Source: 512 Brewing (I was having so much fun I forgot to take my own pictures)

Sometime you find greatness through hard work, research and perseverance, and other times you just plain trip over it.  Our journey brought us to Austin, TX and I found (512) Brewing Company out of sheer luck.

While we were in Austin, we found ourselves exactly eight months into our one-year trip around the US, with only four months to go.  Since leaving Asheville, our brewery visits, as well as the breweries themselves, had been a little spotty. We stopped at some great breweries in Florida, but had not real found a “scene” until we arrived in Austin.  To be honest, our plan had been to stop at South Austin Brewing, but we were unable to find it, and the RV needed fuel.  So after filling the gas tank, we drove half a block down a narrow residential road and found ourselves at (512) Brewing, a company that was totally unknown to us.

I arrived at about 5:15 on a Friday evening, and was trying to slide in, fill the growler and get out before the employees started their weekend.  What I found was a group of guys winding down after a week of work, and who were more than happy to host me for what amounted to a private tasting.  They inquired who I was and what I was up to, and after I told them about my travels, some of them wanted to talk to me as much as I wanted to talk to them.

While my goal at any brewery is to fill my growler, I was stymied by Texas laws.  It turns out that breweries are prohibited by law from selling beer directly to the consumer.  Brewpubs, on the other hand, can sell directly to the public, but are not permitted to fill kegs for sale to other bars or establishments.  At least, this is what I was told.  I realize that the 21st Amendment left liquor regulations up to the states, but I am still amazed at the differences from state to state.

While I was there, I met Spencer, who offered me a pint to drink while I told him of my travels, but I talked him into small tastings of what they had on tap.  The first beer he offered me was last year’s (512) Alt.  He indicated that this was left over from last year and they were about to begin brewing the 2012 version, so the brew I was drinking had been aged almost a year.  Alt beer is a German style ale that is cold fermented like a lager.  This beer was smoooooth, with equal parts hops and malts.

The second beer he offered was their IPA, reportedly their best seller.  Coming from the Pacific Northwest, I have tasted a lot of IPA’s and have found East Coast and Midwest IPA’s emphasize the bitterness and tone down the floral tastes of the hops, but not this one.  There was a resin-y sweetness that I had not tasted since Vermont.

My third tasting was their Pecan Porter.  While not their best seller, I attribute this to the warm Texas weather.  This porter can hold it own with Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte Porter, which sells well in a cold, high altitude town of Bend, OR.  The (512) Pecan Porter had a smooth and nutty flavor and was not thick at all.  While some porters leave the drinker with a “one is enough” feeling,

The fourth tasting was their (512) Black IPA and this beer was, in my opinion, the best they offered.  It was dark, it was floral, it was smooth and it was fantastic.  This category of beer is somewhat new and still evolving, but 512 already had a grasp on where it should be going.

In looking back at my favorite breweries I have visited, 512 fits the pattern for places I really loved.  First, it is a brewery and not a brewpub.  I suspect that this difference gives the owners one thing to focus on (beer only) rather than two (beer and restaurant).  Second, the operations are small, employing only a few people who seem to have a passion for what they are doing.  I would recommend taking a tour of this brewery if you find yourself in Austin.  Better yet, I recommend buying a pint or two at a restaurant that serves their beer.

In mid-March, we crossed into New Mexico from West Texas and found ourselves in a land more hospitable to beer lovers.  While we had some great experiences with Texas breweries, their beer laws were a little confounding.

We spent a warm Sunday touring a National Park and museum, and felt that the best way to spend the afternoon was to a get a cold beer and snack at a micro-brewery.  We had heard some great things about Marble Brewery, so we drove a few short blocks for a visit.  As we drove up, I could tell that this was my kind of place:  The outside patio was packed and a band was playing.  The crowd was (mostly) young, ethnically mixed and (mostly) athletic.  It was located in a mostly industrial area in a low, single-story building that was inviting on the outside and comfortable on the inside.  In short, this is the kind of place that I love.

The good news was that everything we had heard about the beer was right:  I sampled an IPA and a saison and both were not just good but great.  The bad news was that while the beer was great, the menu that they offered did not offer anything my kids would eat.  This is not a reflection of their food, but definitely a reflection on my two picky eaters.  So I put the Hydroflask growler on the counter and asked for a sample.  The first beer I tried was their IPA and it was love at first sip.  I have been suffering through east coast IPA’s for six months and the bitter flavor that comes with them.  The Marble IPA is very floral and citrusy and much like the Pacific Northwest IPA’s I have grown so fond of.

Even though my first sample was the IPA, I enjoyed it so much that I requested that the growler be filled with it.  Big mistake, but not because the IPA was not good.  While the bartender was filling it, I talked him into giving me a sample of the saison and I immediately regretted my hasty decision.  The saison was spicy, nutty and rough, just like a French country ale should be.  The beer did not have a heavy feel to it and went down great on a warm afternoon.  This brew was one of the top 10 I have sampled during this journey and it has a lot of tough competition.

