Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Phoenix.

I'm planning a trip to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and possibly a 3rd destination. I'll be there for 10 days. I'd like to make a few beer-related stops. Any good brewpubs or beer stores I should visit?

Barley's Brew Pub & Casino in Vegas/Henderson used to be real good. Holy Cow is closed down. I'd ask these folks http://snafubrew.com/Forum/index.php about both areas.

Four Peaks in Phoenix (Tempe) is our best brew-pub. The food and atmosphere are great, and they make some of the best beer in town. Their IPA won gold for Strong Pale Ale at GABF a year or two ago; it's pretty good =) Otherwise, it's a fun place to kick back a few beers, as it's about 1/2mi from ASU's campus. Great vibe, with a good mix of college kids and adults. It's a bit of a zoo around spring-training season, but always fun. If you have time for one, go here.

Papago Brewery is pretty much a bar, but a great one. Great beer selection (mostly other breweries), and good pizza.

Santan is down in Chandler. Pretty good beer, ok food. Good vibe. The brewpub it self is very nice, but I've never been wow'd by the food. Beers are hit or miss for me. None are bad, but most are just good.

There's a number of small startups in the past couple years, and I really don't have much feedback on those.

In Phoenix I definitely 2nd Four Peaks and San Tan. Everything they make is good to phenomenal. I'm a huge fan of Four Peak's Kiltlifter and Hop Knot. San Tan's PA and IPA are also really good IMO, and they just released their seasonal Sex Panther which is a chocolate porter and also one my favorites. There is a small bar off Scottsdale Rd in Scottsdale (close to Papago) called AZ Wine that has a really good craft beer selection on tap. There are Groupon deals that pop up for Old World Brewery and I do not suggest going there, probably the worst beer in town.

Thanks. I'll check a few of these out. I'm also hoping to pick up some hard to find west coast beers while I'm there. Any good beer stores that might stock some interesting stuff?

b-boy said:

Thanks. I'll check a few of these out. I'm also hoping to pick up some hard to find west coast beers while I'm there. Any good beer stores that might stock some interesting stuff?

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Yes, we get most West Coast brewey's beers. Russian River and Alpine are the only two popular ones we don't get.

Total Wine and Bevmo are the big-box liquor stores. Tops and Sun Devil liquor are the smaller family owned ones that have great selection. Firestone Walker Union jack and Double Jack. If you haven't had them, buy them.

I'm not sure what you don't get in your area, but Green Flash, Lost Abbey, Port, Moylan's, and Bear Republic are all fantastic.

For Vegas, not sure where you're going to be staying, if you'll have a car, etc. Last time I was there staying at Palazzo, and I spent a day checking out every single beer bar on the Strip, walking down one side and back up on the other side.

So, on the Strip, my favorite beer bars are the Pub (I think that's the name) inside Monte Carlo, and Burger Bar inside Mandalay Bay. Burger Bar has something like 20ish taps, although they have cut back on the number of craft brews on tap, and a decent bottle list. Usually they have one tap that's got something pretty good on it. Last time I was there it was DFH 120. The Pub has way more taps--not really sure how many exactly, and an impressive bottle selection to boot. I found the bartenders at both locations to be pretty friendly and knowledgeable.

If I had to pick one, I'd say The Pub is a better choice.



Also I will put a shout out to the bartender in Carne Vino, who sold me a $8-$10 glass of Pinot Noir and then gave me samples of all their homemade liquors sitting on the bar when I asked about them (apparently I was the only person who had ever asked to try them), followed by free samples of the bartender's favorite Italian grappas.

scottland said:

Yes, we get most West Coast brewey's beers. Russian River and Alpine are the only two popular ones we don't get.

Total Wine and Bevmo are the big-box liquor stores. Tops and Sun Devil liquor are the smaller family owned ones that have great selection. Firestone Walker Union jack and Double Jack. If you haven't had them, buy them.

I'm not sure what you don't get in your area, but Green Flash, Lost Abbey, Port, Moylan's, and Bear Republic are all fantastic.

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Actually Union Jack is one I 'm hoping to get. I can get Double Jack around here, but not Union Jack for some reason. I had some on tap in NYC and thought it was fantastic.

Vegas isn't a great place for craft beer... Last time I was there, though, I went to Todd English P.U.B. and generally enjoyed it.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/todd-english-p-u-b-las-vegas-3

I wrote a review here:

http://www.brewcommune.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2452

Good tap list, good food, hot waitresses, and open your wallet. That about sums it up.

b-boy said:

Actually Union Jack is one I 'm hoping to get. I can get Double Jack around here, but not Union Jack for some reason. I had some on tap in NYC and thought it was fantastic.

