As some may have read in our Beer Weekend post, E-Rock and I (Stoutmeister), have set off on a road trip of epic epicness to our neighboring state of Arizona. While E-Rock, brilliant in music and math but slow in typing, works on a review of Flagstaff’s landmark Beaver Street Brewery (it was his first visit, my 10th or so), here is a recap of what we’ve done so far and plan to do as we sample beers from around the state.

Day One — E-Rock will have the Beaver Street recap up soon. After stopping there for lunch and beers, we continued south to the monolithic Phoenix metropolitan area, which is spread out all over the desert and now holds twice as many people as all of New Mexico (Wikipedia may not always tell the truth, but the census figures it cites do not lie … much). After dinner and a short time to unwind from the drive, we set out from our crash pad in Chandler to nearby Tempe, which has the greatest concentration of breweries largely due to the fact it has the greatest concentration of college students in Maricopa County. Since we had already been to Four Peaks, the area’s largest microbrewery, and Sleeping Dog is strangely closed Sunday through Tuesday, we stopped in at Dave’s Electric Brew Pub. The bartender was starting to close up, but he decided two more thirsty customers could not hurt. I snagged a couple pints of the Old Frog Grog, an oatmeal stout, while E-Rock sampled every variety of pale ale and IPA they had. We’ll have a more formal review up soon, but we would like to thank the DEBP staff for letting us in.

Day Two — Our plan is to trek as far west as one can in the metro area, to scenic Goodyear, to watch the Indians play host to the Diamondbacks. We are not fans of either team, though my college friend Shelley Duncan plays for Cleveland, but I have a personal goal to see as many ballparks as possible and Goodyear’s is still on my list to check off. After some daytime baseball we’re going to check out O.H.S.O. Eatery + nanoBrewery. They only have two of their own beers, but they also have dozens of other Arizona and national microbrewery varieties on tap, which makes this a good place to try out beers from places in the state we won’t get to visit.

Day Three — I will be getting up bright and early to say hello to the past, current and future Albuquerque Isotopes as they continue Spring Training at Los Angeles Dodgers camp out in Glendale. The media gets access from 8 to 9 a.m. and then after the game. Look for full reports at my other online writing endeavor. While E-Rock gets to hang around Camelback Ranch as a fan and then wait for me to finish up, our next brewery target is SunUp Brewing. We are both looking forward to the Vanilla Porter.

Day Four — E-Rock is flying home to rehearse (did I mention he’s a darned good, and busy, musician?), leaving me to fly solo for the day and attend a Cubs game in Mesa. After meeting up with an old friend who I’ve known since third grade, or almost 26 years, we will check out the Diamondbacks/Rockies facility, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, for a night game. This will be the only brewery-free day of the trip, but I will endeavor to find anything local at the two ballparks (or at least refrain from anything in the Bud/Coors/Miller families).

Day Five — My final baseball stop takes me to the other side of downtown Phoenix, where the Brewers train in Maryvale. After that I hope to join up with some old college friends to watch basketball and enjoy the beers at SanTan Brewing, which E-Rock visited in his last trip down here and graciously reviewed for us.

Day Six — It will be time to trek back down to visit my old haunt, Tucson, where I lived for seven years while allegedly going to the University of Arizona and been given a degree in journalism just so I would go away. The immediate goal is to stop by Borderlands Brewing, which is only open a few times a week and Friday happy hour just happens to be one of those times. It is one of two breweries that have opened since I left Tucson in 2003. The other is Barrio Brewing, and if I have time (they are not that far apart) I will stop there as well.

Day Seven — St. Patrick’s Day. Shenanigans will occur. What exactly, I cannot predict.

Day Eight — Day of Recovery. Other than my fantasy baseball keeper league draft (if you’re shocked that I’m that big of a sports nerd that I pay $100 a year to do this, you have not been paying attention) over the internet, my main plan will be to regain the parts of my soul I lost to the previous night’s shenanigans.

Day Nine — The Tucson-to-ABQ drive is one I have done so many times I don’t even need road signs anymore. I could probably do it with my eyes closed, but the highway patrol usually does not like that. The only difference this time will be in where I stop for lunch in Deming, NM. Instead of a fast food joint off I-10, I will hit up Mimbres Valley Brewing. Look for a full review next week!

That is all for now from the Valley of the Sun. I am off to pick up the two important things I forgot — a hat and sunscreen. It’s in the 80s all week and I’m Scottish-Irish-Polish, so I have no choice.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister