CoffeeBeer >> Pint Pleasures >> Atlanta 3
Back in May of this year, at the start of my yearly visit to America, I found myself in Atlanta, Georgia, a city I had never expected to visit. But as my second cousin Mark had invited me to come stay for a few days, I took advantage of this opportunity to get to know another relative. And I was really impressed with Atlanta as well.
Located in the foothills of the Appalachians, Atlanta boasts the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the country, which is impressive considering the city was burned to the ground by General Sherman durings the American Civil War. Named after the Atlanta-Pacifica Railway, Atlanta is most remembered as an important centre of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. And its airport, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, is currently the busiest airport in the world, so I was highly impressed by how easy it is to find one’s way around the terminals.
Although I was only there for a few days, we did manage to get to one of the city’s breweries. Located in Decatur, northeast of Atlanta, Three Taverns Craft Brewery was quite difficult for the two of us to get to. This was due to the rubble, formerly known as a pavement, and it seemed like it was going to be impossible to get there. But Mark was managing impressively well with his walker that he uses for stabilisation, so I followed his heroic lead as we forged our way through broken concrete, gravel, and other treacherous construction-site obstacles. We ended up reaching the brewery a half hour before it was due to open at 4pm. Fortunately there were some casual seats outside in the shade, where we sat back and waited for the place to open. At one point a young man, presumably an employee, emerged from the pub, and when I chatted briefly with him I found out he had recently visited Newcastle upon Tyne. So we talked for a few minutes about cask ale.
Exactly four minutes after opening time Mark and I finally entered and found ourselves in a brick room with a beamed wooden ceiling. As we were the first customers of the day, we had plenty of time to peruse the beer menu and sample the offerings. I first had a taste of Hazy Bird (5.0% ABV), a hazy IPA collaboration with Ladybird Brewing of Kansas. The beer was described as “tropical with a touch of diesel”, and that sounded all right to me. But I ended up going for a pint of A Night On Ponce American IPA (7.5% ABV). Described as tasting of citrus, tropical fruit, and light pine, it was very drinkable and a happy faith restorer after my lousy beers the day before. This was just a good zippily hoppy pint, and it was nice and clear, which was a great change from all the cloudy IPAs I’d been having lately. Mark went for a pint of the darker Maury Mable’s Irish Stout (4.5%), a dry Irish stout with notes of roasted coffee, dark chocolate, and light toasted grain. In my opinion this was a perfect coffee stout, just the way I like my dark beers, and it was dry like a proper porter. Mark thoroughly enjoyed it.
Advertised as “what Georgia drinks”, Three Taverns was inspired back in 1994, after founder Brian Purcell visited Belgium and was inspired by the beers brewed by Trappist monks. A few years later, he had a glass of Le Trappe beer at the Brick Store Pub in Decatur, and later during a visit to Portland, Oregon, he experienced a tasty home brew. Named after a travellers’ rest on the Appian Way which is mentioned in the book of Acts, Three Taverns Brewery was finally opened in 2013.
Apparently we were in the Parlour, where the brewery’s Genesis Project provides space for experimental and imaginative brewing. There is also another taproom called the Imaginarium, in the Atlanta Dairies complex on Memorial Drive Southeast, that features the brewery’s experimental beers including sours and pastry stouts. There is also the Ponce Brew Terminal, located in Ponce City Market, which features more experimental beers such as an Earl Grey tea, vanilla, and lavender sour, a Mexican dark lager, a tangerine milkshake IPA, and a Japanese rice lager. The Ponce also serves cocktails and hot snacks.
It would have been great to visit some of these other Three Taverns venues; but alas, there is only so much time in a day and a week and in one's life.
After I said goodbye to Mark and checked in at the airport for my onward flight to Chicago, I had time to stop into the Sweetwater Brewing Company Last Cast Bar & Grill in the B Concourse for a pint. As is always my preference I took a seat at the bar, where I first had a taste of Daytrip IPA (6.6% ABV). An easy-drinking tropical brew hopped with Citra, Columbus, Mosaic, Simcoe, and Waimea, this was indeed nicely tropical. The barman also offered me a taste of the brewery’s flagship beer, 420 (5.7% ABV). Brewed with Cascade hops and offering a lovely balance of citrus and pine, this West Coast style lager tasted more like a pilsner. The first batch of 420 was brewed on April 4, 2020, so the name was taken from this date.
I ended up going for a pint of Tropical High Hazy IPA (6.2% ABV). Double dry hopped with Mosaic, Citra, El Dorado, and Azacca, this offered a pleasant wallop of that combination of tropical fruit, lime, and pine that I always thoroughly enjoy. It was a good farewell to Atlanta, a city I’d never visited and never even thought I’d ever visited. To tide me over till I reached Chicago, I ordered the fish tacos which were, as usual, more than I could eat: three sauce-soaked tacos with a load of potato crescents. But I did what I could with them. And the young barman was great, making the whole experience a fine farewell to the city.
I suppose I should make a mention of my first beer taste in the city, at Mellow Mushroom. This was on an evening when I joined Mark and a small group of his friends who meet here to participate in the weekly quiz. I was looking forward to my first Atlanta pint, but I gather this small chain is more into their pizza and food than the quality of their beer. My first pint of Daytona Daydream IPA (6.0% ABV, Outrun Brewing, Stone Mountain, Georgia) was murkily tainted and really awful, and I was not a happy drinker. So the only other choice for me was the Voodoo Ranger IPA (7.0% ABV, New Belgium Brewing Company, Asheville, North Carolina), which at least was drinkable if not terribly exciting. And we came in second in the quiz, simply because the other three made a mistake on one of the questions they should have known. I mean, having been an expate for many years, I really only contributed to one answer, so I was still impressed that they came second, even though they fully expected to come first. So it was a fun night, and I have to say the pizza was decent as well.
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