Carolina BrewHaHa

I hate it when you guys have fun without us.

Now, I admit we are having a pretty outstanding time of our own right now but come Saturday we are going to be just a wee-bit jealous. Even though we would not trade our current plans for anything in the world, Upstate beer drinkers are going to have a damn good time of their own  (that is, of course, those of you that plan on attending BewHaHa).

You see, if you are going to BrewHaHa this Saturday then you are in for a treat. Anderson, South Carolina’s first ever craft beer festival will feature the delicious nectar of more than 20 craft breweries, tasty offerings from Anderson’s best restaurants and great live music. If you are in town why would you want to be anywhere else?  And please don’t say “the Clemson game” because they are playing S.C. State which does not really count…

To be honest, we’ve been looking forward to BrewHaHa for months. Our intent was to help out with our friends from Quest Brewing Company and catch up with a ton of friends from Anderson that we just do not get to see enough of anymore. Then we realized that I am incapable of reading a calendar and that I scheduled a separate trip that conflicts with BrewHaHa.

Whoops.

Good planning has never been my strong suit so I guess I should be used to mishaps like this. At any rate, I am just a bit dismayed that I will not be able to see what my favorite breweries are bringing to town for this event. From Quest in Greenville to Oskar Blues in Brevard and Founders Brewing Company from Michigan, some of my favorite breweries on Earth are going to be in attendance.

It is not just the beer I was excited about either; no visit to Anderson is complete for us without a trip to Summa Joe’s. Conveniently, they will be at BrewHaHa and even though I do not know what they are making, I can guarantee that it will be delicious. Also, Uptown Lounge has put together a great little menu that features some of the local breweries’ beers cooked into the food they are serving up. You need a little sustenance to compliment a day of beer drinking and I have little doubt that Summa Joe’s and Uptown are going to satisfy that need in spades.

Finally, since you cannot drink beer and eat good food in silence, BrewHaHa is bringing in four bands to entertain your earholes while you get your festival on. Local favorites TJ Lazer, Sam Anderson, and Peartree Music Company are all taking the stage but the special treat is the lovely Darby Wilcox. Although Darby is an Anderson native she has only returned to town for one performance in that last whole-bunch-of years. She is a great talent, one of our dear friends, and with her band The Peep Show puts on a show that should never be missed.

So, get your tickets and get your butts to BrewHaHa. The event itself should be motivation enough but just in case you need more of a reason, do it for us. Take lots of pics, tell us all about it, and let us live vicariously through you. We will do the same and swap stories later…

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Not As Lazy As I Look

May 1? I am a little embarrassed that it has been this long since our last post. What the hell? Has Brett been too busy drinking beer to post anything at all in the last three months?

Actually, um, yeah, that’s part of it.

The truth of the matter is that I have been extremely busy but I cannot lie and say that there has not been a lot of beer consumed along the way. This is what happens when you find yourself stationed at a brewery six or seven days a week. You see, I have the pleasure of being friends with the guys at Quest Brewing Company and have been helping them out on the construction of the Upstate’s newest brewery. 

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It's Election Time, Anderson

Last July we expressed our disgust at the results of The Upstate Be’s “Best of Be” results. This was in no way a knock on the publication itself but rather the poor taste expressed by the voting public. Winners included Subway for best sandwich and Pizza Hut for best pizza and my brain still hurts from trying to understand what type of person takes the time to vote for such mediocrity. 

This year we are going to be a bit more proactive. Instead of waiting to pull our hair out over the results we would like to encourage everybody with a sense of taste and loyalty for local businesses to make sure they cast a ballot that recognizes the hard work, dedication and overall importance of local business people. 

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An Epidemic Of Bad Taste

A few weeks ago we ranted about, I mean, reviewed The Upstate Be’s Best of the Upstate Reader’s Choice Awards. The winners of this survey ranged from questionable picks to downright offense establishments.  As a result, we may have made some broad generalizations about the collective intelligence of the Anderson community.

