Old Town Beer Exchange: Huntsville, Alabama

Why am I, a Minnesotan beer blogger, writing about a beer store in Alabama?  Why, I'm glad you asked!

My story begins way back in college at Emory in Atlanta.  There I met the woman who would eventually become my wonderful wife.  Her hometown was Huntsville, Alabama--home of Space Camp, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Redstone Arsenal, and a whole slew of Southerners.  As a larger city with so many technological jobs available, Huntsville has accumulated a fair number of folks from other states and countries (post WWII German scientists...) and as a result is a bit more metropolitan than a lot of other cities in the Deep South.  Also with all those scientists and engineers around, the geeky hobby of homebrewing has been popular for some time.  However, only in 2013 did the state legalize homebrewing, sneaking in just under the wire to get the hobby legalized and active before neighboring Mississippi.  Take that Mississippi!

When I first visited Huntsville, there was really no craft beer culture to speak of at all.  Nothing.  Several years later, (around 2005) I was excited to find Olde Towne Brewing had started up as the first craft brewery in the city.  Laws were still pretty strict, and brewery taprooms were not allowed.   In 2010 that brewery shut down, but they opened the door for several more craft breweries in town.  Since then Straight To Ale, Yellowhammer, Salty Nut, Blue Pants, and more have arrived on the scene.  Much like all of the USA, craft beer has arrived!  However, the caveat here is that the craft beer drinker is still much in the minority in the area, and the scene is still a bit fledgling compared to many other states and cities.

On a recent trip to Asheville, NC, my wife Sarajo and I decided to tack a few days onto our road trip and visit her mom in Huntsville.  We were excited to discover that one of Sj's high school class-mates, Bill Fowler, had just that week opened a beverage store specializing in craft beer.  We made sure to swing by the shop and he took some time to talk with us about his new venture.

The Old Town Beer Exchange is located, shockingly, in Olde Town, virtually across the street from Below the Radar Brewpub.  In a modern looking, somewhat understated building, a glass door with the OTBX logo emblazoned upon it welcomes one to the shop.  Inside, the place is cozy without being small.  Directly across from the entrance is a beautiful bar constructed of light-colored bricks from the old Coca-Cola Bottling plant in town, and topped with a ruggedly solid wooden bar top.  A large screen behind the bar lists all of the 32 craft beers they have on tap, with up to the minute information on how much beer is left in the keg!

To the left of the bar is the main store space, including refrigerated cases and copious shelf space for beers.  Windows are darkly tinted to discourage sunlight from injuring the beers on the shelves.  Some beers are organized by country (Belgium, Germany, Europ-ish), while American beers are organized by region rather than by style.  Bill tells me that he hopes this method of shelving will encourage people to discover other styles of beers by breweries they already enjoy, rather than automatically going to the IPA section and ignoring all the other good products to be found.  I like it!  They had a great selection of imports, larger regional breweries like Stone and Lagunitas, as well as a good amount of beers from Alabama and The South. So many of these beers are not available where I live, that I was like a kid in a candy store while exploring!  Oh, and they have a selection of wines in the center of the store if you are not a huge beer fan.

Bill sat down with us at one of the sturdy tables along the outside edge of the place.  I could tell he was busy--putting out small fires (not literal ones), greeting new and returning customers, organizing for the upcoming Rocket City Brewfest, etc.  I really appreciate him taking the time to hang out with us and tell his story.

Bill and three local friends had been planning this venture since the spring of 2014, combining backgrounds of medical sales, software CEO, law, and marketing into a cohesive whole.  The one thing the group shared was a love of craft beer and the desire to see a higher quality and availability of craft beer in Huntsville.  The company's tag line is "Southern, Craft, Culture".  After talking to Bill I truly feel that this is not just a clever marketing tool, but a credo that the owners live by.  Bill talked extensively about his desire to create a better craft beer environment in Huntsville, but in a way that embraces the deep (and sometimes shunned or ignored) history of the area.  As a start to this, they sourced as many things from the local area as possible for the building itself--from that amazing bar, to the reclaimed barn wood for tables, to the local craftsmen who fashioned them into usable furniture.  We did get to meet the talented carpenter, Ben Niemitz, and I could feel the pride in his work radiating out of him as he watched all the folks clustered around that bar.

