Tantalizing Tidewater Taverns

It has been a long winter, and we had intended to take my father-in-law away for some R&R to Virginia before he had a bit of a spill and decided he couldn’t travel.  The kids were out on Spring Break so we decided to go anyways, popping into my folks and the Capital Ale House (http://capitalalehouse.com/fredericksburg/) on the way down.  The Capital Ale House has become a must stop for us since we stopped by last year, and I was lucky enough this time to find DC Brau’s On the Wings of Armageddon, an Imperial IPA that was #140 on Draft magazine’s top 250 beer list.  So we settled into our condo and got ready to enjoy the warmer weather.

I’ve always wanted to show Jenn the Portsmouth/Norfolk waterside area, and Saturday was the perfect day to do it with warm temperatures and without a cloud in the sky.  We decided to go to the Bier Garden (http://biergarden.com/) for lunch, and were rewarded with a great meal.  I got their Strammer Max, Leberkase with an egg on top, while Jenn had the freshly prepared (we could hear them “flattening” the meat) chicken cordon bleu sandwich (what a mouthful!).  And even though they have one of the most extensive German beer lists I’ve ever found, I didn’t find one that I hadn’t had before (a problem for me at German restaurants).  No worries, I enjoyed a local brew, Young Veterans’ Night Vision stout on draft to go with my meal.  We all agreed that we should return, perhaps on our travels to OBX.

We toyed with the idea of taking the water taxi across to Waterside, but for convenience sake we drove instead.  I told the kids how much I use to enjoy walking around the shops, so imagine my surprise when we found the place deserted.  I was so disappointed that one of my memories of the area was gone, but made the best of it by taking in the shopping at a local mall and enjoying the weather at Towne Point Park.  That really was the purpose of the day, enjoying the return of the sun (and sunburn) while hanging out together.  The Battleship Wisconsin was impressive, a fixture of the Nauticus museum that now dominated the scene.  We next headed off to check out Draft magazine’s top rated beer bars for 2014, The Birch Bar (http://www.thebirchbar.com/).

The Birch is located in the middle of nowhere, but easy to get to on the Norfolk side of the midtown tunnel.  They were celebrating 43 Hours of Bitters (the number of hours they were open during the week), where the beer list was dominated with local and international IPAs.  The menu is limited if you want anything beyond gourmet grilled cheese, but the kids enjoyed a German pretzel and I got a cheese plate of a chipotle and cranberry cheddar, sausage, and olives to go with the beer.  The Bahnhof Pineus was awesome, a Gose that was filtered thru pine nuts to give it a distinct (and surprising pleasant) flavor, as was Italy’s Del Borgo Re Ale Extra, a great example of how European breweries are catching the American IPA wave.  The waitress was knowledgeable of the local beer scene, and offered tastes of the different brews for comparison.  I particularly liked the Amager/Mikkeller blended Hr. Frederiksen Vaesal Brunch, a combination of two notoriously delicious Imperial Stouts.  What I liked most was that The Birch had a cellaring case (it had ~10 bottles of KBS) where members could save beers to share at a private party.  Now that I know how easy it is to get to, I’ll need to see how I can make it back.

The next day my sister-in-law Cathy stopped in to go to Virginia Beach together.  She got on the road early from Manassas, skipping breakfast so she could make the trip with us.  So we headed to the shore, stopping for lunch at the Yard House along the way.  I normally am less excited about chain spots, but the Yard House has an extensive food menu to accompany its ~100 drafts.  The draft selection is impressive, but you need to check the chalkboard to see any rarities.  I got a Lasso on draft, a Session IPA from Great Divide that was good way to start the day.  Cathy and I both got fish tacos, blackened swordfish for one and Baja halibut for the other, which hit the spot.  Cathy got a sampler (they choose, not you), but the selections were all good.  I even found a Gulden Draak 9000 to placate the heat from the srirachi sauce before we left.

The beach was beautiful, and everyone was there.  Jenn and Cathy sat on the beach while the kids and I walked the boardwalk (3 miles, not bad for vacation) to see the sights.  We walked up past the King Neptune statue before the kids did a taste comparison between Ben & Jerry’s and Kohr Brothers (sorry, DQ, there was no room for you).  I stopped in at one of my favorite beach hangouts, the Raven, to quench my thirst with an O’Connor’s Norfolk Canyon Pale Ale.  We thoroughly enjoyed the weather and the company, a great start to our vacation week. – 15558

 
“It takes beer to make thirst worthwhile.” – German Saying