In the days that followed our posting of “Adios Andertucky” a few things occurred that make us want to expand on things just a bit.

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Adios, Andertucky

Every town I have ever lived in has had the local, alternative newspaper.  They have the potential to be a great resource for local residents and visitors alike to find out where the cool kids hang out or where the next can’t-miss concert will be.  On the other hand, they can be poorly written rags that are not worth the paper they are printed on.

On this scale, I have to say that the Upstate Be is one of the better examples of these publications.  They feature quality writing and do a great job of highlighting the type of people, places and things that I am interested in.  When a publication shares your same tastes in food, drink and entertainment, I generally consider it to be required reading.   

That said, unintentionally or not, once a year the Upstate Be releases an issue that highlights Anderson, South Carolina’s worst characteristic… public opinion.

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Restaurants We Will Never Write About

All I Wanted Was Nigori

When Chris and I first started talking about our ideas for this site, we agreed that we would never give a bad review.  Our thinking was that if we wrote about every place that we did not like, we might sound like snobs and potentially detract from stories about the places we really enjoy. More importantly, the blog would inevitably turn into a million word rant about everything I hate about Wal-Mart and O’Charley’s.

Sorry about that… no more name dropping, I promise.

Last week we had two meals that fell far below the run of the mill letdown.  They did not just disappoint us in their quality and service but they soured my mood and made us part with money that they did not earn.  I will keep their names to myself but I would just like to make an example of places that make me wonder how certain people stay in business.

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Poop In The Bathtub: A Plumbing Tale

The Camera Ran Home Afraid Of The Roots

Three weeks ago the bubbling of the toilet bowl during my shower let me know that there was a clog in our sewage line… again.  The last time this happened a man with a pipe snake and a video camera cleared the line and showed me the roots creeping into our main drainage line.  I assumed that the roots had grown back and this was nothing another $150 and a determined plumber could fix right up.

Our dice did not roll that way.

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“More Fun Than A Yard Sale” Revisited…

Marketing Genius!

A few months ago we posted the story More Fun Than A Yard Sale. This story chronicled our adventures in beer specials and posting on Craigslist on a Saturday afternoon.  It was a great Saturday and Chris and I had a blast writing ridiculous classified advertisements with the hopes of unloading some of our unwanted or excess belongings.

This past Saturday, however, we had a real-live yard sale and the results were every bit as fun and just a tad more profitable. 

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Party For The Pets

Let us be honest - Our pets our disgusting little creatures. They lick themselves in ways that we cannot even imagine. Cats bring small woodland creatures to our door step as if they are trophies and dogs will eat absolutely anything they find that they consider uniquely stinky. Five minutes before I sat down to write this our pit bull was licking bird crap off of our driveway like it was a gourmet meal. This afternoon, I cleaned up shredded cardboard that our mutt stole from the recycling bin to use to decorate our living room. They go out of their way to remind us why we are the owners and they are the pets. 

Yet we love them unconditionally.

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My Liver Needs A Vacation

Saturday I even drank enough to cross-dress.

The last several days have been almost entirely dedicated to fun, family, friends, and shenanigans. Thursday my wife Chris celebrated her 411^th birthday* and we have celebrated in style. We talked about spending her birthday or some part of the weekend in Asheville or Charleston but decided we could spend less money and have just as much fun right here at home.

Wednesday night we kicked off Birthday Eve with a quiet talk and a few cold beverages from Community Tap. We have been working so much lately that we were beginning to feel as if we were passing like two ships in the night. Even though I worked late Wednesday evening we still made time to cozy up on the couch with a Sierra Nevada Harvest, a Lagunitas Lucky 13 and the new Phosphorescent CD that I picked up at Horizon Records that afternoon. We talked more than we had in weeks, the beers were delicious and the CD was good enough to listen to twice in a row. Let the festivities begin…

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“Cancer Benefit” Is An Oxymoron So Let’s Just Call It A Party

I never had the pleasure of meeting Scott Jenkins.  Worse yet, I only know about cholangiocarcinoma because it took Scott’s life.  Please allow me to apologize for these oversights and share some valuable information with you.

