whew

Have you ever noticed that when you get home from a wonderful vacation - you are twice as busy as when you left! Trying to play catch up has been exhausting for the Vixen and myself. So here is the rest of the New York beer tour, sorry it took a month or so.

After another long day of riding the Island, Vixen and I needed a beverage to cure our parched bodies! We stumbled into lansdowner - a bar that would be a mix of Pengilly's and a sports bar. Nice and dark with old school seating - But TVs everywhere with every type of sport on!

We were so excited when we got the beer menu! Local draft beers! The large Chelsea Checker cab Blonde was buy one get one for happy hour - so of course that's what we ordered!

The beer was crisp and sweet. The pale ale is made in the style of northern Germany Kolsch beer. The finest imported Noble Hops varieties & 10% Wheat malt gives this brew a dry finish with a complex and yet delicate hop flavor and aroma. It is very very drinkable! We decided after four of those each we should move on to one of our favorite bars in the city - RUDY'S

Rudy's is the Nurelux of NY. Without the smoking!! It is dark and dirty and you are warned by many not to eat the free hot dogs! But beer wise - same as the lux - cheap and plentiful! We consumed a nice pitcher of Rudy's Special - at the price of 10.00. Be

prepared for a standing room only or sharing a

booth with strangers! And they have one of the best jukeboxes!

After consuming mass carbs after the ride we decided to hit the deli and head to the apartment.

This is when we had the Brooklyn beer. Sorry MEA - I felt that it was a little too much like PBR Light. I think it was because we had so many rich flavorful beers earlier. In hindsight I would have liked to start with this one.

The next day - of course we ate and drank, that was the purpose of the trip! We grabbed breakfast and jumped onto the "R" train to head down to Chelsea. We walked all over that place! Through the markets and Ed Hardy shops, through the cupcake shops and more. Two hours of walking and I was about ready to fall over. Vixen suggested we stop in the next bar we see and rest for a little. Oddly enough the next bar we stumbled onto was THE Stonewall Inn.

We sat at the bar and the owner was serving up these big ass BASS! We sat with our Bass and he told us the history of the

bar. It's been owned by 3 people, he being the third. And the

last owner attempted to turn it into a hip hop club - which

lead to it shutting down for a few years. After our first beer I handed him my credit card to pay and he gave me a quizzical look - "It's buy one get one honey - don't you want your second one?" Holy Crap! We ended up spending a few hours at the bar and getting tanked for 16 bucks! I highly recommend the happy hour drinks - hehe.

This was only the beginning of our shenanigans for the night!

We transfered from our Hell's Kitchen apartment to the Grand Hyatt Hotel. WOW - this hotel is really nice and crazy expensive! DO NOT GO TO THE BAR THERE!

We got fancy and decided to have some exotic food for dinner. Sofritos Puerto Rican Restaurant! It was our last night together in the city - we were ready to spend a little extra for the eat and drinks. But we really didn't need to.

The menu was pretty reasonable and had pitchers of handmade Sangria for 40.00

We ended up sharing the pitcher with the ladies next to us. It was one lady's birthday. It turned our to be fantastic conversation and they gave us some new places to go to on our next visit.

Our buddy Zach text us and wanted us to meet him at this place called American Trash. Now by this time Vixen and I had been drinking for six hours. We were feeling really good! So why not go drink some more!!!

This bar is the Cactus of New York with small flare of Tom Grainy's. And this beer is the best thing since the beer can was invented!

This is how the beer advocate describes it - It had that deep thick black appearance that an Imperial Stout has, but this beer was relatively light and creamy, with minimal stick on the palate, and only some heat in the finished, which perhaps has mellowed with age. This beer was a very nice drink, it has that thick beauty to it, without the heavy follow through on the palate. I would describe it to someone as a more toasty, robustly dark chocolate Guinness; which is never a bad thing!

Which is exactly why we drank a 12 pack each.

Around 2 or 3 in the morning we stumbled from the cab to our room and passed out! Did I mention that Vixen had to be at work the next morning at 7? And i had a flight to catch! Needless to say our last night in the city was a blast and we both paid for it the next day! I found a lot of new beers that I wish were served here - but that gives me incentive to go back to the city to find more!