Papago Brewing Co. – Scottsdale, AZ

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

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.

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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

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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The Village of Elgin Winery – Elgin, AZ

Located at 471 Elgin Rd, Elgin, AZ 85611
Open 7 days per week, 10a-4p.
http://elginwines.com

Part 3 of a 4-part story called “A Rainy Day in Sonoita & Elgin.” Make sure to read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

It was about 3pm when I reached The Village of Elgin Winery. I had hopped from Dos Cabezas Wineworks to Callaghan Vineyards meeting all manner of crazy characters in an attempt to track down my ex-girlfriend Rosario Vargas. Village of Elgin couldn’t have been more than five minutes east of Callaghan. The rain remained at a light, constant drizzle but the air kept getting chiller as the afternoon went on. I pulled up to a charming, rustic building. Village of Elgin has been around for 34 years, making it Arizona’s second-oldest winery.

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Beast Brewing Company – Bisbee, AZ

Located at 1326 W Highway 92 – #8, Bisbee, AZ 85603
Open Wed-Sat 12p-8p; Sun 12p-6p
http://beastbrewingcompany.com

Bisbee (1)

Before starting this blog my trips to Bisbee were spent entirely in what’s called “Old Bisbee.” This is the pedestrian-friendly hub where one can find restaurants, art galleries, bars, charming Victorian-style homes and tons of dirty hippies. It’s a wonderful place to spend a relaxing weekend and if you haven’t been you should absolutely make it a point to visit.

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Callaghan Vineyards – Elgin, AZ

Located at 336 Elgin Rd, Elgin, AZ 85611
Open Thurs-Sun 11a-4p
http://callaghanvineyards.com

Part 2 of a 4-part story called, “A Rainy Day In Sonoita & Elgin.” Make sure you read Part 1 here.

I left Dos Cabezas Wineworks and headed south on Highway 83 with Callaghan Vineyards as my destination. The highway curved left and then right while the rain came crashing down onto my windshield. The smacking of water on my car was so loud it felt like I was being warned to stop and turn back. This type of weather in Southern Arizona is an anomaly at best and a bad omen at worst. Callaghan was less than fifteen minutes away from where I started my drive but the heavy rain made it feel twice as long. I eventually reached Elgin Rd and turned left, where a small sign served as the only indication that I had left Sonoita and entered a separate town.

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

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

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

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

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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