Under Construction
I slept in claremont 15 nights. I rode 13 days. I ate lunch at The Back Abby 11 times. I always have a problem scheduling this Claremont trip around what I used to call parent’s weekend, but has been re-branded as Family Weekend? Parents show up at my restaurants and take up all the seats. Each year I look at scheduling my February ride trip before or after the dreaded disruptive event but in the end decide to just live with it. Moving the trip earlier pushes it too close to my return from Cancun and pushing it later means that Lagos is moved later and that runs up against tax season.
The Parent Problem is mainly Saturday and Sunday. I went to the local breweries each of those two days. Saturday I got take out sushi from Blue Fin and walked to Last Name Brewery to eat it. I then proceeded onto Claremont Brewery. It was warm enough to sit outside at both places. At Claremont, as I was drinking my sampler, a young woman arrived with 3 pizzas. I must have made some witty comment. Her friends showed up with dogs and all. She did invite me over for a piece and I graciously came over to get one. Unfortueately, my table was on wheeels and it, with my beers, proceed to make a break for the gate. The young people with her jumped to arrest the devellopment and I turned around to find them holding my table. So, sushi and one piece of pizza!
Sunday, daughter Emily and son-in-law Kevin introduced me to Poke. It seems it is a poor man’s sushi where they throw everything in a bowl. It is a very interesting idea. You get to choose the size of the bowl, how much fish goes in and what else goes in. The great challenge is that if you get wasabi added, it just goes in as a lump and you have to be able to locate the lump and eat it in small bits to avoid having your nose explode. We picked up the poke in Claremont and they dropped me at my first brewery, Sandbox.
I enjoyed the beer. There were some good wet IPAs. Two other beers stood out for me. One had a smokey taste and one was stout tasting but light. The artwork on the walls was for sale, looked very interesting, but I was never able to return and give it the proper attention it deserved. I walked onto Rok Brewery. It, like Last Name and Claremeont, are normal February stops for me. Rok has a very wide selection of high alcohol and different beers. Nothing like the wonderful Gruits I drink at my hometown Brewery in NH, Earth Eagle, but interesting stuff.