Aviator Smokehouse partners craft brews with food, including barbecue

Anytime I come across a partnering of beer and barbecue, my mind often drifts to the 1990s, when I attended several annual summer "Blues, Brew and Barbecue" festivals sponsored by the former Indiana Blues Society.

The IBS did a nice job, I thought, of finding local blues talent -- and a national act to fill the headliner bill -- to provide music entertainment throughout the day. There was also brew and barbecue to satisfy the pallet.

And so it happened that's where my mind transformed when I learned that Aviator Brewing Co. of Fuquay-Varina, N.C., owned a sister enterprise called Aviator Smokehouse, 525 E. Broad St., which is across Broad Street from the brewery's Taphouse, 600 E. Broad St., yet another sister enterprise (and not the last ... more about that a little below). OK, so maybe the live music aspect was lacking, but still ...  beer and barbecue!

Aviator Smokehouse is a pub specializing in barbecue, but as I fully expected, it is equipped with the full compliment of Aviator beers. I had just finished lunch elsewhere, so I went to Broad Street to sample the Aviator brews.

You might think I should have gone to the taphouse if I wasn't looking for food, and you probably would be right. But I didn't know at the time that the building across the street from the restaurant was the taphouse; I thought it was the brewery, and I knew from researching online that the brewery didn't open until 4 p.m. (Turns out the brewery is actually a mile or so away at 209 Technology Park Lane).

So ... I went to the smokehouse, which had almost two dozen Aviator brews on tap. I asked the server about sampling a flight. The server quoted me an $8 price to try six brews. She said to add $2 more for each additional pair I would like to sample.

I decided to limit my sampling to six, and I tried (above, left to right) Transatlantic IPA, MacBawBag Scotch Ale, 3Bones Kolsch Style Ale, Crackpot Pilsner, Wide Open Red Ale and another IPA, the Hog Wild. A closeup of the pilsner is at left; a closeup of the red ale is at the right.

My favorites in the batch were the first two I sampled -- the pilsner and red ale. I found a curious carbonated texture to the kolsch and scotch, and I found the two IPAs more hoppy than I ordinarily like. But ... I run hot and cold with IPAs; when I visited Carolina Brewery a few weeks ago, that beer-maker's Wiggo IPA hit the spot, and I bought a six-pack. Every Wiggo I consumed after that ... also hit the spot. I was happy again.

I did not leave Aviator with that sensation after tasting the Transatlantic or Hog Wild.

Among the handful of photos I took of the smokehouse interior, I liked the one above the best. Below is a look at almost the full bar area, where I sat. A closeup of the tap handles is shown in the second photo below.  

Above: A look at the full beer menu at the restaurant. 

Red brick is a popular facade of this section of the town's merchants' district. Above is the front of Aviator's bottle shop, yet another enterprise of the Aviator brand. The bottle shop, across Stewart Street from the Smokehouse at 601 E. Broad St., sells not only Aviator products, but other brews from elsewhere in the state and across the country. Below is a long look at the building where the smokehouse is located, with the entrance being at the far end. I'm going to presume the shops in this section of Broad Street were part of the original Varina town between it merged with Fuquay. 

Above: The front of the taphouse, which I originally thought was the actual brewery. 

Above and below: Aviator has appealing art work with its brand -- both on the beers and its facility signage. Another example is the artwork shown in the photo leading off the post. 

Above: Inside Aviator Smokehouse, I'm looking through a tall, vertical window across Stewart Street to the Aviator Bottle Shop.  

Four Day Ray in Indiana is one of the finest craft breweries I've visited ... so far

While in Indiana for the birth of a granddaughter on Feb. 12, I had a chance to stop at Four Day Ray Brewing, a craft brewery in Fishers that I'd been itching to to visit for some time.

Actually, it's more than a brewery. It's also a restaurant that serves traditional pub fare, but it does so in a setting that -- at least in my experience visiting craft breweries and pubs -- is one of the nicest and most striking of them around.

Four Day Ray is at 11671 Lantern Road, about two blocks north of East 116th Street in an area that was bottled up in construction activity for what seemed like an eternity when I was still living in Indiana. If you're familiar with 116th Street and know where Greek's Pizzeria is, it's almost two blocks directly north of that.

I had roamed the new mixed-used development area of this portion of downtown Fishers when I was up for a visit in May 2018, and I came very close to Four Day Ray during my walk-around at that time, not realizing I was as close as I was. I went through my May 2018 photos on the drive back to North Carolina on this recent commute, and I could see the brewery in the near background in one of the pictures. At the time, though, I didn't know that's what it was.

Because Four Day Ray has a decent menu and serves food to sit-down crowds, it is open more hours than most craft breweries. In many of my first visits to craft breweries, I strive to indulge a flight so I can sample anywhere from four to six of a brewery's offerings. I wasn't in the mood for a flight, though, when I went there two weeks ago. Instead, I asked the server if I could try small samples of two brews that jumped out at me on the beer menu -- the Afterburner smoked lager and the Air Raid pale ale.

