Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2001
By Mark Tumarkin

This year's pub-crawl to Savannah was definitely a journey back in time. The Road to Savannah; that wasn't one of the Hope-Crosby Road Shows was it? But it certainly was an adventure. Much to my surprise, the zany crew of beer travelers gathered early on Saturday morning and were all ready to hit the road on time. Well, with the exception of Craig and his family. Craig was just having too much fun tiling a bathroom to tear himself away for something as mundane as a beer adventure. We left notes, directions, mobile phone numbers etc and headed north, trusting that Craig and crew would find their way safely to Savannah.

We took a very different approach on this trip than in previous years. In the past, we chartered a bus and went off on a day trip. The first year we hit St. Augustine and Jacksonville. Last year we visited the Tampa Bay area, hooking up with the Dunedin Brewers Guild for a great trip. This time we decided to do an overnight trip to Savannah, carpooling up in several of our own vehicles. There ended up being 16 of us in four vehicles.

We were on the road by 9:30 and in Savannah before 1, despite a torrential downpour and an accident that backed I-95 up for miles. The rain cleared before we got to Savannah and the weather was perfect the entire time we were there, clear but not too hot. When we reached Savannah, we gathered at the Six Pence Pub for lunch. The Six Pence is a quaint English style pub with a decent selection of British and Irish ales on tap, which they kindly provided to us at Happy Hour prices. There was also Carolina Wheat, from a micro in North Carolina. The food was quite good, several of us had a Guinness pie that was very interesting (would have been great if it wasn't so salty), and Sandra ordered some apple pie with Devonshire cream that was great - by the time everyone had a taste, I don't think she had much left. Craig and crew caught up with us while we were having lunch.

Next stop was our motel. We stayed overnight in a motel at the edge of the old historic district by the river. The staff of the motel didn't quite know what to make of us, but they took it in stride and dealt with us with a good sense of humor. First stop after checking in was Finnegan's Liquor Shop, a few blocks away. They mainly serve the tourist trade on the riverfront with beer to go. They didn't have a large selection but did have the entire line of beer from the Sweetwater brewery in Atlanta, and a few other interesting choices. We also got the name and directions to a beer store that carried a wider variety.

After dropping off our beer purchases back at the hotel, Bradley unerringly led us to Kevin Barry's, an Irish pub down on Factor's Walk along the riverfront. We got there along a rough cobblestone road. This area, called Factor's Walk, is paved with rocks that had served as ballast from ship's holds in the early 1800's. We went upstairs to a balcony overlooking the touristy shops along the riverfront. The club bought a round for everyone consisting mostly of Atlanta's Red Brick Ale, Guinness, and Caffery's. We then broke up into smaller groups to go on separate adventures, with the plan of meeting at the Moon River brewpub for dinner.

We had also planned to hookup with Regan Sweeney and some of the other folks from the Savannah Brewers League. I'd talked to Regan a few days before and he'd given me his cell phone number and indicated that there were a number of folks from his club that were planning to join us for the pub crawl. Unfortunately, I left several messages but never heard back from him.

However, our crew reconvened at Moon River where we were given a tour of the brewery and a chance to talk beer and brewing with John Pinkerton, their head brewer. John had previously been the brew master at Frederick Brewing in Maryland. John was very gracious and welcoming to us. He seemed to be a well-educated and technical brewer with a great love for beer. He didn't seem overly happy with the brew system he had inherited, but seems to be using it very well and producing some very nice beer.

I started out with their sampler of the six styles currently on tap. These included Claire de Lune (a light Kolsch style ale, very light and clean, with a Saaz finish); a Hefe-weizen that was right on style, though with more banana esters than clove or bubblegum; Savannah Fest, supposedly an Ofest but fermented with the Kolsch yeast, somewhat thin bodied, my least favorite; an IPA that was very nice, quite hoppy though perhaps somewhat limited by Georgia's 6% alcohol limit; a Porter that I thought was their best brew, very complex with a lot of malt character - I returned for more several times; and lastly The Bomb, a dry stout with a lot of roast character but less interesting than the porter. All the beers were well made, clean and without obvious defects or off-flavors. My only complaint would be that they generally seemed thinner in body than I prefer. Some of them, particularly the Porter and IPA, were very good beers. The food was also quite good, more innovative than most brew pub fare. The soups were especially good. They had an excellent she-crab soup and also Pink's Voodoo Soup. This was a recipe of John Pinkerton, the brew master. Anne asked John for the recipe, so look for this at some future club party or dinner.

After dinner, we proceeded to take a walking pub-crawl of some of the areas beer bars and pubs. The downtown historic district has many bars and pubs in a close area. We were trying to find Celtic music and quickly hit several places - Churchill's (the bar from the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), O'Connell's, and Kevin Barry's. We found music at Kevin Barry's, but unfortunately there wasn't enough seating for our large bunch, so we ended up at B&B Billiards, a pool hall with an excellent selection of beer. They had several Rogue offerings, as well as Celis White (which I was very surprised to find still around).

On the way to B&B, we encountered a group of young ladies out on the town for a pre-wedding party. The pretty young bride-to-be was wearing a t-shirt festooned with Life Savers surrounding the words Sucks for a Buck. Craig's 22-year-old son was our designated suckee, and he removed several strategically placed candies from the young woman's shirt. Then the bridal party went off into the night while we headed off towards more beer hunting. We finished off the night at B&B with some interesting beers and a rowdy game of pool.

The next morning (not terribly bright and not terribly early) we walked through the historic district to Clarry's, a traditional Savannah breakfast spot. After breakfast we did some more meandering among Savannah's old squares and historic buildings. We ended up down along the river and the Factor's Walk, whiling away the time till 1 o'clock (beer thirty don't cha know). We went back to Moon River for leisurely lunch and more beer. On the way out we ran into John Pinkerton. Anne asked him for the recipe for Pink's Voodoo Soup, which he graciously gave us - though in a general sort of a way, some of this, a bit of that. We'll post the recipe once we get a chance to try it out. After that, it was back into the cars on our southward journey back to Hogtown. All in all, our Savannah Road Trip/Pub Crawl was a great success.

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