While we talked, Sj and I shared some Minnesota beers with the staff, including Surly Pentagram and Schells Black Forest.  Bill shared a couple of local beers with us as well, including Straight To Ale's 5th Anniversary Belgian Quad that was lovely.  Meanwhile people continued to flow through the place at a steady clip--ordering a beer at the bar, wandering about eyeing the shelves of beer, and just plain enjoying themselves.  All of the folks working at OTBX were incredibly friendly, excited about what they were doing, and Bill hopes to have everyone properly Ciccerone (basically a beer sommelier) trained to improve and maintain their beer knowledge.



Some interesting notes as a Minnesotan visiting a beer store in Alabama before I wind down.  Despite being slow to legalize homebrewing and still having dry counties, Alabama has been rapidly improving its beer-related blue laws in the past few years.  A lot of that push has come from grassroots groups like Free The Hops.  Now breweries can sell on-premise and have taprooms.  As of 2012 Alabamanians can buy 750 ML bottles (now that one was a dinosaur!).  And you can buy beer on Sunday.  Oh, and you can get growlers filled with commercial beer at beer stores!  There are a few onerous restrictions remaining like brewpubs only being allowed in a county that had a brewery prior to Prohibition (seriously, what?) and not being able to bottle beers.  Still, considering how far behind this state was, they have made up time quickly, resulting in a new and vibrant craft beer scene in the area.  Here in Minnesota, we mainly struggle these days with being one of the few states to still outlaw Sunday liquor sales (resulting in a mass migration into Wisconsin every weekend), and our beer/liquor stores can't serve pints or fill growlers.  Strange but impressive that the traditionally conservative Deep South is lapping us on some of these issues!

Beyond just sharing his valuable time, Bill also went above and beyond the fabled Southern Hospitality by giving the two of us tickets to the next evening's Brewfest.  Getting to a brewfest in my wife's home town?  Amazing!  Oh, I'll be writing that experience up as well since it had some interesting differences from such fests back home...We had a fantastic time visiting the Old Town Beer Exchange and wish them much prosperity in the days to come.  I also hope that Bill and his partners can really have an impact on continuing to improve the craft beer scene in Huntsville for the future.  I know I'm more excited about heading back to town next time!

Outskirts of Pittsburgh, PA

Previously I wrote about the cool breweries we visited in Pittsburgh, PA.  Those entries are HERE and HERE.  While writing those I realized I wasn't quite done with my beer travelogue...and had some cool non-beer pics I wanted to post!  So here is the wrap up for our recent trip:

Let us talk of Ligonier, Pennsylvania.  This is a really cool, sleepy little colonial looking town that grew up on the site of a historic British fort from the era of the French and Indian war.  It just drips with classic Norman Rockwell mid-America from times long past.  This is a good thing.  For fall several of the local groups and stores made fun scarecrows that were situated around the picturesque town diamond.  Our B&B at Thistledown was a fine old medical building converted to a new and relaxed place to stay the night and have a made-to-order breakfast.  Several art galleries, antique stores, ice cream parlors, etc. all abound around the diamond and the nearby roads. 

Many stores have limited hours, especially Monday and Tuesday, so the place felt a little abandoned and ghost-towny during our initial stay there.  This was accentuated by the town being made up for Halloween.  Occasionally we would pass a local resident, often garnering a squinty-eyed and suspicious baleful glare rather than a welcoming smile.  We had some good leisure time over our trip to walk around the town, check out the reconstructed fort just down the road, and finally explore some shops once they opened up.  There is no nightlife in this town.  Five PM hits and the streets roll up and empty like some weird episode of the Twilight Zone, where all the folks shutter their windows and bar the doors to hide out until daybreak! 

Once the shops have closed up there are only two games in town for a drink that are walkable. 