Since we did not stay for food, I thought I might have to be satisfied with a growler of (very good) beer to take back to the campground, but it turns out our evening was not over.  We were still hungry, so when we passed another brewery off the freeway, we felt the need to stop.  As we drove along a freeway access road occupied by chain restaurants, chain stores, and chain movie theaters, we stopped at Chama River Brewing Company.

The building itself fit into the Gap-like mall stylings of the nearby restaurants (Texas Roadhouse, P.F. Chang’s, etc.).  It was new(er) and inviting in a bland sort of way.  If Marble looked like everything I love, then this place had the look of breweries I tend to avoid.

If you cannot tell, I was actively turning up my nose at this place and my expectations were low.  This comes from too many visits to bland micro-breweries that offer mediocre food and marginal beer (see: Salty Dog).  The fact that the interior appeared to be open, stylish and expensive did not help my apprehension.

But after tasting every beer they offered and some great food, I will gladly eat my words.  This place was great!

First, I want to comment on the food:  the menu was pricey but we ordered off the appetizer menu, and with the kids’ meals, the final bill was very reasonable.  We have a caesar salad that was well above average, and the cheese fondue was fantastic.  When you factor in the fact that we split a sampler of ten different beers, the bill seems all the more reasonable.

Now for the beer tastings:  We ordered a flight, which included ten 4-oz. samples of everything they had on tap, so we were able to get a feel for what the brewery had to offer.  Ten beers is too many to comment on so I will make note of the highs and lows.  Of the ten we sampled we only disliked two (Chama Red and Broken Spoke Honey Wheat) and we felt that both had flavors that were just too mild.  My wife and I both raved about the Jackalope IPA (another PNW-type floral IPA), and I thought the Simcoe Pale Ale was also notable.  While this was a pale ale, the brewer places the hop flavor front and center and the taste of this hop strain was very apparent.  My wife loved the Barley Legal barley wine, which I thought was slightly too sweet and hot (very apparent alcohol flavor).

Of the remaining five beers, we found them to be above average, but still very drinkable and I would recommend all of them.  I was expecting yeasty, malty, bad-homebrew type beers but was pleasantly surprised by everything they had to offer.  Even the two beers we did not like were better than many brews we have sampled to date.

We both concluded that this is an operation with a skilled brewer (Jeff Erway) and a skilled chef.  Their website notes eight medals in the past eight years from the Great American Brew Festival and seven World Beer Cup awards. This is a professional operation from front desk to brew kettle to back kitchen.  If I found myself in Albuquerque, I would gladly eat and drink here again.

Our travels have taken us around second base (Florida), so we have made the turn and are heading for home.  I made a couple of great visits to Cigar City Brewing in Tampa and Swamp Head in Gainesville, so I was encouraged when I stopped by the Pensacola Bay Brewery in Florida’s panhandle.  While the previous breweries set the bar high, this stop was not quite as exciting.

We had spent a week or so wandering along to coast, stopping at Tallahassee, St. George, Grayton Beach and the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and came inland to stock up on supplies.  While passing through Pensacola on the way to the Naval Aviation Museum, I stopped by the brewery to get a couple of samples and fill the growler (the one-gallon jug, as required by state law).  The brewery is relatively new, having opened in 2010.

The brewery is located near downtown in Seville Quarter.  The area includes a number of New Orleans-style buildings, and architecture found in coastal and old port areas.  It is housed in a  brick building across from a picturesque park and working port.  I parked The Beast in the street and headed inside for a taste.

I explained to the bartender what I was doing and she was more than happy to set me up with a few tastings prior to filling my gallon growler.  First, I sampled their Li’l Napoloen IPA.  I found this IPA like many I have sampled on the East Coast: the bitterness is emphasized over the floral qualities found in Pacific Northwest IPA’s.  This surprised me as the aroma had far more of a hop scent to it than the taste.  The finish on the beer was bitter as well, but this was not overpowering.

The second sample I tasted was their Riptide Amber.  This one was a head-scratcher.  The beer was a fine amber color and smelled malty and sweet.  But the flavor had a home-brew taste to it.  It reminded me of many good home brews I have sampled, and many average brews by mediocre breweries.  It had a slightly malty/yeasty/sour undertone that kept this from making the jump from an average beer to a good one.

The final sample was their Conquistador Dopplebock.  Dopplebock (German for double goat) usually have a kick to them, both in terms of strong flavors and high abv.  I cannot recall the abv but the flavor was a little watery.  It had the sweet, malty flavor expected from this type of beer, plus a hoppy aftertaste.  But it seemed like someone spilled a couple of gallons of plain water in the barrel before putting it in the keg.  So I opted to fill the growler with the IPA.

