By Carl
So the brewery tour had come and gone on day one, but the drinking of beer was far from over. Upon leaving Waterbury, we finally jumped on the highway and headed about a half hour northwest to Burlington (the home of the University of Vermont in case any of you were wondering). This would be our final destination for the day as we arrived at our hotel around 7 p.m.
Now at this point we already had a trunk full of beer, most of which needed to remain cold overnight, and we did not have nearly enough cooler space. So what were we to do? Well that decision was made a few days back as we knew we were going to have to sacrifice the amount of coolers we brought in order to maximize our trunk space. I know you guys think we are just some dumb beer geeks, but I like to think we are at least kinda smart!
Anyhow, we first grabbed our bags and the pair of coolers to bring up to the room. After dropping those off, we headed back down to the car to grab our cases of heady and Hill Farmstead bottles among others. We walked through the lobby and to the elevator like nobody was watching. I mean let's be honest, Vermont hotels have to see this kind of stuff all the time, no?
And so began our detailed (or not so detailed) plan. Are you ready, because here it comes! 1) Beer goes in the bathtub. 2) Three crazies grab pretty much every last bit of ice in two different ice vendors on separate floors. 3) Ice goes in bath tub with beer. 4) Top it all off with more ice later that night once the vendors produce more frozen water.
Now I didn't mean to spend three paragraphs explaining that brilliant plan to all of you, but here we are. So upon finishing the old beer in the bathtub plan, we had to fight the serious urge to take a nap in order to hit the town. If I shut my eyes then and there, I was going to be out for the count.
So out we went to downtown Burlington, which has a different, yet awesome, nightlife. Eric and I had already been here once before, and being too tired to come up with new and exciting ideas, we decided to hit up the only two places we went last time. I wasn't complaining, as they were fun before and they were fun again.
Farmhouse Tap and Grill was packed, and I couldn't believe it being it was a Thursday night in the beginning of August. We opted to head over to El Cortijo, which has the same ownership as Farmhouse, and figured we would come back later to see if it emptied out at all.
El Cortijo, a smaller joint, was also slammed. While we waited for a table, a waitress got us each a Grassroots Legitimacy, still one of my favorite IPAs to this day. We finished those up and told the waitress we were going to take off and head back over to Farmhouse.
Not knowing this the first time around, Farmhouse had a little beer garden in the back, so we put our names in and headed out back for some more brews. In the grand scheme of things, I probably should've tried a couple different beers while I was back there, but dammit if they didn't have Focal Banger here as well! My white whale had returned to me once again and I was prepared to drink as much of it as possible.
About 45 minutes and two Focals later, our table was ready. Another hour went by and I had downed another Focal (if you're keeping score at home, that's three of them and four in one day ie: I was in heaven). After eating some of the hottest wings I've ever had, I capped the night off with a Hill Farmstead Excursions #3, which is just one of the smoothest IPAs I've ever had.
As the night wound to a close, perhaps our greatest acquisition of the trip happened. I am somewhat sworn to secrecy about the logistics of how we came across this miracle acquisition, but needless to say we wound up in our room with two 4-packs of Focal and that led to a happy Carl!
And that was it. The long, first day of our trip had come to a close. We settled our baby focals into bed (the bathtub) with their brothers and sisters, tucked them all in with another blanket of ice and went to bed.
Oh but we aren't done yet folks! Day two was quite an entertaining one as well. We were prepped to be up bright and early because soon enough we would be off to Boston and Trillium Brewing Company!
No comments:
Post a Comment