Setting Out
How does one begin to write about a journey of this magnitude?
I could invoke the ubiquitous classic Star Trek opener...
Beer, the Frothy Frontier. These are the voyages of the Toyota Avalon Hybrid, Guinevere, her 10 day mission... to explore strange new brews, to drive 2000 miles through Arizona & California, and to boldly visit 20 different brewpubs without being completely clattered.
Or perhaps a simple haiku would do?
If I could explore
Two thousand miles of brewpubs
The beers of the world
Whatever the case may be, Friday the 13th of May was an auspicious day to start the journey, having turned in my grades that morning, ready to pick up my partner-in-suds and sister, for our epic adventure into malt & hops. Now, if you're a superstitious person, you might thing that such a day is NOT a great day to begin a journey, that Triskaidekaphobics worldwide would be casting bones and reading cards to see what horrors would await us. But then you would be an idiot so I would promptly ignore you anyway.
The journey planned would eventually take us to the west coast but seeing as how I had already experienced the wonders that Tucson's burgeoning beer scene had to offer in the form of Barrio Brewing Company last year and back in March, it was imperative that we stopped for the night a mere 260 miles to the west of our departure point. But this time we would forgo Barrio, partially because I had already experienced it, partially because we had some time issues with our hosts for the evening, but mostly because we wanted to hit two breweries at once and Barrio was too far removed for that effort.
Into the Borderlands
Thus, we came upon the ramshackle old warehouse a scant two blocks from downtown, where parking is strange and roads doubly so. It is in this strange and wonderful space that we happened upon Borderlands Brewing Company, a place that proves that Ben Franklin was right about beer, God, and all the rest. But first we had to move the car to one of the FOUR allotted parking spaces reserved for the brewery (yes, you read that right). Fortunately, arriving at 2:30 in the afternoon, even on a Friday, has it's advantages so no problems there.
The place was eclectic, to say the least, with an outdoor sunken patio in front which we were later
informed served as a wedding locale for the boozier of nuptials. Inside, the decor was a rustic cacophony of Steampunk chic, local art, fermentation tanks and, of course, a substantial bar with many a tap. My sis and I made a tacit arrangement which would benefit us both: I would drive and remain sober, thus only sampling our flights of beer, while she would throw herself in front of the lion's share and enjoy the repast. I, in turn, would jump on the local WiFi, log everything on Untappd as a form of memory jogging tasting notes journal, and my friends on Facebook and Twitter would be inundated by way way WAY too many posts about beer. It was a good arrangement for everyone.
Whenever possible, we also made a point of sitting at the bar itself rather than peripheral tables, in hopes of garnering some witty repartee with our hoppy hosts. This was a marvelous idea and allowed for some real insight at times. In the case of Borderlands, this was a fine plan, especially since the crowds were small and our server sufficiently chatty. The bar is also the place where you end up meeting some really interesting "others", such as a fellow who showed up with a small insulated canister of what appeared to be alchemical glassware from the 19th century, graciously and somewhat surreptitiously pouring a dark elixir from the bottles into samplers for the bartender and who we presumed to be the brewmaster. Turns out this clandestine fellow was a fellow master of beercraft at a collaboration brewery, giving them samples of a soon-to-be-tapped cask.
Now, the beer! I'm going to focus on the standout beers in this blog, not necessarily the ones that were my favorites. The idea of this journal was to find "strange new worlds" of beers so while I love a good IPA, Brown, Pale Ale, Lager, Stout, Red, or what have you as much as the next guy, I'm going to focus on the strange, weird, and wonderful here. So you've been warned.
I'll focus on two standouts here, beers which were unlike anything else we found on this trip: one was their magnificent Horchata Cream Ale, a delicious novelty of a beer that could easily have ended up just being sweet pap but was instead a slightly sweet, subtly cinnamon treat. I avoid sweet beers usually but this one works on so many levels, not least of which was it was 95 degrees out and this dang thing was genuinely thirst quenching. But the real marvel was their special Citrana beer, a Gose style sour beer with just enough citrus tartness that it felt like I was back in the Northwest, drinking one of the many exquisite ciders than can be found there. This one deserved a growler fill; too bad I left all of mine at home and we had no room in our coolers to purchase another 1/2 gallon jar. Next time!
The seductive nature of our first craft beer experience together complete, my sister began to see the wisdom of drinking craft rather than crap and thus we made our way to our next stop, one that made this bare bricked temple to rusticity seem positively posh by comparison...
Back Alley Brews
On the other side of the tracks, a scant half mile from our last stop, we happened upon Public Brewhouse, but we almost didn't. Unmarked, undistinguished, this ancient converted garage opens onto what can only be described as a back alley off of a slightly less back alley street called Hoff, in an incongruously trendy part of downtown Tucson that seems part desolation, part hipster.
The pub itself maybe the ultimate in understated, the entrance a barely propped open corrugated iron rust heap, probably placed there by the garage owners before they left, circa 1955. Inside, however, everything changed and the hipster vibe began to come into play, complete with a stand up console Centipede machine from 1981 (and free to play too!). The wall of stacked board games belied the geek chic shabby splendor of the place and the lack of traditional seating fit in nicely with the Bohemian oeuvre.
While the brews were uniformly good (even the Hefe, which is a variety I usually don't care for), the standouts here were the Happy Poppy, a dirty, grassy and feral IPA, unique in its almost artichoke vegetable finish. But my favorite was another summer brew (surprise! surprise!), a Pale Ale concoction called the Summer Love Ginger Lemon Peel Experience; despite the hippy dippy name, which very much fit the vibe of this place, it was a super subtle and refreshing brew, ideally matched with spicy food like a Thai curry. I could go on and on about their excellent saisons and their fabulous oatmeal stout/pale ale hybrid but I've already said enough for now. We must allow you to catch your breath and me to get some shut eye (and get back to grading summer session papers). Next up: Day Two, when we experience Yuma's first ever craft brewery and find that the brewmeisters of the Coachella Valley are just plain bonkers. 
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