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.  

Bond Brothers gets high scores for brews, atmosphere

I spent a couple hours in the hot sun Thursday afternoon, walking the downtown area of Cary, N.C., for a photo shoot. I'd studied maps of the area before embarking on the shoot, so I knew Bond Brothers Beer Company craft brewery was somewhere in that vicinity.

But I hadn't spent much time in the downtown first-hand to know exactly where it was. I just figured I'd come upon it at some point during my walk-around. That didn't happen.

I had parked my car in the Ashworth Village shopping center, So when I returned to my car after the shoot, I looked up the brewery on my iPhone maps app and pin-pointed the location. Turns out, I'd come oh, so close to Bond Brothers during the walk-around before unwittingly turning away from it unseen. This time, behind the wheel of the car, I wasn't going to miss it.

Like a lot of craft breweries I have visited in Indiana and North Carolina, Bond Brothers is situated in a converted industrial structure. The advantages of these buildings is that everything is in the open; there are no pillars or posts blocking access paths or views, for that matter. Some breweries do better at decorating these than others. Bond Brothers did a nice job with theirs; there is a good amount of seating indoors and at the bar, and even more in the spacious outdoors garden.

When approaching the brewery from Cedar Street, you see the brick facade shown above; there is an opening through the fence to access the door, which is situated in the outdoor seating area behind that fence.

I was hoping to do a flight -- small samplings of several beers -- which I like to do when I visit a brewery for the first time. Flights (and growler fills, for that matter) are huge deals at Indiana craft breweries. Not so much at North Carolina breweries, and as for growlers -- if a brewery offers them, they don't discount them or offer a one-day growler fill special like Indiana craft breweries. They charge quite a lot for them, in fact. The Bond Brothers bartender told me the brewery doesn't offer flights ... and doesn't even offer growler fills. Their best substitutes were 10-ounce servings -- most costing $3 (versus $5 for most pint glasses), and tall cans that contain 32 ounces (a/k/a crawlers).

So I indulged in three 10-ounce samples -- the Cary Gold cream ale (mostly filled glass on the right), the Short Stride Sessions IPA (half-filled glass) and the Local American IPA (oops, I forgot to photograph it), in that order. When I finished them all, I decided to devour one more Cary Gold, which I really liked. Both IPAs were good, too, but the cream ale impacted me the most, quite possibly because it was my first consumption of fluid since getting out of the heat.

My tastes in craft beers stay mainly among pale and cream ales and IPAs. I usually eschew stouts and porters, although I've been talked into trying some when I have a flight to fill. I know brewers toil at developing other blends -- sours, fruit- or wine-heavy concoctions, witts, bocks and the like. My experience is that those veer far away from real beer taste, that they don't taste like beer anymore. So I also tend to avoid those.

Several customers seated near me were drinking a purple-colored draft, which I soon learned was the Blackberry Raspberry Sorcery sour ale. I asked the bartender for a sample to see what the interest was. I place sour beers at the bottom of my likes at craft breweries; the Sorcery was, indeed, sour, but probably one of the least offensive I've ever had. Still, it would not be a beverage I would seek out again.

In between fills, I got up and photographed the brewing quarters (two photos below) where the company makes its brews.

Like a lot of craft breweries, Bond Brothers sells paraphernalia merchandising its brand and products. There were globes (glasses), tumblers and T-shirts on sale at the brewery, for example. But it also offers these items and more for sale at an online store.

Above and below: The bar area and two of the three staffers who served customers there the day I visited.

Above and below: A couple shots of the interior. I had been seated a couple chairs around the corner from the woman wearing the light blue top in the above photo. The vats and drums pictured previously were behind a large glass window immediately to the right of where the photo below ends. 

Above: A look at the outdoor seating area. 

Above: There was a Mexican fast-food truck, La Republica, stationed outside the brewery the day I visited.

Floating Goat Brewery shines big on a sampling trip to Fuquay-Varina

For Father's Day, Lee Ann nudged me to enjoy the day by checking out a craft brewery I've been wanting to drop in on in the Raleigh metropolitan area. Well, I became curious about it a little over a week ago or so when I sampled one of the Mason Jar Lager Company's beers while stopping in at Elevated Grain at Ten-Ten Road and U.S. 401.

