Note: This article was completed on 8/26, but began on 10/19 and it makes more sense to have the original post date listed

Last Saturday Northern Arizona Homebrewers (NAH) had their first official outing. Before then we had met trying to get the organization started.

We began our tour at Beaver Street Brewery, I'd love to describe the beginning, but I was a couple minutes late and missed it. Evan was a great host, answering all order of questions from the cost of a beer (I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you) to details of yeast use. Standing amongst the equiment you might think we were in a church for the quite reverence most of us felt or it could have been that we hadn't started *ahem* sampling yet. Evan lead us to the Billiards room after the tour and we sampled all the current taps. The Lager del Sol was well received and most folks thought it was the perfect hot day lager to quench a thirst. It definately fit the Mexican style Lager. Not surprisingly the Bramble Berry Brew while well constructed was not among our favorites but that is to be expected from a bunch of homebrewers. Railhead Red was as good as ever, a personal favorite. The IPA impressed us enough that a group of us returned for a further sampling after the pubcrawl was complete. The Oatmeal Stout was definiately more of our taste because it was gone a blink of an eye. In fact a friend mentioned he noticed the beers evaporated at Beaver Street, steadily disappeared at Flag Brew, but by the time we got to Mogollon people slowed their drinking dramatically that we had to take additional samples to finish them off. We were a little disappointed we had missed their Oktoberfest this year, we will have to make it back a little earlier next year. Evan was also encouraged by a number of us to bring their Porter into rotation among the regular beers so watch for it.

After our sampling we were a bit more relaxed and in the swing of things as we headed to Flag Brew. Thankfully the Train Gods were cooperative and we did not have to wait to cross the tracks. Discussions were definately brewing-centric from use of hydrometer (or my lack their of) to mead to the economics of running a brewpub.

Once arriving at Flagstaff Brewing Company (aka ABC Brewery) we settled into the back with some water to cleanse the palette before tasting their wares. (Their website seems blank at the moment, this link is better for brewery information) We started off with the Pale Ale, which every one enjoyed and commented on it's hoppy nature, some even suggesting it might be closer to an IPA in style. The Amber was a more mixed response with some people concerned about the diacetyl scent to it. The Stout was popular but the Pale ale seemed to be NAH's favorite brew. Jeff was very friendly and open to letting us know about their brewing process. Their was a contrast of the two breweries both in terms of equipment size and approaches to the beer. Flag Brew has is squeezed into it's space so much so that they had to split our group in two to fit us in. Even then the space was a bit cramped when we tried to see the storage tanks. To paraphrase the brewer "Sure you calculate brewing batches, but at a certain point you just have to go for it."

Last and certainly not least was Mogollon Brewery which had another unique take on the brewing process. While they have always have beer they are currently far more focused on the Distillery which is about to go to market. We were explained that this addition was largely an issue of economics as the cost of being a distributing brewery was far higher than the in house costs faced by the other two breweries. Because of this change in production we spent the tour discussing their new operations and din't get much into the beer side of the house.

All and all it was an evening well spent.

Pictures of the tour