Greater Phoenix Area

Mother Bunch Brewing – Phoenix, AZ

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

Located at 825 N 7th St, Phoenix, AZ 85006
Open Mon-Thurs 11a-10p; Fri 11a-12a; Sat 10a-12a; Sun 10a-10p
motherbunchbrew.com

Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of my last review which was in the form of an epic, Oscar-worthy screenplay, I can proudly inform y’all that The Classy Alcoholic scored a meeting with a high-powered Hollywood executive who called me up and told me that he was interested in adapting my blog into a feature film. He said he would come to Phoenix because that was the only town in Arizona he had ever heard of and suggested we meet at Mother Bunch Brewing which is located off of North 7th St just south of the I-10.

I was impressed that this guy from California knew about any Arizona microbreweries but I figured my blog must be getting enough traction outside of the state to bring real awareness of our craft beer scene. I told him I’d meet him right where he wanted.

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Huss Brewing Company – Tempe, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Greater Phoenix Area, Microbrewery, Tempe

Located at 1520 W Mineral Rd, Tempe, AZ 85283
Open Mon-Thurs 3p-8p; Fri 3p-10p; Sat 12p-8p; Su 11a-2p
http://www.hussbrewing.com

Huss (1)

Hey, everybody! Today we’re visiting the southern region of Tempe, which is petty far removed from the part of town full of ASU college kids and Bro Bars. In fact, we’re in an area that looks more like an industrial park on our way to a place called Huss Brewing. The Arizona summer heat can seem pretty oppressive at times but today wasn’t too bad. I embraced the desert sun by shedding my suit jacket and wearing a blue dress shirt with a bright pink necktie. The outfit managed to represent my good mood this day.

Huss (3)

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Owl’s Orchard Brewery – Queen Creek, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Greater Phoenix Area, Microbrewery, Queen Creek

Unfortunately Owl’s Orchard Brewery has closed as of July 2016. This post will remain here in honor of the awesome brewery that once was and will never be again.

Owl's Orchard (7)

Owl’s Orchard is a brewery that’s literally run out of a guy’s garage. I know what you’re thinking: It sounds super shady. Just like my parents’ “businesses” that they used to run out of our home when I was a kid. I remember what a pain in the ass it was having to help my dad in the garage, bagging and packing all those slabs of delicious zebra meat.

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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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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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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 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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Cartel Coffee Lab – Tempe, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Greater Phoenix Area, Microbrewery, Phoenix, Tempe

Located at 225 W University Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281
Open 7 days per week from 10a-10p
http://www.cartelcoffeelab.com

This was a very exciting visit. Apparently Arizona is home to a coffee brewing company called Cartel Coffee Labs. All of their locations are in the greater Phoenix area, save for one shop in Tucson, and in the Spring of 2013 the Tempe location was granted a license to brew beer onsite.

Cartel1

I don’t know very much about Cartel because I’m not much of a coffee drinker at all. In fact, I’ve sworn off consuming any kind of stimulant ever since that time my dad caught me trying a little bit of the blow he always used to stash in the garage and, to teach me a lesson, he made me snort the whole bag. In his defense, though, he said that apart from teaching me a lesson there were also cops banging on the door right that second and that I would totally be doing him a solid if I got rid of the evidence. But my brief conversations with people who’ve been to Cartel reveal that they make great quality coffee and that it’s the favorite haunt of students or programmers who need some serious kick in their drink that’ll keep them up all night if need be.

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