BEERtrekkin ~ Minneapolis Day 01

When I first woke up yesterday morning there wasn’t a temperature outside which I wasn’t sure to take as a portend of doom or a unique fluke of nature perpetuated my man’s want to categorize everything. Not a bad thing (usually) but definitely a point of amusement more times than not.

Still no luck on uploading the pics yet, but I will as soon as I can. With two days worth of pics to upload and turn into a slideshow and beer review pics to upload, resize, and edit, it’ll be a busy online time for sure. The sis has a nice Mac in their office that isn’t an issue. The issue is the fact that their Internet is Comcast and the router won’t recognize my laptop when I hook it up via a proper cable. Weird, yes I know.

Watching The Today Show as I type and they are doing a bit on legal moonshine. Mm… moonshine. At one time, even the finest single-malts, blends, whiskies, bourbons, and so forth were “moonshine”, a spirited beverage of maybe not so legal distillation. I am quite pleased though to report that as of today, all the above have flourished which is sweet tasty news to my tastebuds. even better, moonshine in all her old-school traditional corn-fed glory can be quite tasty as proven by the new modern boon of traditionalism, heritage, and innovation.

We were going to go to QFanatic for lunch yesterday but ultimately ended up at going to Burger Jones which had also made an appearance on Outrageous Foods. While we didn’t go for the Meat Challenge we definitely enjoyed our burgers and our beers. I was a bit let down based solely on how the Food Network pimped it out, but that’s also the difference between TV Goggles and reality. Speaking of reality, our Beer Battered Cheese Curds and our Royal Mounted Bacon Poutine were most tastetastic. The cheese curds melted in the mouth and the Bacon Poutine was much lighter than any of us were expecting (considering the bacon, cheese, and gravy contained within) which is good because we still had our burgers to snarf. Beer wise I tasted and savored a Surly CynicAle and rounded it off with some Knob Creek, neat, water on the side. Mm… bourbon. I’ve been craving a dram of something good and Burger Jones took care of that for me. Seeing as burgers are what Jones does, I went for The Hangover (minus the hot sauce), Jenn got the The Chubby Cheddar, and Josh got the El Cubano. All were good and mine was cooked to almost medium rare perfection.

If I may be honest here for a moment because I believe in honesty…
The burger meat was good but it wasn’t BrewGrrs burger meat good. Decent flavor but not bursting with it or melting in the mouth like butter as the BrewGrrs burgers due when cooked to perfection. Of course, perfection is an illusion but can also be a well-mannered goal to strive for so long as one keeps the previous notion in the forefront. My bacon was great as bacon always is and of course as a t-shirt whore I snagged one for myself: "Burger Jones: If you've got the shakes we've got the burgers."
Bwahahahahahaha!!!
And just to clarify, if it had been BrewGrrs good, than I would have gladly said so. As a burgundian tis my privilege, my duty, and my pleasure. In the meantime, ideas and inspiration abounds for when I get back home to my Love and my work.

Thanks to a random coupon in the mail, we stopped at a local L’Occitane shop so I could apprehend some 25% Shea Body Cream for my oh-so-dry legs. My skin has always been sensitive, so I am glad to finally find the most heavenly cream to make my legs happy.

Too much information?
You’ll get over it.

Let’s see… what else…

Ah yes.
As a beer geek ambassador extraordinaire, of course there was more beer shopping to do. No Pairings yet and I have decided not to since we made a random stop into France 44 Wine & Spirits, a liquor store around the Burger Jones area. Overall, pretty snappy. I didn’t bother browsing the spirits because that could have been deadly for my checking account. Seriously. As for beer, the mix & match 12oz singles were a mixed bag. I ended up with 5 bottles that range from kind of scary to I think it’ll be good. But hey, that’s what tasting beer is all about. I also grabbed some 22oz bombers, a few 750mls, and two very special magnums. The magnums? You’ll just have to check the slideshow below to see if you get a sneak peek. I could have gotten so much more, but control is a good thing if not always easy. This coming week has some very special days I want to be ready for and ready I will be.
 Today’s stopover is going to be The Happy Gnome in St. Paul, the twin to Minneapolis and thus the name Twin Cities. The goal is to get there in time for brunch so shall see what happens. Either way, there will be food and there will be brews, brunch or lunch. Maybe even some t-shirts…

And so as the coffee starts to work her magic, Au Revoir my friends.



(an original written work by Kristyn Lier. plagiarism is not tolerated)