Month: January 2015

Beaver Street Brewery & Lumberyard Brewing Co. – Flagstaff, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Flagstaff, Liquor, Microbrewery, Northern Arizona

Beaver Street is open Sun-Wed 11a -1a and Thurs-Sat 11a-2a
Located at 11 South Beaver Street #1, Flagstaff, AZ 86001
http://www.beaverstreetbrewery.com

Lumberyard is open Sun-Tues 11a-11p and Weds-Sat 11a-2a
5 South San Francisco Street, Flagstaff, AZ 86001
http://www.lumberyardbrewingcompany.com

BeaverStreet (4)

Flagstaff is the most un-Arizona place in Arizona that we’ve been to so far. The drive in to town is accentuated by pine trees, and if you don’t think it’s weird to see green trees in the Arizona desert then you’ll definitely be blown away by the sight of snowy mountains off in the distance. Historic downtown Flagstaff is home to four breweries and two more can be found by driving 10 to 15 minutes east on Route 66. We’ll talk about those two some other time though because today we’re sticking to downtown. For the first time in the blog’s history we’re talking about two locations in one post. I know that seems like cheating but like I’ve told many an ex-girlfriend before: it’s not cheating because they’re related, baby.

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Dos Cabezas Wineworks – Sonoita, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic A Rainy Day in Sonoita & Elgin, Sonoita, Sonoita/Elgin Wine Trail, Southern Arizona, Vineyard, Wine

Located at 3248 Highway 82, Sonoita, AZ 85637
Open Thurs-Sun 10:30a-4:30p
http://www.doscabezaswineworks.com

Part 1 of a thrilling, 4-part story called, “A Rainy Day in Sonoita & Elgin.”

The small town of Sonoita can be found an hour south of Tucson if you’re heading east on I-10 and about two hours away from the state line if you’re heading west. This is Arizona’s oldest wine country along with the neighboring town of Elgin. There are almost a dozen wine tasting rooms in the area and most of them are within ten minutes of each other.

Before we  continue I’ll mention that I use the word vineyard quite often on this site without ever mentioning the word “winery.” A vineyard is the field where grapes are grown (a “yard of vines,” so to speak) to be harvested for wine production. A winery is the place where the production actually happens; where the grapes are crushed, fermented, bottled, etc. For this project I’ll be visiting places that have tasting rooms where you can sit and drink wine as well as buy bottles. These places may only be wineries that actually produce the wine while their vineyards may not be on site. Dos Cabezas, for example, produces wine harvested from several vineyards, a couple of which are in separate towns. And ultimately I’ll be using the word “vineyard” to describe all of these places because I just like the way the word sounds as opposed to the word “winery.”  I just wanted to make sure you knew I knew the difference.

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Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. – Gilbert, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Gilbert, Greater Phoenix Area, Microbrewery

Located at 721 N Arizona Ave #103, Gilbert, AZ 85233
Open Mon-Thurs 11a-11p; Fri-Sat 11a-1a; Sun 11a-10p
http://www.azwbeer.com

AZWilderness2

I’ll be honest, I hate the outdoors. I’ve mentioned before that Arizona is a great place for people who like hiking and camping and mountain biking. But I’m a total city slicker and my sole experience with the outdoors in this state is the time I was told to hike through the Sonoran desert carrying only a compass, one gallon of water and a handgun with a single bullet in the chamber courtesy of a bunch of guys who told me that if I made it back to the city alive they would forgive my astronomical gambling debt to them.

But even I get a little frustrated with urban living when we’re discussing the greater Phoenix area. I’ve given you my fair share of complaints about this place before but I haven’t mentioned how I especially hate having to distinguish the half-a-dozen or so suburban cities surrounding Phoenix when they could all just really be collectively known as “Phoenix” and then we can just call it a day and go drink. Hey, Scottsdale and Tempe and Glendale and Mesa and Gilbert and all these other towns, all of you are just fucking Phoenix.

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O.H.S.O. Eatery + nanoBrewery – Phoenix, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Greater Phoenix Area, Liquor, Microbrewery, Phoenix

Located at 4900 E Indian School Rd, Phoenix AZ 85018
Open Mon-Thu 11a to 12a; Fri 11a-1:30a; Sat 9a-1:30a; Sun 9a to 12a
http://ohsobrewery.com

I was very interested in going to this joint called O.H.S.O. mainly because they refer to themselves as a “nanobrewery.” That term basically amounts to large-scale homebrewers, like the Schraderbrau Brewing Company in New Mexico.

schraderbrau

I was excited to learn about the operation because it’s been a personal goal of mine to start a nanobrewery after running a successful picobrewery out of my toilet for the past year. Mapping the location of Original Horse Stable Odyssey (or whatever) was a bit confusing when I realized the place was pretty close to downtown Scottsdale. I say confusing because Scottsdale is a pretty tony suburb and I imagined a nanobrewery would be such a small, upstart operation that it would be based out of a toolshed in the backyard of a South Phoenix house where Coyotes stash all their illegals.

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