The Cocktail Hour: Ales for the Holidays - Trader Joe's Holiday Ale Taste Off 2016

It's time for our annual Trader Joe's holiday ale taste off. Be sure to watch the video below, it's the first every live Cocktail Hour broadcast we've ever done.

Watch the Video!

The store contracts with Unibroue in Canada to make it's Belgian style aged ale for each year's holiday season.

We skipped last year because we found out from Trader Joe's that you're supposed to age the ale a year before drinking so we've got our 2015 ale to taste alongside the just released 2016 version, which I have an extra to age for next year.

First, let's taste the younger. Tastes just like every other year, like a bitter Mexican Coke with a lot of foam. Good taste, not overpowering bitterness.

Now, the aged 2015 version. Much less foam, at least half as much and a slightly smoother taste reflecting the year of mellowing. I could taste more of the Mexican Coke flavor, maybe more notes of caramel on the back of my throat. Tim didn't notice.

That's it for this year's test. We'll do it again for 2017.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved.

The Cocktail Hour: Biergartens of Germany

Beer is a way of life in Germany and the neighborhood biergarten is a way of life in the warmer months when all the people want to do is go outside and enjoy the fresh air.

You can find them almost anywhere, especially in Munich where over 400 biergartens call the city home and are almost on every corner.  They are more numerous there than Starbucks is in the states.

Here are some of the outdoor brewpubs we visited while we were in country, in the order we encountered them...

Luftgarten (German for Air Garden) sits on the perimeter of the former Tempelhof Airport. It's relaxing, sunny spot. You can even sit in their beach chairs.  Shade is a bit of a premium here because most of the area is open field without too many trees. A barbecue trailer cooks up specialties such as currywurst and there's a nice selection of Berlin brews to choose from.

It's also quite a walk from the nearest U Bahn station.

Berlin Zoo has a biergarten in the center, next to the kid's playground.  As in most, there's a nice, shady outdoor area to relax with your brew and a snack from the adjacent cafeteria.

Nice, but maybe just a step up from your average zoo snack bar.

Café am Neuen See is the 'biergarten in the tiergarten.' It shows up on many 'best of Berlin' lists including this 7 Best Places to Eat in Berlin from Wanderlust. I can't vouch for the food...we just had dessert and beer there...but it is an amazingly relaxing place with tables set around a small lake under a forest of nice, shady trees. One of the few biergartens we found in Berlin that serve beer in liter glasses.

Moving on to Munich, the biergartens multiply exponentially here. Literally, we'd find one around every corner.

We had two in the immediate vicinity of our hotel, one of which we made our local while we were there, the Alte Heide.  I did pretty much an entire post extolling the virtues of this tiny neighborhood biergarten that serves the best food we've ever had in Munich.

The Aumeister Biergarten sits at the north end of the massive Englischer Garten. Dating from 1810, it's big but not as big as some of the other biergartens in town. Very traditional space with plenty of outdoor tables and snack stands along the beer line. One of the places you can get the very delicious Auszogne (also called a Bavarian donut), though here they use regular sugar instead of powdered sugar to coat it. My wife really likes the dough they use here best, however.

It's at the top of the very forested north end of the park where there are dozens of trails for hiking and biking. It's very popular with both of those groups as a place to take a break in their activities.

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) The Chinesischer Turm is a massive biergarten towards the south end of the park. The name means 'Chinese Tower' and is overshadowed by a 25 meter tall pagoda. Thousands of drinkers can fit here, sometimes listening to musicians playing up in the tower.

Several food stalls surround the beer stand with all kinds of goodies to eat. Know that your price for beer includes a deposit for the glass. Return it to the counter around the back to get your fee back.

After passing the south end of the park, past the surfers on the Eisbach, eventually you'll reach the city's main plaza, Marienplatz. Just another block or so beyond that is a destination that every traveler to Munich needs to visit, the Viktulienmarkt.

This 2-block long market is where you can find just about any food or drink you can imagine from individual vendor stalls.  The New York Times said is was worth flying across the Atlantic just to visit this market and I have to agree, it's a wonderful place full of fascinating smells and tastes.

The biergarten in the middle of the market is where you can indulge in all those goodies you're going to buy from those vendors, along with food you can buy at several surrounding snack stands and, of course, the beer counter.

This is one of the best places to make friends with locals over a bier and a wurst.

Across from the Haupbahnhof (the main train station) is the expansive Augustiner Keller biergarten. One of our very favorites, this is the place to come for massive schweinhocken (pork shanks with very crispy and tasty skin) and a fluffy, pillowy Auszogne.

One of Munich's oldest breweries, Augustiner (not available in the U.S.) pours from old-fashioned wooden kegs into giant liter glasses.

Help yourself to a giant pretzel in the baskets near the cashier.

Eagle's Nest has a notorious past. This small, mountain top spot south of Munich on the border of Austria used to be Adolph Hitler's personal getaway. He was painfully afraid of heights so he only made the trip up here a few times.

Today, it's open to everybody and commands a spectacular view to go with your brew.

Back in the Schwabing neighborhood of Munich, there's another market that is as yet untouched by tourists. It's much smaller than Viktulienmarkt but Elisabethplatz still has everything you'll need or want, including a beer garden in the corner.

This is Wintergarten and serves some of the best sausages we had here, along with more great Augustiner beer.