This is a relatively new beer, so I feel the need to cut them some slack.  After spending more time with the IPA (a gallon, to be exact), it tasted better in the campground than in the tasting room.  But the other two samples were not even close to this level of craftsmanship.  Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I wonder how much “community” has to do with helping brewers mature and grow.  I am thinking about Eastern Florida, where Cigar City, Swamp Head, and Orlando Brewing were all aware of each other, apparently supportive of each other, and willing to recommend other breweries to me.  The people I talked to at Pensacola had not heard of Swamp Head, and could not recommend any places to the north or west of the area.  I compare this to Portland, Bend, and Asheville where there is a large brewing community that feeds off of each other and helps everyone grow.

Where to start on this one?  Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.  First, this is my first participation in the Session.  I have been blogging for about a year and writing about beer for about six months.  Second, my family and I are taking a year to travel around the US in an RV and are a little over half way done.  We have been writing about our travels at www.afamilyfarafield.com and part of the trip/blog involves visiting breweries, writing about them and, when possible, filling a stainless steel growler.  Third, this has given me not only exposure to some good, great and mediocre beers, it has also given me a glimpse into some of the various state laws that govern beer-making and growler usage.  While I have to admit I am something of a newbie when it comes to blogging, I can say this with confidence:  I know growlers!

The Collection

First, let me discuss my (ever-growing) collection of growlers:  My first growler was, until recently, my favorite.  It is a 2-liter brown glass Muster Geschutzt growler with a pewter handle, ceramic lid and rubber gasket.  I purchased this from Deschutes Brewery about 10 years ago and it has served me well since then.  The lid seals tight and is much better than the typical screw-on cap when it comes to keeping beer carbonated and fresh.

My second growler is a standard brown half-gallon jug.  Nothing fancy here, but it works. I couldn’t tell you where I bought it, as the label is gone and the ink on the lid has faded to nothing.

My new favorite growler is a half-gallon, stainless steel, vacuum insulated jug made by Hydroflask.  I got my hands on this baby in Montana and have been filling it whenever I can since then.  I like this better than the Deschutes growler as it is not glass (i.e. breakable), and the vacuum insulation keeps liquids cold for a full day.  My only complaints with it lie in the lid: while it seals tight and holds carbonation, it is too small to get a hand inside for cleaning, yet too big to fit shrink-wrap plastic collars required by some breweries (more on this below).  But these are minor complaints.  And I have often wondered if stainless steel affects beer flavor over time, but no beer has been in the growler long enough to find out.

So far, I have picked up four additional growlers since Massachusetts, all standard brown jugs with silk-screened logos on them.  I gave a Pioneer Brewing growler to a friend as a gift (filled, of course, then promptly drained), but kept two from Pisgah and Wedge breweries in Asheville, North Carolina. North Carolina only allows the sale of containers provided by the selling breweries, so I had no choice but to buy new ones (again, more on this later).  Some people collect t-shirts, spoons, thimbles, or Christmas ornaments when they visit new places, I guess I am collecting growlers.

My most recent addition is a one-gallon brown jug, purchased from Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Florida.  For some reason, Florida only permits growlers of one quart and one gallon.  Despite lobbying by state brewers, current law does not permit filling of the half-gallon growlers so common in the rest of the country.  Since they would not fill any of my other jugs, I was forced to buy a one-gallon jug.  Oh, how I suffer for my art!

State Laws

After passage of the 21st Amendment, this left the regulation of alcohol production, sale and distribution to the states, and every one has their own spin on how to do things.  I live in Oregon, which has very loose laws governing filling outside containers with beer.  I have seen someone get a single beer to go a mason jar, and have heard a bartender say that he will fill an empty 2-liter soda bottle if it is clean.  But I have found that as I have travelled around the country and visited 26 states to date, this attitude (and legal framework) is the exception rather than the rule.  I have visited states that do not permit growlers of any kind (Georgia, South Dakota).  I have discovered some states only permit growlers filled by the selling brewery, in state-approved containers (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Minnesota).  The upside to these laws, though, is that many breweries sell growlers that are pre-filled, pressurized and sealed, giving a longer shelf life.  And now I find myself in Florida, with the strangest laws of all (quart and gallon growlers only).

In those states that do allow growler fills, I have seen bartender perform some gymnastics to get around various provisions of existing laws.  In Illinois, a brewer was required to put a company sticker on my Hydroflask in order to comply, and they had non-stick vinyl Colorforms-like labels handy for just such an occasion.  I have seen other brewers use normal stickers with only the corners of exposed, making removal very easy.  Other states (Wisconsin, Florida) require that jugs be sealed after filling, most often with plastic heat-shrink collars placed on the bottle necks.  Since my Hydroflask has an oversized neck, bartenders have used have electrical tape, saran wrap and a heat gun, and stickers to comply.  A few bartenders have told me that a growler without a seal could be considered an open container, but most sent me down the road indicating it was my problem if I got pulled over.

