Bars & Breweries

The Spot: Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. 721 North Arizona Avenue, Suite 103, Gilbert 480-284-9863 www.azwbeer.com…

Beer: Snapshot Brewery: New Belgium Brewing Co. Style: Berliner Weisse ABV: 5 percent If we’re ranking sour beer styles by “intensity of flavor” and “likelihood of making an inexperienced craft beer drinker puke,” the Berliner Weisse would be right near the bottom. Its tartness is generally mild; its carbonation high;…

This weekend is one of the more popular drinking holidays of the year, the Kentucky Derby. On Saturday, folks everywhere will hoist mint juleps, preferably in silver cups. See Also: How to Make the Best Mint Julep, Ever Of course, it seems like there’s always someone who’s not too keen…

It is de rigueur these days to talk about terroir driven wines, wines that evoke a sense of place based on the geographical sites that give certain characteristics based on microclimate and soil type. It’s also trendy to talk about “non-interventionist” winemaking, letting the wine make itself with as little…

The Spot: Notorious Burgers 8777 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale 480-94703180 www.notoriousburgers.com…

Beer: IPA Brewery: Odell Brewing Co. Style: American IPA ABV: 7 percent Near the top of the list of things that make me sad — along with starving puppies and the fact that Tobey Maguire is still making movies — are missed opportunities to educate someone about beer. Recently, this…

With Arizona Cocktail Week and now Chandler Craft Spirits Festival celebrating the world of all things liquor-based, it seems the liquor scene in Phoenix is really taking off. Local vendors like Arizona Distilling Co., AZ Bitters Lab, and Desert Diamond Distillery of Kingman mixed in with national distilleries like Aviation…

As summer descends once more upon the Valley, my mind shifts to tropical drinks. Well, it’s never really shifted away from tropical drinks. I guess the better thing to say is that my tropical drink instinct is getting into high gear. It’s not quite time for me to break out…

After learning all about the types of bitters on the market and the history of the non-potable tincture last week with Bill and Lill Buitenhuys of AZ Bitters Lab, Travis Nass of the Last Drop Bar at the Hermosa Inn shows us this week how to use bitters in a…

The Spot: St. Francis 111 East Camelback Road 602-200-8111 www.stfrancisaz.com…

Beers: Saison and IPA Brewery: Bad Water Brewing Style: Saison, IPA ABV: 6 percent, 5.5 percent Imagine, for a minute, that you’ve traveled back to the first time you tried craft beer. You’ve spent most of your legal drinking age years (and maybe a few before) throwing back cans of…

Sometimes behind the bar, you have your own personal trends. Take, for example, this week’s cocktail. A year or two ago, I got on a streak of making this drink for almost everyone I knew. I sang its praises far and wide. But somehow, it never made it into Chow…

Mid-April is upon us in the Valley, which means temperatures are beginning to hint at summer. The macho among us will make a point of bragging about not turning their A/C on until it hits such and such temperature, as if were a contest to see how much heat they…

If you haven’t been building your bitters collection, it’s time to start. Bill and Lill Buitenhuys, the couple behind AZ Bitters Lab, explain that chefs have spice racks and bartenders equip themselves with an arsenal of bitters, which act as the seasoning element to finish and round out any cocktail…

The Spot: Nook 3623 East Indian School Road, Phoenix 602-651-1390 www.nookkitchen.com…

There are two major judging competitions for beer. One, the Great American Beer Festival, is held yearly in Denver. It’s the largest and most competitive tasting in the country — but entrants have to be from this country. Winners of a GABF gold medal are deemed the best examples of…

Going out to eat, particularly at an upscale spot, is fraught with landmines of personal interactions with various restaurant staff in an atmosphere charged with one-upmanship and general social posturing. Nothing demonstrates this more than navigating the wine list with a sommelier. For whatever reason, the subject of wine brings…

It’s pretty sad what people think is punch nowadays. What once was a delightfully strong alcoholic blend of juices, spices, tea, sugar, and liquor is now pretty much thought of as an artificially flavored fruit drink for children. Well, John Christie over at Second Story Liquor Bar in Scottsdale is…

The Spot: Jade Bar 5700 East McDonald Drive, Paradise Valley 480-948-2100 www.sanctaryoncamelback.com…

Beer: Fire and Blood Brewery: Brewery Ommegang Style: Red Ale ABV: 6.8 percent Brewery Ommegang is onto something with this TV/beer thing, it would seem. Last month, Harvest Moon Brewing Company made millions of Trekkies ecstatic by releasing the first officially licensed Star Trek-themed brew, Vulcan Ale. Soon after, Dock…

I find trends in liquor to be both fascinating and puzzling. Lately, I’m left wondering how the hell marketing executives come up with ridiculous flavors of vodka. Nothing quite says “I’m using a fake ID” than trying to order a drink made with vodka that tastes like Froot Loops cereal…

If you haven’t figured it out by now, demystifying wine and making it more accessible to more people is my raison d’etre here in my weekly Vine Geeks blog. Whether it be celebrating a new Arizona wine or taking aim at the outright hubris of the “big boys,” I really…