... they've added a webcam of the construction on their website.

The Smuttynose Office

After the pit-stop, JT took us to check out the rest of the brewery, culminating in the bottling part of the brewing process, which was very cool.

Bottling in action

Then we turned the corner and got to see the finished product, a LOT of it. JT explained that everything we saw would be gone within the next 2 weeks, if not sooner. What we saw may have seemed like a ton, but it's nothing compared to what they will be able to produce once the new brewery is in action.

Dr. Love spreading the love

 At this point, as the tour drew to an end... we walked back to the entrance with JT, loaded up on Smutty swag of all sorts, bought a bunch of bottled beer to take home with us (I snagged a bottle of ParadoX, Baltic Porter, and Really Old Brown Dog from 2008), and thanked JT profusely. Since we were planning to head into Portsmouth for lunch, he recommended we check out The Portsmouth Brewery which is the sister/parent brewery of Smutty located in downtown Portsmouth. Sounded good to us, and he even gave us tickets that we could redeem for a free beer (totally awesome) so off we went!

John and me in front of the Portsmouth Brewery

Once inside, we enjoyed some amazing food and even more amazing beer. They had great vegetarian options too which was really cool. The town of Portsmouth was very quaint and I was pleased that we had taken the time to come down here and explore. At the brewery, JT had explained that when the Portsmouth brewery re-opened, it revitalized the downtown scene... bringing lots more tourists to the area that also spent money at other shops. Definitely worked on us! Got me thinking about how badly we need a brewery in downtown Fredericksburg. So after our meal, we headed out to walk around the town and explore a little while before heading back to Boston.

An old church in downtown Portsmouth

 Eventually it was time to head back to Officer Love's apartment so we could re-group and get ready for more drinking to ensue that night in Boston. The rest of the Boston adventure will be told in a future blog post... but I want to leave you with this in mind: Smuttynose not only makes awesome beers-- they take really good care of their customers too. Thanks again guys!!

-Brewkeeper, Over and Out!

Boston Road Trip

In the wake of the horrible incidents that recently occurred at the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday, I would like to tell a story of the first and only time I visited Boston... to shed some positive light on such a cool and historic city. This road trip occurred in early March, just over a month ago. Not having a car, I was invited to join in this epic adventure by my good friend and former roommate +Dan Grist aka Dan the Man. Accompanying me and Dan were Dan's two roommates Ian aka Dr. Love and John, as well as Ian's girlfriend Maureen (Mo).

John, Dan the Man, and Mo

The best part of this road trip, or at least the most character-building, was the fact that all 5 of us were making this 9 hour journey in Dan's Honda Civic, dubbed the Silver Bullet on a previous trip to Key West. Needless to say, we were all very cozy.

The Gang

The main catalyst behind this journey was Dr. Love (wearing the VT hat above) as he was originally from New England and had lots of friends and family to visit up there. Dan and John are both in pharmacy school at VCU in Richmond, and this week was their spring break. What better way to spend spring break than to head north? So the four of them scooped me up in Fredericksburg on their way north from Richmond, about 3 pm on Friday, March 1st. I was a tiny bit bummed to be leaving 909 that evening because I had organized a Laughing Dog Tap Takeover... and I knew we were going to be pouring some awesome beers. However, that worry was quickly dispelled as I learned that our first stop when we got into Mass was going to be the Armsby Abbey, a renowned craft beer bar in Worcester, MA.

The Beer List at Armsby Abbey

Luckily, we made it to the Abbey before last call and managed to snag a couple delicious brews. Ian happened to know the bartender Kyle, and he talked to us for quite a while about beer. New England folks definitely know their beers! We left the Abbey just before 2 am, and wearily trudged on to Ian's friend Truman's house, where we would be crashing for the night. Truman had recently had a baby, so we were warned to keep it down as we entered the house so as to not wake him. Truman greeted us in the snow covered driveway with beers and hugs, and we proceeded to stay up and socialize til about 3:30 or so. Then we were warned that his kid would be up in about 4 hours (if not sooner), banging and yelling and playing with all the toys in the living room, which was where John, Dan and I were sleeping.