So on Sunday afternoon, we drove to Fuquay-Varina to check it out. On the drive, we debated whether to go to Mason Jar's brewery or to its tavern. They are in different places in the southern Wake County community. Lee Ann was hungry, and we knew I'd be able to try the brews at either place, so ... we elected to go to the tavern.

Imagine my surprise when parking the car after arriving that I noticed a separate craft brewery -- The Floating Goat Brewing Co. -- right across the street from the Mason Jar Tavern. We stopped first at our original destination then checked out the Floating Goat afterward.

I bought a flight of four different brews at each place, and here are my findings. I'll go backwards, starting with the Floating Goat, because I liked the brews I tried there significantly more than those at the Mason Jar. On this day, Floating Goat knocked the ball out of the park; Mason Jar did not.

Floating Goat Brewing Co.

At the Floating Goat, I tried the What the Buck Pale Ale, Rusted Red Ale, Horny Honey Wildflower Witbier (year-round offerings) and the seasonal Stiff Leg Belgium Tripel. That's my flight in the photo leading off the post; I'd already downed the pale ale (second from right). The horny honey is on the far left, then the Rusted Red and, on the far right, the Stiff Leg.

I give the three staples very high marks, and I was tempted to grab a growler of the pale ale -- my favorite of the trio -- to take home. But ... I inexplicably decided against it at the last minute.

The What the Buck Pale Ale was refreshing -- a recipe that reflected -- for my taste, anyway -- a perfect blend of malt (medium) and hops (low), which is how I like my pale ales. When you get that combination, it does not force me to question whether I'm going to enjoy the rest of the drink. In those cases when brewers boost the hop content in some pale ales ... I often question whether the beer should have been marketed as an IPA. Indeed, with Floating Goat's Pale Ale, my palate was in brew heaven.

To me, the Horny Honey wibier tasted like Floating Goat's pale ale with a hint of sweetness -- something that I did not mind at all. I also found it refreshing and enjoyable. Also enjoyable was the Rusted Red, which also had a fine balance of malt and hops ... and a slightly earthy undertone I wasn't expecting.

The Swift Leg Belgian Tripel was fresh, but its citrus (especially the grapefruit I sensed) did not sit well with me. That doesn't mean this is knock on the beer, because people who enjoy that kind of thing I'm sure will rave about it. But I don't usually enjoy brews with citrus emphasis. (For example, I'm not a huge fan of Blue Moon).

Another factor that made me happy with my visit to Floating Goat was the eclectic decor and array of clothing merchandise on display -- evidence by a handful of the pictures you'll find below. The upside down goat logo is one of those "different" things. When I turned to a display of T-shirts and smiled at one emblazoned with "Brew - Quay," the woman working the taps explained that it's a play on the town's name ... and a nod to the town's growing reputation for having several craft breweries within its small confines.

One sign hanging in the seating area advised visitors of the following: "We have no WiFi. Talk to each other. Pretend it's 1995."

Mason Jar Brewery and Tavern

The Mason Jar Tavern was busy on Father's Day. Our server said the kitchen was backlogged as much as 45 minutes, so we decided to munch on an appetizer while I sipped my flight (first picture below).

My flight consisted of the Pull Tab Pilsner (far left, which I had already finished), the House Lager, the new Hype-Hop Ottamus and the Luchador Mexican Lager.

Mason Jar is a lager-focused brewery, which makes it stand out. I usually like lagers, so I thought this would be a slam dunk enjoyment. I tried the pilsner first, and it was my favorite of the batch. The House Lager was not crisp or refreshing, the Hype-Hop was what you'd expect -- on the hoppy side. I went a year or so when I really enjoyed IPAs, but in the past four months or so, I've eschewed hoppy brews. And the Hype-Hop reminded me why.

The Mexican Lager was my second "favorite," but I think I'm using the word "favorite" too loosely. I'm not sure I'd return to it.