Brewpub

Saddle Mountain Brewing Company – Goodyear, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic A Better Life, Beer, Brewpub, Food, Goodyear, Greater Phoenix Area, Microbrewery, Wine

Located at 15651 W Roosevelt St, Goodyear, AZ 85338
Open Sun-Thurs 11a-10p; Fri & Sat 11a-11p
http://saddlemountainbrewing.com

Part 1 of a 3-part series called “A Better Life.”

SaddleMountain2.JPG

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for your favorite The Classy Alcoholic. Last you heard from me I reviewed the Taco Bell Chicken Chalupa Thing and stuffed Mexican food inside it then paired the results with Arizona craft beer. The whole experience sent me down a dark path. Before long I found myself hitting fast food joints in town at all hours of the night in a carb frenzy. I was chugging ranch dressing out of a beer bong and smoking pipes full of chicken nuggets.

It was a bad scene. After a few days of trying to figure out how to inject a French fry in between my toes I realized I needed to make some major changes before it became too late. I needed to go in search of A Better Life. So I reached out to a fan of mine named Justin Cross.

This guy was a homebrewer living in the Phoenix area who had plans to eventually open his own microbrewery. He was also a former Navy man who was in ridiculously good shape. He looked like a terrifying Hulk monster on his Instagram pics except not green. Normally I saw guys like him and felt sorry for them because they’ve never known the joy of a good beer and a hefty burger. But Justin loved craft beer and somehow still ended up being jacked as fuuuuuuck. We agreed to meet at Saddle Mountain Brewing Co. in the town of Goodyear. If anyone could point me toward the direction of a healthier lifestyle it would be this guy.

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The Drunk Knight – Part 3

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Flagstaff, Liquor, Microbrewery, Northern Arizona, The Drunk Knight, Wine

It’s all starting to come together in Part 3 of my 4-part story, “The Drunk Knight.” The Classy Alcoholic and his team head to Flagstaff to discover the full scope of the villain’s evil plan. Check out the “Short Stories” tab on the menu above or just click on the “Continue Reading” link below to follow along on my adventure!

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The Beer Research Institute – Mesa, AZ

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

Located at 1641 S Stapley Dr, Mesa, AZ 85024
Open Sun-Wed 11a-10p; Thu-Sat 11a-12a
http://www.thebeerresearchinstitute.com

Beer Research Institute (1)

The Beer Research Institute in Mesa is located on the grounds of the Mesa Grand Shopping Mall right next to the AMC movie theater, which is an awesome location for a microbrewery because I honestly haven’t been to a movie theater sober since I was a teenager and don’t understand how anyone else could do it either. Most movies are shit and the best way to make them at all interesting or hilarious is to be appropriately hammered. Like the time I drunkenly puked into my neighbor’s popcorn bucket while watching Paul Blart or The Avengers or Schindler’s List or whatever that movie  was.

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The Perch Pub & Brewery – Chandler, AZ

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

Located at 232 S Wall St, Chandler, AZ 85225
Open Mon-Fri 11a-1a; Sat-Sun 9a-1a
http://perchpubbrewery.com

The Perch (29)

Last time I was in the town of Chandler (which sits about half an hour southeast of downtown Phoenix) I paid a visit to SanTan Brewing Company without realizing that The Perch Pub & Brewery was just a couple of blocks away. I’m glad I made it back to Chandler because The Perch is a really cool place that’s worth a visit.

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Dubina Brewing Co. – Glendale, AZ

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

Located at 17035 N 67th Ave #6, Glendale, AZ 85308
Open Tues-Thurs 3p-10p; Fri 3p-12a; Sat 11a-12a; Sun 11a-9p
http://dubinabrewing.squarespace.com

Dubina (1)

On the morning of my visit to Dubina Brewing Co. I awoke from troubled dreams and found myself transformed in my bed into a horrible vermin. Like, with a brown belly, slightly domed and having six legs and shit. Once after a night of heavy drinking I woke up naked in my neighbor’s bathtub laying on top of seven stuffed teddy bears that were all wearing Spiderman masks for some reason. But even that wasn’t as weird as the morning I woke up as a beetle or roach or something.

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THAT Brewery – Pine, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Brewpub, Liquor, Microbrewery, Mogollon Rim, Northern Arizona, Pine, The Rural Brewer, Wine

Located at 3270 N Arizona Highway 87, Mile Marker 267, Pine, AZ 85544
Open Sun-Thurs 11a-8p; Fri-Sat 11a-9p
http://thatbrewery.com/

THAT (3)

The Classy Alcoholic has been through many adventures since the start of this blog and has already traveled through most of Arizona’s major cities. But there is another area that lies just between two of the more prominent regions. This area is called the Mogollon Rim and it’s pretty much equidistant between Phoenix and Flagstaff. This region starts in Yavapi County around I-17 on the west and extends about 200 miles to the east to nearly reach the New Mexico border. If you’re driving around this area you’ll start to discover a lot of long, rural roads with green landscapes that don’t feel like most people’s typical idea of Arizona.

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McFate Brewing Co. – Scottsdale, AZ

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

Located at 7337 E Shea Blvd, Ste 105, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Open Mon-Thurs 3p-1p; Fri & Sat 11a-11p; Sun 11a-10p
http://www.fatebrewing.com

Note that as of June 2016 Fate Brewing Co. has officially changed it’s name to McFate Brewing Co. after a legal battle with another brewery, also named Fate from Colorado or some shit. The original name is still used in this review as this was posted long before the name change.

Fate (2)

I know I give the greater Phoenix area a lot of shit. I’ve complained about the heat, the abundance of chain restaurants and stores, the cold, uninviting feeling of the city that makes you feel like a burden for even existing and the deep, dark despair  you feel after hours stuck in rush hour traffic. Like your own car is an oven and it’s slowly getting smaller and the constant stop-and-go on the highway starts to almost make you feel seasick while the brake lights of the car in front of you start blink on and off and start to mesmerize you, as if they’re blinking a secret message directly to you and you start to wonder if the Hyundai Sonata is trying to tell you that your life is meaningless and the job you’ll commute to every single day for the rest of your life is slowly eating away at your soul-

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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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