Spontaneous Beer Bliss

Three weeks have passed, but I'm still savoring the pleasure of joining one of my oldest and dearest friends, Sean, for an evening at the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland.  The trip came about unexpectedly.  Sean had sent an e-mail a week before: he was going to Cleveland on business and asked me about Great Lakes Brewing because he saw that I'm a fan of theirs on Facebook.  I turned rhapsodic about their excellent beer and beautiful restaurant, though it had been years since I had last been to the restaurant itself.  Then his next message noted that I live only three hours from there.  I glanced over the schedule, cleared it with my family, and we were on.  


Great Lakes makes a pretty impressive variety of terrific beer, with a nice selection of seasonals and pub exclusives as well as their "family" of five beers that are always available: Dortmunder Gold Lager, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Burning River Pale Ale, Eliot Ness Amber Lager, and Commodore Perry IPA.  Like many craft breweries, though, they also feature some great eats and are seriously dedicated to their community and the environment.  The pub features fresh food from local, organic ingredients, including some grown on the company's own section of a farm in Bath, Ohio.  It's a company to feel good about.  And did I mention that they make great beer?


Sean and I had a blast.  We each ordered flights, which were generous and beautiful to look at.  In fact, several other patrons eyed the flights and admired the colors of those 5 oz pours of all nine beers they had available that night: the five flagships as well as Oktoberfest, Grassroots Ale (a saison), The Stein Bach (a pale bock; pub exclusive), and Nosferatu stock ale.  Other than the bock, the other seasonals are available as 4- or 6-packs.

This post isn't about the food or intended to be a review of the beers.  It's too many weeks ago to do any of that in detail.  Suffice it to say that all of the beers were impressive.  The Stein Bach was a bit too sweet for us but was nevertheless a nice example of its type -- I prefer their Rockefeller Bock, also a pub exclusive that I had many years ago and still remember as a bit more balanced.  The Nosferatu blew our socks off as an amazing, complex, and delicious beer with a noticeable alcohol taste.  The porter is an outstanding one, rich with coffee and chocolate.  I'll review Great Lakes beers from time to time here.   And the food was terrific, fresh and popping with flavor, including the burgers we had.  Even the fries were excellent.  But I won't go on about that, either.


Instead, as is already becoming apparent in this blog, I'm thinking about the totality of the experience.  Sean and I are close, really close, but we live far apart and hadn't seen each other in about six years.  We've known each other nearly forever.  We share a lot of interests.  In fact, he's the St. Petersburg, FL, Craft Beer Examiner.  And we share even more history: too many fun times to count, close calls, tough times and triumphs, growing up together and all the craziness that involves, celebrations of marriages and kids and accomplishments.  The chance to spend time together on the spur of the moment, go to the gorgeous and historic pub belonging to one of my favorite breweries, and just catch up, drink amazing beer, and eat well was simply priceless.  It seems obvious, but I'll say it anyway: the food and beer tasted better hanging out there with Sean than they would have had I been alone or if I had been with just about anyone else.  Going to the Great Lakes Brewery pub would always be great.  But that night, it was a peak experience.