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!