bell's funvitational 2015

The point when I realized it was too cold for shorts.

There are a lot of beer festivals. Like, a lot of beer festivals, especially because we live in Michigan, where there's a new brewery every twelve seconds (okay maybe more like twelve weeks) and there's nothing the vast majority of Michiganders like better than looping twine through giant sourdough pretzels & packets of beef jerky to maraud around in a field/parking lot/park/etc., potentially soggy & freezing or sweaty and what feels like actually melting, to taste tiny samples of weird ass beers while "accidentally" forgetting to turn in their tokens.

So, there are a lot of beer festivals in Michigan. I have been to a lot of beer festivals in Michigan (and elsewhere for that matter - shout out to Indianapolis, Chicago, and Toronto!), but nobody else yet has done it the way Bell's did it for their 30th anniversary.

Granted it certainly helped that I had three of my favorite people in the world there with me (I have always had this sort of weird tender and fiercely possessive love for my place in my closest friendship as the only girl among a handful of boys, but this time around there was the added delight of introducing them to my boyfriend & watching the lot of us act like we've all been friends for the entirety of our lives), but you guys. Bell's does it like nobody does it.

The festival didn't start until 4 pm on Saturday evening, but registration & check in started at noon, so we sauntered in around 1ish after hearing that we could bottle share in line - and when we got there we were astonished to find we were literally only the second group in line??? Which ended up being fantastic for multiple reasons including:

• The line surrounded a football field, so we dragged a large team bench over to the beginning of the line and thus for three hours we had a place to chill, lounge, and drink beer with the masses.
• We made friends with the guys in front of us who not only shared huge amounts of delicious rare beers but also had secret friends inside who broke the news about double barrel Hunahpu to us which meant we had plenty of time to indulge before the keg kicked.
• At one point just before the doors opened for the festival, we realized we had a few scattered bottles left that we wouldn't be able to drink before being let in - and the rules were bottle sharing in line was allowed, but bringing in any alcohol, opened or no, was not, which, while being a crappy rule, did lead to the greatest moment of my life which was: standing on a shaky aluminum bench a little bit tipsy holding up a bottle of Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout and shouting FREE BCBS WHO WANTS SOME?? At which point the masses converged on me and I felt something akin to the Jesus of Beer. (This feeling returned later on when multiple people we didn't remotely know but whom we had shared beer with us found us inside the festival and showered us with extra beer tokens.)

My boys <3 <3 <3

So as I'm standing there pouring to the lot of people behind us who hadn't gotten there three hours early and weren't already like 15 tastings into the evening, the greatest thing to ever signal the beginning of a beer festival happened, which was AN ACTUAL MARCHING BAND LED US IN TO THE BASEBALL FIELD. No, really. A raunchy sounding slapdash marching band dressed in gold & black nonsense. I have never actually been more pleased. Until like three minutes later while halfway through my Hunahpu and standing in line for some Russian River Supplication I realized there were actual Bell's 30th Anniversary party hats, and they were free.  And then like an hour later when I realized both Spruce & Double Two Hearted were happening in my exceptionally blessed life.

ACTUAL MARCHING BAND.

I just don't know why people thought we were all so drunk already????

My literal only regret is that I was too busy tasting beer to play Giant Skee-Ball, but the opportunity will present itself again some day, I'm certain...

In conclusion, basically every beer festival should probably follow the format of: Giant pre-party, marching band, super huge lineup of tasty rare beers, giant funk/soul dance party back at the brewery afterward.  (With a small break in between for us to acquire the best shawarma of my life.)

Funk soul brothas.

I'm looking at you, Michigan Brewer's Guild.

props to the austin, tx craft beer scene

I had the chance to go to Austin back in 2010 when an old friend was temporarily living there, so I knew it was a fabulous, funky little city, but I also spent the whole weekend I was there drinking Shiner because there just weren’t that many other options in 2010.  Not so anymore, friends.

Disclaimer: I went to Texas as a +1 for a wedding that I knew no one involved in, partly because why not, and partly because my lizard blood need to soak in some sunshine.  I swear I’m actually some forever cold evolved amphibious life form.  In the process I found a way to eat copious amounts of Tex-Mex, regular Mex, donuts & BBQ, and drink a whole lot more quality beer than I expected to find, walk in what was actually (no seriously, you can’t prove me wrong) the jungle, wear sundresses constantly, and actually enjoy humidity (what??).

