Day o' Beer

No, it's not St. Patty's Day... it's Brooklyn Beer Tour day! Note: every beer I drank was magically unprocessed. And the pizza too. Totally not processed at all. It was very nice of all these places to accommodate me. Definitely the Brooklyn way. ;)

A while back we bought tickets to go on a Brooklyn beer tour extravaganza for Ariel's birthday and yesterday was the day! We met our tour group in Williamsburg at 11:45am, started with a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery, and then visited several other spots in Brooklyn that may or may not have had anything to do with beer.

The first flight of beer at the brewery hit me pretty quickly, since I was drinking on oatmeal. You know I have pretty strong feelings toward the stuff, but it is NOT drinking food. Bfast was oatmeal, PB, wild blueberries, GRANOLA!


This breakfast choice happens to be unprocessed, but I knew ahead of time that I was throwing the rules out the window in honor of the beer tour. Actually, I'm not sure I could have picked a worse week to do a food experiment, in terms of number of meals I actually ate at home. Typically I eat most dinners and weekend meals at home. This just happened to be a packed week/weekend. I guess I get over-zealous when I am working from home and am able to have a social life in NY.

The Brewery itself is impressive, although they don't do all of their brewing down in Brooklyn. I love local anything, so having such a popular and successful company so close to home is very cool. And I learned a little about the ingredients that go into beer: hops, barley, yeast, and water!






Allison thought this one was extra yummy:

This was my flight of beer:


I did NOT finish this. So much beer before noon! My favorites were the Blast, the Lager, the Brown Ale, and Oktoberfest. There weren't any I particularly disliked, though! And even though my friends thought I was a huge nerd for taking notes, I did it anyway. Even when I am really, really interested in learning something, I am absolutely incapable of retaining the information for more than 2 minutes unless I write it down. So, haHA! I will remember everything I liked and didn't like now.

We left the Brooklyn Brewery and then had the pleasure of spending quite a while listening to the history of some old brewing warehouses and how Prohibition affected the business. I mostly zoned out and wondered what the delicious smell was. Turns out it was the scent of dumplings wafting over to us from a nearby manufacturer. It was becoming almost too delicious to bear when the tour guide finally noticed our glazed-over expressions and took us out of our misery. At that point we trekked on over to a pizzeria, where we got to sample 3 different types of pizza: a margherita pizza and 2 types of Sicilian. My favorite was the Sicilian one with basil on it, although by that point I would have eaten pretty much anything. I say this without an ounce of sarcasm, but learning makes me really hungry.

I was too hungry to photograph. Hungry Freya is not capable of much more than simple grunting and, of course, eating.

We walked around some more of Williamsburg and met a really cool dude named Augie who owns a beverage center and sells tons of different kinds of beer. At age 17 he already OWNED 2 properties. That is insane! He was really fun to listen to and a very impressive guy. And look what we found!


We ended at a very lovely bar in Williamsburg called Huckleberry Bar, which I would love to go back to. Very lovely atmosphere and a really cool, local-homemade type of menu. We tried a few more beers there (which I can't remember names of, since I didn't write them down!) and we had a little plate with a grilled cheese on homemade foccacia, shallot marmalade (amazing), and a spicy pig in a blanket. Yum! Too dark for photos. They came out ugly. I got one of my friends, though, who are beautiful, with a flash.


I couldn't believe it, but by the time 6:30 rolled around, I was actually hungry again. I put together an unprocessed mish-mosh kind of meal with a garlic-herb shrimp skewer from WF, corn on the cob, and roasted veggies with rosemary. Yes, I ignored the fact that I ate all processed foods all day and went back to the rules. I also just had to get through the food I had in the house.


While I cooked, I realized that I could eat Allison's Cape Cod potato chips! Potatoes, canola oil, and salt. Yay! Very yummy.


Later that night I went back to my new favorite borough for a party in Park Slope, where I had another beer. Alex was there, and it was an approved choice, since she abandoned all logic and drank Crystal Light, which just might be the enemy of our experiment. (It's ok, Alex, I forgive you.)

Anyway, totally exhausted after a long, full weekend, so the closing remarks to come tomorrow! STAY TUNED...