Ladies and Gents,

I'm three days into a much much needed vacation, and accumulating a lot of beer to review. Now, the grocery store in Edisto, SC does not carry many high quality brews, and I'm already taking a lot of shit for being a beer snob, so I'll probably be forced to drink some bud light.  My brother's already requested a review of said beer, and I think it'd be fairly entertaining to attempt an actual analysis. So we'll see how desperate I get, but for now, good beer!

The trip so far: (for those of you who know me, everyone else, it's probably pretty boring)

I started the trip off with a horrendous flight from NY, and true to form, arrived an hour and a half late. Went to IHOP with my entire family at 1 am, woke up in the morning and drove up to NC, stopping along the way to visit with Marc's grandparents, who are incredibly awesome. (And his grandfather loves beer!) Then we stayed with my grandparents in the beautiful beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, had a quiet day and some hiking and breakfast on the edge of a mountain, and then went into Asheville for some beer and Bele Chere.

We had lunch at the Thirsty Monk, which has an incredible selection and decent food. Unfortunately, most of their tap selections were heavier darker beers- great for cool mountain nights, but terrible for hot, music festival afternoons. Kind of stuck without any standout choices, we got an Avery Fifteen and Sixteen, a fruity, spicy, flowery wild ale, and a crisp peach and honey saison, respectively. Both were fairly good, nothing incredible, and the fifteen definitey was the better hot-day-drinking beer. Then we walked around Bele Chere for a while, bought some coffee mugs, kick ass earings, painted a mural, laughed at Evangelists, etc. etc. Then we drove home to Columbia, and had a late dinner of paninis and white wine with my parents. Long long day, but the beer made it better, of course

Kicked off Saturday with a 10-miler, stopped to buy something decent to bring down to the beach, ended up with a 12 of flying dog variety. Not so bad, for SC grocery store beer. Now we're at the beach, and I plan on spending the day basking in the sun reading "At the Mountains of Madness" and hydrating myself for a run and some beer later in the day. Reports to come!