{"id":1614,"date":"2012-04-15T22:02:19","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T03:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fiveforks.com\/ted\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2012-09-09T20:05:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T01:05:30","slug":"draft-beer-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/2012\/04\/draft-beer-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Draft Beer To Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe the first time I learned about getting draft beer to go was at Jeb’s birthday party last year when Nicole brought her dad a beer growler from a store in Athens that fills up jugs of beer to take with you. Later on at a brew pub in Wilmington, NC. A person brought in a jug to be filled from the tap. They had some kind of special bottle washing machine that looked pretty neat. They had a really cute bartender in shorts and a tank top who seemed to have a tattoo that started on her shoulder and went down to her thigh . . . well, I digress. They had a few different beers on tap that they made themselves. I wound up with a Belgian Tripel, which I picked because I like Belgian wheat beers. All the beers came in glasses specifically meant for that particular beer, but what I didn’t realize is the Tripel is a very potent beer (9.3% alcohol instead of the usual 5.5%) and they serve it in a tiny little glass. It was good though. My friends got manlier glasses of beer after getting their wives to let them come to the brewery with me instead of shopping.<\/p>\n

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Not too many months later, the exact same store in Athens that Nicole had gone to opened their second location in Avondale, within walking distance of my house. I wanted to go try something, but you have to drink the beer pretty quickly because once you open it, it goes flat in a day or so. I was talking about the place with someone at work, and I thought maybe I could get a growler and take it up to Mom’s for Easter.<\/p>\n

They have about 50 beers on tap and keep a list online<\/a> because it seems to change pretty often. Looking through the list I found a Belgian Saison. I had a Sam Adams Saison recently that I thought was pretty good, so I was open to another one. Plus, looking at scores the different beers on the list had received at Beer Advocate<\/a>, the New York-based Ommegang brewery got raves for their saison, called Hennepin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I walked up to the store on Saturday afternoon before Easter and there were a couple of customers already there, so it does a pretty good business. It’s just a bunch of growlers and t-shirts for sale and then a bar with a ton of taps behind it. I stepped up and ordered a 64 oz Hennepin, though they also have 32 oz jugs. The prices are up on a chalkboard (not posted online, which is a little vexing). They gave me a jug from behind the bar and put a shrinkwrap seal around the lid after filling it.<\/p>\n

In Athens the next day I tried to get people to try out Hennepin, but I think Jeb was the only one that got one. Gin and tonics seemed to be the order of the day. It is pretty much a wheat beer, which I really like, but I don’t think Jeb is as crazy about. But he and Grant both seem to like Pale Ales, which I don’t really care for. I found out why when I read about IBU’s which is a bitterness index. Hops increase the bitterness of the beer. So while I like the idea of a hoppy beer, I don’t like the taste. A stout can have a pretty high IBU value, but the malts cancel some of that out. Wheat beers aren’t particularly bitter, but the wheat has a distinct taste to it.<\/p>\n

\"Beer<\/a><\/p>\n

I finished my taxes during the week and I thought the reward should be another growler. When I went this time I asked what the deal was with a deposit on the growlers. They said you can buy a growler for $3 and then trade it in each time you come in, for either a 32 oz or 64 oz replacement. So this time I got a 32 oz jug. I don’t think they charged me the first time, but I was back again, so they still did pretty well. There is a very small brewery based in Avondale called Wild Heaven<\/a>. They have a well-regarded beer called Eschaton. It is a Beligan Quadrupel. I don’t think the Dupel, Tripel, and Quad are really that related. The numbering scheme seems to refer to the alcohol content instead. Eschaton is quite potent (10.5% alcohol), but is brewed in winery barrels, so it has a lot of wine flavor, but is also quite sweet (and packs a punch; I definitely did not want a full 12 oz glass of it). I was glad to give it a try, and it seems to have a pretty unique taste, but I don’t know that I would get it again. Meanwhile, they had already run out of Hennepin.<\/p>\n

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Maybe the first time I learned about getting draft beer to go was at Jeb’s birthday party last year when Nicole brought her dad a beer growler from a store in Athens that fills up jugs of beer to take with you. Later on at a brew pub in Wilmington, NC. A person brought in … Continue reading “Draft Beer To Go”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}