1) The first is the old fashioned Joe's Bar, featuring 1950's décor and over 220 taxidermied creatures.  Sj and I opened the door to look in, but instantly knew that this was not our place and these were not our people.  This is the local drinking-man's establishment that hasn't changed much in 50 years.  I didn't look close but I doubt they have heard of craft beer yet.



2) The best option for us was the Ligonier Lanes Bowling Alley, and the attached bar with the improbable name of The Wicked Googly.  Yup, you read that correctly!  We ended up here on the first night we arrived (after our brewery hopping in Pittsburgh earlier that afternoon) since it was a block from our B&B, and was actually open.  We ended up here pretty much every night we were in Ligonier.  They actually had a pretty good selection of 10 craft beers on tap and more in bottles, making this an ideal stop for me.  However, the servers (all of them) knew next to nothing about the beers, and one had to walk over to the bar to look at the hand written list of beers.  The place has a restaurant with pretty amazing chicken wings in several different dry rubs and sauces.  Our first night we took advantage of the lanes and did some bowling while sipping on Imperial Stout and Pumpking. 

Four Seasons!

Sj next to the cute little brew system at Four Seasons

Not far from Ligonier we discovered a cute little brewery in Latrobe called Four Seasons Brewing Company.  We went by during the limited growler sale times, but at that point they were still working on getting clearance to finish the tap room and serve pints.  A large bar was under construction in one half of the warehouse getting ready for taproom hours.  They were very friendly to us there and let us sample all the beers.  They actually just won a silver medal at GABF for their oatmeal stout...but they didn't have any on tap for us to try.  I cried a little inside.  They had a very good Kolsch and a bright and clovey Belgian Single that I really liked. 

Thinking we were going to a BYOB restaurant for dinner, we had grabbed a growler of the Single and headed out.  And of course the restaurant had an open sign in the window, but was closed.  We ended up eating at Carol & Dave's Roadhouse for dinner and they actually had a nice local IPA on tap from Rivertowne.  Not nearly enough Swayze, nor bare knuckle fist fights to be a proper Roadhouse though!

Outside areas of the Phipps Conservatory.

The next day we were back in Pittsburgh again to see the Phipps Conservatory and I had a chance to snap some pictures of cool plants within the sheltering confines of tons of glass.  No time for breweries, this time, but our local guide Andrew directed us to The Headkeeper Tapas Bar in Greensburg about half way back to Ligonier.  This place had 600 varieties of beer to choose from, including a large local selection.  Interestingly most of these were bottles in a huge wall of beautiful coolers.  Only 10 beers on tap, but still too many to choose from!  One can buy bottles to drink there or to take home with you.  I wanted to go back, but we only made the one stop.  Not local, but Sj and I split the fantastic Elysian Dark of the Moon pumpkin stout.  Outside they had a large comfortable patio area heated by propane lamps.

We had a great and relaxing trip, and I was happily surprised that we found as much to do in the area as we did.  The craft beer scene is growing rapidly, but most of the places we found were only about a year or so old.  I'd put this area at where Minneapolis was about 3-4 years ago, but coming on fast. Thanks to Andrew Thornton for hosting us while we were there, to Chip Walton for suggesting some of the places we went to, and to everyone who we met on this fun side-trip! 

Historic Ligonier welcomes all strangers with open arms...er...with spiky walls and cannons?

Pittsburgh Beer Scene Part 1

This has been a month of travels.  Just on the heels of a wonderful adult childhood trip to Disneyland, Sj and I set sail (ok we flew) for Pittsburgh, PA.  The real reason we took this trip was to take part in a book club run by Andrew Thornton at his Allegory Gallery in small town Ligonier, PA.  A long way to go for a book club?  Yes, but it was loads of fun, and we needed a more relaxing trip after the crowd-filled chaos of Disney.  We arrived at the Pittsburgh airport and headed down to Hertz to get our rental car.  The line was long and some (probably) drunk yahoos in line behind us were getting surly, nearly getting security called on them.  While I am slightly sad that I missed the chance to see someone getting tazed, it probably would have slowed down the rental process even more. 