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UJ is probably my favorite beer in the country. At the moment I'm particularly smitten with Stone's Enjoy By IPA, but Union Jack is amazing.

They date their bottles, so check the dates. It holds up pretty well, but it's even better fresh.

Also there are a couple bars that almost always have it on tap. The Hungry Monk down here in the East Valley has it on tap about 99.4% of the time.

Bumping this thread. I'm leaving next week. Looking for any other ideas.

Doing a side trip to the Grand Canyon. Anything good along the way?

There's a number of good breweries in Flagstaff, which is on the way to the grand canyon. Lumberyard (and their sister brewery Beaver St.). Mother Road is new and pretty tasty as well.

PS, the pizza at beaver st. is really tasty.

scottland said:

There's a number of good breweries in Flagstaff, which is on the way to the grand canyon. Lumberyard (and their sister brewery Beaver St.). Mother Road is new and pretty tasty as well.

PS, the pizza at beaver st. is really tasty.

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Thanks. I'll have to Google-map that for the trip.

BTW - I did find some Union Jack in Buffalo. The stuff is a bit pricey. $13 for a sixer. No bombers. Still worth it. What does it cost out West?

I picked up some Union Jack for $7.99/sixer the other day. It's usually a bit more expensive.

Scottland covered it, Beaver Street is great for beer and food.

Ditto to Oak Creek Brewery if you wind up going through Sedona. A little out of the way, but a really scenic drive up Oak Creek Canyon.

Enjoy the trip!

I second the lumberyard recommendation and you should drive down oak creek canyon to Sedona and hit oak creek brew co. Their nut brown is amazing.

Totiviridae said:

I second the lumberyard recommendation and you should drive down oak creek canyon to Sedona and hit oak creek brew co. Their nut brown is amazing.

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Yep. My favorite commercial brown ale by far.

UJ is $7.99 to $9.99 pending any sales.

Beaver St has decent beer, I wasn't too impressed with the pizza there, but the beer cheese and beer bread fondue is incredible. I highly suggest hitting Mother Road, the guys there are great (actually homebrewers as well who run the city's homebrew club) and the beer is very tasty. I love their black ipa because it doesn't taste like an overhopped stout, it actually tastes like an ipa.

For Vegas, you want to hit the Freakin' Frog. It is not far from the airport near UNLV. I have been on the same mission to find a good craft beer place as I travel there monthly. The Freakin' Frog has by far the largest beer selection, several hard to get beers, and in some cases verticals of some brews spanning several year releases. The owner is nice, and the bartenders (if not too busy) are happy to give a tour of their vast beer inventory. It is impressive. The bar itself is not fancy, doesn't look like much outside, but trust me the selection is fantastic and worth the visit. It also is the only Vegas bar listed in Draft magazine's top 100.

My schedule is pretty flexible. Any advice for this time of year? Sedona vs the Grand Canyon - which is the better option? Never been to either.

I have me wife with me, who generally prefers being 'comfortable'. She not really an outdoorsy type. Give her a choice and she'll take a cushy resort. I'd rather climb some old ruins.

b-boy said:

My schedule is pretty flexible. Any advice for this time of year? Sedona vs the Grand Canyon - which is the better option? Never been to either.

I have me wife with me, who generally prefers being 'comfortable'. She not really an outdoorsy type. Give her a choice and she'll take a cushy resort. I'd rather climb some old ruins.

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Sedona would be the spot I would suggest... Very nice scenery, lots of nice resorts, and some amazing hiking too if you can get your wife outside.

Check out Ellis Island in Las Vegas, it is a little dive of a casino just off the strip.
Flamingo Rd and Koval Lane.
They brew their own beer, not the greatest, but they have 4 or 5 you can choose from and the price is right, 2 bucks a pint.
They fire up the BBQ after 4pm and it's pretty decent.

Downtown at Main Street Station is the 777 Brewery. Get there for happy hour, Mon-Thurs and get plowed on the cheap. Their beers are excellent.

AP

Glad I found this thread. I will be in Vegas the weekend at the end of March for my 30th. Glad to see there are some good beer bars.

Ellis Island is a dive aleught. When did they start brewing their own beer?

Try to get Squatter's Hop Rising when you are out there. It's not distributed in CA yet. Anytime I go to LV, I got to Battista's for a dinner. Decent beer selection, bottomless wine (headache), and good food. Not great but good. Atmosphere is cool.

Skip Phoenix. Went there for an anniversary on a "hey, it's cheap and we've never been there before" wild hare and tried to plan as best we could. Were tremendously bored for the entire weekend. Vegas lacks craft beer, but is a hell of a weekend. Maybe pick another destination too.