No matter how young, active or health conscious that we are, as humans we are fragile creatures.  At any given moment we can fall victim to a careless mishap or runaway train. In Scott’s world, that train came in the form of one of the rarest forms of cancer our bodies can buy.  One day he was alive and healthy with a wife and family that loved him dearly and the next day he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Shortly thereafter he left only memories with the people that loved him the most.

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The Corner Bagel

Breakfast restaurants evoke a friendlier, family style environment than somewhere you usually go to dinner.  Sure, I see friends and familiar faces when I visit Summa Joe’s and The Cazbah, but it is more a result of coincidence than something that I can set my watch by.  Maybe there is something special about rising to a new day.  Maybe the camaraderie between clientele and the providers of the most important meal of the day puts things off on the right foot. Maybe we just cling to some sense of stability in our morning routine before we go off to tackle the world (or at least storm a castle or two).

At any given time on a Saturday morning, I can go to the diner down the street and see my retired next door neighbor surrounded by friends as if he were the mayor.  I could go back to my favorite breakfast spot in my old college town of Boone, North Carolina tomorrow morning and see the same owners, half the waitresses, and a few of my old college professors sitting right where I left them over fourteen years ago.  A quality breakfast restaurant will gain the same loyalty as any other eatery but they also build a routine that is harder to find at other times food serving venues.

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More Fun Than A Yard Sale!

Half of my Saturdays present a bit of a challenge for me.  On the good ones, it is the day that Ivan comes back from his mom’s to spend the week with me. However, the alternating Saturdays are the days that he goes back to her house and I spend the week missing the little monkey. I suppose that since many divorced parents (especially Dads) do not even have a 50/50 arrangement with their kids I should consider myself lucky but lucky does not really make those Saturdays any easier.

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My Taco Mexico

Authentic Mexican Food

The fact that I ever tried this restaurant is a testament to how much I love my wife.  I rarely eat Mexican food to begin with and even more infrequently do I eat in buildings that look like shanty homes in third world nations. She was insistent, however, and I was persuaded to go on a Sunday afternoon adventure that surpassed my wildest expectations.

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A Night Of Left Turns

Anderson Motor Speedway

This may be blasphemous to admit in this region but I do not care about NASCAR. I do not have any interest in which driver makes all his left turns the fastest or which car manufacturer wins more races. The little I know about Tony Stewart is all I need to know to this he is kind of a jerk.

This is how I generally feel about the sport of racing but there is an exception to every rule and I have a big one to confess… I love going to the racetrack.

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Throwing Trash Off A Cliff

Ok, so maybe this is not a place I would recommend visiting on a carefree Sunday afternoon with the family. However, it is a place local to home that I just visited for the first time and I must say that it was an educational experience to say the least.

I am almost ashamed to admit this but three days ago, at 34 years of age, I just visited a landfill for the first time. Needless to say, it left images in my head that have resurfaced almost every time I have put anything in the garbage since I visited.  I am not sure I will be able to look at my trash can the same way.

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McDowell's Emporium

Books-A-Million.  Amazon. Kindles. 

These are all places to buy “books”. You can walk in or log in and purchase whatever you want to read with ever increasing simplicity. In a culture that I feel does not read enough, I should be happy to see it become easier for people to access what they want to read in any medium they enjoy. 

I have to be honest though and admit that I see these places and technological “advances” as nothing less than a total affront to book reading. 

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Summa Joe's

Simply put, this is the best restaurant in Anderson, South Carolina.

Now, at the risk of being negative toward my hometown market, I realize that this may not be any more complimentary than calling someone the “most humanitarian serial killer” or an “environmentalist whaler”.  However, Summa Joe’s stands on its own as a top-notch restaurant regardless of the market they find themselves in. With a commitment to their tagline of “Simple. Local. Fresh.”, Summa Joe’s presents quality recipes with as many ingredients as possible coming from local producers. 

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