Highlights of the trip of course….:

Airport carrot cake!  I was lucky enough to work my flights in a way that meant I could meet up with Nate in the Denver airport, at which point I got to share the INCREDIBLY delicious carrot cake (fact: I made the carrot cake from The Paleo Patisserie (care of The Urban Poser), but I subbed out the frosting for my grandma’s cream cheese frosting) that I’d been keeping secret for like two days (which felt like at least a quarter of a lifetime).  And, bonus, I could finally post the beautiful pictures of it on every form of social media I have!

Seriously, if I could eat this all day...

EVERYTHING WAS GREEN.  I don’t remember Austin being so super lush last time I was there (although it was in October) – there were flowers and greenery and cacti and weird overgrown succulents everywhere.  Even inside dinosaurs (of course I bought it).

Charlie just chilling on my desk...

Food!  We went to many places on many peoples’ recommendations – started with some Mexican at Polvo’s after a long day of travel, where I had a large chunk of pork smothered in pineapples that was basically everything I’ve ever dreamed of.  Other highlights include a cheese & charcuterie platter at Easy Tiger, this hot maple banana graham cracker donut from the Gordough’s food truck, some great BBQ at the wedding & breakfast tacos the morning after, and most importantly, this Mexican breakfast monstrosity from Magnolia Cafe that was basically every taco filling + a half an avocado on top of a gigantic jalapeno/cornmeal pancake.  Oh, okay.

Polvo's!

Midnight pool parties in the actual coldest pool I’ve ever been in (apparently when you live in Texas you don’t have pool heating systems because duh, Texas, so when night happens the water becomes ACTUALLY FREEZING).  Actually a lot about the wedding was fabulous – the venue was just gorgeous, the wedding itself was really simple & lovely, and everyone I met (including a husband/wife couple who brew their own beer & brought a keg of a really fabulous saison to the wedding) was great as well.  They also had a “candy bar” full of old school type candies (think cinnamon hearts and buckeyes and Zagnut bars) which I thought was super cute, and most importantly I knew ZERO people, so I had even less dance like an asshole inhibitions than normal.

With my wonderful date in ALL THAT SUN.

Of course…….the beer.  Friday we checked out a couple really neat beer bars, starting with a place called Craft Pride, which served nothing but Texas-brewed beers, and where I had a maple porter barrel aged over blueberries, and a super dry hopped tripel, and then moved on to Banger’s, where I discovered that I want to drink beers made by Real Ale for the rest of my life.  That rye, though…  We also took a quick jaunt over to Hops & Grain to have some samplers & get some really cute taster glasses.  And then, the culmination of our beer adventure:  on Sunday we took our rental car (my first ever!) out to the middle of nowhere to visit Jester King, where we got lucky enough to not only sample the weirdest, wildest beers I’ve ever heard of (beer brewed with HAY?? A smoked sour with juniper??), but to go on a super neat brewery tour (on which I learned that you can in fact age hops – in horse barns or otherwise – PAST the point of stale and into the realm of funky) to learn about what was basically (to me) a whole different style of brewing & barreling & this whole cool ship business (SO cool, though!).  I had strong desires to just stay out on their weird sort-of plantation drinking beer in the breeze wearing sundresses for the rest of my life.

All Real Ale All The Time.

Me & you & a glass of Gotlandsdricka.

In conclusion, good job, Texas, you’re all right.  Who wants to send me Real Ale on demand?

we the north

I've been going to Toronto since I was a teeny tiny child. I have Canadian citizenship, my grandparents used to live there (my grandma has since moved to Collingwood), and we used to spend days upon days there in the summer when I was young. As soon as I was old enough to appreciate them, my parents took me to all the tourist spots; the CN Tower, Chinatown, the Eaton Centre, games at Maple Leaf Gardens & the Rogers Centre, the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto exhibitions, reubens at Shopsy's...  But I haven't seen basically any of that stuff SINCE I was old enough to appreciate it.  A few months back my friend Kat suggested a trip up there for a Leafs game and had been filling my head ever since with all the super fantastic touristy things she'd never done, and I started getting really stoked to relive my childhood.....and drink more Canadian beer.

We both took Friday off work & I made a trip out to Ann Arbor to pick Kat up the night before....which of course required starting the weekend off with Miki sushi (during basically a tornado...) and a quick trip over to Arbor Brewing for some sour beer <3

I want all my sashimi to be salmon and all my sushi to be kanpyo + strawberries.

