Weekend Road Trip - 4/6/2013

I've been writing about my weekend in Columbus and will finish up by writing about our dinner out and several other oddities.

Saturday night we went out to Barley's Ale House, which I've written about before in Barley's Ale House No. 2 and here, in Robert Burns Dinner in Review.  Keep reading as it amuses you to do so.

Barley's Ale House

Ah, good old Barley's.  If you have a yen for outstanding beer that isn't anything like Bud-Bud-Light etcetera ad nauseam, Barley's should be at the top of your short list.  On Saturday night you can get the best brisket available in the city of Columbus, possibly in the State of Ohio right along with great service and a pleasant bar room atmosphere, minus the obnoxious drunks.

Sadly, the dry hopped beer at Barley's was my downfall.  I've always had an odd reaction to beer, and as I took up the hobby of visiting microbreweries and enjoying the exotic beers they produce, my reaction got worse.  I ignored it, right up until that fateful evening at Barley's when I drank a glass and a half of outstanding dry hopped beer and became deathly ill.  I have an allergy to hops.

My professional beer research tour was canceled amidst much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  All three members of my fan club went on the water wagon for most of an entire evening by way of protest.  Despite numerous consultations with pharmacological students everywhere in Sylvania, Medical science has not come up with a cure.  I was, and still am, depressed.  It took three Manhattans to cheer me up enough to begin searching for some sort of solution that did not involve a trip to Tibet and a fifty year consultation with an incredibly aged monk living in a hut some 30,000 feet above civilization.

Fortunately for me, Big Mike had a solution.  Cider.

Cider

You see before you an accurate digital representation of Original Sin hard cider, which is a lot like beer but without the hops and hence the bad side effects.  It's my hope that cider will become a good replacement for beer.

I'm very happy to report that the beef brisket is as good as I remember it.  The service is good as well.  I didn't get the name of our server, but the server's timing was perfect and we never had to wait to get our glasses refilled.

Brisket Dinner

For desert we had chocolate mousse, which is a real work of art.

Chocolate Mousse

Here's the real desert.  One way or another, Big Mike bought a small bottle of Hudson Manhattan Rye, actually the last bottle remaining on the shelf.  If you read the propaganda the idea is that you use this rye in a manhattan.  One word: Don't.

Manhattan Rye, Straight Up

First of all, this tipple is fiendishly expensive.  Far and away too expensive to use in a mixed drink.  Secondly, you'll miss drinking it straight up, which is the only real way to enjoy it.  It's got a smooth, slightly smokey flavor that makes you crave a second glass.

Sadly we either missed the Robert Burns supper this year or Barley's didn't have it.  Well, there's always next year, but I'm not going to wait that long.  I'm headed down to Columbus again next month and get some of that cider.