Year: 2015

Desert Eagle Brewing Company – Mesa, AZ

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

Located at 150 W Main St, Mesa, AZ 85201
Open Mon 3p-10p, Tue-Fri 3p-12a, Sat 11a-12p, Sun 11a-9p
www.deserteaglebrewing.com

Desert Eagle (2)

Arizona has a rich history and I try to learn a little bit about it each time I visit a new town while working on this blog. Today we’re in Historic Downtown Mesa, a suburb east of Phoenix and Tempe, visiting a place called Desert Eagle Brewing. I had with me my trusty pamphlet, issued by a group called the Mesa Preservation Foundation, that mapped Mesa’s Downtown Walking Tour.

Mesa (1)

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Gentle Ben’s Brewing Co. & Barrio Brewing Co. – Tucson, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Liquor, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona, Tucson

Gentle Ben’s located at 865 E University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85719
Open Mon-Sat 11a-10p; Sun 12p-10p
http://www.gentlebens.com

Barrio located at 800 E 16th St, Tucson, AZ 85719
Open Mon-Weds 11a-10p; Thurs-Sat 11a-12a; Sun 11a-9p
http://www.barriobrewing.com

Mining isn’t the only major industry in Arizona’s history. Ranching has also been a big part of the state’s economy for the past few hundred years. Today we’re back in Tucson. The town is located in Pima County which was home to a huge ranching boom in the late 1800s. It was such a big deal at the time that a law enforcement agency called the Arizona Rangers was created in 1901 primarily to deal with cattle thieves…and also to suppress striking Mexican miners but let’s not worry about that right now.

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Prescott Brewing Company – Prescott, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Liquor, Microbrewery, Prescott, Southern Arizona

Located at 130 W Gurley St, Prescott, AZ 86301
Open Sun-Thurs 11a-9p; Fri & Sat 11a-10p
https://www.prescottbrewingcompany.com

Prescott  Brewing Company is probably the polar opposite of the last brewery I visited in this town: Black Hole Beer Company. Prescott Brewing has a traditional sports bar feel and the place gets packed when there’s a big football game happening and has hostesses that tell you it’ll be twenty minutes before a table is available on a busy day. If Black Hole is the hip, young, new Indie band amassing cult appeal then Prescott Brewing is Coldplay. Shut up, I love Coldplay.

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SanTan Brewing Company – Chandler, AZ

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

Located at 8 S San Marcos Pl, Chandler, AZ 85225
Open Sun-Thurs 8a-11p; Fri & Sat 8a-12a
http://www.santanbrewing.com

SanTan (1)

The town of Chandler is a suburb of Phoenix with a long history of cotton farming. A few places in town have the word “historic” attached to them but I have to say that the term seems like a misnomer. I’ve written about other “historic” places like Bisbee, Prescott and Jerome. Chandler has a more modern, fabricated feel to it. Its cookie-cutter houses and major-chain-businesses make the place pretty much indistinguishable from the surrounding suburbs like Mesa and Gilbert. I don’t mean to shit on the town but I doubt I’d ever be making a trip to Chandler at all if I wasn’t visiting today’s microbrewery. Especially considering that the only strip club in town was closed for Easter Sunday, which totally screwed up my holiday plans something fierce.

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Charron Vineyards – Vail, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Sonoita/Elgin Wine Trail, Southern Arizona, Vail, Vineyard, Wine, Winery

Located at 1858 S Sonoita Highway, Vail, AZ 85641
Open Fri-Sun 10a-6p
http://www.charronvineyards.com

Charron (1)

Summer is coming. People who live in this state usually don’t have ambiguous feelings over that statement. They’re either incredibly relieved to be able to walk around in t-shirts and shorts and have longer stretches of sunlight in their days or they’re super pissed that it isn’t getting pitch black at 6PM anymore and that they can’t go outside in a suit without passing out from dehydration.