I have heard a few theories on why laws are so restrictive, and most come down to money.  While the laws seem to be more restrictive in the temperant South, discussions with brewers and bartenders seem to indicate that the big production breweries are behind efforts to maintain their market share.  While blue laws and dry counties can still be found, it sounds like restrictive laws are just a case of the Big Boys protecting their bottom line.

Cost

The cost for the growler itself can range from very relatively cheap to expensive, depending on how exotic it is.  A simple brown jug with a brewery label or logo typically sells for $2 to $4, and some breweries such as Rogue often sell filled growlers in grocery stores.  My gallon jug cost $7 at Cigar City, while I noticed that they were selling the quart bottles for $4.  The fancy growlers, such as my Deschutes jug, can be pricey: while I seem to recall paying about $20 for mine, the website indicates this has gone up to $30.  And the Hydroflask retails for roughly $40 to $50.

In Bend, I can get a growler filled for as low as $6, and as much as $15. On this trip, prices have ranged from $8 to $15 (before tax) with most in the $10 to $12 range.  I have been spending $17 to $20 to fill my growler in Florida, but again, that is for a full gallon.  This is one of the tougher parts of growler fills: If I can get a six-pack for $8 to $10, why should I get 64 oz. (a little over five 12 oz. bottles) for more money?  I will pay a little more for fresh draft beer, but not a lot more.

Why Fill a Growler?

The obvious reason for filling a growler over buying bottle or cans is that it is environmentally conscious.  The container is reusable, and generates no trash.  And filling a growler uses far less energy and water than the bottling/canning process.  But in addition to the fresher taste of draft beer, I like growlers over six packs and bombers as I can take home limited-release and seasonal beers that are not bottled.  If a brewery has a flagship beer that they are known for, it is almost aways available in six-packs.  I want to get something seasonal that cannot be bought at the grocery store, and a growler is often times the only way to get that.  And I will add that there are numerous microbreweries and brewpubs that may not have bottling equipment just yet.

My growler collection is taking up far too much room in the RV, but I wouldn’t change anything.  It has allowed us to visit dozens of breweries around the country and sample how beer is brewed in different regions of the US.  Since drinking and driving in the RV is not an option, we have been able to find a brew we like, fill a growler, and then enjoy it once we have safely set up camp.  And we are being environmentally conscious in the process.  So I guess I could say that drinking beer from a growler gives me a warm, tingly sensation, but I am not sure if that is from my eco-friendly behavior, or from the beer.

The Traveling Growler is back and it feels good!

For the second time in two weeks, I have been able to visit a brewery and fill a growler, and this weeks visit was a good stop!  While sampling a flight at Cigar City, I asked them a question that has become a standard one at all of my visits: where should I go from here and who is worth visiting?  At the top of their list was Swamp Head Brewing in Gainesville, Florida, a small but ambitious brewery in the northern part of the state.

After a morning and afternoon of grocery shopping, oil changing, gas pumping, and bill paying, we hit the road for the Florida panhandle.  I was suspicious of the GPS directions when it led us behind a few hotels into a small industrial complex, but a Swamp Head sign told me I was in the right place.  I found the brewery next door to a cabinet shop and although it was not officially opening time, customers were already inside.

As I have said before, I love small breweries like this.  In the 20 minutes I was in the building, despite the fact that it was only a tasting room (no food) and in an industrial center, half a dozen people came through the door ordering pints and filling growlers.  Gainesville locals seem to know what they have here and appear to be doing a good job supporting it.

I was a little pressed for time, so I did not have the ability to get the history of the brewery.  I considered ordering a flight but it involved four, five-ounce tastings, and a quick review our remaining route for the day and the beer abv’s on the menu board led me to conclude that this would be a bad idea.  The bearded bartender set me up with three small samples of their Hoggetown Irish Red, Catherine’s Inspiration Russian Imperial Stout, and Big Nose IPA.

The irish red was spicy with an upfront hoppiness.  Catherine’s Inspiration was like most imperial ales, with a high abv (10%), coffee flavor and bitter aftertaste.  While this was, in my opinion, a very balanced beer and the best I tasted at Swamp Head, but the thought of drinking an entire gallon of this proved too much of a challenge.  The Big Nose IPA hit the right note for me.  I have found that East Coast IPA’s are different from those in the Pacific Northwest in that they don’t have the flowery resin flavors that are so prevalent in Oregon and Washington, and they stack the hop flavors on after the malts instead.  My response to this sample was “Give me a gallon of this…..to go!”

On my way out, I took time to note the tables set aside the brewing tanks, and the roll-up doors exposing them to the warm afternoon sun.  I would have liked to stick around here for a few hours to see who and what showed up to start the weekend.

