Tales From Across The Pond Day 3

Mark and Kev's Most Excellent Adventure

Day 3

Central Standard Time

Previous Posts from this 8 days trip:

Tales From Across The Pond Day 1

Tales From Across The Pond Day 2

The name of the beer from Wisconsin that we drank in Clark Ale House was Sand Creek Brewing Pioneer Black River Red. Now that is a bit of a mouthful!  All of the beers we drank yesterday were $5 each.

I woke up at 05:00 today. My body really needs to sort out its clock and get used to the idea that I am now in the US of A. Otherwise I think I will be dead from the combination of fresh air, beer and exhaustion. I spent the first few hours writing yesterday's post and trying to remember all of the exciting things that have happened to me. After about 20:00 it was all a bit of a blur until I managed to get some sustainance inside me.

Even though my hotel room is well furnished and a good size, I am starting to get a bit of cabin fever. I am enjoying having 24 hours access to the MSM talking heads spouting the latest theories. They all seem to agree that the Broncos are the worst team in football and that the Titans are the best and will win all of their remaining games with Vince Young becoming the MVP and Fisher being foolish to start the QB who them all those games last season! Where is the balance? Why is it always boom or bust with them? Do they all have to jump on the bandwagon? Even though I watched, but didn't comprehend the game on Monday night, I still fail to rate Young as an NFL QB. He has shown improvement but he needs to be consistant for a period of time before he changes my opinion.

Having all these wierd thoughts going through my head is giving me a headache. It is definately not a hangover (I hope). We went down for breakfast at 08:30 and I finally steeled myself to try having pancakes and syrup to eat. In my mind this is a dessert because I don't have a sweet tooth. But I surprisingly enjoyed it. My worry is that it will become addictive. I have resolved to try eggs Benedict at least once on this trip, but the pancakes may push that aside. I had 3 cups of coffee for breakfast and need to seriously break that habit. I'm a tea drinker and not used to that much coffee. I also found that I enjoyed coffee more when I smoked and it feels strange doing the one without the other. I think that when I get home I will have to attend Coffee Anonymous meetings. You know the drill? "My name is Kevin and I first experimented with coffee in Chicago, when someone wearing a balck and white uniform shuffled uo to me and offered some cawfee. I have not had any coffee for 3 days and have found other activities to try and keep my mind off it"

We went for another long walk in Grant Park and I hopefully burnt off at least 5% of the calories that I had consumed for breakfast. It wasn't quite as cold as yesterday, but there was some moisture in the air and you couldn't see too much of any Downtown skyscraper. I really want to go up Sears Tower, but it's not happening because there wouldn't be anything to see from the top unless the sky clears up. Fingers crossed it clears up on Wednesday, otherwise I will have to convince my girlfriend to let me come to Chicago again, and if I have come that far, I may as well try and take in another few games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you think that excuse would work?

At 12:00 we decided to go and find a pizza place that our guidebook recommends. It is a couple of blocks away from Grand CTA subway station. Unfortunately immediately opposite the exit was the Rock Bottom Brewery. It looked so shiny and bright with its flashing lights and flirtatious lights. We were like the Millenium Falcon trapped in the tractor beam of the Death Star and found our legs propelling us into the entrance. The inside was large and it wasn't quite as poorly lit as the Clark Street Ale House. They had a draft bee called 14th Celebration Ale that was brewed on site and it was half price ($3) for today only. It would have been wrong not to sample its golden flavours, and we proceeded to have 3 pints each. It was very smooth and I think we could both have just stayed there all afternoon and evening. An interesting aside is that the Brewmaster learnt his trade in the Flying Dog Brew Pub in Aspen, Colorado.

We did have food here and my shrimps were lovely. Mark being greedy ordered a Titan Toothpick and pizza. The Titan Toothpick were 4 one foot long handrolled tortillas filled with chicken and cheese and then crisped in the oven served with guacamole, bar-b-q sauce and salsa. It was a very strange taste combination and too exotic for our tastes. The pizza was about a foot squareand we were glad to see that the normal portion control had resumed. The meal and beers came to $52 and we thought it was goog value for money. I am starting to get paranoid about leaving tips! In the UK you leave tips for a meal at about 10% of the cost, but you don't tip anyone else. It is not because we are cheap that we don't tip everybody, it is just not our culture. I think it maybe stems from the old Master and Servant thing that we had going on for hundreds of years. We left an $8 tip and I just hope it was enough because the service was excellent. I would definately recommend this establishment to everyone.

After finally dragging ourselves out of the bar, we decided to re-visit the Magnificent Mile to try and finish off our shopping. Yesterday I had seen a Nike t-shirt and hoodie for my siser, but not bought it because I wanted to look elsewhere to see if there was anything better. When we went back today, they no longer had the t-shirt in my first choice colour, so I had to get her the pink instead of the grey, but the hoodie had been put on sale overnight and saved me $15. I guess you win some and lose some, but at least this paid for the city tax. I also went to Tiffanys and bought a necklace. I guess that is why you don't drink alcohol before going shopping. My credit card is definately going away for the rest of the trip.  

