The Curiosities of Vacations

We usually start our vacations out with a preflight beer at the airport. Unfortunately the selection is usually limited, Sam Adams is our standard fair. This is where the curiosities start to creep in "What beers will we find?" "What breweries will we visit?" "What people will we meet?". Even though we leave home highly prepared having brewery tours scheduled , mini-trips (over an hour away from initial destination) arranged and even people to meet up with there is always the unknown. This unknown usually involves the people we meet. We have met some great people , the bartender in Kansas City who jumped up on the bar to watch a movie in between pours, the bartender at the Flying Saucer Cleaveland who homebrewed and had brewed with Adam Avery (catch the theme). We can plan to find good beer, we can plan to visit the most renowned breweries but the people are what makes the place. The best beer can be ruined by a bad bartender. So as we are waiting to leave we can only hope to meet up with some great beer people.

Check back soon for our 1st Cali post

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A Trip to Redstone Liquors

Recently we took a trip to Redstone Liquors which over the past year has transformed into one of the areas better Beer Stores , actually one the best Beer Stores. We have witnessed Redstone changing from a store with a small but solid beer selection to a store with a beer selection that is awe-inspiring having over 1200 beers on the shelves. This change has occured at the hands of Kamal who seems to add a new section to the beer every time we go there. They have gone from Bud/Miller/Coors to having a great range of breweries. Big craft brewers like Dogfish Head, Stone, Founders, 21st Ammendment, GreatDivide, Lagunitas, Avery, Sam Adams, Southern Tier and Ommegang. To local like Allagash, Smuttynose, Seadog, Ipswich, and Harpoon. Also having harder to find brewries such as Nebraska Brewing, Schlafly, The Lost Abbey, The Bruery, and Hopping Frog. They even have the small/new guys Element, Blue Hills, White Birch, High and Mighty, Cody and Notch Session. To round out the beer world they have many foreign breweries Brew Dog, Mikkeler, Nøgne-Ø, Weihenstephaner, Chimay, Aecht Schlenkerla and many more.
Kamal has strengthened the beer section through other means also. He has used "social media" (Twitter , Facebook) to make announcements of events, tastings and product arrivals. He has several small tastings (usually on Fridays) and 2 Grand Tastings a year. He has a brewey of the month that gets its own display (seen in above photos) . In addition to increasing the number of beers they have Kamal has brought a level of customer service that is not seen in many stores, being available for questions from "Do you stock this?" to "What color cap does this vintage have?" (Ya I really asked that once). He is also happy to reserve a beer for you till you can stop in and has a very intimate knowledge of his inventory. If you have not yet been to Redstone yet take a second look at the pictures and that should be enough to make you want to go. Check them out it is worth the trip.
Redstone Liquors
109 Main Street
Stoneham, MA 02180
Redstone Plaza
781-438-9265
There are several good beer stores out there we, frequent Redstone, Andover Liquors and venture down to Julios as well. We need to go to Craft Beer Cellar and Beaconhill Wine. Is there another gem we are missing? Do you have a favorite? Please respond and spread the good beer word.

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