Time flies when you're drinking beer

Honestly, I can't believe how quickly that twelve weeks with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blurred into a vision of my past. Time sure does fly, and beer definitely helps us all keep ticking along.

Speaking of flying, beer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - I don't know how I missed this little tid-bit of news back in June. (Well, maybe I do, because the only news of it I could find on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was a two-sentence woohoo! note on NewsWatch. But, this is not a rip on JSOnline.com, because they obviously have bigger fish to fry. It's more of a cover-up for me, because I should just know all the news when I work at a newspaper, right?)

Alright, already, what story, you say? Well, Delta Airlines now serves Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat on all their flights. What?! That makes me want to get a job as some high-and-mighty business woman who travels Delta across the country every day. Me and Sunset Wheat would become great friends. (Although somebody once told me they thought Sunset Wheat tasted like fruity pebbles. Despite the fact that I like the beer, every time I drink it I think about that comment and do, indeed, taste fruity pebbles.)

You can scroll down about a quarter of the way and find the short tid-bit about this beer in the air on JSOnline.com, or read a brief but a bit more intuitive story posted on LeaderTelegram.com (The Leader Telegram is in Eau Claire, Wis., my precious college-town news), or read a longer version posted on BeerAdvocate.com. According to the article, its the first craft brew Delta has offered above the clouds.

On a different note, last night officially marked the end of my tour-de-Milwaukee. My little hole-in-wall I called home for three months is now an empty, white space. But, I'm glad to say my last night went out with a semi-bang.

After packing, Nick and I (for new blog readers or to those who need a refresher course, Nick is the other brewmaster of our small home brewery) headed over to Real Chili for some dinner. I'd been told about this place before, and ironically found a coupon in my awesome coupon book I told you about here, so we decided it would be a good way to go out in style.

I was a bit aprehensive at first. The restaraunt seemed a bit outdated and somewhat of its own hole-in-the-wall. I was even my scared by the overflowing bowl of meat placed in front of me (my childhood chili is a bit more relative to a bowl of soup.) But, when I bit in I was pleased. It had a real chili flavor (haha, Real Chili) with a little bit of a kick. Good thing my friend Sam Adams was there to wash it down for me - well, their Boston Lager, that is. I'd never had this brew before and it was pretty good. Definitely a meal worth having again.

Then there's this place I am going to take the liberty of informing all you still-Milwaukee residents about, because I am sad that I never got a chance to experience it. I received an email from the manager about a week ago telling me all about it, but in the hustle and bustle of getting ready to pack up and ship out I didn't have time to drop in for a brew. It seems it may be some sort of competition for the place I found in Florida (Coasters Pub) that I was bragging to you all about, although I guess that's not really competition. Maybe sister bars, you know - like sister cities?

Anyway, the bar is called The Bomb Shelter and denotes itself as a classic Milwaukee tavern. It has a beer list with a running count of 136 different brews (Coasters only chimes in with 127. Once again, I guess Wisconsin still wins.) The manager tells me the bar opened on June 21, and boasted of hosting "oddball stuff you won't find anyway else in Milwaukee." If anybody gets a chance to check this place out, stop back to my blog and let me know about its level of awesome-ness. That way whenever the wind blows me back to Milwaukee I'll know if its worth stopping in for a brew.

In the meantime, I'm heading home for a couple days until I head up to Eau Claire to visit some friends and then over to the Twin Cities for some Minnesota State Fair fun. Being unemployed, my schedule isn't piled up too high, so until I leave I have myself a seat at home next to my parents beloved purchase: their kegerator, stocked with Redhook ESB. I've never tried it before, so it sounds like it should be a good time. Until then ...