Thanking our Forefathers for our Freedom and their Beer Recipes

75th Street Brewery-KC

Brat and Cheese Pretzel-Flying Saucer-KC

Now that we are back from our adventures, we thought we would do a second blog this week to mention some of the great food and beer we tried but didn't mention the last round. To save a little money on airline tickets, we flew out of Kansas City.  KC also is home to a great little brewpub we had heard about and were eager to try. We programmed our GPS (codename Sally) and found 75th Street Brewery without any problem (hunh, it was on 75th Street...). We ordered a pound of Belgian style mussels and some garlic pub fries and washed it all down with a Possum Trot brown ale and a Good Hope IPA, and we split a Royal Raspberry wheat for dessert. We left with a new growler for the collection filled with the Good Hope IPA.  We learn so much from bartenders and the guy at 75th Street recommended we try out McCoy's Public House (aka brewery) near the KC Plaza and Westport areas.  It took a little work (i.e. we had to ask directions...twice.), but we finally found it.  Clearly, it is a favorite spot for the locals because the patio was packed at 3:00 ish in the afternoon and they had some good beer on tap.  Finally, we headed north to the Power and Light district to a place called the Flying Saucer. With 75 beers on tap, it still paled in comparison to our beloved El Bait Shop with 105 tappers but still respectable. We each ordered a brew then a sampler of ciders (even we get tired of beer), and brat and cheese pretzel (also recommended by the bartender at 75th Street Brewery) and enjoyed a warm spring evening on their patio with some tasty libations.

Honey's.  Notice the Pella Windows going in next door

Yum!

On the last day of our Philly vacation (well, Steph was working), we hit the subway and headed north to visit an eclectic little restaurant called Honey's Sit 'n Eat. It bills itself as "some of the best Southern Jewish food you will ever taste". Once we saw bacon and sausage mentioned on a menu of a "Jewish" restuarant, we this became a 'must' stop for us. The restaurant is located in a little artistic community on the edge of a pretty dicey Philly neighborhood (although we were comforted by the fact the condo next door was installing Pella windows), but it was worth the stop. We devoured banana and pecan french toast and enfrigolatas (egg, choizo sausage, sour cream cheese, doused in black bean puree), all washed down with some strong black coffee.


We next walked six blocks to the taproom of Yard's Brewing Company located near the banks of the Delaware River. Yard's is a fairly large brewery and their beers are available all over Philly, but we really wanted to visit their taproom. It did not disappoint. We ended up spending almost three hours sampling all of their beers and chatting with the bartender. By far the most interesting beer brewed by Yard's is their Poor Richard Tavern Spruce which was originally  brewed with spruce needles during the 1770's because hops and barley were not available in New England. It had a distinctive pine flavor but was surprisingly refreshing. Yard's also offers several other beers brewed with recipes from revolutionary times. We downed a bowl of their bison chili (made bison fed expended grains from the brewery), grabbed another growler filled with the Brawler Ale for the collection and hopped the subway back to our hotel.

On our way back home from KC, we made a surprise stop at the Madison County Winery located 4 miles west of Interstate 35 in Madison County, Iowa. Madison County Winery is also the home to Twisted Vine Brewery (you knew there had to be a beer angle here, didn't you). We met the owner of the winery Doug Bakker. He was friendly and helpful even as our interests drifted from wine to beer. The Twisted Vine Brewery is a very small brewery run by three gentlemen who love homebrewing but didn't want the hassle and expense of opening a brewpub. The winery offered a spot because Mr. Bakker found while many women love wine, their husbands love beer. By offering both, he could get both women and men to the winery and all were happy.  Twisted Vine has six beers on tap and we sampled each of them. All were good but the Scottish ale was our favorite. So true to form, we purchased a growler of it, hence adding a third new growler to the growing collection, and in this case, a mini-growler which made someone VERY happy.  It should be noted the male half of this duo collects beer growlers and is happy to report he is up to 27 growlers and now........ one mini-growler.

Growler collection score!

Philadelphia Freedom

One of the joys of a vacation in another part of the country is the ability to try beers not available in the Midwest. Philadelphia is a first time stop for both of us and neither of us really knew what to expect. What is obvious is that Philly is a seriously large city on par with Chicago and much larger than other cities we have visited like Seattle or St Louis. It's also an old historic city which has forced us to each reach back to history class from our elementary school days and remind ourselves that Philly was once the original capitol of the early United States before it was moved to Washington DC. It's the city of William Penn and Benjamin Franklin. It's so different than growing up the Midwest where our history started about 1840 and basically involved homesteading farmland (yawn).

Phenomenal Philly Cheese Steak

But enough of history. This is a food and beer blog so on to the food and beer we go. One of the most important foods we wanted to try was an authentic Philly cheese steak sandwich. We have traveled enough to know the secret to finding the best foods is befriending a cool bartender and asking them. True to form, we found a cool Irish bar just a few blocks from our hotel called Moriarty's Pub. While quaffing $3 Yuengling lagers, we found what we were looking for in bartender Josephine. She said the best spot for cheese steaks in Philly was at Jim's Steaks. Wearrived at Jim's at 1:30 on Sunday afternoon and saw the line out the door and around the corner and while some would scowl at seeing such a line, we took this as indication we had found the best cheese steaks in town. Who knew a sandwich with basic canned cheese whiz and beef could be so incredibly good.  Two thumbs up for sure!

Bradley Yoder headed to the Amish Market

Another pleasant Philly surprise is the Reading Terminal Market which is located literally across the street from our hotel. Vendors serve up authentic Amish food from Lancaster County, fresh fish and seafood, fresh meat and sausages, baked goodies, flowers, vegetables and fruits.... it has it all. It reminded us of the Pike Street Market we fell in love with in Seattle last year. And of course, there is a little bar called Molly Malloy's who serves mostly regional craft beers from 22 tappers. We have tasted beers from Yuengling (which is ubiquitous here in PA but unavailable in the Midwest), Victory, Yard's, Copper Creek, Philadelphia Brewing.....just to name a few. Last evening we visited a highly acclaimed Belgian beer bar called Monk's Cafe and tried some tasty but rather expensive beers. We both had a Pliney the Elder double IPA from Russian River Brewing. This brew wins awards everywhere it goes, and while we agreed it was good, we both prefer Hopslam from our old friends at Bell's Brewing in Kalamazoo. We also finally hit our first actual brewery since arriving in PA. Nodding Head Brewery is a small brew pub located about 8 blocks from our hotel. The beer was average and the service was below average so we left a $1 tip for two beers and strolled onward just a couple blocks, and stumbled upon the Boilermaker Restaurant which had 40 beers on tap and no lights...just candles everywhere.  Very cool.  Now the beer quest continues.......