Savannah and Charleston Microbrews

I am currently on vacation.  We left Atlanta Friday night right after work and arrived in Savannah Georgia just around midnight.  We met some friends from Detroit and now we are on a tour of the south east.  We started in Atlanta and now are in Charleston and at the end of the week we will end up in one of my favorite cities in the world, Asheville North Carolina.

Of course, one of my goals for the weekend was to experience some local brews.

Savannah is home to a great brewery called Moon River.  I have been there before but I wasn't drinking beer then. We were there on a haunted pub tour and, honestly, by the time I made it to that location I was so freaked out by the tour that I couldn't go into the haunted room. I stayed downstairs and waited for my tour companions to rejoin us.  I tend to be easily scared, however.

My friends, Dann and Cindy, along with Matt and me went to Moon River on Saturday afternoon and had a beer that day. I tried the Apparition Ale, which I greatly enjoyed.  This is a traditional English Pale ale more like a Bass than the types of pale ales that are common in the US.  Because it is lighter and less hoppy I found it very tasty.  Matt didn't like it as much because he prefers a little stronger tasting beer.

On Sunday, however, my companions decided to go golfing.  This is an activity that I do not typically partake.  Instead, I wandered over to the Unitarian Universalist church of Savannah for service.  After church, though, I decided to go back to Moon River for lunch by myself. I sat at the bar and Richard, the awesome afternoon bartender, was delightful.  I got another Apparition Ale to start with and ordered a burger for lunch.  As I finished my burger I decided to give the Captain's Porter a try.  It was a coffee flavored beer with some smokey notes.  I found it tasty but I liked the Apparition better.  I left the brewery to meet up with my travel companions but after wandering around the city on Sunday afternoon we found ourselves back at Moon River.  Richard greeted me warmly and I said "Well, if I had known they wanted to come here..."  While there, Matt tried their Swamp Fox IPA.  I am exploring pale ales but the IPA was a little too strong for me right now.

Tonight, we find ourselves in Charleston SC for the first time (for all of us).  After checking in to our hotel, we made our way to the bar in the hotel lobby where I discovered Palmetto beer.  I had read about this beer but the brewery is not near where we are staying so I didn't expect to give it a try, but it appears to be widely distributed throughout the Charleston area.  I started with the Amber Ale.

After the hotel bar, we were on our way to check out the town, eventually ended up at a delightful sushi restaurant.  Prior to that, though, we walked over to a local brew pub called South End Brewery.  While there I tried two of their beers, the Oatmeal Stout and the Bombay Pale Ale. Both beers were quite tasty.  The oatmeal stout was more up my alley in regards to the type of beer I normally drink.  The Bombay Pale was not an IPA specifically but a little hoppier than a typical pale ale.  I did enjoy it thought.  The universal observation I cam make when it comes to hoppy beers is that the hops does hit your palate heavily at the front end kind of ruining your taste buds for the remainder of the beer but if you can get past that the rest of the beer is generally flavorful and smooth.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a market to get some beers for the hotel room.  I found the Palmetto winter seasonal beer, the Bocat Chocolate Bock.  Honestly the first taste is pretty good with a heavy chocolate flavor but after that it tastes just kind of watered down.  I wouldn't name it among my favorites but it isn't bad.

We are turning it a little early tonight and plan to visit a local plantation tomorrow and the just hanging out on the town until we leave on Wednesday for Asheville where we will undoubtedly have more beer.