At a recommendation from Chip Walton of Chop & Brew and Brewing TV fame, we headed right from the airport to get lunch at the Piper's Pub.  This was a little old fashioned pub, filled with soccer fans eagerly watching "football" and putting back full British sized pints of beer.  The bar area is small and somewhat loud, but gives a better view of the taps than the 1950's era restaurant seating in the back.  They always have at least two cask beers (I had Duck Rabbit Milk Stout) and a very good selection of local and British ales.  Lots of traditional English, Irish, Scottish fare are present in the menu and we both ended up with the tasty and incredibly mouth-scorchingly hot lamb stew.  A nice way to ease into the beer culture of Pennsylvania! 

From there we headed to Roundabout Brewery.  This is a pretty new brewery and the tap room is small and somewhat spartan.  While we were attempting to park around the corner and dodge a poorly parked drunk-bus, the burly-vested-shade-wearing driver strutted into the middle of the street in front of us while talking loudly on his cell phone.  After some rude hand motions all around, we parked and made our way into the Lilliputian sized tap room.  Luckily the drunks from the bus were on their way out and things got a bit quieter.  The lady serving at the doll-sized bar was still very busy but quite pleasant and got us a sampler of all 5 beers.

The beers at Roundabout were all very good.  The Trompe le Monde was a pretty good clone of La Fin du Monde from Unibrou, made with locally sourced honey.  The Hy-PA was a wonderfully balanced IPA made with Chinook and New Zealand Montueka hops, and I would gladly drink this every day.  But by far our favorite was the Jacked Up O'Lantern Stout: one of the best pumpkin spiced beers I've had, made with local La Prima espresso coffee.  We bought a small growler of that beer to have in our hotel room later in the trip.  I really liked the vibe and the beers here (and they had a cheese plate and meat pies for the hungry drinkers!)  Our server gladly suggested some other places to check out, giving us a small booklet on the Pittsburgh Libation Trail, as well as a few that weren't in the book.  I've seen a similar publication in Bend, OR, but they have a prize if you get to all the breweries...

 

Next up was Hop Farm Brewing Company, just a few blocks from Roundabout.  I mean it was right there, so we had to stop right?  This was another industrial building surrounded by quasi-decrepit warehouses.  The small taproom featured a small bar that the wife and I bellied up to.  We ordered the sampler to try all the beers they had available, though both of us were getting a bit full by this time.  There is not a lot of info online about this new brewery, but it looks like they grow some or all of their own hops.  We had a good server, who was helpful about finding other local places to check out.  I wish I had liked the beers as much as I liked the mixed rural/urban taproom feel.  The Cherry Bomb was an Imperial Berliner with sweet cherries, but just didn't taste right.  There was a lime basil (the plant) saison that was an interesting concept, but just not fermented right--too much sulfurous essence to the aroma and flavor that overwhelmed the subtle spicing.  The One Nut Brown was probably the best of the group and the only sample we finished.  Sorry guys, you have some growing up to do yet. 

By now it was starting to get late, with dusk dropping upon us earlier from the shortening days of fall.  Our server at Roundabout had strongly suggested we try the new (5-6 months old) The Brew Gentlemen, but they were only open that day during our scheduled trip.  Since our last stop had been fast and somewhat disappointing, we opted for a quick drive-by sampling on our way out of town.  Located in (shocking) another industrial steel area in Braddock, PA, this building had a wonderful metal and wood charm to it, inside and out.  In true Pittsburgh fashion, folks in Steelers gear were outside grilling up food in the parking lot when we arrived.  A nearly empty seating area just inside the main doorway led to the bar area that was much more bustling.  The two young bartenders were dressed in slacks, dapper vests, and ties--a big step up from pretty much all other taprooms I've seen.  We found a couple chairs at the bar (for easy access to the taps) and ordered a mix of samples that all came out in small stemmed cognac glasses.  They had a lot of beers on tap, with a huge variety.  Saisons rubbed elbows with IPA, and wheat beers.  To celebrate fall they had no less than three pumpkin spiced beers: a stout, a saison, and an amazing maple flapjack beer!  But the winner for both myself and Sj was the Chipotle DIPA.  Seriously who puts chipotle in an IPA?  Keep in mind that both of us love spicy food and this beer may not fly with my Minnesota (black pepper is too spicy!) compatriots. 