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Historic Brewing Company – Flagstaff, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Flagstaff, Microbrewery, Strippers

Located at 4366 E Huntington Dr, Flagstaff, AZ 86004
Open Wed-Fri 4p-9p; Sat & Sun 2p-7p
http://www.historicbrewingcompany.com

The last time we talked about Flagstaff we didn’t stray far from downtown and the two places I visited were just a few minutes walking distance away from each other. Today we’re taking Route 66 and heading about ten-to-fifteen minutes east of downtown to find a place called Historic Brewing Company. Don’t be afraid when the activity starts to die down and you find yourself crossing train tracks and wandering into an industrial park. You’re in the right place.

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Caduceus Cellars & Merkin Vineyards – Jerome, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Jerome, Northern Arizona, Verde Valley, Verde Valley Wine Trail, Vineyard, Wine, Winery

Located at 158 Main Street, Jerome, AZ 86331
Open Sun-Thurs 11a-6p, Fri-Sat 11a-8p, 365 days a year
https://caduceus.org

Caduceus (1)

Northern Arizona is home to a region called Verde Valley, which itself is home to what’s known as a “Wine Trail.” I haven’t brought this up in any of my previous posts about vineyards so far because they were all preoccupied with some bullshit short story or whatever but a Wine Trail is a region that’s conducive to growing grapes for wine production due to its elevation. Arizona has three main Wine Trails and each one has its own handful of vineyards/wineries/tasting rooms.

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Papago Brewing Co. – Scottsdale, AZ

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

Located at 7107 E McDowell Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257
Open Sun-Thurs 12p-12a; Fri-Sat 12p-2a.
http://papagobrewing.com

Papago (1)

This project has allowed me to travel to a lot of new places in Arizona, visit lots of wonderful breweries and drink lots and lots of fantastic beers. But after a while my travels can kinda blend together into a haze of half-remembered brews and leftover shame from all the times I’ve woken up pantsless in the backseat of a taxi cab that I probably tried to hijack, Collateral style.

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Arizona Hops and Vines – Sonoita, AZ

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

Located at 3450 Highway 82, Sonoita, AZ 85637
Open Thurs 10a-4p; Fri-Sun 10a-6p
http://azhopsandvines.com/

This is the 4th and final entry of my story, “A Rainy Day in Sonoita & Elgin.” Make sure to catch up on Part 1 here, Part 2 here and then Part 3 here. 

It was just after 4pm when I reached the Hops and Vines vineyard in Sonoita. The gray skies were getting darker and I knew that whatever passed for daylight on this day wasn’t gonna last much longer. The entrance to the place was marked by DIY-type signs that were vastly different from the polished looks of the other tasting rooms I had visited that day.

Hops & Vines (1)

I had heard Hops and Vines described as a cool, laid-back vineyard that organized fun, social events about once per month. They attract a pretty big crowd and they’re the young, hip vineyard on the block which is a nice complement to the older, more established places in town. It sounded exactly like the kind of place that Rosario would frequent. But none of the hip kids were out on this rainy day. The grounds were desolate and the tasting room was empty except for a handful of people.

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Oak Creek Brewing Co. – Sedona, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Northern Arizona, Sedona, Wine

Located at 2050 Yavapi Dr, Sedona, AZ 86336
Open Mon-Thurs 4p-Close; Friday-Sun 12p-Close
http://oakcreekbrew.com

Oak Creek (1)

I know that a lot of people equate Arizona with sadness, racism, regressive politics and sadness. And I can’t deny that any of those things are valid. Even someone as devoted to this state as I am can sometimes wonder what the hell he’s still doing here. Walk into most bars in Phoenix wearing a suit, tie and matching pocket square and just say the word, “Obama,” out loud and you’ll quickly start going online to figure out how much it costs to move to southern California. Like, you know it’s crazy expensive to live there but maybe you can live in the areas where the Mexicans without papers live? That can’t be too expensive, right?

Wrong! You’re too poor to live anywhere else, you loser. So you’re stuck here crying over your Fine Arts degree and wondering what you did to deserve such a torturous existence!

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