Today was a bit of an odd day. It started well enough, but I mixed or messed things up later. I started by heading to Atlanta. I have to say the drivers in Tennessee and Georgia are some of the most aggressive I have seen. Combine that with many passive drivers, and I would find it hard to believe there are no daily pileups. If I was going 80, there were tons of cars passing me, going over 100. Luckily my stops were in the West end of town, so I could take the Atlanta bypass and drop in. Both Monday Night Brewing and Wild Heaven were in the same complex. Both were large open warehouse concepts that could hold some serious bashes. I tried the Tugboat Captain at Wild Heaven, which was tasty. It’s made with fig, tangerine, molasses, and prunes and combines two barrel-aged beers. I grabbed what may have been the last bottle.
Next, I headed to a hop shop next door to peruse the bottle selection and see if there was anything I should pick up, so I found a couple of oddities and headed over to Monday Night. Monday night has a pretty good barrel program, and I tasted a lovely apricot Appalachian Wild Ale. I rarely get an excellent apricot taste out of wild ale, but this was very pronounced. I picked a good selection of to-go bottles and headed for my next stop.
This is where I blew it. I had done a ton of research on open days and times, but when I got to Athens for Creature Comforts, I had forgotten that I moved them up a day and didn’t check on if the takeout shop was open or not, and it was not. So bummer there. I headed to Ashville. I like the vibe Ashville had in the area where I was. The first stop was the Wicked Weed Funkatorium which was packed with people. I had a flight of random golden Appalachian wild-aged beers, which were tasty without tasting the same. The clear winner was the blood orange which had great character and balance. I picked out another selection of bottles and headed IP to Hi-Wire to see if they had anything sour-related. I was going to the Durham location but needed to reroute the trip, so I hoped to find something here. I ended up with two bottles, the Grapefruit Saison and the Sour Saison. There looked like a ton to do in this town, so I may have to add it to the must-return list.
The next stop was Morganton, an odd little town in the middle of nowhere, home to Fonta Flora. This was my second screw-up. I was starving, so I went to get some Carolina BBQ, and when I was done, I noticed it was almost closing time for Fonta Flora, and the GPS in this town was so screwy it couldn’t tell me how to get there. I ended up at a bottle shop called Brown Mountain Bottleworks instead and picked up an odd duck bottle from a local brewery called Sidetracked. I have eliminated a few non-needed stops from West Virginia today so I can hit Fonta Flora in Town and the Farm nearby. Other than those two stops, today is laid back as I go North to Virginia. I can’t wait to see if that Fonta Flora farm is as pretty as it sounds. This area is really beautiful, and the people have been very nice.
