Category Archives: Travel

New York 2013

This past week Julie and I headed out to New York to catch up with some friends and see some baseball.

SingleCut Beersmiths

One of our stops in Astoria was SingleCut Beersmiths which I believe opened earlier this year. SingleCut has a small tap room at their brewery with a loft area for a band. The brewery is located in a somewhat industrial/shopping area in Astoria. We stopped by in the early evening and caught the Hawks – Kings game on our phone as there are no TVs. They do have a solid vinyl collection which plays most of the time until the band comes on. I managed to make my way around their beer selection and I liked their Queens Lagrrr and the Neil Ol’ Blackie IPA best. The barrels in the photographs above are actually filled with fermenting beer, notice the air locks on each barrel.

Citi Field: Mets – Marlins

While in town we managed to see the Mets – Marlins game. The Mets lost and not in the normally allotted time.

An Hour or so in Brooklyn

On Tuesday morning we made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge via Manhattan. We walked the bridge, which about 40% of the bridge was under tarps, and headed over to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria at the base on the other side. Grimaldi’s is located basically under the bridge on the Brooklyn side. Much like Lombardi’s, Grimaldi’s is a coal-fired pizza. According to the convoluted history the founder, Patsy Grimaldi, wanted to open in Manhattan but by that time coal-fired ovens were illegal so he opened up shop in Brooklyn.

Down the street and still in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge is the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. All of the ice cream is freshly made in small batches. The selection is limited but worth checking out. Also, the building is at the base of the Fulton Ferry Landing so you have a great view of the Manhattan skyline.

The Clipper City

We used some coupon site to get a 50% ticket on the Manhattan by Sail’s tall ship the City Clipper. We did the ‘Daytime Statue Sail’ which takes off from South Street Seaport and heads out to the Statue of Liberty and back. We were on the boat for about 90 minutes. I guess there is also a Lobster & Beer tour they do and I have no idea how we missed it. The ship can hold up to 150 passengers (we probably had 40 or so) which is the most of any passenger sailboat in the United States. It wasn’t really a tour boat as much as a leisure ship with a fully stocked bar.

In summary there were great views, a full bar and there was no guy with a bullhorn pointing out landmarks.

Alewife

For dinner one night we ended up at Alewife in Long Island City which was within walking distance to our hotel. Alewife is a ‘craft beer’ bar with a massive selection of draft and bottles along with a solid menu. I’ve been to their sister bar, Lord Hobo, in Cambridge, MA. which is very similar. We had dinner and then pretty much called it a night, I would have liked to have spent more time there.

Side Notes:

* Julie and I killed the better part of a rainy afternoon at McSorley’s.

** This is how NYC does trash.

*** Plane photographs. We almost made it back to Chicago but were diverted to Louisville. Good times.

**** The view from our hotel in Long Island City.
***** We had dinner with Jim Wallis at Upstate Craft Beer & Oyster Bar and it was amazing once again. Last year when we were in town we stumbled upon it and I’m glad we were able to do it again. The place is small, even by New York standards, we hung out for a couple of minutes and the host was able to fit us in at the bar. The bartender, the food and the beer selection were all great.

Dark Lord Day

This past Saturday I headed down to Munster, Indiana for 3Floyd’s Dark Lord Day. Dark Lord Day is the brewery’s annual festival where they release their Russian Imperial Stout, Dark Lord. Dark Lord is only available for sale during the festival in 9oz drafts for $10 or 22oz Bombers for $15. Festival goers are only allowed to purchase three bombers each. Each customer also gets a scratch off ticket, with winning tickets providing the opportunity to purchase one of the special Dark Lord variants for $50.

Festival

The festival is in the office park across from the brewery, it consisted of a couple large tents, several beer vending areas and a large stage for the bands. Most of the people at the festival brought their own beer for consumption and trading. The scene was much like a tailgate with a lot of heavy metal. Most everyone was well behaved, I think I saw one guy get sick and a couple people passed out. I only stayed for about 6 hours.

