Phoenix New Times has shown you a different kind of wine shop, a different way to use beer, and a different method of aging your brew. If you missed those stories the first time around, here's a chance to catch up on your reading ... and your drinking.
Chris Lingua in his 160 square foot shop.
Chris Malloy
New-Age Wine Shop Opens in Downtown Phoenix
901 North First Street, #109
Sauvage, a new-age wine shop in The Churchill, is a different kind of wine shop. The 160 square feet of rectangular space is cooled to cellar temperature with air-conditioning and infinity with James Brown vinyl tunes. And Chris Lingua is a different kind of wine salesman. He likes to talk to customers, to thoughtfully probe the contours of their wine preferences, to feel them out like jazz players lead and follow each other’s improvisation on the lighted stage. He carries wines in tune with the zeitgeist. Natural wines. Biodynamic wines. “Least-effective-sulfur-added wines,” meaning wines with a minimal sulfur spike to stabilize flavor some. Lingua carries 40 kinds of bottles at a time. One column is $15, the next $20, then $25, then $30. "If grocery store wines were CDs, these are records,” he says of his wine selection. “It has those pops and hissing, and you can hear the person breathing as they recorded it — that’s these wines.”
Four Peaks – from the tap to your beard.
Four Peaks Brewing Company
1340 East 8th Street #104, Tempe
15745 North Hayden Road, Scottsdale
You can now put your favorite beer in your beard. Four Peaks Brewing Company is selling beard oils from its Kilt Lifter, Hop Knot, and Sirius Black brews online and at the locations in Tempe and Scottsdale. Beard oils are used to groom your beard so it can look silky, smooth, and fresh. If you're wondering if you can drink the beer-infused beard oil, we think it's safe to assume no, but a representative for Four Peaks could not be reached for comment. It seems to be a promotion for No Shave November – based on their tweet – the unofficial holiday all month long when you grow out your facial hair (or whatever other hair you want) to grow awareness for those who lost their hair due to cancer or any other reason. The theme is to embrace what you look like regardless of how much hair you have. And you are supposed to donate the money you would use to take care of your hair during the entire month.
Jordan Gregory pours a beer in Goldmine
Chris Malloy
3608 North Scottsdale Road
Some food and drink is better aged. And so it can be with beer. Goldwater Brewing Company in Scottsdale is a brewery crafting good barrel-aged beer. Goldwater barrel-ages below its Old Town brewery. There, in the climate-controlled bunker known as Goldmine, beer changes in the 69-degree darkness of stacked barrels, often for longer than a year. Head brewer Jordan Gregory, who works in conjunction with brew master Chad McClelland, says he barrel-ages to imbue beer with another layer of flavor. “We’re trying to soak up all that wonderful character from what the barrel held beforehand,” he says. “You could use a pinot noir barrel. Or you could use bourbon or rum [barrels].” Goldmine pours limited edition beers that don’t surface to the main taproom. You can swill beers like these among the barrels and steel lager tanks and moldering concrete-block walls of another age.
