In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing...Drink Beer

I travel to Nashville a lot for work, so I have been loving Southwest's non-stop service between there and Greenville.  The only problem is that every so often, the times of the non-stop flights don't work with my schedule, and this happened to me recently while in Nashville for a conference.  Instead of that wonderful flight that gets me home with less than an hour in the air, I had to connect through Chicago (though I did get to have a Chicago Dog) with a somewhat lengthy layover, basically quadrupling my travel time.

Multiple flights in one day...that just sucks!  Unless, however, we are talking multiple beer flights!

For those who don't know what a beer flight is, it is basically a sampler of usually four to six beers, each of which is typically four ounces.  Additionally, let me say that I know beer flights can be a beertender's worst nightmare at certain busy times, and I can totally empathize with that.  However, I still feel beer flights are a great way to experience a wide range of beers in both an economical way and a responsible way. Flights provide universal love to beer drinkers in the form of allowing newbies to figure out which beer(s) they favor when it comes time to switch to a pint and in the form of allowing crazed veterans the opportunity to try as many beers as possible to accumulate badges and reach 1,000 distinct beers on Untappd.  Ummmmm, that last part doesn't describe me at all.

Anyways, just this week, I took a quick trip up to Asheville, Beer City USA 2012, for a short beercation.  While there, I "went on" five different flights at four different breweries within a 300 yard radius in five hours.  This series of flights allowed me to try 25 different beers, a feat not possible with pints  I'll take those kinds of flights any day over those two flights I had to take to get home from Nashville.

Breweries hit up on this particular South Slope (what this part of Asheville is known as) crawl included Wicked Weed, Asheville Brewing Company, Green Man, and Hi-Wire.  Burial would have been included had they been open...sigh.  Some of the highlights were getting to try Wicked Weed's Serenity, which just won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival over the past weekend, having the always delicious Fire Escape jalapeno pale ale at ABC, exploring Green Man's series of historical beers brewed with original recipes, and experiencing the now completed tasting room at Hi-Wire, equipped with the original Nintendo and a delicious Ringmaster Red Rye. 

Whether you are a rookie wondering the difference between liquids, gels, and aerosols, or a veteran in the pre-screening program, I encourage you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Cheers!