Saturday was planned to be a busy day: brewery tour, Newseum, DC brewpub dinner, ballgame.
Saturday morning, James and I took off early for Blue and Gray Brewing Co. in Fredericksburg, VA. They are open for tours on Saturdays from 10am-1pm. The plan was to get there early for the tour then have plenty of time to head back up to Alexandria to take the Metro into DC and catch a 2:30pm Newseum program.
Didn't happen.
First off, the traffic on I-95 southbound was horrendous. Our planned 10:00 arrival turned into a 10:45am arrival. Seriously. Not a problem in the grand scheme of things however. The tour shouldn't be THAT long and the northbound traffic was smooth sailing.
Blue and Gray is in the process of moving to a new location mere yards away. Moving from one large industrial one-room building to another. So we arrive and the only shiny stainless visible is one 40-bbl serving tank, one 40-bbl fermenter, and one 30-bbl fermenter. Seriously? Here's the entirety of the equipment:
Wow. Breathtaking.
So anyway, there is a tour occurring before us, and the pleasant gentleman manning the merchandise register says it'll just be 15 minutes or so if we just want to wait around. Sure! No problem. There will be beer sampling involved so we'll wait.
And wait.
And wait.
The 15 minutes turned into an eternity. 11:30 and we're FINALLY touring. We begin with samples of four of their offerings. The engaging older man conducting the tour was certainly engaging. Engaging with us, engaging with anybody who would interrupt, engaging with a fixit-man entering to help with equipment, engaging with the pretzel bites he shoved in his mouth with reckless abandon while continuing to garble his unintelligible tour speech, engaging with the distractions in his head that continued to blow him off course into confusing waters.
Worst. Tour. Ever.
"Comedically bad" was the apt description.
Fine. As long as we hit the Metro in Alexandria by 1:30pm we'll be golden to get to the Newseum by 2:15pm for our program. The program we RSVP'd for as Newseum "press pass members"? Newsmen Bill and Chris Plante were to discuss their careers in news media and their familial relationship. Interesting!
Except we didn't get to see it.
That easygoing northbound traffic we saw on our crawl southward turned around and killed us. it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to drive the 40 miles up I-95. Forever. So no Newseum program for us.
Thanks terrible brewery tour of three pieces of steel and awful DC-area traffic!
So we make our way to Gordon Biersch for dinner and multiple pints of their German lager offerings. Tasty. We leave all bloaty. But, there's still some time to kill. Hopping on the Gallery Place metro stop now and just traveling 4 stops to Navy Yard and the Nationals Park will leave us waiting for the gates to open. So we walk a few blocks down to District Chophouse and Brewery for some delicious and velvety rich Bourbon Stout.
It's kicked.
Are you freakin' serious?
Still delicious yet subpar for what we pined for Oatmeal Stouts were consumed in its place. Unbelievable. A sucky tour, traffic that kills our chance to get to the Newseum in time, and no Bourbon Stout? ARGH!!!
So we hop the Metro and get to the park. Two nights in a row for baseball? Sweeeeeet. And since Kimberly splurged for good tickets last night, I figured really good seats again would even out economically. One section closer to the plate, and the 2nd row behind the camera pit next to the dugout. Insanely closeup view. Another great game. The Nationals win again this time in 12 innings! Fantastic! Great seats, great camaraderie, and great outcome.
Plus, and I'll save it for its own stand alone post, I walk home with something I've never gotten in all my years of baseball going. A superb birthday weekend....
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