It’s a recent hot headline so I guess I’ll jump in. I spent about 36 hours in Vegas recently, so I don’t know jack shit about the deeper problems Vegas faces, but I did notice a ton of breweries operating really close to each other in certain sections of town. I didn’t get the chance to explore any of them, but I’ve never had anyone tell me about this really incredible brewery they went to while they were in Vegas.
I flew away from Vegas considerably more broke than I was when I flew in, and it honestly wasn’t that wild of an experience – not that I was expecting much. I’m in my mid 40’s so it’s not like I was pounding $20 shots at what passed as a bar on Fremont. Okay, just the one. In the back of my mind was a voice telling me the price of an entire bottle of that kind of booze, and what I just paid, and another voice telling the other one to shut the fuck up and enjoy the moment, almost every time I bought another round of drinks. It was just an obscene markup everywhere we went. Vegas baybee…
I don’t know that I’ll go back with the same sort of plans I had this time, and I think a lot of people end up feeling that way after they get home and total it all up. There are other places in the world I’d like to visit for the same general cost as a trip to Vegas – places with culture and a sense of purpose (besides sucking your bank account dry). Places with a beer culture I’ve actually heard about.
…
Like
Well obviously a real trip to Germany for Oktoberfest would be incredible. There are other things I’d also like to do in Germany, like run the Nurburgring, but a multi-day trip spent exploring the different aspects of the biggest beer festival in the world would not be wasted time for me. I can only guess that I’d have a hard time choosing which beer hall to go into, but probably not, since I’d spend months planning the trip ahead of time. I’m planning it right now, haha.
The weekly
So I’ve mentioned our weekly beer gathering before, here in Albuquerque, a bunch of older guys I know that choose a different brewery every week to get together for a pint or three This week we were at a spot called Calavida Cantina, tucked in the armpit between northern Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Corrales, a rustic little village with one road through it that still has horse crossings.
Calavida has been renamed from, most recently, Vision City, and it’s a small brewery working through opening issues and that rebranding. I believe they’re also doing a distillation operation, but there wasn’t much evidence of that on our recent visit – no branding or advertising the spirits side of things, if there was one.
Our group of six sat near the bar for ease of use, as there appeared to be only the bartender and maybe one other person on staff who wasn’t back in the kitchen. It made service a combination of table service and us walking up to the bar for another pint, even though they weren’t very busy. The bartender did his best, and overall the service was great, but other things were amiss…
Our burritos were pretty good, but there was no silverware in sight if we needed a real fork or knife. There was also a lack of plates, and it was hard to share our apps when they arrived. Someone decided to cut corners on the dining side and it’s hurtin’. The beans in our food could’ve also used another half hour soaking before cooking but, umm, you’d only know that if you’ve cooked a lot of them in your past life.
This turned into a google review real quick
Yeah, you should check those out I guess, since a lot of my better writing is sourced from my visits to local places that just really suck or do something really good. I have literally burned several places because their service was just atrocious and it pained me to do it, but I had fun in the process. If you’ve read my past work you’d know this, so go back and read the ~5 years of posts I have up. Yeah, you. What else do you have to do today?