In past posting, I have noted that certain breweries “get it” and this one is definitely in that category.  With growler fills of $18 to $20 for full gallons, they are not high priced by any means, but they still offer a product that shows high quality in both craftsmanship and pride.  I think that Swamp Head would stand out even in the rarefied air of the Oregon brewing scene, but to find them in Northern Florida is a real treat.

Custom growler filler

The Traveling Growler has been stuck in the closet for almost two months, but it is back in action.  Sort of.  The Hydroflask growler has not seen a lot of action due to our itinerary and state laws governing the use of growlers, but we resumed our brewery visits on the Gulf Coast of Florida with a visit to the acclaimed Cigar City Brewing Company in Tampa, FL.

To recap where we have been, we entered Georgia near the Atlantic Coast coast in early December and stayed close to the shoreline.  First of all, I was informed that Georgia does not permit the use of growlers, period.  Bummer.  We spent quite a bit of time in Savannah, and while were in the neighborhood of Moon River Brewing (the one and only brewery on the Georgia coast) but we could not squeeze in a visit.  Since they do not bottle or sell outside of their brew pub, so this brewery went unsampled.

We made it into Florida around December 14th, and I made a long, thorough examination of the Budweiser facility in Jacksonville.  But since then, we found it tough to find a brewery that was open for visiting at the time we passed through the area.  We tried several very good beers from the Florida Beer Company (the powerful Swamp Ape IPA, Key West Brewing), and others, but they were all from bottles purchased at grocery stores and we had not visited any sites or filled any growlers until now.

On a side note, the Hydroflask growler is still in the closet.  It seems that Florida has the weirdest growler laws that I have encountered to date.  Not the toughest, just the weirdest.  While some states have very loose laws (like the Pacific Northwest), many other states only allow breweries to fill their own containers, while others outlaw them altogether.  Florida permits growlers, but they limit the sizes to quart bottles or one-gallon jugs.  Current law prohibits use of the standard half-gallon containers that are so common in rest of the country.

So we found ourselves passing through Tampa on a wet Wednesday afternoon, and our route took us right by the Cigar City Brewing Company.  The tasting room was within their brewing facility, a nondescript industrial building in a commercial area.  While the brewery was all business, the tasting room was clean, well lit and inviting.  We had already sampled one of their beers, the exceptional Tocobago red, so I was excited to see what the rest of their portfolio tasted like.  I opted to pass on the tour and instead ordered a flight of four of the beers they had on tap:  The Jai Alai IPA; Hotter than Helles lager; Table Saison; and Their White Oak Improv.

The Jai Alai IPA had a strong fruity flavor that was slightly bitter.  It also has a high abv at 7.5%.  As with the Tocobago, this was a strong, forceful beer that was not created for the average beer drinker.  The Hotter Than Helles Lager was also exceptional, with yeasty grain flavor.  Most lagers are mild and mellow, but this beer tasted like fresh bakery bread.

I have taken a liking to saison beers on this trip, but their Table Saison was a little disappointing.  The beer was slightly sour and mildly tangy but did not have that rough farmhouse flavor that I have come to enjoy.  This was not a bad beer, but I think I my expectations were set a little  high.

Finally, I sampled their White Oak Improv, a version of their Improv brown ale that was run through white oak spirals in order to add flavor. This was a very thick brew with caramel and coffee flavors.  It felt and tasted more like a porter than a brown ale and was one of the thickest beers I have sampled on the trip.

Back to the growler: We planned to be in Florida for another two or three weeks, so the odds were good that I would have another opportunity to visit another brewery.  And since state laws do not allow any of my half-gallon growlers to be filled, I was stuck purchasing yet another growler (albeit one gallon) to take on the trip.  It is a rough situation, but I guess this is the type of suffering one has to do for one’s art.  I filled it with their Jai Alai IPA and off we went into the Florida forests.  Normally we can drink a growler in an afternoon/evening without too much difficulty, but the gallon lasted us two days.  The IPA was strong at 7.5% abv, so even this was a tough task.

I would include Cigar City in with the breweries that “get it.”  They produce very high quality products and are not afraid to charge a premium for them.  They brew for the beer aficionado and even their mildest beers are probably too forceful for the mass market.  This is easily the best beer and best brewery I have visited since hitting Dogfish Head back in October.  Keep an eye on these guys.

NOTE:  I have had this post in the can for a while, but am just getting around to publishing it.

A nasty storm chased us south from Norfolk, VA down toward the outer banks of North Carolina.  We spent a cold night along the Currituck Sound hoping that the temperature would be better by the time we got to Kitty Hawk and Roanoke Island.  As we traveled down the highway, we made two fun stops: the first was at the headquarters for Grave Digger, the monster truck; and the second was at Weeping Radish Brewery and Butcher Shop

The kids loved the monster truck.  They offer rides in it during the summer months, but it was too late in the season for us.  No matter, we got to inspect several retired models and shop in the store.

