Thursday, May 01, 2008

Freight-hopper

On my way through Tennessee's oldest town, Jonesborough, I stopped into the Depot Street Brewery for a tour. I caught the brewer before he headed out, on a beautiful day, to go ride his mountain bike. The small brewery serves a very local region. I sampled what he had on draft, and I was impressed with his beers. I brought home a sixer of his Southbound Scottish Ale, which was surprisingly light in body for a strong ale. This beer is going in my cooler and heading for Pisgah Forest.
I had celebrated the first Saturday in May with the thoroughbreds for 7 years, before coming to East Tennesse and beginning a new tradition of suffering like a Thoroughbred. The usual suspects are are heading for the mountains of Western North Carolina to ride in the Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race.

Also, good luck to those heading to the hills of Tennessee for the 12 hours of Dirt Sweat and Gears. There is alot of bike racing going down this weekend, and I'm fired up!

Insert in cooler and head for the mountains:

When I made it back to Knoxville-town, there was a package waiting on me, containing some hop rhizomes. Erin and I are getting our garden together, and this year we will be growing some hops.


The Double Pale Ale I brewed has turned out great. Wednesdays are happy hour at the The Back of My Car Bar, found at your local trailhead.

This reminds me of a funny story: My wife, Erin, was telling some people at work about last weekends bike race and how we drank copius amounts of beer. Her co-workers asked "is that what they do when they ride their bikes?" To which my lovely wife had a wealth of hilarious stories from beer-dinking-bike-rides to tell them. So when her boss was leaving the school with screaming kids, she looked over at Erin and said "I need to go for a bike ride."
Now when they want to get a drink, they refer to it as "going for a ride."
Cheers!

1 comment:

Thomas said...

I get all the news I need from a weather report.

"The weekend's coming and so is rain, and so are thunderstorms, and maybe hail, and maybe damaging winds, and maybe a tornado. Have a great weekend! It'll be mostly sunny on Monday.

The National Weather Service this morning issued a hazardous weather outlook for Saturday through Thursday. Here's what to expect on Saturday:

A cold front will slowly approach the Southern Appalachian region on Saturday ... with numerous showers and thunderstorms preceding the front.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms will first move into the region on Saturday morning ... with a few of these storms possibly becoming severe with damaging winds or large hail ... especially across the Cumberland Plateau.

A better chance for severe weather will develop in the afternoon ... as additional thunderstorms are expected to redevelop along the front before it moves into the area. Some of these afternoon storms may become severe with damaging winds and large hail. In addition ... an isolated tornado or two will be possible."