PBO in the Land of the Sky

Just back from my 19th wedding anniversary trip, we went to Asheville. First let me preface this by saying that I have been going to Asheville all of my life, as my dad's family is from those parts, and I remember it as a sleepy mountain town with no hippies. A few years back, the town finally paid off their debts from the depression and "re-vitalization" began in earnest. Well, as you all know, it is now known as one of the premier hippie cities in the land, oh my Gawd, I had no idea how much.

The hippies I can handle, they don't bother me, I aspired to be one for much of my youth, however, as my ever-astute wife pointed out, there seems to be a high incidence of mental illness here. That and full-of-BS pseudo-intellectuals, you never overheard so much crap in your life, from the cooler-than-thou jazz "expert" in the Asheville Wine Market, to the "Bush sucks" employees in Malaprops bookstore pontificating on a menage-a-trois involving Nixon and Kissinger (if I saw one more anti-Bush bumper sticker, I was gonna puke. I mean, get a life, people).

Anyway, we had to get out of downtown fast, I went to the excellent used-book joint, Downtown Books and News, picked up a copy of "The Tolkien Reader" for 50 cents, "World's End" by Joan D. Vinge (been looking for that for years) for $1.50. I should have paid more attention to the fact that they had a resident cat, I felt like something was nibbling on me the whole time I was in there, by the time we got back to the car (Dana wouldn't let me go into the used CD stores, which sandwiched the skateboard shop, there was one of those mentally-ill types out front telling a bunch of 12-year-old skater wannabes that "the cops will f*** with you, man") I had rising welts on my legs and arms, I remembered the cat and said "that bookstore was infested with fleas!" (some of the clientele looked to be as well, the 50-something woman in striped kneesocks in particular).

Anyway, you know me, when I go somewhere, I'm all about the beer, the Asheville area has several breweries, Highland, which most folks are familiar with, Pisgah, and French Broad. When we first arrived in Asheville, we hit the Grove Arcade, which is a don't miss, I won't get into the story of the building here, you can look it up yourself, www.grovearcade.com, suffice to say it is very cool. (Side note, dude outside Grove arcade at one of the stalls selling homemade jams under the name of "Imladris", which of course is the Elvish name for Rivendell, I was impressed). We had lunch at Cats and Dawgs, which offers catfish sandwiches and gourmet hot dogs, as well as the aforementioned French Broad brews on tap. I had a Wee Heavy (which is a Scottish Ale) it was quite tasty (they were on sale, so the inbred mountain dude running the tap gives me a plastic cup that by the time the head settled was about 3/4 full, pissed me right off).


That evening, we had dinner on the Sunset Terrace at the Grove Park Inn - WOW!!! Stunning view of the sun setting over the city and the mountains behind, most spectacular, they had an interesting selection of beer on tap, Highland Gaelic Ale (been there, done that, one of my personal fave session beers), Yuengling (for the unsophisticated), Sweetwater (Atlanta brewery) Exodus Porter, and the aforementioned French Broad's Octoberfest brew. I chose the Sweetwater Porter, was surprised that it came in a frosted pint glass, this is a Wine Spectator-awarded establishment, obviously they need some education when it comes to beer. I had to wait 20 minutes until it warmed up to where I could taste it, a decent porter, but nowhere close to Sierra Nevada or Anchor's porters.

Saturday, for lunch we went to La Paz in Biltmore Village, I had a 25-oz Dos Equis Amber, whilst sipping they played one of my faves from back in the day, Cheap Trick's "California Man"

Get that real guitar boy shakin',
I'm a California man

I had forgotten how much that tune ROCKS.

When we got back to the hotel after lunch, I found a brochure for the now twice-mentioned French Broad brewery, turns out it was five minutes from the hotel, they have a tasting room open on Thu and Fri nights (with live music) and Sat afternoon (with brewery tours). We were 20 minutes too late to take a tour, but went and had a couple o' pints, and tasted all the brews (except the pilsner, they were out). Good but not great beers, definitely better than macros. Very laid back, cool bar chick, excellent tunage playing, nice T-shirts, they dont' bottle their brews yet, she said they hoped to by the end of the year, I coulda bought a growler, but had no way to keep it cold in the hotel. www.frenchbroadbrewery.com/

Next up: PBO goes uptown (Charlotte, that is, new work assignment), or maybe I'll type my U2 manifesto