There are hundreds more but the three of us can only make so much of a dent. The biergarten culture in Germany is alive and well, I only wish they'd export it over to us in the states.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Lounge 24, Riu's Do-It-Yourself Bar in Costa Rica

I think I count six bars at the Riu Palace in Costa Rica. There may be a couple more but there's definitely not any less. Plus, guests of the Palace also have full bar privileges at the Riu Guanacaste next door. 

You don't have to walk far to get your buzz on, that's for sure.

Watch the Video!

One of the unique bars is Lounge 24, at the back of the lobby behind the coffee and pastry bar.  It gets its name by being open and available to guests 24 hours a day. Feel like a nacho and beer craving at 3 in the morning? This is your place.

A fairly good selection of quality snacks and bar food line the back wall. It's definitely a step up from the all-night offerings of the last Riu we stayed at in the Dominican Republic. For drinks though? You're on your own.

That's not a bad thing, it's just what makes Lounge 24 unique...all the liquor and fixings are there for you to make whatever you want.

Think the lobby bartender is making your mai tai too weak? Make it as strong as you want here.  It's a nice break and even makes a good arts 'n crafts activity for those who want to play with a little mixology.

Watch in the video above as Tim and I demonstrate how to make a mai tai in this little DIY bar off the lobby of the Riu Palace in Costa Rica.  As an aside, after we finished, the other people in the bar watching us film the video, had me make mai tais for the whole group.  For the rest of the week, wherever we went in the resort, when one of those guests would see me, I'd get a greeting "hey, Mai Tai Man!"

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: St Patrick's Day Gold Line Pub Crawl

Highland Park Bowl (click on the play button - 10 seconds)

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  What were we thinking trying to do a pub crawl on one of the busiest drinking days of the year? Yeah, I admit, those thoughts were in my head but I couldn't get everyone in the party to commit to any other days so here we are, heading out on the Gold Line light rail train for a day of bar-hopping amidst the crowds of temporary Irish.

Metro's kind of dropping the ball for us today, too. Their attitude is why would anyone want to take the train instead of driving on this very busy day of revelry? At least that's what it seems like as they're doing a lot of maintenance on the tracks with trains only coming by every 20 minutes instead of the 6-10 minutes they usually do on weekends. Plus, they're only running 2-car trains instead of 3 making for some very crowded trains today.

30 seconds

Well, let's see if we can still make the best of the situation...

There are eight of us on this crawl today. In the best of times, it's always like herding kittens trying to keep people moving along. This will be a challenge but I'm up to it! We just miss the train so it's a 20 minute wait on the platform until the next one, then a 45 minute ride to our first destination, Tacos El Hermano, sitting next to the Pico/Aliso station in East L.A.

We'll fill our tummies with Mexican food here before throwing all the alcohol in later. Back on the train, we go one stop to Little Tokyo and walk one block south to our first drinking stop, Angel City Brewery.

This massive, former steel cable factory (it made the cables for the Brooklyn Bridge) has a wide-open floor plan where drinkers can hunker down into various corners, play games, or sit at the picnic tables facing out the patio doors where food trucks come by to serve their wares.

To me, the beer is a bit medicine-ny...a bit to herby and harsh...but there are a few gems on the tasting menu. The blonde is an easy choice to make if nothing else sparks your fancy.

Moving along, we get back on the train for our second stop. I give my brothers-in-law a choice of destinations and they pick Highland Park Bowl, a short block from the Highland Park station.

L.A.'s oldest operating bowling alley (since 1927), the Bowl underwent an extensive makeover in 2016. It is in a word, stunning.

With a bit of a steampunk vibe, old bowling equipment  is used as decoration throughout. Old pinsetters have been repurposed as chandeliers over the bars (two!) behind the eight lanes. Ball return mechanisms hold the top shelf liquor bottles. Walls have been removed to allow us to see the current pin setting machinery at work (click play on the video at the top of the post to take a look).

While much was done, a lot was left undone on purpose such as the raw plaster walls and the old wooden stairway railings leading to the restrooms upstairs (a ground-level restroom serves guests with special needs).

It's a few Jameson shots chased by PBRs for the guys and Moscow mules for the ladies as we squeeze into the booth before making our way back to the station.

Next, it's on to South Pasadena where we're headed for our only Irish pub of the day, Griffins of Kinsale. It's just four doors away from the station. It's packed, standing room only, and a very loud band is play David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars."

I love it but I turn around and see that I have lost the rest of the party. I go back outside and they're on the sidewalk..."it's too loud," they say. Oh well, instead we opt for the quieter confines of Nicole's around the corner.

This French store and cafe serves us well while we're here in South Pas. The ladies have a glass of the house chardonnay while the guys have a glass of Craftsman lager before getting back on board.

The next stop is a little more like it. Near the Memorial Park station in Old Pasadena, we find The Blind Donkey pub and have some sour gose beer.  The two staff members are a bit overwhelmed by the holiday merry makers so service was a bit lacking.

The beer was good, though.

Next stop was the Arcadia station and the Vendome liquor store across the street. Usually at this point, we would head to Mt. Lowe Brewery down the back alley but they were having an indoor kids movie festival today while Vendome (which has a nice little beer bar up front) was serving Irish specialties.

I forgot all about that, though, as I had a Belgian quad (name escapes me) while we exchanged bar info and restaurant information with the bartender who was glad to finally see some customers in his little bar that day.

One more stop as we end the day in Azusa at the Catholic school themed Congregation Ale House and brewery here for dinner outside on their patio while we all tipsily recount the day.

That's it from our latest crawl, maybe we'll catch you on the next one.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018
All Rights Reserved