We did manage to find another 3 Starbucks, 1 Dunkin Donut and 1 McDonalds that we hadn't found yesterday. It's not as though I am counting but it is amazing to us and has become the I-Spy joke for our trip, and we compete to find out who spots them first.

One of my favourite films is Planes, Trains and Automobiles, so another standing joke between us whenever we accidently make physical contact with each other (it happens a lot when we are dealing cards) is to ask "Did you see the Bears game last night?". Of course we can now both answer "Yes we did". It is true that simple things please simple minds after all.

We are currently debating whether we want to go to the South of Chicago and see the projects. There is a kind of voyeuristic streak in both of us. We have been to the Gorbals in Glasgow, to both the Falls Road and Shanklin Road in Belfast and all of the most salubrious places in England. I actually work at New Scotland Yard in London, so a part of me could argue to having a professional interest, but that would be lying to myself. It would purely be for the titilation and chance to say I had done it. Which I know is morally indefensible because they are real people in a tough situation. I am sure that this debate will continue to take place right up until after breakfast when we reach our final decision.

It has now started raining (16:30) and it is miserable. We head back to the hotel to drop off the shopping, surf the web and get cleaned up for our night out. We have decided to visit some of the bars recommended by the Mile High faithful in Advice Please For This Uk Fan. We decided to give The Hopleaf, Quenchers and Kumas Bar , all recommended by Tunga77, a try tonight. Unfortunately our maps didn't go far enough north to show the exact locations, so we relied on google to provide us with details. We found out which CTA stops were closest to each establishment and then where to go once exiting the CTA.

Our first choice was The Hopleaf because we could get the Red Line from near our hotel, all the way to Berwin. We didn't realise that this was about 18 stops and took nearly 40 minutes. It did give us a greater impression of how big Chicago is, and it was great to see the real suburbs where real people lived. In London I live in the 'burbs so it was like being home from home. We finally arrived at the bar, after a short bus ride (the directions on the internet were spot on). The bar was packed full of people, which is always a good sign. We ordered our first beer, Cascade Pale Ale, from the Point brewery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. We were lucky enough to find an empty booth and sat down to play some serious cardsto accompany our drinking. The beer cost $3.50 and was fairly strong (5.7%) exploding the long held myth that Americans only make weak beer. This trip has been a fantastic eye opener on that front and we have both been mightily impressed with the quality and selection of micro-brewed ales. This beer was very hoppy, smooth and had a slightly fruity aftertaste. In fact it was most excellent.

Mark was getting hungry again and when he went to the bar for the next round of drinks he ordered some food. I don't know how much he paid for it, but I was very happy when it miraculously appeared before me. We shared a sausage and beans starter, that was served with a grain mustard. The sausage was ok, but both of us loved the beans. We think they were cannellini beans and were packed with lots of flavour. For the main course we shared a large pot of mussells, served with bread, fries and aoli. This compared very favourably with the same dish back home and also in France and Belgium. It is the perfect accompaniment to beer and is highly recommended. The night then proceeded to go down hill very rapidly and the alcohol consumption reached biblical proportions. We stayed on the same ale all night because it tasted so great, and we regret not trying at least 2 other options.

As you can probably guess, we never made it as far as either Quenchers or Kumas. The Hopleaf was a fantastic bar and reminded us both of a bar in central London called Belgos. This pub serves approximately 80 Belgian beers and a variety of mussels dishes and is one of our favourite places to go when we meet up in town. The Hopleaf had a vibrant atmosphere, and we had the greatest time just sitting back and soaking up the occasion. It's beer list is a fantastic selection of European beer that we both enjoy drinking back home. This included Hoegarden, Duvel, Leffe, Chimay and Grimbergen. They are all very strong headbanging beer, but packed full of flavour. Mark reminded me of a funny story about his dad and him drinking Grimbergen. His dad lives in a small eastern French village near Strasbourg and they heaed out one evening to have a few beers and something to eat. They discovered the Grimbergen on tap and started off with a few of them. This lead to a few more and when Mark woke up the following morning, neither he nor his dad could remember what food they had ordered. It was only after going back into the bar/restaurant the following day that they were able to ask the proprietor and find out. This is lethal stuff my friends and it should come with health warnings.

There were a number of English ales on the menu that we had both drunk in the Uk and we would recommend anythig from either the Sam Smiths or Fuller's breweries. We also had to laugh at the Founder's Brewery, Michigan beer called "Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale". This just tickled our sides and I will be telling my scottish frineds all about it.

We left the bar about 22:30 and headed back to the hotel after another most excellent adventure. I am not sure if my body would let me live the rest of my lifde like this, but I wouldn't mind trying. I cannot recommend The Hopleaf strongly enough to do it justice, but it is well worth the journey to sample its delights. Our only point of contention with American bars so far is why are they all so poorly lit? We have speculated about it being a hangover from prohibition, but drinking in twilight is definately not cool. On Wednesday we are determined to try Quenchers and Kumas!

NFL Games 1

Real Beer Tried 5

Happy Holidays My American Friends