Great Trip, Bad Beer

Cousin Hophead and I found the curviest roads in Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas and took our bikes down to have some fun. On the way down we stopped off in Aurora, MO (the Hound Dawgs) to drop by the Brew Pub, Bootleggers. I had the privilege of tasting the worst beer I've ever had to this day. I feel bad bashing because I drive by this neat looking place 3 or 4 times a year and would love for them to do well; however, their beer needs a complete overhaul. We sampled a Dark Wheat, Raspberry Wheat, Bock and Pilsner. The Pilsner was okay and I wanted a growler from their to add to my collection so I picked it up. Bootleggers is a neat place to grab a bite to eat but don't plan on drinking their beer.

We got down to our starting point, took a small break and then headed out for Eureka Springs, AR. It wasn't until we left the following day that we saw any sort of straight roads. Probably my favorite stretch of the trip was Highway 86 from the Missouri state line up to Casseville. Imagine a tunnel of trees cooling a hot day at the tops of the Ozarks and not being able to see more than 80 yards of road because of the curves. Perfect for two wheels and some g-force. We got back to the lake and did some cliff jumping in Table Rock Lake. Then we went to our family's new restaurant on the water and had some beer at night. We got back and opened the growler of aforementioned Pilsner. Disgusting! The taste lessened 10 fold. Bad way to end a great day.

The next day we had another big day of riding ahead of us. We went down to Bull Shoals Lake and found that the highway went straight into the lake. We took a ferry across and both ways were full of motorcycles. Cool stuff. On our way home we stopped off at Springfield Brewing Co. I was just there a few weeks ago and really liked it. This time I got some pictures to show you. Very cool place, staff has good knowledge of beer and food is good. We got a pitcher of Pilsner and a pizza for $12 to split. I met one of the brewers, Trey Manning, but he didn't have much to say.

Downtown Eureka Springs looks like somewhere in Europe:

Overlooking Branson:

Road to nowhere:

I had to put this picture in for all those people who think it's gross to swim in a lake. You can see the bottom of 5ft deep water here:

Cousin Hophead's bike on the ferry:

Springfield Brewing Company:

Lacing

No not that kind of lace. I'm talking beer lace (or lacing). Not familiar? See the picture above. Lacing is the beer head (or beer muff as Jake doesn't want to be sexist) that sticks to the glass. Originally it was noted by the sheet of lace but has developed into lines of lace left after drinking. You're not cool if you don't have lace! It is suppose to show how fresh the hop oils are in your drink. Worthog, friends and myself were at Flying Saucer last night for the rare New Holland Brother Jacob Dubbel. After a few I ordered Southern Tier Iniquity and had to capture the lacing on the glass with my handy camera phone. About the same time someone pointed out some guy who had passed out right after ordering a full beer (notice the daylight). I couldn't resist so I went up and talked to his buddies who were having a casual conversation while this guy was snoring in the middle of the bar. They say that he does this all the time and he is just power napping, but he was out for a while. Can someone say narcoleptic?

Pork Chop Express

I'm not talking about the same Jack Burton's Pork Chop Express from Big Trouble in Little China. No no, but I'll get there. This weekend Albert Pooholes and his giant St. Louis crew rolled into KC whooping up on our Kansas City Royals. It's all good, I'm still holding onto the 1985 series as long as I can. My cousin and friends came in and wanted to hang out and see what Power & Light District is all about. Well, okay. They got in from a fishing trip so we started out by heading to the Rockies with some Busch-Light at the hotel. Hey, it's a fishing beer right? Yeah it's nasty. We took a van from the hotel to downtown. We were heading through the strip club area just South of downtown and someone asks the 80 year old driver which club is his favorite and he pulls out a great one liner, "Man, strip club? I'm 80, I'd rather have a poke chop." Classic. So pork chop drops us off in P&L but I decided to haul these guys a few blocks over to show them one of my favorite bars, John's Upper Deck. Not the classiest joint downtown but what a great place to see a band up 3 floors on a rooftop in the middle of the sky scrapers. If you have not tried the place, you should. We were trying to decide to head over to Harry's Country Club because some of their friends were over there, but never made it. Then I learned that the Worthog was over there and I missed out on all that action. Why have a blow-up pool 3 stories up next to the edge of the roof with a bunch of drunk people? Why not? Probably because the new hot spot above Cosentino's is a pool bar and opened up this weekend. My cousin fell in the pool and had wet shorts for the rest of the night. We headed over to P&L to find tons of Cards fans getting arrested. Thousands of people crowded in paying for their $9 small plastic cup drinks. By this time, I just didn't care after having Jager shots. We quickly lost everyone and I found myself talking to very uninteresting people all night. Closer to sunrise we all eventually wound up back at the hotel finding different cab rides. Went golfing in 100 degree weather the next day. I'm pretty sure I was sweating at least 3% abv.

Big Brew Day

A lot to talk about. Luckily the Wort Hog explained all of it and I can just link you off to her site. I am going to post this one picture of Dave getting the siphon going the ghetto way...

Springfield Brewing Co

I was with family in Arkansas last weekend riding dirtbikes. On the way back home we stopped off in Springfield, Missouri. I can't believe I went to school there for a semester and missed out on this great downtown spot. Similar to Tom Schlafly/St. Louis Brewing Company, Paul Mueller/Springfield Brewing Company has used the last name as a label for their beers. From their website, Mueller has a company that does brewery stainless steel fabrication which works out well because the brewery is great looking. Sorry no pictures with me, but let me tell you, what a great building. Two story, lots of wood, band playing in the middle of a Sunday, cigar room and huge brewery with lots of windows. I ordered a sampler of Wheat, Lager, Porter, Kolsh, Special (dark lager) and Pale Ale. When I left I bought a 6 pack of Parliment Stout and a 750 ml of Blackberry Wit. I haven't tried either yet. Pretty solid beer and a great place to check out.

My Double IPA - Deliciousness

I finally made a beer for a hop head like myself. About 120 IBUs and 7.8% abv = some good stuff. Just to be hard on myself there is some room for improvement but I'm keeping the recipe around. So I kegged some and bottled some. I still need to come up with a fun label. The kegged beer tastes much better because I'm able to dial in a little more carbonation which really brings out the hop aroma and giving a nice creamy head on this beer. I compare this beer with an Avery Maharaja. It's a smoother IPA with a complex hop taste as opposed to just a powerful slap in the face hop taste. It keeps getting better every day in the keg. Maybe I didn't use enough corn sugar when bottling? I'm pretty sure this will go in my top 5 for June, but I've got a lot of days left in June so we'll see. If you're just now seeing my site for the first time there are a couple different posts about brewing this beer and the explosion on the ceiling it caused. This was an expensive and loaded beer made to enjoy and savor. Maybe I shouldn't be slamming so much down.