Weeping Radish was only a few miles down the road, and when we arrived, it was still mid-morning and too early for tastings.  After a quick look around the metal skinned building, I opted to buy two bombers, a couple bottles of root beer and some bratwursts.  I am not sure what I was expecting, but the building was not very welcoming.

The kids loved the root beer and both bottles were gone by lunchtime.  The first beer that was cracked was their OBX, their kolsch style beer. Kolsch beers are tough because they are by definition very light in color, flavor and ABV, and can often taste very watery.  Well, this one falls into that category and was not very memorable.  But I would take this over Bud Light any day.

The second bomber was their IPA 25, made with local North Carolina hops.  As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, I admit I am biased toward IPA’s from that region.  Some of the best hops are grown in the area and IPA’s and fresh-hopped beers made from PNW hops are some of the tastiest made.  I am not sure if my it was my bias, or whether it was the North Carolina hops, but I was underwhelmed with this beer.  The hop flavor was muted, it did not taste that fresh and the general strength of the flavor was just so-so.

But I do applaud their effort.  If a beer can be made with local ingredients, it should be supported.  Unless of course, it is completely terrible.  As for the bratwursts, they were great.  They were spicy and meaty and slightly fatty and I am sure they were really, really bad for me.  But I ate two for dinner and another for lunch later in the week.

I am officially a Beermaster and have the certificate to prove it, courtesy of Anheuser-Busch.  I did not get this honor through years of school or marathon beer sampling sessions.  I just went to the Anheuser-Busch brewery on Jacksonville, paid them money and took a two-hour, in-depth tour of the plant.

We arrived in Florida and found the state was already far beer-friendlier than the George coast (the one brewery on the coast informed me that growlers are illegal in the state).  I have not been able to fill my growler in Florida yet (mostly due to family commitments and the fact that we just arrived), but I was able to attend the Beermaster tour of the Jacksonville Plant.  The Friday tours were all sold out for this longer, more technical tour, so I was able to get a spot on one of the Thursday tours instead.  I was expecting to tour with a few other guests, but I was the only one scheduled for the 2PM tour.  There were two tour guides and one guest, me!  I felt like a celebrity.

The first part of the tour was nothing special, covering the history of the company and where all of the brewing facilities are located.  But I was able to get the tour guide to discuss prohibition, and admit that the company was bootlegging beer and moonshine during that period and that partially kept it afloat.  She also discussed their acquisition by InBev in 2009 in a hostile takeover and the fact that this facility makes:  Bud, Bud Light, all of the Michalob line, Natural and Natural Light (Natty Light, to the discerning crowd), Shock Top and Busch, Rolling Rock and Landshark Lager, a joint venture with Jimmy Buffett.  Yeah, yeah, let’s get this over and head to the brewing floor.

We stepped onto the balcony above the massive lauter tuns and it was about 100 degrees inside.  I asked what it was like during the warm Florida summers and got chuckles from the guides.  Since the tuns are heated through steam, the room is usually about 20 degrees warmer than the outside temperature, so that means July and August are…miserable.  The tanks were bright, shiny stainless steel tanks and contrasted with the old, stained copper tanks I saw in the Miller plant in Milwaukee.  In all defense, the Miller plant went back over 100 years, while the Jacksonville Budweiser plant was built in 1969.  I suspect that the St. Louis plant has a bit more history and patina to it.  We stopped at a table that had little Tupperware containers of the grains that are used (6-row grain with a slightly bitter taste, and 2-row grain with a nuttier flavor), plus rice, two kinds of hops and corn grits.  Grits?  The company is pushing their Michalob Ultra and they are using grits to keep carbs, calories and alcohol content down.  For the record, the guides told me that they do not produce any beers that conform to the reinheitsgebot

The guides worked in the gift shop and tasting room but they were pretty knowledgable on the history of the company.  As for their knowledge on the ingredients, brewing process, etc., they needed a little more schooling. Luckily, we ran into a worker in the hop refrigerator and he was able to answer some of my more technical questions.  Anheuser also makes the Shock Top label, which is their effort at “craft” brewing.  He responded to my question about future brews by indicating that St. Louis is working on an IPA beer to go with the Belgian White and Raspberry Wheat beers.

While touring the big breweries is fun, this is the most frustrating part of it.  The workers produce only a dozen, maybe slightly more beers of (at best) average quality, geared toward the largest possible market share and the lowest common denominator.  Even their most flavorful beers come up short when compared to the typical average small brewery I have visited.  This is not due to limited skills, time or funds.  It is created by a focus on selling the most amount of product as possible, and this means toning down almost all character and flavor.  The workers, even if they are brewing side projects, know that the company has no room to consider incorporating anything creative into the product line, which contrasts with the crazy experimentation at pretty much every micro-brewery in the US today.  Decisions are made by committee and market research, rather than by what is good.  But I guess that describes pretty much all large multinational corporations.  But surprisingly, I have a small amount of hope for the company, which I will explain below.

