The event was from 12-5pm with ticket pick-up at the Grassy Park in Old Bisbee, that small city park in front of the train and mining museum. I had bought my ticket last night online to save $5.
I got up early to walk the pack at sunrise. It was a nondescript sunrise. I only did 3.8 miles, knowing I'd rack a few more miles later in Bisbee. Once back home at 7am, I wrote a few reviews for Amazon and then gathered all the recyclables to drop off on my way to Bisbee. I took Zeke.
There were quite a few people in Grassy Park, and quite a few dogs of various sizes as well. Zeke seemed overwhelmed by all the dogs. For $25 I got a VIP card to eight bars and businesses in town that poured Arizona craft beer. Two of the businesses were not even bars, but offered craft beer in cans, poured by green-shirted volunteers. The businesses were all within a mile of each other, which meant one walked a loop in Old Bisbee by the time one finished. What a neat way to walk around and taste beer, especially for someone new to town.
That meant that there were eight businesses pouring two four-ounce samples. That's a lot of beer for one person. Susan couldn't come because she already had a roofer scheduled for her house, so I called Steve to help me out. By my sixth sample of beer I knew I could not safely drive after 16 samples. It took him an hour to get to Bisbee and by then I had already had my samples at the Old Bisbee Brewing Company (OBBC), St Elmo's and The Quarry, bars right in lower Brewery Gulch.
I went to the OBBC first and sat at the bar. "Hi, where are you from?" asked the enthusiastic volunteer when I stepped through the door. Locals seem to ask that question a lot, then act surprised when they find out I'm just from the next town over. Bisbee always has visitors from Phoenix and California, so admitting I'm just from Hereford feels like a let-down to them.
I had the same two beers I had last week after the Bisbee Loop hike, the El Trigo Belgian Witbier and the Pomegranate IPA. But today the El Trigo tasted nothing like the sassafrassy witbier from last week which I liked so much.
St Elmo's was my second stop, right across the parking lot from the OBBC. The event was held in the secondary room where on weekends bands play. This room was crowded! Two beers from Barrio were served, the Roja red ale and their Citrizona IPA. I sat on off the stage area to give Zeke his space. He didn't seem comfortable and wanted to hide under bar stools. I figured he just got tired of getting his butt sniffed by all these strange dogs, that he wanted to sit down and keep other dogs from getting close to him. There were a lot of yappy, springy small dogs here, including two whippet pups.
It was after my fourth sample of beer that I realized I needed help with the rest of the samples. Sixteen four-ounce samples is 64 ounces, or almost 5.5 bottles of beer. I could not drink all that alone, so I called Steve to see if he were interested in coming, and luckily he agreed! It took him an hour, and in that hour I went next door from St Elmo's into The Quarry, where I had my two least favorite beers today, both from Tombstone Brewing Company: Southern Hemisphere DIPA and a Brett Sessions Fruity Berliner. Those were the only choices besides a Barleywine, and I'm no fan of barleywine. The DIPA was just too hoppy, but the Berliner tasted, to borrow Matt Brown (owner of the Tombstone Brewery)'s own expression, "like the brewery dumped acetic acid into the fermenter, added fruit, and called it a day." Goodgawd was it sour!
The Quarry is another popular local restaurant. I hadn't eaten here in years, but now I wanted to wait for Steve to come to go any further on the pubcrawl. I still had five more places to visit. I sat against the wall with Zeke hiding under my bench seat, and watched other people and dogs come and go. There were many participants in today's event, but no one that I recognized.
Steve and I agreed to meet at the OBBC. That's a well-known business and we both have been here and like the beers. I was sitting at the counter drinking a Pilsner and having a bratwurst when he walked in. (I wanted to make sure I had eaten something before drinking any more beer.) We both went upstairs to the sundeck and finished our beers before resuming the pubcrawl. There were plenty of dogs on the sundeck.
The best part of the pubcrawl was the last five stops. Up to this point none of the beers struck my fancy, and certainly not the Tombstone beers. Even the OBBC beers were disappointing. Our next stop was at Pico, a taqueria stand hidden in a small artisan alley. They have good food here, but we just came for the beer. The couple across from us had a black GSD and hailed from Carbondale. Steve went to college there.
I don't even remember what the beers were at Pico's, but the two beers we tasted at the Grand Hotel our next stop, were quite good. "Here, this is a Connie beer" said Steve when he handed me the porter. It was a chocolate porter from Mother Road or Dark Sky Brewery in Flagstaff. I really should have taken better notes on the non-local beers I had.
Kevin and I used to hang out at the Grand Salon when I worked in Bisbee 11 (!!!) years ago. Has it really been that long? Lots of college instructors hang out here, as well as all classes of people from around the world come here when they visit town. The Salon still looks the same inside, but it has new owners and now also serves some organic dishes, but again we didn't eat. It was Steve's first time in the Grand. I have fond memories of this place. I would have gladly ended the pubcrawl here, but we still had two more places to visit.
The Screaming Banshee and Contessa's Cantina were the last two stops, a pleasant ten-minute walk up the street. Both are next to each other with ample outdoor seating. We ended up eating nacho's at the last stop before using up all the chits. We both agreed the pubcrawl was a success, and next year we will try to get a group together and do this. If there will be 16 samples again next year, that's definitely a two-person amount. Most beer tastings only give out five per person, not 16. It was a pleasant two-mile crawl that ended with coffee at the local roasterie.
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