When I first figured out my list of states that I've had a beer from, I was at 30. The blog posts linked above cover the beers that I added from Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Tennessee. And I've added three more to the list. First was Virginia. I bought a six pack of Optimal Wit at Blue Bell from the Port City Brewing Company of Alexandria, Virginia. It was okay, but it seemed almost cidery (or at least what I imagine cider tastes like since I don't think I've ever had hard cider) and not beery enough. And last week, I added two more states, which finished off the original 13 and the east coast.
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| The Fireman's Fair mug reminds me of the fact that I wish the Fireman's Fair had some good beer. They'd definitely get more money from me if they did. |
On Friday, John was in town and he invited me to go out on his father's boat. So I stopped by his parents' house first, where he had an Every Night IPA from the Moat Mountain Brewing Company of North Conway, New Hampshire, waiting for me. I'm not a huge IPA guy, but this was a very solid beer. We stopped at Blue Bell to get some beer for the boat. Of course, we had to get some Summer Ale. We also saw some Cigar City Tampa-Style Lager which is not surprisingly from Tampa, Florida. The can said "MADE FOR DRINKIN'" right on it. My comment when John mentioned that was "As opposed to all these other beers that aren't made for drinkin'." So we picked up a six pack of that as well.
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| With this beer, I finished off the original 13 states. |
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| That's not my hand. I googled this picture. But you can see that it's "MADE FOR DRINKIN'" |
It was a good time with John and Joe on Joe's boat. I always love being out on the water, but I don't get to do it very often. I think the last time I was on a boat was a year ago when I was in Sydney. They even let me drive the boat for a little bit. But I have to say that I wasn't really impressed with the Tampa-Style Lager. But Florida is crossed off the list (although it's quite possible I had already crossed Florida off the list during Vin's bachelor party or some other previous trip to Florida). Thanks again to John and Joe for taking me out on the boat.
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| I was wearing my Australia shirt because I was in Australia at this time last year. |
On the way home, we stopped at the Harbor Head Brewing Company (the other Northport brewery). We picked up a six pack of one of their beers and I tried that as well when we got back to the house. It was pretty good. Of course, that didn't add a state to my list.
So I'm down to ten states that I'm pretty sure I haven't had a beer from:
1. Indiana
2. Kentucky
3. Arkansas
4. Oklahoma
5. Kansas
6. West Virginia
7. Iowa
8. Nebraska
9. South Dakota
10. Alaska
If you know where I can get beer from any of them, please let me know. I don't think I'm going to any Notre Dame games this year, but hopefully Indiana will be an easy one to cross off at some point in the future. I still plan on getting to Alaska (possibly next year) so I'm not too worried about that one. Actually, I remember seeing Alaska beer in Denver (and maybe a couple other places out west), but I purposely opted to cross off other states because I still have to get to Alaska. According to the Lexington Brewing Company's website, I can find some of their beer in some stores around here so hopefully I'll get Kentucky soon. But I don't know about the other ones. None of them are all that close and I'm not aware of any beer from them that's sold in New York, but hopefully I'll be able to find some at some point.
Anyway, college football starts (for real) this weekend. Notre Dame has to be better than last year, right? That's not asking for much. Could we actually be good? I'm not too optimistic. But the Dodgers should be clinching some stuff pretty soon. It would be nice to set the franchise record and to be the first NL team to win 110 games since the 1909 Pirates, but I'll settle for breaking the franchise record for wins (105 in 1953). Really, I'll settle for just winning the World Series. Go Irish! Go Dodgers!
