Travelling Lore

I know, I know, the blog title says "Hiking in Lake Tahoe," but first, let's get to the beer.  Then hiking.  We always thinking about Napa and Sonoma and wine, but California actually has a loooooot of breweries.  So when we saw any on the map where we stayed, we did our best to check them out.  Our first stop on our way into the Lake Tahoe area was Fifty Fifty Brewing Company . We also checked out Tahoe Mountain Brewing Company , which, as you'd probably assume given its name, is closer to Tahoe.  Their Evolution Barrel, pictured above, is probably one of the best sour beers I've had.  They describe it as a blend of one-, two-, and three-year-old sour golden ales that were aged in oak barrels.  So mother pucking good! In terms of solid sustenance, I recommend Sprouts Natural Foods Cafe .  For any vegetarians out there, this place is a dream.  Though I'm not a vegetarian, I ended up ordering vegetarian meals because their descript...

One of my favorite types of establishments to visit while traveling are breweries and Boston is no exception.  Having toured the Samuel Adams Brewery , we decided to make the walk through the Seaport District to Harpoon Brewery's Beer Hall .  Coming from Northern Virginia where all of the breweries around me are small and locally owned (and make great beer!), stepping into Harpoon's Beer Hall was nothing short of awesome. I absolutely loved the decor of the place: wooden furnishings; modern but medieval-inspired chandeliers; long beer tables that reminded me of a German Oktoberfest (bucket list item!).  To say it was crowded was an understatement, but we managed to squeeze our way into a small section of table and enjoy a few flights.  I'm not a big fan of their UFO White that a lot of bars carry.  However, I was quite pleased to see that there was so much more to choose from once inside Harpoon's mothership.  Oddly enough, I found myself enjoy...

If you prefer beer over wine, Charlottesville also has plenty of local breweries to visit. Most, if not all, offer flights or taster sizes of their brews and most also have food to purchase.  In addition to C'Ville-ian Brewery in downtown, we stopped at Blue Mountain Brewery for lunch where we tried every beer they had on tap.  My favorite by far was their Dark Hollow, a bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout. Blue Mountain Brewery also had amazing  pizza.  I am a hardcore pizza fan (it's basically my favorite food on this planet) and was incredibly happy with "The Real Deal" pie that I ordered.  This easily lasted us three meals: lunch for myself, dinner in the hotel room watching the NFL playoffs, and lunch on the drive back home. My fiance, on the other hand, ordered their delicious "Creole Cuban Press" sandwich, which was composed of slow-roasted Virginia pulled pork, shaved ham, pepper jack cheese, and pickles. He graciously let me try a bi...

While Charlottesville, Virginia is known for its plethora of wineries, they also have an abundance of local breweries.   C'Ville-ian Brewing Company , conveniently located in walkable downtown Charlottesville, is a veteran owned and operated nanobrewery.  Its clever name incorporates a play on the word "civilian" as well as the tendency of locals to shorten Charlottesville to "C-ville."  The owner Steve, who we met while enjoying a couple of pints, started the company in his garage in 2013.  Now, after securing a storefront, Steve remains motivated to create an inviting environment where people can enjoy delicious beer that was brewed with local ingredients.  Sitting in C'Ville-ian's cozy bar is like being draped in a U.S. flag: the bar is built with red wood, the walls are white, and there are 50 light bulbs hanging overhead, not to mention there's a gigantic U.S. flag hanging on the wall to seal the deal. The moment we walked into C...

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone brought in 2016 with fun, good cheer, and--most importantly--good friends!  My fiance and I hosted a small, low key party in our home with some good friends.  This was our third year hosting and, like the two years before, we had a new signature drink ready for our guests.  This year we went with a White Cranberry Martini , which was very delicious and subsequently a big hit! With 2015 now behind us, I wanted to take a look at my top 5 most read 2015 travel adventures on my blog.  I started this blog as a creative outlet, and that's still how I'll continue to run it, but I'm pretty happy with my stats considering I use a free blogging platform.  Most of my readers are, unsurprisingly, based in the United States; but I was surprised to see that a fair amount of my readers hail from Brunei followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.  I've discovered a ton of travel bloggers along the way and I really enj...

Last Thursday after work I popped over to the Reston Town Center (RTC) with a couple of friends to check out New Belgium Brewing Company 's Clips Tour.  The aim of the game for their Clips Tour is to raise money for a local nonprofit through beer sales all while showing free short films under the stars while everyone enjoys their drinks.  All of the proceeds from the beer sales in RTC, in this case, went to Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.   New Belgium is usually known for their Fat Tire Amber Ale.  However, their Clips Tour had a wider selection of their brews, including some of their sours and Lips of Faith series.  I was pretty ecstatic to see that they brew sours as those are my favorite at the moment in the world of beer.  La Folie was my favorite out of their sours.  I also really enjoyed their Cocoa Mole , which is a spiced (cinnamon and chilies) chocolate porter.  Film Noir, an imperial milk stout which was brewed specially...

While in Maine for our annual Labor Day Weekend vacation we decided to tour  Allagash Brewing Company  in Portland.  My fiance (yes, we're engaged now!!!) and I met an Allagash distributor down in southern Virginia a few months ago who recommended we check out the home base to try some of their beers that aren't widely distributed. For those who haven't heard of Allagash, it was founded in 1995 by Rob Tod as a one-man operation.  He focused completely on brewing Belgian-style beers since at the time British and German styles were the most prevalent.  His first release was Allagash White, which is now their flagship beer that you can find in stores and bars throughout the country. I was very impressed by the amount of detailed information we learned on our tour of the production and brewing areas.  Our tour guide was great and very knowledgeable of the company and she was able to answer questions without missing a beat.  She guided us from ...

Shifting to some local tourism, in June some friends, my boyfriend, and I stopped by Crooked Run Brewing .  They're a farmhouse nano brewery located in Leesburg, Virgnia.  They've carved a small niche for themselves in northern VA, but even though they don't have a dozen beers on tap like some of the other local breweries, the beers that they do have pack a punch on your palate. When we visited a couple months ago they had five beers on tap: Supernatural, an imperial hibiscus saison; Summer Night, a raspberry dark saison; Nitro Red Kolsch, an Irish red/German kolsch; We Stand Together, a grapefruit zest saison; and Valhalla, an imperial golden stout. I genuinely enjoyed all five of their beers on tap and I think it's become one of my favorite breweries, if not my favorite.  Valhalla, which was aged on coffee beans packed some impressive flavors.  At the time it was an experimental small batch brew, so growler fills weren't allowed.  However, it wa...

Switching gears for a hot second away from my Adriatic Adventure vacation round up (don't worry, I'll resume the recap soon!), I wanted to share my mini vacation to Acadia National Park from Independence Day weekend.  I first got inspired to see Acadia National Park from the U.S. Interior's Instagram , which posts tons of beautiful photos from across the U.S.  Let me just say that what I saw of Acadia NP in such a short time was gorgeous and I can't wait to go back one day!  New England has some really picturesque spots, let me tell you. We arrived the Wednesday leading up to the Fourth of July weekend.  After checking into Hanscom's Cottages , we took the free local bus to Bar Harbor, the main tourist town by Acadia NP.  There we had a delicious lunch at Galyn's .  I had the most amazing crab cakes (caught in Maine!) ever!  And we loved that the owner collected art and displayed it through out the restaurant. Our first day there (more lik...