Whilst raving about the beers we discovered that both of the young gentlemen serving us were owners, and that the brewer was even younger.  Am I getting old that I call 24 young?  Yup.  We got to discuss the beers a bit with friendly Co-Founder/Creative Director Asa Foster, but the taproom was getting busy and we had to get rolling.  Our bed & breakfast was in Ligonier, another hour and a half drive through the mountainous and now dark countryside!  If the tap room had been open more days, I would have come back every day of my trip.  Overall I think that Brew Gentlemen is the one to watch on the Pittsburgh craft beer scene.  Not since early Surly Brewing have I seen such a bold and well done grouping of beers in such a recent brewery.  Well done Sirs, well done!

Steel Town!

At this point poor Sj had to drive our rental car all the way to our B&B while I continued to rave about Maple Flapjack ale.  I did help spot for deer, and counted a plethora carcasses laying sprawled on or near the road.  We made it safely, but ended up heading back to Pittsburgh the next day for more adventures (To Follow).

Up Next: 30 Word Thursday

The Bruery, Placentia, CA

 

On a recent anniversary trip to Disneyland, I discovered that one of my favorite breweries was a short cab ride away from our temporary home of the Grand Californian Hotel.  I have tried several of The Bruery's amazing beers over the past few years, but there is no Minnesota distribution, so they are hard to get my hands on.  Their most sought after beer is probably Black Tuesday--an insanely strong and sweet bourbon barrel aged Imperial stout.  The oddly spelled name stems from the owner/brewer's name: Patrick Rue.

The view from our section of the bar...

Taking a break from the (dry) Disneyland fun on this particular Sunday, Sj and I hopped in a cab for the short jaunt to the small industrial park where the brewery is located.  When we arrived we asked our driver what the best way to get a cab back would be.  He said he could wait an hour for us (which seemed strange) but we didn't want to tie ourselves down on time.  More on this later.  The simple but large tasting room was fairly full when we arrived, but we were able to snag a couple of seats at the long bar.  Nearly everyone there had wooden sample tray in front of them, almost no pints of beer were being poured--very different from the average tap room.  Near the entrance they had a sign up for tours and sheets of paper with written descriptions of the 32 tap beers and another for their bottled options to take home.  Tastefully framed versions of their bottle labels decorate the walls behind the bar...and not so tastefully slapped all over the place in the bathrooms.  Behind the bar they also had a not-so-secret stash of bottles to be bought for on premises drinking--including some pretty hard to find stuff like the barrel aged Bois.

Stainless and bottles...so many pretty bottles!

Our servers were awesome.  Instead of rolling their eyes at us for waffling on our sampler orders, we received great advice, and perfect hospitality.  Frankly I am seldom confused by beer menus, but this thing was so huge and many of the beers were high-test, so I was a bit boggled.  With help from our servers and from the nice "regular" lady seated next to us we were finally able to order a few rounds of samples.  The samplers came in a cool wooden crate carrier and were all served in little snifter glasses.  Most of these were pretty pricey, but all were worth it!  In addition to just a huge list of beers, they also had a couple of mini flights with either different vintages or different treatments of the same beer (oaked, cocoa nibs, etc.)  They had a couple of options only for their Reserve Society members...one of the perks of joining. 

Seriously, have you ever seen this many beers from one brewery?

 

 

We ended up getting several groupings of beer, each seemingly more impressive than the last.  A few didn't hit the mark--the Coffee Smoking Wood comes to mind (just too astringent.)  Favorites were the malt-bomb barleywine Mash and its coconut incarnation.  I was also a huge fan of the hoppy, bretty saison Atomic Kangaroo.  A tour was going to leave about halfway through our debauched tasting, but I didn't want to let our seats go in the rapidly filling up taproom.  Oh, and I wanted to keep trying more amazing beers!  Sj and I had planned an hour or so for the tasting, but even without the tour we ended up spending closer to two hours at the taproom.  To counter some of the booze, we ended up needing some food from the cleverly placed food truck outside the brewery. 