The most incredible thing I've ever experienced happened on the trip up (after a stop at Kelsey's for club sandwiches with PEAMEAL BACON <3 and to meet up with a friend of Kat's), which is absolutely zero traffic on the way in to the city. From London to Yonge & Gerrard in 2 hours. This will presumably never happen again in my lifetime.

Staying literally right on Yonge street was fabulous - we posted up the Delta Chelsea (I don't care if that's not what it's called anymore) for the weekend and it was completely fabulous. I used to stay there a lot with the family when we came up years back and it's only gotten nicer (but still has those mega-tall headboards I remember!).  We got there so early in the day that we decided to take a trip down to the Eaton Centre & do some shopping (ZARA!!!!!! Goodbye, $200....but one of my Toronto goals was to find this skirt, and I succeeded), sightseeing, and then back up the road to bar Volo for some Dieu du Ciel Rigor Mortis & Great Lakes Robohop (which is the closest to a DRIPA I have ever tasted in my life; A+) before coming back to the hotel to chill in the whirlpool(!!!).

My favorite building in Toronto <3

Saturday was tourist day, after a quick workout in the nicest hotel fitness center I've ever had the experience of using.  We took a nice walk down to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where I haven't been since 2007, ogled everything for a while & then set out again to the CN Tower where I gushed for like 45 minutes of standing in line about how excited I was to stand on the glass floor.

The view while I ran a couple miles.

 I MISS YOU PATRICK EAVESSSSSS :( :( :(

I LOVE this, and I was so happy to see this sort of recognition for such a horrible tragedy, but I did pitch a small fit in the middle of the HHOF over that glaring awful typo.

That ceiling, though...

Had to :)

Second favorite building in Toronto ;)

Highlight of the day - after watching my many attempts at getting a badass picture of both headstands on the glass floor as well as Eka Pada Koundinyasana, a random dude who I just watched do 61 pushups (on the glass floor) while his friend recorded him challenged me to a planking contest which I'm happy to report that I, in my faux cowboy boots and Zara-purchased shirt, sweating far more than I intended to do on my day out about town, kicked his ass at as was subsequently cheered for by this whole crowd I did NOT realize had accumulated around us, haha.

I see u Billy Bishop!

Nobody outplanks AMERICA.

Life goal: accomplished.

Glass floor selfie!

After the tower (and after a quick stop on Queen Street at the HBO pop up shop just so I could sit in the badass Game of Thrones throne), we hiked it over to & up Spadina for DIM SUM!  I haven't had true, authentic dim sum in....probably ten years.  Literally the best EVER, and it was so fun to introduce Kat to yet another super local Torontonian place (Rosewood will always have my heart when it comes to Chinatown Dim Sum).

Not pictured: like six other things, including bbq pork dumplings & the actual best sesame lotus paste dumplings I've EVER had.

Post-lunch we hoofed it the rest of the way to Ossington because BELLWOODS!  Got lucky enough to snag a couple spots at the bar where we partook in some Boogie Monster, Cat Lady, and split a Bounty Hunter. Mmmmm all the coconut.  I also bought beer for literally everyone I knew, which resulted in a street car ride back to the hotel rather than a 2.5 mile walk holding totes full of a case of bombers.

We cut it extra close on time, so we had to hop on the subway to take us back to the ACC, where we watched the Leafs eat it one last time for the season (super entertaining game though, plus my boyfriend Richard Panik was there), and then got to meet up at Jack Astor's with my lovely friend Bhavna who I honestly haven't seen in YEARS. Such a good time catching up and such a late night haha.  By the time we got back to the hotel & devoured ten pounds of trail mix, it was 2 am before we crawled into bed, which mean we did NOT in fact work out again the next morning (oops).

No salute-gate tonight ;)

Our beautiful reunion <3

Instead we went to Stockyards for breakfast!!  The red pepper citrus maple syrup was every bit as phenomenal as I remembered.  Leaving the city was depressing as always, but brightened by the fact that we had Nickelbrook Brewery to stop at on the way home, where we were served samples of literally everything that existed, and where a couple patrons told us to also stop at Railway City Brewing to buy some Dead Elephant, which I haven't sampled yet, but I heard is suuuuuper bitter/hoppy.

Nice haul....

The Zara haul <3 Plus a little Raptor pride!

And of course, the TRUE reason for going to Canada......

Every trip I take to Toronto feels painfully short and like I missed a thousand things I wanted to do, but it's such a short drive that I know I'm going to start going back far more often. If only because Bellwoods didn't have bottles of Witchshark for sale this time around ;)  And, bonus, next weekend is yet another trip to Austin!