After visiting the hop room, we stopped by the control room, which looked like a control panel for a nuclear power plant, or a Wall Street trader’s desk.  The guides indicated that pretty much every step of the brewing process was automated and computer-controlled, with the only exception being the adding of hops: this was down the old-fashioned way of measuring the proper blend into large trash cans and manually dumping them into the tun.  Every other step was monitored, controlled and automated down to the smallest detail.

From there, it was onto the fermenting rooms(s) to see the fermenting tanks.  Interesting tidbit: the Jacksonville plant has 372 tanks, which each can hold about 66,000 six-packs.  Another interesting fact: the plant has pretty much retired the original tanks that were installed in 1969, but they are still saved for use during emergencies.  I guess this includes fires or other plant damage, hurricanes, or impending football bowl games.  Per the guide, every tank in the plant is in use at this time of the year in preparation for the college bowls and NFL playoffs.

I was able to find out about Budweiser’s beechwood aging process.  Rather than aging beer in wooden casks, which would take a prohibitive amount of time, space and money to use at this scale, they line the bottom of tanks with a layer of beechwood strips.  The strips are used three times before being recycled.  It was kind of neat to stick my head inside of a tank filled with beery wood strips and yeast slime.

The highlight of the trip was the visit to the tanks in the finish room.  After beers have fermented, they are transferred to the finishing room before heading to for bottling/canning and pasteurization.  The guide grabbed a glass for me, then filled it out of a small faucet on the side of the tank.  I was able to sample Bud and Bud light that had not been pasteurized and had just been filtered earlier that day.  I am not a fan of Budweiser, but I was surprised by how clean and crisp they both tasted.  The best way I can describe the experience is that it would be like eating Wonder Bread right out of the oven.  Sure, it was bland and generic, but the extreme freshness seemed to overcome some of that.

We then moved to the bottling floor and that was absolutely amazing.  I was given earplugs and a headset so I could hear the guide over the machinery noise.  I tried to get photos that captured the speed at which the bottling line was working but none did it justice.  I was told that it can fill 1200 bottles per minute, or 20 per second.  The canning process moves almost as fast.  This part of the tour was absolutely mind-boggling.  While I witnessed similar action from afar during the Miller tour, I was able to get within 10 feet of some of these machines and the rate at which they move is hard to comprehend.  We also saw the completely automated keg-filling line, with giant robotic arms, moving, cleaning and filling 8 kegs per minute.  This portion of the tour alone was worth the price of admission.

As with all brewery tours, this one ended in the tasting room, with two samples allowed.  I chose Budweiser’s American Ale, and as expected, I was underwhelmed by it.  It was far better than Bud or Michalob, but it was an ale with mild flavor, and all of the corners had been smoothed out.  The reason I suspect that Anheuser-Busch should be watched is because of the parent, InBev.  Two beers offered in the tasting room were the iconic Stella Artois, plus Hoegarten and Leffe Blonde.  I tried the Leffe and this is about as far from any beer produced by the American arm of this company as possible.  The Belgian abbey ale had powerful banana flavors, plus a certain spiciness and an ABV of 6.6%.  Other labels owned by the conglomerate include Bass and Boddington.  And the Buffett-funded Landshark Lager is very Corona-like.

I could see some European influence trickling down to places like the Shock Top line to stem defections to the craft brewing market.  This does not bother me:  I have said before that I don’t really care who makes a beer as long as the ingredients and recipes are worthwhile.

The tour ended with the presentation of an Anheuser-Busch hat, some stickers and labels, plus an official-looking certificate giving me the title of Beermaster.  I think I will put this on my resume.  The tour was pricey at $25, but overall it was worth it.  I think I did get into some areas not normally visited as I was the only one on the tour, but I suspect that I might have liked it better in a small group of, say four to eight people.  There might have been a little more give and take in a situation like that.  But overall, the tour was the best I have been on to date.

My efforts to fill my Hydroflask growler hit a bump a couple months back.  There were no problems, just roadblocks including state laws, travel routes, timing and big cities.  But that does not mean we were not sampling local products.  Below are summaries of places we did visit and/or beers we sampled:

