Finding the perfect beer in unexpected places
Heavenly Hops: Going to church might not be the first thing you think of when you need a beer, but at several monastic breweries it is a nice side benefit. Two of our favorite religious experiences involving beer have taken place during visits to Europe. On one incredibly hot day during a visit to Rome, at a snack bar just steps from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City served up a heavenly cold can of Nastro Azzurro. What the beer might have lacked in style was more than compensated for by its thirst quenching qualities. A great side trip to take if you are in southern Germany is to Kloster Andechs, where Benedictine monks make wonderful beer. The famous doppelbock, a hearty plate of roast pork and a spectacular view of the Bavarian countryside from the beer garden is just 45 minutes by public transit from Munich’s central station.
Mickey’s Malt: A crowded amusement park with one too many screaming kids might not be your idea of a good time. The hospitable folks at Disney have thought of a solution and it’s called Epcot Center. You can find beer and food from the host nations at a number of pavilions, including Canada, Japan, Norway, America, Mexico, France, China, Morocco and Italy. Two of the best stops are Germany and England, which do their best to replicate a Munich beer hall and London pub.
Gold Medal Beer: Most coaches wish athletes would give up beer during training, but the fact remains a cold beer is one of the purest rewards after a workout. The U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC, an Olympic Training Center that offers rafting adventures for the common man, along with hiking, biking, rock climbing and zip lines, also has a bar that features live music, food and draught craft beer.
High Flyers: Food and drink at airports usually has more to do with meeting basic needs for sustenance than enjoyment of the experience. For the beer lover, this has slowly changed during the last decade. A growing number of domestic airports have brewpub outposts or beer bars. Some of the best are in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Portland, OR.
One Time, in a Land Far Far Away…
We asked some well-traveled members of the beer community where they have run across great beer when they were away from home and we got some predictably intriguing answers.
Kris Calef runs C&H Clubs, which markets a number of mail order beer-of-the-month clubs as gift subscriptions and for enthusiasts looking for hard to find brews. He lives in California now, but was born in Maine. Calef’s family still has a cottage there on Thompson Lake, about 45 minutes northeast of Portland, ME. “My wife and I were out exploring the coast and headed out to a small town named Castine at my parent’s suggestion. They used to work in a small lobster shack on the wharf when they were teenagers so we had to check it out,” Calef says. “The wharf was still there, but no lobster shack. We arrived at 9 p.m. and were starving. The only place open was a little restaurant, Dennett’s Wharf. It turns out the owner is a huge craft beer nut and had brought in a Belgian draft system from across the pond. He was serving up about 15 stellar Belgian ales and had all the appropriate glassware. Needless to say, I was quite pleased and equally shocked to stumble across such a find in this small coast town. I had several beers that night, but the one that stood out was Brasserie Caracole’s Nostradamus, a 9 percent Belgian strong dark ale. Love that beer.”