Truman's kid

Sure enough, at exactly 7 am... I heard noises only a 1 year old could make, lots of banging of plastic toys, and Truman laughing in the background. John seemed to be able to sleep through the commotion, but Dan and I were both fully awake and watching the little guy play with a bunch of awesome toys... including a pirate ship car that was big enough for him to sit on and ride. Thankfully Truman felt our pain, and brought Dan and I freshly made pancakes in bed, err couch. Something was missing. A beverage! Two cold beers to go with the pancakes. Much better. Nothing like starting Saturday morning at 7 am with a beer in your hand. Thankfully, that beer put me right back to sleep and I didn't rouse off the couch until after 10. Dan did not enjoy the same comforts, and instead joined Truman and Chubs (a friend of Truman's and Ian's) in the hot tub outside. From what I've heard, there's nothing quite as awesome as being in the hot tub when there's snow on the ground... but I'll have to take their word for it. Then Dan and Truman started up a game of beer pong, or Beirut as they call it in New England.

Truman playing Beirut as Chubs watches

The games continued outside for hours, with various people attempting to knock Truman off the table. Eventually Ian and Mo woke up and came down from the guest bedroom and joined everyone outside. Later that afternoon we grilled some burgers and dogs, and drank more beer until about 3 or 4. Mo was our DD so she admirably abstained. Eventually we drove into Worcester and hung out at McSorley's house (a guy that had joined us for the cookout) who also happened to be Kyle the bartender's roommate. The other 2 members of the house were attending a Whale tasting however, and weren't there. Side note: A Whale tasting is a tasting of very rare beers from your beer cellar, called a whale tasting because the rarity of these beers is comparable to that of a white whale. While hanging at this house in Worcester, more beer was drank, pizza was ordered, and a great time was had by all. My good friend Corrinne Lauze who lives near Worcester and went to school with me at Mary Washington, met us there and hung out for many hours.

Corrinne is always smiling :)

Finally, we left Worcester and headed towards Boston... saying our goodbyes to the Worcester folks, except for Chubs who was joining us on the next leg of the journey. We headed into the Cambridge area, to meet up with a few of Dr. Love's friends while we waited on his younger brother to get off work. Ian's brother is a cop and was therefore referred to as "Officer Love." We met Ian's friends at the Cambridge Brewing Company, our first brewery of the trip. It was a very cool, homey place, with tons of good beers. Dan and I had been drinking since 7 am though, so we did our best to pace ourselves. We split a pitcher of the Spring Training IPA and admired the cool artwork on the walls.

The people you might see at CBC

 After a few more beers at CBC, Officer Love arrived and we all went down to Lord Hobo's just down the road... since the brewery seemed to close earlier than the surrounding bars. While there I had my first taste of Short's Brewing Co. I had a Vanilla Porter, and it was to DIE for!! I can only describe it as a melted candy bar, in beer form. Delicious. Unfortunately Short's is only distributed in Michigan, and the only reason we were able to find it, was because there was some left over from Extreme Beer Fest (EBF) that was held 2 weeks prior but canceled due to the massive snowstorm that hit the area. I had heard about Short's from my buddy +Will who helps me run the 909 Beer Club back in Fredericksburg, and has pretty much revolutionized my knowledge of beer. If Will get's excited about a beer, then you KNOW it's good.  

The Beer of the Gods

Since we knew it was impossible to follow that beer up with anything... we headed back to Officer Love's place to crash. It was also last call so we didn't have much of choice. We had a big day ahead of us... I had arranged for us to get a private tour of Smuttynose Brewery in Portsmouth, NH so we were waking up early and driving 45 minutes, to drink more beer! Dan, John, and Dr. Love all brew their own beer at their apartment in Richmond, so they were especially excited about this opportunity. This adventure was soo epic, that I will have to describe it in length in a separate blog post... coming soon! Stay tuned for more awesome adventures of the Brewkeeper in Boston (and surrounding areas).

DC Bike Party

A relatively new concept to me... DC Bike Party is one of the coolest things I have ever done while on a bike. I was introduced to DCBP by my good buddy Hector Campos III and finally had the chance to join in this amazing adventure on two wheels for the first time in March.

