Missing San Francisco

One of the things that I thought I was going to miss since I left San Francisco was the comraderie that I had with my co-workers. Every Friday, sure as clockwork, we'd all leave and head over to Harrington's, our local bar, for a few pints of beer so we could decompress from the week.

But now that I work in an area where there are no bars within walking distance, I figured that it just wouldn't happen now that I'm working in a more suburban environment.

But luckily, I was mistaken.

There is a core group of people at my office who understand that it's important to get out of the office on a regular basis to blow off steam, and the bar of choice is a local tavern called J. Timothy's. J. Timothy's is about 8 miles from the office (in the direction of my house&#41, and every Wednesday for the last few weeks, we have made a point to get out there for Rocks and Wings night. The basic concept is for $16.95, you get 50 wings and five 7oz bottles of Rolling Rock in an ice-filled bucket.

Rolling Rock. Ick.

The last thing that I wanted to to was be a beer geek, but Rolling Rock and I don't get along very well… actually, the corn in the wort (that's the grains they make the beer out of&#41 gives me a nasty hangover, so I would have to find something else. I was sure that they'd at least have Sam Adams or a local beer available at the bar, so I wasn't too concerned. However, when I walked in for the first time, I was in for a surprise.

Heaven. I was in beer heaven. J. Timothy's had three or four craft beers on tap (including Magic Hat #9&#41 and a bottled beer selection that sent me into shock: Aventinus Doppelbock, one of my all time favorite beers; Anderson Valley Hop Ottin IPA and Poleeko Gold, my regular beers from San Francisco; Lindemans Peche, a fantastic peach beer from Belgium; Franziskaner Hefeweisen and Dunkel Hefeweisen, the best wheat beers ever made; the venerable Hoegaarden White, one of the two best Belgian White beers being made, as well as a number of other great domestic craft beers and hard to find imports. Great wings, fantastic company and a beer selection that rivals the best beer bars in San Francisco. The only drawback is that since I still have to drive another 12 miles to get home, I have to practice extreme temperance in my drinking… so I can only go through a couple of beers every time I go there.

Damn. I guess this means that I'll just have to become a regular there as well.