I was pleased that my pallet reacted positively to both, but it forced me to decide between them to wash down my meal of a half-slab of barbecued ribs. I went with the Air Raid, and I was not disappointed.

I so much enjoyed the pale ale -- agreeable to the tongue, just the right amount of hop bitterness (which is not a lot) and almost the exact amount of maltiness I've come to appreciate in the pale ales I really enjoy.

The ribs (above) were cooked pretty well, but I thought they were weak on the spice rub I've come to enjoy in ribs. I asked the server if I could get a side of barbecue sauce, and she kindly complied. I often prefer to eat ribs without sauce if they're prepared with a delectable dry rub (a good example is the Texas rub at Ruby Tuesday's ribs). Thankfully, the sauce made the difference with the ribs at Four Day Ray, so I left a happy diner and imbiber -- so much so that I bought a six-pack of Air Raid to go. While buying the six-pack, I learned that Fridays are $7 growler fill days.

Lee Ann stuck to unsweetened ice tea with her meal, which was a pair of pulled pork sliders (above) and a side of french fries. We both also got a nice-sized green salad with balsamic viniagrette dressing (below). The salad and dressing were very good.

Four Day Ray has a lot of seating space for dining customers. You can find it inside on two floors (levels) and even more outdoors. I roamed the interior after I finished my meal to grab the pictures you see in this post.

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of photos from my visit to Four Day Ray, follow the link in this sentence.

Metazoa Brewing revisited; I'm glad I did

Despite my disappointment in visiting Metazoa Brewing Co. on its opening day on April 1, I'd always intended in returning at some point. The only thing I didn't know was when.

"When" came Friday, June 3, when I returned shortly after 2 p.m. when I expected traffic wouldn't be quite what I had experienced on the opening day April 1. And fortunately, I was right. When I arrived, I was struck by the nice view of the Indy skyline -- over the new townhouses/condos in the foreground -- one sees from the parking lot, illustrated by the photo leading off the post. What's more, it's only a half-block north of one of my favorite dining establishments, the Milano Inn.

Metazoa had a modest traffic volume Friday, so I got to experience -- and enjoy -- what I was unable to experience two months earlier.
I'm pleased to say that on Friday, I had the time and leisure to do what I couldn't do on April 1. I sampled six of the new brewery's offerings (right), deciding to try a flight representing three beers on Metazoa's house menu (beers on the house menu are always available ... and they're also always available for growler fills).

Three of the brews were from the seasonal menu; unlike the house brews, seasonals are not available for growler fills. I'm ordinarily not a seasonal brew fan at craft breweries, because seasonals -- in my admittedly limited experience -- tend to be on the fruity side. I enjoyed five of the six beers I tried Friday, and three of those were seasonals, Topping the list was the Wolf Rhino, an IPA with an IBU (international bitterness units) of 117. For those unfamiliar, beers with IBUs above 30 or thereabouts are usually regarded as bitter to the rookie palate. But to those accustomed to beers with such processing, 117 is an engaging number.

The Wolf Rhino was not the bitterest Metazoa brew I tried Friday. Also on the seasonal menu was a 147 IBU Half A Doodle Do IPA (IBU 149), which I also found to be tasty.

In fact, of the six brews I tried, the only one I did not find pleasing was the house Fragiana, a Midwest IPA that was on the dark side in color (it's the darkest of the six pictured above) and, for some reason, did not sit well with my palate. I did not try the Honey Kinkajou honey weiss; on my visit on opening day, the honey weiss was the only brew I was able to sample (and it was a very small sample), and I found it lacking in appeal, flavor and taste.

Metazoa has a seasonal rye IPA with a mango infusion called Anonymous Lemur (which I tried) with an IBU of 33 that I also liked a lot, but, oddly, I could not detect a bit of mango in the flavor.

I also tried Metazoa's Nap in the Hammock cream ale (IBU 17), which I found tasty, an American IPA called Giraffe Dance (IBU 61), which I also liked. The bartenders were kind enough to let me sample (i.e., very small amounts) of the seasonal QB's Girlfriend and a kolsch, called Kuma Kolsch. Both had very low IBUs, and both were fine.

Metazoa has a very friendly staff -- so much that I'd be very inclined to revisit just because I know I'd be in good hands. The gentleman who served me went to great pains to explain the various beers and IBU differences and brewing techniques.

It's worth noting that Metazoa has a secondary objective in mind with its operation -- the care and well-being of nature's animal kingdom. Its logo and brew names are part of Metazoa's mission to donate 5% of its profits to animal and wildlife organizations. That helps explain the brewery name (metazoa is a zoological group comprising multicelluar animals) and logo (pictured at right.