A weekend of bears, beers, and more

We decided, since the weekend weather was going to be fantastic, to head out camping.  We hadn't ever camped at the Peaks of Otter campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we packed up and hit the road.  Our plan was to set up camp, then head back to Flying Mouse Brewery as they were opening up on Friday night.  We ran into a lot of traffic on our way down - we went through Salem and Roanoke to get on the Parkway and ran into traffic.  We got to the campground a little later than planned, but got camp set up and headed back to Flying Mouse in Troutville.  They have 3 beers on their menu, but only had 2 ready to go opening night.

633. Flying Mouse Brewery - No. 3 - regular lawnmower beer
634. Flying Mouse Brewery - No. 5 - this was strange and we were very surprised they served it since it had a terrible burned taste

We went out to dinner afterwards at Bellacino's Grinders in Daleview. We just had a regular ol' pizza, but it was very good and the crust was really nice.  Not really a new taste so we won't list it here, but there are many locations in the greater Virginia and West Virginia area.

Saturday we got up and had a nice breakfast, including some breakfast sausage we brought back from Vermont.

635. Dakin Farm - Cob-smoked Maple Sausage - This was pretty good, but Megan thought it almost didn't taste like breakfast sausage.  Brett liked it a lot, but both of us thought the sausage was a bit greasy, but that may have been the super quick cooking job getting ready for breakfast.

We got going a little slowly, but then went on a little outing to Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest.  This is located in... wait for it...  Forest, VA!  This was his vacation home away from the busyness of Monticello (which we went to a few years ago).  We took the tour and it lasted a bit over an hour.  We have some pictures we'll add on to this later.

After the tour and wandering around the grounds and commenting on the similarities with the construction methods and design of this home and Monticello, we headed out to Apocalypse Ale Works which was just minutes down the road.  The original plan was to go there, try a flight, then head out to lunch back in Bedford.  The plan was altered - we sat down, had a flight, and were watching professional bike racing on TV in the brewery and talking to a couple we met there.  Well, we can't leave that can we?  So we ordered a pizza from Upper Crust Pizza and stayed there and had a couple full beers with our pizza and new friends.  

636. Apocalypse Ale Works - Glorious Dead ESB
637. Apocalypse Ale Works - Golden Censor
638. Apocalypse Ale Works - Hopocalypse Imperial Red Ale
639. Apocalypse Ale Works - Sixth Seal
640. Upper Crust Pizza - chicken ranch pizza:  This was a glorious mix of ranch dressing as the pizza sauce, bite-sized chunks of chicken, and mozzarella and cheddar cheese on a tasty crust.  Brett's going to have to try making one of these at home now!

Of the beers, the ESB and the Sixth Seal (stout) were our favorites, but the Hopocalypse was also very very good.  Mostly, they don't make a bad beer and Wes was a great spokesman/bartender for the brewery.  What was going to be a quick stop ended up being a two hour period of good food, good talk, and good pizza.   

Since we were pretty close, we decided to head to the LeoGrande Winery nearby and see if we could knock out a few more tastes.  Their wine was generally not to our tastes, but here are the links to teh reviews anyway.

641. 2008 - Leo Grande - Chardonnay French Oak
642. 2007 - Leo Grande - Chardonnay
643. 2008 - Leo Grande - Sauvignon Blanc Oak
644. 2010 - Leo Grande - Sauvignon Blanc
645. 2010 - Leo Grande - Barbera
646. NV - Leo Grande - Sangiovese Roaring Red
647. 2010 - Leo Grande - Sangiovese
648. 2010 - Leo Grande - Nebbiolo
649. 2008 - Leo Grande - Syrah
650. 2010 - Leo Grande - Sangiovese Reserve
651. NV - Leo Grande - Roaring White
652. NV - Leo Grande - Roaring Rose
653. NV - Leo Grande - Autumn Kiss

After that, we headed back to the camp and enjoyed an evening fire.  Megan had made up a pile of apple crisp which we cooked over the fire.  We didn't get the temperature quite right so it cooked a little fast, but it came out hot and tasty.  The recipe is at the bottom of this update.

654. Apple Crumble

While we were sitting around the camp fire, Brett looked to the left of camp as he'd seen some motion out of the corner of his eye.  There had been a black dog in the campground earlier, so he initially thought that's what it was and told Megan there was a loose dog.  It didn't look quite right though and then Megan noticed it was a small black bear.  Megan ran and grabbed the leftover apple crumble and the bear got startled and ran off.  

