Your Starter Guide to Drinking Craft Beer in the Suburbs
Your Starter Guide to Drinking Craft Beer in the Suburbs
Sorry this is late and stuff
I don’t like to admit I live in the suburbs. While I am in the middle of the city, it is still the suburbs. It’s much cooler to be in “the city” or whatever.
Main drawback: I don’t live downtown next to a cool brewery.
Hell, I don’t even live by an industrial park where new breweries seem to live.
There is a daycare on my block along with a State Farm Insurance office and a notary. Not exactly party central.
But that doesn’t mean you or I can’t have a good time with a nice beer in our neighborhoods. You just have to plan:
Beer runs. Stop off at a brewery at some point in your week. Load up as much as your budget allows because who knows when you’ll make it back down here.
Ship it good. The Pandemic did at least one good thing and loosened up the beer shipping restrictions. Many states allow you to get beer shipped to your house directly from the brewery - as long as you’re still in the same state as the shipper.
A solid grocery store. If you are lucky enough, you have a grocery store with a decent Craft selection. This is the one thing I am lucky to have (although it is two blocks away [sighs in beer nerd]).
I will be honest with you, the main thing I do is get beer from a nearby grocery store. It is the most boring of ways for a beer geek to get their beer, and I do it often. My street cred fades day by day.
Tangent Warning! You have to be careful with your suburban drinking as a parent. Parents from your kid’s school are everywhere!
Yeah ‘cause, you think you’re safe at your neighborhood Mexican restaurant bar gettin’ stupid, but unknown to you little Tommy’s mom for the PTA was sittin’ in the corner the whole time watching you throw back Modelos (because it is the only drinkable beer this place has) and can’t wait to tell everyone at the next meeting how obnoxious you are and (worse) your taste in beer sticks!
(not that that has happened to me or anything…)
There is a lot to unpack in the suburb beer drankin’ genre. I’ll dig deeper another time.
Drinking Notebook
This week I had some Heady Topper, something I had not had in a bit and it was nice. I also had a Russian River R&D Series IPA (#17) and it was a well-made beer, nothing exciting (if I’m being honest).
But the best one was one from Casa Agria Ales (Oxnard, CA), “Lost Shores WCIPA”, a very nice beer that I will have again - they went hard with the Nelson and I like that.
Well, I hope you have a great week with your beers. I greatly appreciate the read. If you could talk this newsletter up to some cool beer drinkers in your suburbs, that would be rad of you.
-Mikey
Peace, Beer, & Metal!