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Tour Stop 101 - Harbottle Brewing Company - 5/14/2020
Harbottle Brewing Company, 3820 S. Palo Verde Rd. #102, Tucson, AZ 85714
Experience before you go . . .
Should we go, or shouldn't we ....I'm kinda thinking we need to go!! Even though I didn't see Brewery Tours on the Arizona list of essential businesses, my son and I pulled off the Covid-19 bandaid and ventured out. With face masks and hand gel in tow we jumped in the brewery tour chariot for the day and hit the road. Now I'm not superstitious or anything but as we rounded the corner and started down the road I glanced at the odometer to check speed and various other important stuff and I notice the trip odometer had the number of 6666.6 miles. By the time I pulled over to get a picture it registered 6666.7 which made me feel a little better....NOT!!! So Jake and I checked our vitals and made sure neither of us were growing horns or having a 360 degree Linda Blair head rotation moment and once we were satisfied we proceded down the road with hesitancy and we felt so much better 3.3 miles later.
Traffic was light but with that said, Tucson's crazy "I gotta get there before you" signature drivers were well represented. I was going 5-7 miles over the limit of 35/40 mph and I was getting tailgated, passed, cut off, stink eyed as Jake and I cruised down the road without a care in the world. Don't these drivers know that we're on a mission.......Breweries, the final frontier. These are the escapades of the Hoppin' Brewery Tour. To explore strange new breweries, to seek out new hops and new craft beers, to boldly go to new breweries in a fun and unique fashion that no man could have possibly done before. "Beam me up Scottie"!!
Harbottle Brewing has been on my radar for awhile but with all this craziness I had yet to step over the threshold and experience what they had to offer. Pretty easy to find, adequate parking in its little industrial strip mall. Jake and I did the front sign selfie jig (masks up) and hit the door. Once inside, social distancing was apparent with three Regulars occupying the 18 foot long bar drinking from half full personalized mugs in front of each of them and as Jake and I entered we got the slow over the shoulder (who are these guys?) look. Straight ahead, adequately Covid spaced tables and chairs and behind that was the door leading to the production area. To the left was the bar with the regulars and all the goodies to go along with it. We picked out a table and I sausalitoed up to the bar right between two of the regulars. I nodded and said hey to the regular on my left and got a return up nod and did the same to the regular on my right and I got a half nod with a twist and a grunt in return. Cahla behind the bar was smiling and greeting.....even though I couldn't see half her face behind her mask I've learned over the years that most all human emotions are displayed through the eyes. If this mask thing becomes a permanent thing going forward and since it's tough to understand what a person is saying through a mask, eye communication will become extremely important. The wink will evolve into its own little Morris Code like delivery system. Right eye wink means yes, left eye wink means no and both eyes means maybe. Now if you throw in the mix the up and down eyebrow movement a whole new thing will consume us. Everyone will be wearing masks! After a while you won't be able to recognize people w/o their masks. Imagine if you can high school year book pictures with all the graduates wearing masks, any kind of directories....masks, Netflix programs....masks, mug shots...masks. But get this, bank robbers....no masks!! Alright I'm digressing once again! So anyhow Cahla was a great and knew her stuff, I ordered up 2 Harbottle flights, sat back and waited for the magic.
My flight started out with Good Behavior IPA - Imperial, (5.5%, 70 IBU) red, nice nose, hoppy, vanilla, smooth IPA finish; Muzzy IPA - New England (7.6%, 45 IBU) packs a punch at 7.6 w/o all the bitterness; Hold My Sour - Imperial Sour IPA (8.7%, 45 IBU) packs even more of a punch at 8.7 and follows the (SMaSH) single malt & single hop but blends in juicy persimmons, tart tamarind & lactose for a fruity silky finish.......unusual and double sour yum; and last we have the Harbottle IPA - American IPA (6.3%, 60 IBU) pine and citrus reign here. Jake's flight had a couple goodies with Rhizome & Shine - Coffee Pale Ale (6.5%, 50 IBU) special roast from Black Crown Coffee makes up this beauty....tasty; 'Ono pa'apu - Strawberry Sour (5%, 10 IBU) balanced with strawberry in the front with sour in the back.
Having been sheltering in place for way too long I start up a conversation with anyone willing, was in need of a fix and I needed it bad. Mike who was standing and talking to a neighboring table was ripe for picking. Come to find out he's one of the Brewers here at Harbottle and he was full of info. Like all of us, anxious to get things back to normal and as he was talking I couldn't help but notice their main wall was covered by original water color painting and it just so happened that one of those painted looked like the main subject was Mike. Well, Mike's mom is an artist and yes there was a painting of Mike brewing beer so I had to take a picture of Mike standing next to Mike.....priceless!! Also up on the wall was a painting of the Regulars sitting at a table. Now I've got to mention the couple sitting at the table who Mike was originally talking to before I interrupted. Jim & Pat were from Tucson getting primed for a road trip to Florida that they were leaving for immediately after. I might have misunderstood since we were all wearing masks. They might of said they got a tip from a guy carrying a load that the best prime rib is from Florida and they're grilling'em immediately after. Anyway you slice it they were good people enjoying retirement and looking for the next adventure.
Next time you have a hankering for a cold craft beer give Harbottle Brewing a visit....you'll be glad you did!!
Until next time and remember.....
Go get'cha one!!!
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