The next morning we headed out and did a short hike to the Falling Water Cascades waterfall which is just north of the Peaks of Otter lodge.  It was a short hike, but it was very warm and very very humid. We were honestly very pleased that the hike was as short as it was as we had both sweated through every stitch of clothing we had on.  

We were headed back home and were passing by the Peaks of Otter Winery and Orchard.  We decided to do one last taste stop over the weekend.  Peaks of Otter makes mostly fruit wines, and a couple of grape wines, which are not really our favorites, but the whole point is to broaden our tastes so we wanted to give them a shot.  

655. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Blackberry Cobbler
656. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Light Pear
657. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Peach of Otter
658. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Pure Passion - this is made with passionfruit
659. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Plumlicious
660. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - The Mango Tango
661. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Strawberry Shortcake Liberty Jewels
662. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Puff - this is made with dragonfruit
663. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Blue Ridge Mountain Grape
664. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Sangria
665. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - "Chili Dawg" - made with 3% chile peppers
666. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Blueberry Muffin
667. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Apple Cherry Cheesecake
668. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Apple Truffle
669. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Ras Ma Tas Raspberry
670. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Frosty Morn
671. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Salty Frog Margarita Wine
672. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Light Sweet Peach
673. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Blackberry Jammed
674. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Strawberry Reserve
675. NV - Peaks of Otter Winery - Kiss the Devil - made with 30 varieties of spicy peppers, including ghost peppers

In a lot of the things above, it tasted to us like they were trying to copy a cocktail, but the cocktail would be better.   Again, most of this was very sweet and we're just not sweet wine drinkers.  The exceptions were the two made with peppers.  We didn't those at all.  We were told people cook with them, but why not just use salsa or hot sauce?  So confusing...

After that we were starting to get very hungry, so we stopped and had lunch at the Smokehouse Restaurant in Hardy, VA.  We both thought barbecue sounded pretty good and were hoping for some excellent barbecue.  We ordered drinks, both of us ordered a Coke and a water.  The cokes were flat like tap water.  We sent them back and asked them to try Dr. Pepper instead.  Nope, still flat.  They were so kind to not charge us for their flat drinks...  Brett ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Megan had a philly cheesesteak.  We won't record either sandwich as a new taste, but will make some comments about the meal.  First, Megan's philly cheesesteak was absolutely filled with onions.  She pulled maybe half of them out, and it was still filled with onions.  There was more onion than meat on that sandwich.  Secon, Brett's pulled pork sandwich came with about 1/3 of a cup of pork to be spread out on a humongous kaiser roll (probably 6 inches across) that was covered with a huge amount of corn meal (for texture?).  There was not nearly enough meat to cover that roll at all and either the meat had to be spread very thin (and still left some gaps) or the roll needed to be lots smaller. Brett also doesn't need to ever eat any more plain old corn meal again.  We will record one taste from here and that is their "Carolina-style" barbecue sauce.   Brett loves vinegar and a bit of heat so a true Carolina-style barbecue sauce is always one of his favorites.... this was not.

676. Smokehouse Restaurant - "Carolina-style" barbecue sauce:  Note that this style sauce is always made with vinegar - CIDER vinegar.  This place used, and this is not a joke, MALT vinegar. Brett couldn't tell if he was eating pulled pork or the weirdest tasting Long John Silver's ever.  

Long story short, if you're hungry near Hardy, you can knock Smokehouse Restaurant off your list of places to grab a meal.  

As we left town, we drove right by Sunken City Brewing so we made a quick stop to see what they had on tap.  They wouldn't do a flight (although they had the glasses) so we bought two full beers instead and stayed awhile.

677. Sunken City - Robust Porter
678. Sunken City - John Henry's Hammer

Of the two, we preferred the porter.  John Henry's Hammer is a stout, but its mouthfeel wasn't very full and it tasted a little thin and wasn't as rich as we were expecting for the style.  

That's all for the weekend of Sept 7th and 8th (even though this wasn't posted until the 13th). Tomorrow we are volunteering at the Blacksburg Brew Do so we'll have at least 16 new tastes for tomorrow.

Here's the recipe for the apple crumble.  Note we made this earlier, vacuum-sealed it and froze it.

• 2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cubed
• 4 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup rolled oats
• Pinch salt
• 2 Tbsp chilled butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds

How to Make It:

Mixed it together and froze.  Thawed and cooked over a hot fire for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid burning.  

Here's a link to the full set of pictures we posted from the weekend and there's a slideshow below if you're not on a mobile device.