• While traveling through New Hampshire, we visited Red Hook’s east coast operation.  We did not get a tour and did not fill the growler (state laws), but we did have a nice lunch (and beers) and we had a nice chat with the pub manager.
• We spent almost a week in Mystic, CT, and while we were there we visited Cottrell Brewing in nearby Pawcatuck, CT.  I got to have a long talk with the owner, Charles Cottrell, and we sampled a few of his brews. I think my love for small breweries like this is clear, and this place made me smile.  First, their Old Yankee Ale and Oktoberfest beers were top-notch.  Second, I got to sample a beer called “GW,” which was not named after our 43rd president.  Cottrell is contract brewing a beer for another label (didn’t write it down, sorry) called GW Beer.  Cottrell indicated that it is very loosely based on a recipe used by George Washington back on Mount Vernon.  I thought it was good but not great.  He also indicated that had he followed the recipe to the letter, the stuff would be undrinkable.  I will take his word and say the updated version is better.  I had started a full review of this brewery but our exhausting trip though NYC, PA and Philly, followed by the busted keyboard, meant that I did not finish it.
• While in Mystic, the campground was about half a mile from the oldest steam-powered cider mill in the US, B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill.  We stopped by on a very wet Thursday morning and purchased some apple cider donuts, and a couple bottles of their cider.  Strange stuff, but I mean that in a good way.  It turns out that cider has a long history in this country and in this area.  During the industrial revolution, families often drank cider in place of water as the water in the Northeast was often undrinkable (streams were polluted, water wells were shallow and contaminated by livestock waste). So they drank hard cider instead, even the kids.  We tried to come back that Saturday to see the apples being pressed, but it was too crowded and there was no place to park The Beast.
• We really wanted to hit Brooklyn Brewing, but we could not fit it in our schedule.  We drove into NYC on a Sunday morning and a stop in Brooklyn in The Beast was not in the cards.  We ended up driving it through Manhattan and that was scary.  So we sampled their Brooklyn Brown from the safe location of Jersey City.  I was a little underwhelmed with it.  I think the problem was that BB had been built up by several people I had talked to and their Brown was touted as their flagship beer.  I was expecting a beer in the 8-10 range and I ended up thinking it was a 7 or so.  I suspect that a visit to their brewery and a chance to taste the experimental beers might have left a far different impression.
• While visiting DC, we were invited by a friend to come over for dinner.  He called us from work and said he was running late, so I persuaded my wife to indulge my fetish and I found a brewery in Hyattsville, MD that was on the way (sort of) to his house.  I parked the car outside in a very packed parking lot and went into Franklins Brewery, Restaurant and General Store.  I did not do much research on it before entering, other than finding it on Beermapping.com, but it wished I had more time to look around.  First, I sampled a pale that was interesting, but filled the growler with their Hop Zen.  This is one of the few IPA’s on the east coast that compares with those in the Pacific Northwest.  Second, the food looked great.  Most tables were occupied and I got to see the food coming out of the kitchen while I was filling the growler.  Third, the store sold some really unusual stuff including rubber chickens, Legos and novelty items.  I want to go back and spend some time there.
• In states with strict laws governing growlers (NC, VA, GA), we sampled beers that we could find in local grocery stores.  I have been posting about them on Untappd under the name John Fremont.

We bought a cheapo USB keyboard as a band-aid, until the trip is over and we fix the motherboard.  And despite the South’s reputation for temperance, they seem to be a little more growler-friendly (except on Sundays).  So I should be able to post a little more.

The Hydroflask growler had been gathering dust, and this was due to so many reasons: state laws; few breweries on our route, lack of time to stop….it was time to break it out again.

Unlike its neighbors to the north (North Carolina, Virginia), South Carolina allows breweries to fill growlers that are not their own, and Charleston had a plethora of beer makers in town.  Charleston also has old, narrow streets, so I was only able to park near several.  We were camping at James Island County Park, a jewel of a facility off Charleston Bay, and about 8 miles down the road was a town called Folly Beach.  And they had a brewery!

Folly Beach is a collection of bungalows and cabins built on a spit of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and Charleston Bay.  Parts of it were used to bombard Fort Sumter during the start of the civil war, but things are considerably more peaceful and Irie now.

The brewery itself is very small, with a couple of tables out front and a small bar inside.  I suspect a baseball team would fill every seat in the whole place.  I could not find a website but there is a review from Beer Advocate here.  I chatted with the bartender, who told me that they only have one of their own beers on tap, and do not fill growlers with it as they have so little.  The remained of their half a dozen taps included local microbrews and regional producers, and they sold some six packs and bombers out of a refrigerator.  So I sampled their saison with the intent of filling it with something else.  After some cajoling and help from a patron who said he was a former investor in the place, she relented and filled it.

The saison was, in a word, sour, but that is what French country beers are supposed to be.  The sourness was always present, but not distracting from a distinctive hoppiness and maltiness.  These types of beers are not for the casual drinker and are for the more adventurous palate.

I love places like this.  While I often praise places like Dogfish or Deschutes, they have the brewing process down to a science.  With smaller operations like this, there is a lower level of science and higher levels of craft and art in the process.  I suspect they do not brew more than a keg or two at a time, and a recipe might vary a little from batch to batch.  In the smaller places, you can see and feel and taste the craft (or lack of) that the brewer put into his creation.