The scene outside of the brewery was similar to a tailgate but with higher alcohol content and lots of pretzels. You were allowed to bring in your own beer and food just no cooler. So if you could bag something and it wasn’t on rollers you were good to go. I’m not sure if the two above actually made it inside with the pony kegs.

My one complaint is the signage throughout the festival was kind of a joke. You’ve got 18 taps running and all the beer is labeled by hand with a marker. None of the vendors really knew anything about the beer so if you couldn’t quite see the writing and you didn’t recognize the name you had no idea what you were ordering. I ordered an ‘Elf Power’ only to realize it was Evil Power. Considering the cost of tickets and the amount of attendees I feel they could have splurged for some decent signs.

Transportation

There are a couple transportations options to get down to Munster. Parking anywhere near the brewery is around $20 and in short supply. There were a couple of the ‘Chicago Beer Tour’ buses that were running trips down to Munster but they were all at least $30 and all sold out quickly. After further research I tracked down Reggies Chicago which is just outside of Chinatown. Reggies was running shuttle busses down and back to 3Floyd’s close to every hour starting at 8am. The rides were free and they sold beer on the bus. In addition they had a free buffet at the bar throughout the day. This really made the day. Not having to organe a ride and trying to find it really made a difference.

Lines

The whole point of Dark Lord Day is getting your allotment of Dark Lord beer. In the past I believe people would line up the night before and the line would just continue growing throughout the day. This year when you purchased tickets they were broken down into groups with specific times to line up and purchase your beer. I’m not sure how long the waiting was before this system was in place but I waited more than two hours in line. The lines were moving at a steady pace and it was possible to jump out and grab drink/food or use the restroom. When we headed out to catch the bus back to Reggies the lines for the later time groups seemed to be much longer.

Tickets

Tickets to Dark Lord Day cost $30 each and sold out online in about 30 minutes. Each ticket gets you into the festival, the opportunity to buy your allotment of 22oz bombers and a scratch off ticket. If your scratch off ticket was a winner you could then buy one of the special variants of Dark Lord for $50. By the time I got to the scratch off they were all out of the Bourbon Vanilla which is what I would have opted for. I did purchase a bottle of the Bourbon w/ Chillies but I ended up having second thoughts and I pawned it off on our bus ride home to some one who really wanted it. While purchasing the Dark Lord you could also buy any of the other beers 3Floyd’s brewed. For some reason the Zombie Dust was flying off the shelves.

Aftermath

All around it was a great experience.

Pittsburgh Hockey Trip

This past Friday I headed to Pittsburgh for my annual Hockey road trip. It was a challenge to get six tickets to a Friday night Pens – Rangers game so we ended up with Standing Room Only tickets. There was little info on what that actually meant so we went into the game thinking we’d basically be watching the game at a bar from within the arena. It turns out that Consol Energy Arena has specific spots for each SRO ticket and we had a great view of the game except for the Shootout when everyone in the arena stood.

This was by far the best game we’ve attended on any of these trips. Fleury had an amazing game, Jussi Jokinen scored his first goal as a Penguin, there was a fight and the Pens beat the Rangers in a Shootout. The beer selection at Consol was solid.

D’s SixPax & Dogz

On Saturday we headed over to D’s SixPax & Dogz for lunch and drinks. D’s is known for their hotdogs covered in basically anything you can imagine and their massive Beer Cave. Their Beer Cave consisted of a walk-in cooler and a back room that is the size of most liquor stores. They also had a great tap list including Tröegs Nugget Nectar which was one of the better beers I’ve had in a while. In addition D’s had 1919 Draft Root Beer which was fantastic.

East End Brewing Company

After lunch we stopped by East End Brewing Company for a tasting. The night before, Tom, our host set us up with two pony kegs of Big Hop IPA and Black Strap Stout. We didn’t purchase any beer but we did make our way around the sample list. They also had a Root Beer which was good.

Arsenal Cider House

In the afternoon we stopped at Arsenal Cider House where I proceeded to make rarely funny jokes about their rules. The setup is a small bar were you buy growlers and there are some tables in the back, all amongst civil war paraphernalia due to the close location to site of the Allegheny Arsenal. We had a great selection of cider, my favorite was the Honey Crisp.