Bottle Monkey #MakingBeerMatter

I recently launched Bottle Monkey with the promise of #MakingBeerMatter & bringing the best craft beer to the Isle of Man.A successful Beer Dinner at Noa Bakehouse with exclusive Brewdog beers followed and next up was a little #BeeryAdventure to Boston and New York.Forget the Boston Tea Party, the Empire State building and the Lady of Liberty, I went looking for something different off the beaten track and beer, it’s always about the beer.First stop Sam Adams Boston brewery.  You might have had a pint of their Boston Lager in the Thirsty Pigeon, but this is their research and development brewery & the beers here rarely leave the city of Boston, unless you stuff some in your suitcase like me.After a slick tour of the brewery we made our way into the tasting room and were served up a 10.1% Imperial Stout called Vixen and at 10.30am it left a few tourists questioning their life choices, but to the dedicated craft beer drinkers in the room, it was exactly what we had come for.

 Next up (yes on the same day) after a strong coffee or two and a bite to eat was the Mikkeller Beer Celebration. Think of the drinking game centurion, where you take a shot glass and drink 100 shots of lager as quick as you can, it was like that but with the best beers in the world. The building was part of an old power station complex that had been re-purposed into a series of artisan shops, markets and event spaces.  We took a wander around afterward to clear the head. And when it comes to beer shopping, you can’t go to America without visiting Wholefoods.  They do Beer right. There are some awesome new bars and restaurants popping up in South Boston a former industrial area.  Like Coppersmiths, a restaurant and bar with a couple of food trucks parked up inside for good measure. We spent a lot of time exploring the city, a crazy mix of new and old but it works. But I couldn’t go to Boston and not visit Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox.  The oldest baseball ground in America and in what appears to be the true Boston way it’s a seamless marriage of the old and new. Our last night in Boston was spent wandering the freedom trail until we hit the South Boston Greenway. We finished the night drinking world class, locally produced craft beer from Trillium Brewing, sat between historic buildings and modern glass tower blocks, at the heart of one of the world’s best-known cities. A good nights sleep and a Greyhound bus ride later and we were in New York. Our home for the next few days was The Paper Factory, a hotel in Liberty Island City that was built for Instagram. On our first night, we made our way to the riverside and watched the sunset over Manhattan.  On the way back we discovered the Rockaway Brewing Company (I say discovered I scoped it out on Google maps before we left).  A very hospitable Barman named Jake took us through the full beer list. You can cram a lot into a couple days in New York if you try hard enough and of the obvious tourist traps, we visited Times Square, Wall Street, Rockerfella Tower,  the Staten Island ferry, central park and the odd museum. One of the few things I set up in advance was a rare opportunity to nose around Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn. They brew some of the most wanted IPA’s in the world right now and the beer is only available from their brewery and tap room and the few beer festivals they visit across the world.  I still don’t know why they agreed to let me wander around their brewery. We followed that up with a birthday dinner at Torst, 21 beer taps, a bottle list of 200+ beers, ciders and meads and food to die for. Happy Birthday to Me! After all that we took a break from the beer, not the alcohol mind.We climbed aboard an RV ready for some #ScienceBitch cooking up cocktails #BreakingBad style.The trailer trash in charge refused to answer to anything other than ‘Yo! Bitch’ and once she dished out the product we got to work. The best thing about New York is exploring, visiting the dive bars and coffee shops in the LIC, Queens, and Brooklyn.  Taking in the sights and sounds of the city and ogling the street art that seems to be round every corner. Now back on the rock I made sure I brought a little bit of New York and Boston back in the form of beer, inspiration, and ideas. So keep a lookout as I’ll be announcing a little tasting event soon with some of the beers I picked up on my travels, including something a bit special from New York’s finest Other Half. 

---

Coming this Sunday is the IPA Showcase hosted by Bottle Monkey. The event will bring you a selection of the best IPA’s from the USA, and they will be pitted against some of the best IPA’s from the UK. Grab yourself a ticket soon before they’re all gone! 

var bannersnack_embed = {“hash”:”bu5wh4gym”,”width”:672,”height”:280,”t”:1548694738,”userId”:38193901,”responsive”:true,”type”:”html5″};//cdn.bannersnack.com/iframe/embed.js