OK – so if you’re following along you know that we love to visit wineries. We have had the chance to taste a lot of delicious wine over our year of travel on four different continents (I don’t think we had any worthwhile wine in Asia). But you’ve also probably noticed that we’ve had a few beers.
Many of you know that Michael is a beer dork. There is no getting around that. Some of you have even waited in line to get him beers. Michael and I often go to beer festivals or other long lengths to seek out breweries. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s who we are.
So here are a few beer pictures from our year abroad. This is not an all inclusive blog, and I’m going to guess that very few people care about these pictures anyways, so feel free to just skim through or wait patiently for the next post.
Ken just showed me how to see pictures on a map. Look at our beer picture maps!
Ok, so let’s start with our time in South America. South America has terrible beers. Those are the facts. We did have one good experience in Montevideo where the beers were fine and they had this clever van out front.
Here Michael is drinking a beer in Córdoba. I don’t recall them being terribly bad, but they weren’t anything special either.
While in Córdoba, Michael drank his 2500 distinct beer, as checked in to an app called untappd. For all of you people out there who don’t know what this is because you have better things to do with your life, this app allows Michael to track and rate all of the beers he has drank on his phone. It is just a way to inform your “friends” via social media how many beers you’re drinking. It’s a very bizarre competition. One of the main competing points is “distinct beers”. For example you can drink Bud Light every day, but it only counts one time in this category. So for Michael to have had 2500 distinct beers is really quite impressive… in a “we’ve spent way too much time and money drinking beers” kind of way.
We’ll come back to distinct beers in a few minutes.
A beer during our quick stop in Lima:
We had a beer while fly fishing in Patagonia:
Michael did find a beer bar in Cusco that imported a lot of good beer from the US, so we hung out there a few times while we were acclimating to the altitude. I think alcohol helps with altitude sickness.
We also got to try some cool local beers like the quinoa beer and the purple maize beer.
We shared one beer on the first night of the Inca Trail and we had a few beers when we finally made it to Machu Picchu although there doesn’t seem to be a picture of the beers.
We nabbed a few beers in Santiago over Christmas (but mostly just wine):
Mmmmm! How amazing does that shrimp dish look!?!
Beers with Philip and Krystal in Valpo and Mendoza:
This Bolivian beer that apparently is made with coca leaves:
Beers with Juan and Yubeley:
Plus this Colombian mix of soda and beer when we had bbq with the Dussáns.
A michelada in Medellin:
This Pilsen in Rio:
There was a really good beer bar in Rio that we hung out at while kids in the street were drinking bad beer.
OK – so we may have had a bad beer on the beach as well. It was carnival! When in Rome!
Sol in São Paulo:
Also that burger there was DELICIOUS! Plus they had Heinz ketchup!
So that’s it – a good summary of the beers we had in South America (for the most part).
We did also have a beer or two while we were visiting Antartica. Here’s a pic of Michael with Leigh and an empty glass. That’s the best I have.
We then flew to Africa. Each country that we visited had two or three local beers that we would try. Other than Cape Town and Namibia we just didn’t drink too much in Africa.
Addis Ababa while playing golf with some Sofia cards:
Seychelles:
Nairobi at the super cool Havana nights club:
Madagascar beers:
Beers with Jeff and Vanessa in Cape Town:
Such an artsy photo…
We had a few beers while we were in Zimbabwe visiting Victoria Falls:
And this St. Louis beer when we were visiting Chobe National Park in Botswana.
While in Zimbabwe we saw this amazing quote by Frank Zappa: “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” I thought about editing out the WMD portion of the quote to make it a bit more enjoyable. Zimbabwe does have a beer and an airport which is good since they don’t have a currency.
A boot of beer in Namibia! Makes sense since Namibia was a German colony.
A beer in Morocco and lots and lots of tea:
And then we were off to Europe where we had no worries about finding good beer. First stop is Barcelona where Michael and I sat and drank beers and were sad while waiting for Johnny to start feeling better and get there!!
Here is Johnny hanging out in Jersey trying to get to us!!
It was also the first stop on the trip to a Mikkeller. First of many Mikkeller bars.
Then… Johnny got there!!! Andy brought a few beers from home to make Michael happy.
Johnny hung out with us in San Sebastián while we had a few great beers:
And Barcelona:
You can see Johnny sleeping in the background of the last picture. Here’s a reminder of the head dress he was napping in:
So good.
After Johnny’s visit, we toured around Europe a bit and had just a few beers.
Cinque Terre with the coolest bar owner in the world:
Post marathon beers in Paris:
Enjoying the sun in Lisbon:
Porto at one of Bourdain’s finds:
Tuscany with mom was mostly wine, but we found some Brewdog beers in Florence as well:
Then a few beers in Croatia, too!
Then off to London for a few beers with Dave, MP, Maggie/Hannah, Jackie and David. I forgot how much great company we had in London!
Then off to Ireland where we had the best bar experiences of the trip (not the most diverse beers though).