We ended up buying a whole case of beer to take home with us (we had brought an empty Styrofoam shipper to Disney for just this purpose) as you get 15% off a full case of 750 ML bottles.  We also lucked out and were there during the special release of White Chocolate--a big and chocolaty wheat wine.  Between the obscene amount of samples we tried, $30 White Chocolates, and all the rest--this was not our cheapest brewery visit!

Word to the wise on visiting by cab: one can get there easily, but getting back home can be more problematic.  We had the friendly bar staff call us a cab when we were wrapping up our buying spree, but 25 minutes later no-one had arrived to pick us up.  After another call we were assured that a car was 5 minutes away.  By this time were both really ready to get our big heavy box of beers back to the hotel and get back to Magical Disney activities.  After 15 minutes I called another company (Yellow Cab) and they said they would get someone out for us.  After 15 more minutes someone got dropped off at the brewery and we dove for the cab before he could leave the parking lot.  30 minutes later (after finally arriving back home) I got a call from the Yellow Cab telling me that they still didn't have anyone to pick us up.  So plan ahead or rent a car!

I love the beers from The Bruery with a passion.  This was a holy pilgrimage for me and other than the cab issue was one of the best taproom visits I have ever had!  I'm looking forward to slowly doling out my spoils over the coming months to prolong the memory and experience.  If you get out that way--this place is a must visit.  And if you can get access to their beers in your market: do so now!

Finding Craft Beer Around Disneyland

Recently my wife and I celebrated our (lucky) 13th anniversary by taking a trip to Disneyland in California.  We did our honeymoon at Disneyworld in Florida, but this was my first time in CA.  I could write a book on our adventures in and around the parks, but since this is a beer blog, I'm going to focus on that!  Let's just say this about Annaheim: the craft beer revolution has been slow to arrive there.  I was able to find a few options for good beer, but had to search hard for them! 

We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel right on Disney property, making for a very convenient commute into the parks.  This massive edifice of housing is quite impressive, clean and comfortable, but it can take you a while to traverse the length of it!

Disneyland itself is completely dry...being a family place and all.  This was very noticeable when we had a nice dinner in the Blue Bayou restaurant within the Pirates of the Carribean ride.  We had options of soft drinks, virgin mojitos, or lemonade to go with our main dishes.  Wine or beer would have been wonderful here! 

After a long afternoon of Disneyland chaos I was happy to find that our hotel Hearthstone Bar was open late and had a few options for craft beer (including Racer 5 IPA and Firestone Walker Double Barrel in bottles.) 

Accessed directly from our hotel, we were also able to visit Disney California Adventure (DCA).  This is the newer area of Disney, focused more on the Pixar era with giant mock ups of Cars scenery, Bug's Life, and even my old favorites the Muppets.  I discovered that Karl Strauss Brewing had a beer truck selling $8 pints of beer in plastic cups hidden away near the Wharfside eating area.  The beers were nothing stellar, but at least they were available!  The IPA was probably the best of them. 

Downtown Disney is the nightlife spot just outside the parks and hotels, with some Disney owned restaurants and shops as well as others like the House of Blues and Rainforest Café.  Most of these close pretty early (around 10 when we were there) so getting a night cap is unlikely at most places.  I think the best options for beers we discovered was at the Catal Restaurant and Uva bar.  They had about 10 taps at the bar and 5 in the restaurant, as well as some bottled beers to choose from.  I had a HUGE glass of Valiant DIPA that about did me in with my wonderful meal.  I highly recommend that place for dinner and beers! 

One would be remiss not to mention that The Bruery is a 15-20 minute cab ride from Disney property and have an amazing tap room.  I'll be writing that visit up separately!

So there you have it...a pretty short list, but I searched high and low and that is about as good as you will find right there at Disneyland.  I had a wonderful trip and really enjoyed the differences between the California and Florida experiences.  I do like drinking my way around the countries in Epcot though...