Hector and me before the March DCBP ride

The Bike Party happens once a month, on the second Wednesday and each ride has a theme. Riders gather at the center of Dupont Circle in DC at 7:30 and the adventure begins at 8 pm sharp. Each DCBP has been getting bigger, and in March even though it was still very cold... there were over 160 people there ready to ride and have a great time. Talented individuals and cyclists in DC plan the route weeks ahead of time, testing it for safety, length, difficulty, and of course fun. Once we start rolling, DCBP takes over an entire lane of traffic (sometimes more) and everyone is able to ride at their own pace. That's the best part! Cars are forced to stop and wait while the massive train of bikes cruises by. Red lights are often ignored :) 

Cruising by the Capitol

 While passing confused pedestrians and motorists, I couldn't help but holler out in joy... "DC Bike PARTAAYY!!" In order to keep everyone safe from angry commuters, when crossing traffic that normally would have the right-a-way, a fellow rider will volunteer to "cork" the intersection by stopping in front of traffic to keep the zealous cars from trying to sneak back onto the road. Once the bike train has passed, the corker pedals off to rejoin the party. Corking is a great way to get a sense for just how MANY bikers there really are. Leaders carry flags to signify they are to be followed and not passed, so as to avoid an enthusiastic cyclist leading everyone else astray. Flagged riders also can be found throughout the party to make sure that everyone stays within one lane as much as possible. Half-way thru the ride, everyone stops at a strategic place chosen by the DCBP crew leaders, usually a park or similar grassy area, where everyone can break for a (cold) beverage and to snap a group photo or 2.

Break spot of the March ride

The second half of the ride leads us to a bar, where everyone can socialize and share their joy about the awesome ride with other fellow DC cycling enthusiasts. It's a great way to meet other cool people in the area, and a ton of fun. In March, I was lucky enough to be able to bring my younger brother +Eric along for the ride... since he was visiting me while on spring break from Virginia Tech.

My brother Eric, Grace (one of the DCBP founders), and me

Since I had SOO MUCH fun at the March ride, I knew I had to come back for the April ride... especially since the weather had become incredibly more enjoyable. Man am I glad I did!! The theme for the April ride was based around the Cherry Blossom Festival, and everyone was encouraged to dress like a DC tourist. So I grabbed my finest Hawaiian shirt and hit the road. Unfortunately since I am a Fredericksburger and not living in DC, I had an hour commute ahead of me... and no GPS to guide me to my buddy Kurt's house. +Kurt lives in DC and was going to join me on this month's ride. Thankfully his roommate allowed me to borrow his bike, so I didn't have to fuss with bringing mine. I did have to fuss with a ton of traffic though (of course) and a couple wrong turns due to my horrible sense of direction. I eventually made it to Kurt's place at 8 pm, and we quickly dashed off on our bikes to catch up with the party. Kurt lives in Adam's Morgan so we weren't far from Dupont Circle, and since we knew the route ahead of time... we were able to catch up to the riders pretty quickly. 

Me and Kurt at the April DCBP break spot

The March ride had been the biggest one to date, and in April the numbers were more than doubled. Over 420 people showed up!! It was insane. I think the next ride there might be over a thousand people. I met many first time riders who like myself in March, were overcome with how awesome the ride was and swore they'd be back next time with more of their friends. That's grassroots marketing at it's best! I attempted to snap a couple pictures while on my bike, but nearly crashed/dropped my camera... so I ended up taking a few videos instead. This is proof of why I need to invest in a GoPro! 

One of the best parts about the ride is that a couple people bring bike trailers that house massive speakers, so they're constantly pumping out the jams while we ride. Definitely makes going uphill a lot better!

Kurt next to the massive speakers

So if you are in the DC Metro area, or even if you live in Fredericksburg, I would HIGHLY recommend joining a DC Bike Party. It's the most fun you'll ever have biking in DC, it's a great way to explore the city, and everyone there is super friendly and welcoming to new bikers. See you there in May!

Brewkeeper, over and out!