We enjoyed a few more options when we got to Galway:
MMMM Dough bros! That pizza was awesome. We ate there twice.
It was also at Dough Bros when Michael noticed that he was drawing in on beating Ken at beers. Or something.
Then off to Amsterdam where they have Heineken beer openers in the hotel rooms.
This is where Michael overtook Ken in the winning at beer category. We also got T-shirt’s for doing a pub crawl to four different breweries. It was a fun day but made for a tough and super early bus ride to Paris the next morning.
In Paris we hung out with Ben Folds before Ken, Janine and Sarah came in to start Euro Beer Fest 2018.
First, Paris’s best meats and cheese for the train, plus train beers and this beer schnaps that I had lugged from Cape Town for this train ride specifically!
The train took us to Belgium which is basically the Bordeaux of the beer world. We sampled quite a few while there.
First, a few tears shed by Michael regarding the beers and swag that Ken brought him:
Then off to the breweries!
Cantillon:
Then the Brussels Beer Project:
Three Fonteinen where we did surprisingly ok at British Trivial Pursuit:
Plus some random beers while hanging out in town:
After we drank all of the beer in Belgium, Ken, and Janine had to head home (via Paris) and Sarah, Michael, and I continued on our quest to drink Europe dry.
Hofbrauhaus in Munich
Vienna:
Budapest:
Kraków Food and Beer Truck Park:
We didn’t eat any Cubanos, but I thought it was amazing they had a Cuban food truck in Kraków.
Minsk:
Vilnius:
Tallinn, where we drank beers at another Brewdog location while watching some World Cup:
Then off to the World Cup in St. Petersburg!!!
It was mostly just vodka or Bud heavies at the matches.
Here’s Jacob drinking beers and waiting patiently for us while we slept in after our bus ride from hell to get to Helsinki.
Ferry beers in Norway with Katie and crew:
And a few beers in Oslo while watching another World Cup game with Sofia and Liam:
Our last beers in Europe (give or take): Copenhagen beers!
This is not, however, the last Mikkeller bar we found.
Finally! We made it to Asia! For the most part we’re back to drinking less alcohol in total and a ton less beer – excepting for Hong Kong and Bangkok visits.
We did grab a Tiger while enjoying street meat in Kuala Lumpur:
And we had a beer in Tokyo with some huge oysters and met some geishas who preferred to sip on Zima and Smirnoff:
We saw some beer taps that reminded us of home in Shanghai.
We did have a beer in Lhasa:
And then we took some beers to Everest base camp to enjoy with Ralf.
Those pictures would be cooler if you could actually see Everest in the background.
Most importantly, while waiting for the collapsed bridge to be repaired, we had a dinner of beer and Snickers on the road from Tibet to Kathmandu.
We deserved at least a few beers for enduring that 16 hour ride.
A Nepalese beer once we finally made it:
During Bangkok, round 1, Michael and I enjoyed a few beers.
More important to note is that amazing noodle dish above!! One of the best meals of the trip.
After our Siem Reap bike ride:
Phnom Penh – a growing city with a few good breweries:
Ho Chi Minh City – breweries and street meat beers:
Hoi An – perfect.
Hanoi – recreating Obama and Bourdain’s meal, complete with Hanoi Beer:
And another brewery with a huge tap list… usually:
A tasting flight from some place in some city:
Good news. I’m currently sitting on Janine’s couch and she has informed me that the above tasting was from a yakitori spot that we ate at on their first day in Hong Kong.
Then off to Phuket with Ken and Janine!!
Look at how cool this Muy Thai boxer koozie is!
Michael got an insta shot at our fancy resort with his beer:
And Ken diversified his drink choices:
Then it was back to Bangkok for round two with Ken and J9.
Yes – another Mikkeller bar.
Then it was off to Bali for detox!
Seriously. The above is coffee and tea – not a paddle of beers.
Another flight over to New Zealand to enjoy the beautiful scenery and just a few beers. Please note the artistic shot below.
Note the Cantillon sweatshirt I’m wearing in the above photo… because we don’t just drink beer, we live it.
And we got to hang out in Nelson hops area in the South Island with appropriate lighting.
Tasmania:
And that awesome beer roulette machine at the art museum.
A beer in Sydney before meeting up with Leigh:
And then enjoying a beer at the oldest pub in Melbourne while playing some golf.
One thing to note about drinking beers with visitors and those that we visited is that we did a lot of card playing at the same time. We played a ton of golf (shown above) and a ton of Euchre. The issue with Euchre? Hours of playing results in busted cards:
It is hard on half of the deck. You can see the high valued cards so obviously that it caused us to go through quite a few decks of cards.
So that’s it. We drank a ton of beer all over the world. When we landed in Hawaii, we enjoyed a few Konas…
…and I was pretty pumped to have a Bud Light tall boy. I was also excited that the woman at the convenience store carded me. Boom!
That’s it. Beer. Writing this post has made me thirsty…