Not much brewing on  the home front. I will bottle the Dick’s Danger Ale tonight, if can find enough empty bottles.

We just returned from a trip to Nashville and Knoxville Tennessee. I am impressed with the scenery, the music and the some of the local beers. We arrived in Nashville on Tuesday the 8th of November. We checked into he hotel about 2:30 PM and Kathy said lets head downtown….  I thought it was a bit early but decided to humor her. It turned out to be a good choice. Our first stop down on Broadway St. was the Big River Grille and Brewing Works. http://www.bigrivergrille.com/ The food was Ok but the beers were pretty tasty. Kathy liked the Nashville Steamer Golden Ale. I had to try two and chose the House IPA – it was pretty good, not overly hopped but still tasty and the Sweet Magnolia Brown Ale.

We then wandered off to sample some more and to find some music. We found both! Yazoo is a local beer, both on tap and as we found out later, in bottles. The Hop Project is a very cool beer. Every batch is different, Batch 61 is out today and I sampled batch 60 – it was outstanding. check it out. http://yazoobrew.blogspot.com/ I also sampled the Dos Perros ale and enjoyed it as well. Kathy went with her old standard – Blue Moon Belgian Wit….. she is not quite as adventurous but is broadening her palate.  I have heard her reply to someone, usually a woman (will that get me in trouble?) – when they say all beer is the same and she then proceeds to educate them.. I love it. I did drink a few PBR’s as it wanted to lighten the ABV load for the evening. My lovely wife surprised me with a nice room at the Marriott and lo and behold – it came equipped with a jacuzzi tub….. hmmmmm. It was a nice surprise. Nuff said! The musis…. For a Tuesday night it was superb. I am ready to go back and maybe even dance a little.

We then wandered off to Knoxville to see our son Ben swim at the UT invite. He swam well and Kathy and I got to explore a bit more. The beer exploration included two trips to the Downtown Grill and Brewery on Gay St. Some nice beers on tap. Over the two visits I manged to sample 5 beers from the list, The White Mule Ale, the Woodruff IPA…I like!, the New World Porter…. Ok but not as good as the State Street Stout – tasted a bit like my stout, and the Downtown Nut Brown Ale. Kathy stuck with the very pleasant and easy to drink Downtown Blonde Ale.  http://downtownbrewery.com/The_Beer.html

We went to a place called Cafe4 for lunch one day and they had a local beer on tap made by Marble City. The waiter said it was a stout and I decided to try it. Well, when he brought the beer out is was a nice amber color and definitely not a stout. He checked with the the bar and they insisted it was the stout…..I think the delivery guy didn’t swap out the handle. The beer was a bit sweet and had a bit of spice flavor.  I looked up  the brewery offerings on my iPhone and it appears I was drinking the seasonal beer. It was definitely the Spiced Pumpkin Ale. A day later we went down the Old City Knoxville and found a little market that had beer on draught as well as growlers to go. They had a couple of  the Marble City offerings. http://mcb2.syncslate.com/our-beer/ No stout…… but I tried Dad’s Dime Ale and the Nectar Rubus….a rasberry wheat ale. Nice beers. I also had a South Carolina beer by RJ Rockers called Buckwheat After Dark Ale a Dunkelweizen… I really liked this one. http://www.rjrockers.com/page.asp?p_key=62A5E5C200184ECDB2D69B6C1AEF1E58&ie_key=587AF451F7AF42E497B18737E009A050

We tool a drive up into the Great Smoky Mountains – wow= really nice and an afternoon drive is severl days too few! We should be back in February again.

Kathy and Bishop - Big River Grille and Brewery