I went to Tuscon to visit family for thanksgiving. I found the drive to Tucson, while long, to be fairly pleasant. Perhaps in the future I might even stop in Hatch, the high point of excitement along the journey.
I stayed with Dixie at the Lowes Ventana Canyon resort. It's a very fancy resort (where my parents were staying) but they are 100% cool with dogs of any size. The room had a balcony that overlooked a xeriscaped cactus land and tile floors, making it easy to have the puppy crate and the smelly puppy along.
The day after thanksgiving I went to the Nimbus Brewery and Barrio Brewing. Both were in odd industrial parts of the city, and not 100% easy to find until I saw the giant beer sticking out of the side of the building...
But it was lunchtime and it was pretty empty. The best thing about the Nimbus was the cool monkey logo... and that their guest beer was BELLS! from Kalamazoo. I had a Bells Oatmeal Stout, a delicious smoked gouda caramelized onion cheeseburger with bacon fries. Delicious, if not done 100% justice by the photo.
I tasted all the beers in addition to the burger and the Bell's, they were all pretty good.
Not outstanding (damn Marble has my palate soooo picky). I think we filled a growler with some nut brown and were off to the next stop, Barrio.
At Barrio Brewing, one of my dreams came true. I was able to purchase a growler "outfit." I've been carrying my growler in a soft cooler from the dollar store that looks like a diaper bag, so I was really excited to have a proper growler cooler, perfect for hiking on hot summer days.
The beers at Barrio were more... carefully crafted, less mass produced than Nimbus.
Unfortunately, some of the ones we were most excited about, were not as delicious as anticipated. I'm thinking of a coffee porter, perhaps. Some of the beers had the odd taste of chile when they weren't supposed to either. The standouts were a raspberry wheat and a dunklewisen that we filled our growler with and enjoyed all the way to T or C.
After our beer tasting day we spent another night at the resort and headed to the healing waters of Hot Springs, NM.
After a long few days with the familia, it was nice to watch the sunset and drink our growlers at the hot springs, even if the gusty winter winds made the cabin at La Paloma a bit chilly, we had a great time and returned to Abq refreshed and ready to take on the next adventure.
