Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2000

Surgeon General's Warning: Long beery rant to follow. OK, maybe I shouldn't have sat down to write this after a Sat evening at Market St, so here's the short version with all the info you need to enjoy Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2000:

Woo Hooo! Are you ready for a Road Trip?

Last year's Road Trip/Pub Crawl to Saint Augustine and Jacksonville was a blast. Everyone had a great time, we visited some interesting brewpubs, everyone ate well and drank some good beer, and we had a blast on the bus. I look on it as the start of a great Hogtown Brewers tradition. Yeah, I know ... it's hard to consider a single event a tradition. But I did say the start of one, and with that in mind, it's time to get ready for Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2000. Damn, that's way too long and difficult to say. We'll call it RT/PC 2000. So, as I said, it's time to get ready for RT/PC 2000!

The plans are in the works - the date has been selected, the deposit on the bus has been paid, and we're working on the itinerary. Here's the info, or at least as much of it as we have at this point. We'll send out more bulletins later as plans & details become more developed. The RT/PC 2000 will be on Saturday, July 15. So, go mark that on your calendar right now. We don't want anyone to say they forgot or didn't know the date. Mark it in big, dark letters. Use a fat red magic marker, make it stand out. We had a good turnout last year, and we want an even better one this year.

We'll be using the same charter company as we used last year. We have requested the same driver. He was pretty cool, he didn't get lost once (except for when we gave him the wrong directions, and we can't hold that against him). He was also pretty tolerant of our general boisterousness, lack of schedule, and general HB attitude. He didn't even get pissed at us when the bus broke down only miles from home. Oh, wait a minute, that wasn't our fault, should we have been pissed at him? Nah, everyone was in way too good a mood to let a little thing like that kick our keg.

Anyhow, the bus will be pulling out from Market St. at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, July 15th (I did tell you to mark that on your calendars, didn't I -- just checking). The cost for the charter has gone up this year (due to higher fuel costs, and the slightly longer mileage for this trip) but we're going to keep the price the same. It will be $10 dollars for members and $15 for guests. This is a bargain, most clubs charge $25 or more for events of this type. We guarantee a good return on your entertainment investment -- you won't be able to have this much fun for $10 anywhere else.

The itinerary is still not totally firmed up. I'm working on it with KK Koenig, of the Dunedin Beers. KK puts on "The World of Beers" beer critic ratings on WTAN Radio in the Tampa Bay area. He is going to join us for RT/PC 2000 to help get us happy-hour pricing, keep us from getting lost, and generally help make it a great trip. Best of all he works for beer. Not a bad deal, huh? Besides, he knows how to party; he and his wife Cathy were responsible for the keg of Bigfoot Barleywine being part of the room-crawl at Sunshine Challenge!

What we have planned at this point is to make the first stop at Tampa Bay Brewing (rated as the best brew pub in Tampa Bay) for lunch and beer. Next stop will be the New World Brewery, for the best beer garden in Tampa Bay - and a fantastic beer list. Then on to Ybor City Brewery for a tour of their microbrewery (and more beer). Then back onto the bus, across the causeway and on to Brooker Creek Grille, another brewpub with (need I say it?) more beer. Next stop will be the Dunedin Brewery for a tour of their brand new brewing facilities (they are in the process of moving their brewery to the new location as we speak) and.... More Beer. Somewhere in there we'll stop for dinner, and more beer. The details may change, but this much is for sure; we'll be visiting some of the best brewing establishments in the Bay area and there will be plenty of great beer. Sound good so far?

All right, that's the plan. This is going to be the best RT/PC yet, and you don't want to miss it. We had a pretty good turnout last year but we want to improve on that this year. We've got plenty of room on the bus for everyone. So invite your friends (but be selective, keep in mind the high standards of Hogtown Brewers.), the more the merrier. As Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters said, "You're either on the bus, or off the bus." We want you to be on the bus; so please RSVP ASAP, we want to make sure that there's a seat for you.

We had plenty of room left on the bus last year. We'd like to take advantage of that space by inviting some of our homebrew friends along for the ride. I'm going to send an invite to John and Sarah to pass along to the NFBL. KK and some of the Dunedin Brewers Guild folk may want to join us along with some of the Tampa Bay Beers. Hogtown Brewers have first priority but we want to know how many extra seats we'll have, so please let us know soon.

See ya on the bus,
Mark

PS - you can RSVP to either Wayne (466-3695) or myself (338-4544), make your checks out to Hogtown Brewers and get them to Wayne as soon as you can.

Another thought, if some of the NFBL folk from Tallahassee want to join us, it would be great to be able to offer them a place to stay Saturday night when we get back. If you're willing to invite a couple of them into your home, let me know soon too. They have always been incredibly hospitable to us with their Beds for Brewers for out-of-town judges at their competitions, and it would be great to be able to return the favor. Let me know.

Back to May front page