Saturday Outing

We are fortunate enough to live in a pretty awesome location. We're close to the Lake Norman area and a short drive from Charlotte, which means we're always close to fun things. Coming up with a good restaurant to visit or a neat place to try isn't the hard part; what is hard is deciding where to go! This past Saturday we decided to take advantage of the cooler summer temps and wander outside for a "date". Granted, Amelia Grace joined us, but she was so well-behaved we barely noticed her! So where did we take our wee little one?? Why, a beer festival of course!

A local neighborhood was hosting a small craft beer festival and we knew it would be right up our alley. For $18 you received eighteen 2-oz servings. I knew that I was in no shape to be drinking that much beer, especially heavy beers, so David and I split the ticket. There were nine different breweries to choose from with two samples at each brewery. 

A pretty good turnout for the small, not very well-publicized, shindig

David enjoying a little sip of NoDa's "Woody and Wilcox" brew

Baby girl basking in all the attention

The real star of the show, though? Amelia Grace, of course. Just about every time we turned around people were sneaking peaks at the little miss and asking about her. It was so much fun getting to brag about our little love!

30 Before 30-Brew Tour

One of the items on my 30 Before 30 List was to tour a brewery. I figured this one would have to take place on a weekend visit to Raleighwood since breweries are few and far between around our parts. When I saw a Google Deal (similar to Groupon) on touring a local brewery I jumped all over it! David and I were able to take a tour, get a sampler, a souvenir glass, a pretzel, and a growler for $11 each. Talk about a steal!

I should probably rewind and let you know that we're not alcoholics who spend our lives drinking beer. I will say we are a bit of beer snobs. It began when my dad started brewing beer and therefore showing us the difference between good beer and that cheap clear stuff we often turned to. Fast forward a few years and we definitely have learned a few tricks of the trade.

So this past weekend we were blessed enough to be visited from a few of our great friends from school. Scott and Steve are bothers and were David's roommates in college. Caroline is Steve's girlfriend and was my roommate for a year in college. We're like one big happy family! Knowing that they were coming we quickly determined the brew tour would be a great way to show off some of Charlotte.

We learned all sorts of interesting things about Olde Mecklenburg Brewery from a fellow beer snob.

 He shared with us the importance of using certain ingredients and how the best beer is kept fresh.

They had awesome "community" tables where you just sat down and hung out with your neighbors.

 We learned the intricacies of bottling.

OMB Copper. Yum.

It was an awesome way to spend an afternoon and we can't wait to head back soon! What's your favorite brew??