Ich liebe den Geruch von Bier in den Morgen

Two Harbors, Minnesota on Lake Superior

I love the smell of beer in the morning. Particularly when that morning is on holiday in the United States of America. More specifically, Two Harbors, Minnesota. Back in 2010, my second trip to the US, we booked a log cabin right next to the spectacular Lake Superior, which you can read all about here. I have to say that this trip was an amazing experience.

Even more amazing was the choice of craft beer available. Not necessarily in Two Harbors but the US in general. Coming from a country where the craft beer scene is just starting to take off, arriving in the US and being able to absorb all the different styles of beer was something to behold. I didn't start to appreciate the depth of quality these US beers had until I tried them myself.

City Beer Store, San Francisco

Hitting San Francisco in the first few days was simply incredible. I managed to drink my first ever Dogfish Head beer. My mate and I somehow managed to find the City Beer Store, which serves multitudes of craft beer. That first beer was a Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA. I had heard a lot about Dogfish Head and was chomping at the bit to sink one down. Before I could say Rumpelstiltskin, next up was a Midnight Sun Sockeye Red IPA from Midnight Sun Brewing.

Sockeye Red IPA, Midnight Sun

If I could have made love to a beer, that would have been it. I truly hadn't tasted a beer like it in my life. I guess that is how depraved we are in Australia by not having great beer like that around. Could this place get any better? Actually, it did. My next beer was, for all intents and purposes, the best beer I had ever tasted: Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing. What a gorgeous, sexy bit of loveliness it really was.

Pliny the Elder was an IPA of such magnitude that I was lucky I had been sitting down drinking it. I am sure that had I of been standing up my knees would have buckled and I'd fall flat on my butt. And then it hit me. City Beer "Store"? It was actually like a normal corner store but for beers. It wasn't any bigger than a small apartment but you had a bench for the bar, some chairs at the bar to sit down, two or three tables and a bit of space left over for a few people to stand up, chat and drink beer. Of course, you had the plethora of shelves housing bucket loads of craft beer.

Pliny the Elder. Wow.

And being able to try a bucket load of craft beer was a mission of mine well before the trip began. But I never really did get over the fact that there was an endless list of beers that I never got to try. In my rough estimates I tried some 80+ different beers in just 9 weeks of travel around the US. To me, that's a fair amount. Problem was that it barely scratched the surface that are brewed in the US. As I type now, that still makes me shake my head in disbelief of the amount still on offer next time I visit the US.

Congratulations from Old Chicago!

One thing I don't have to shake my head in disbelief is my fantastic effort at Old Chicago. A limit of four beers per day can be marked off your World Beer Tour membership card. You can drink as many as you like, but only four will be recorded per day. I managed to put down 40 different beers, which earned me a magnificent Old Chicago bottle opener. Here sits a bloody proud Australian!

Don't I wish we had something like that in Australia. Sure, we have some brewpubs about Sydney and they are very nice places to drink. The only problem is there's no incentive to keep going. No points awarded, no real customer rewards and nothing making the customer want more. That's a major letdown if you ask me. I have nothing against any of our brewpubs, I'm merely saying that there is no reward-based system in place to keep the customer coming back for more.

Original Gravity Black IPA (Odell Brewing)

I tell you what, though. I'll be coming back for more craft beer in the US later this year. My only regret is that I will not be able to try my all time favourite beer: Original Gravity Black IPA from Odell Brewing. It was a limited release batch from Odell Brewing that was made available at Old Chicago. Gee whiz, such awesomeness, such monstrous aroma and flavour that I am sure I drank that limited batch dry.

Coffee Bender from Surly

But, like most things in life, I have to move on. Move on to the next big and beautiful beer. Talking of beer, I was introduced to an amazing beer by a good friend of mine: Coffee Bender from Surly Brewing.  Their slogan: Beer for a glass. From a can. Well, that was pretty obvious when I picked up a six-pack of their beer. Large, slender pint cans that made me drool like a mouth being numb post injection at a dentist's clinic.

Thankfully, that drool was wiped up by my left arm....all the while my right arm was picking out another six-pack of beer to try. I was also lucky enough to visit Summit Brewing and do one of their brewery tours. It was interesting in the fact that for the very first time I had to sit through a slide show on how beer was made. I recall the tour guide being very knowledgeable, warm and friendly towards everyone that attended. I'm not sure how they do their tours now but it certainly was an unique and fascinating way to do your introductory tour.

We eventually got to the nitty-gritty end of the tour: the beer tasting. By that stage I was actually dying of thirst. I was so thirsty that I could have drank a camel's hump and still had room for more. I used my tokens wisely. Well, when I say wisely it means I ran to the bar like a typical Australian and in my dodgy accent asked for an Oatmeal Stout. Something that, at the time, they weren't selling but did have available for tasting during tours.

It was a great beer, let me tell you. Smooth, rich, chocolatey, roasty. It was everything you wanted in a stout and more. It was just a shame that I didn't have many tokens left. But there was another brewery tour I did that had plenty of beer tokens: Surly Brewing. Yes, I mentioned them earlier in reference to their Coffee Bender. Since I tried a Surly, I just had to go on one of their tours. Organising a tour, though, was difficult. These guys are popular!

But once the tour was booked it was nothing short of brilliant. Most brewery tours start with an explanation of the gear, how they brew, what ingredients they use, etc. Not Surly. They give you 5 tokens and get you to try their beer first! Simply awesome! It was made even better by the fact that someone had "lost" a token, which meant I got 6 beers. It certainly made for an interesting tour post drinks, that's for sure.

Buffalo, New York

Strangely enough, the most interesting brewery tour was in Canada, which we went to during our Buffalo, New York trip.  That was certainly a trip I will never, ever forget for reasons which shall remain a secret until my next blog. That's the thing, there were so many fantastic experiences during my 2010 US trip that it inspires great memories right to this very day. Until next blog....

dannbrew