Being from Flagstaff I can say, go from Vegas to Flagstaff(we have 5 breweries, two are sister breweries and one that is production only, Cosmic), then south on 89A from Flag to Sedona(Sedona has great scenery, one good brewery, but try to stay away from the really tourist-y parts), and Sedona connects with I-17 south to phoenix which, along the way if you take page springs road towards Cornville you get 3 wineries within 1/2 mile from eachother(Stag's Leap, Grand Canyon Winery, and Page Springs Cellars<-my personal favorite). AZ is big on it's homemade stuff .

Only reason to go to Phoenix is to fly somewhere else btw. I suggest the Foodie Mecca, San Francisco.

Near Fremont Street:
Main Street Station Casino, Brewery and Hotel
200 N Main St, Las Vegas, NV 89101

Decent craft brews and food, reasonable prices.
Try to be there for happy hour.

And make sure to visit Fremont street after dark,
quite an experience.

I enjoyed The Pub at Monte Carlo while I was there last year.

daksin said:

Skip Phoenix. Went there for an anniversary on a "hey, it's cheap and we've never been there before" wild hare and tried to plan as best we could. Were tremendously bored for the entire weekend.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Phoenix is the most exciting place on earth, but if you can't find something to do in a town with 5 million people, you weren't looking.

At. All.

I'm commited to Phoenix for a few days since I'm visiting my parents. I've been there before, but never for more than a couple of days. I've got some stuff setup. Going to see a concert at The Crescent Ballroom one night. I figure I'll hit up a few beer spots while I'm there.

The Pub at the Monte Carlo is a definite stop. I've been there a few times. I've been to Main Street Station as well. That was decent. I've got 3 days booked in Vegas (which is the perfect amount of time in Vegas IMHO). I've found that after more than 3 days it gets a little old. I can only listen to slot machines dinging for so long.

I've got time for a 3-day side trip. Sedona sounds more wife-friendly, but I'd really like to get to the Grand Canyon. However, my dad said it was extremely cold there a few days back, and at this time of year the weather can be a little dicey.

I'm going to be in Phoenix first, so the Sedona->Flagstaff->Vegas trip sounds promising.

Thanks for all the input.

b-boy said:

I'm commited to Phoenix for a few days since I'm visiting my parents. I've been there before, but never for more than a couple of days.

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There's plenty to do. I'm not trying to be a d*** to daksin, but his comment was a lame in my opinion. Phoenix is the 6th largest city in the US, with the largest university in the US smack in the middle of the metro area. A school known for partying. **cough** Scottsdale **cough**

It's currently spring training season, which is always a blast. It's also festival season, so there's about 2-3 festivals across town every single weekend. Most of which revolve around drinking.

If he was specifically talking about downtown Phoenix, then yes, there isn't a ton to do in the downtown corridor. But there's a million things to do in metro Phoenix. That would be like saying you couldn't find anything to do in LA -- You clearly didn't look hard enough.

Just got back from a quick business trip to PHX. We were staying in Tempe, doing some stuff on the ASU campus, so my comments apply mostly to that area.

We went to Papago Brewing a bit after lunchtime, which is a brewpub that currently contract brews their "house" beers, but is in the process of building their own production brewery. They have a pretty good selection, I want to say around 20ish taps, and I thought also a pretty good selection of bottled beers that were all temperature controlled, which you can of course buy and drink right there. Food was above average pub grub. Overall I liked the place and I really enjoyed their coconut coffee stout.

Later that day we went to dinner at OHSO eatery + nanobrewery. On paper, this place looked fantastic. This place actually had more beers listed on tap, MANY of them were house beers, which I found somewhat surprising due to it being a nano. I tried their house pale ale on nitro, house IPA, and also their English pale on cask. None of the beers were particularly impressive, and in fact both the pale ale and the IPA tasted pretty "green", which sort of makes sense given they are likely pressured to turn over their fermenters very quickly in order to maintain such a huge selection, especially for the more popular styles like IPA. The IPA in particular had a pretty harsh hop flavor and mildly astringent character that was off-putting. Food was mediocre bordering on bad. My friend's flatbread pizza was downright awful, and they removed that charge from our bill after we complained about it.

Next day we were in a conference all day, but I got a few recommendations from a local beer lover there at ASU who said his favorite local beer spot is Four Peaks Brewery due to the quality of the beer and food, followed by World of Beer due to their selection. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to visit either in person, as we had a previous dinner arrangement and I ended up spending my last meal in town at Gordon Biersch, a block away from World of Beer. Gordon Biersch actually was good food and their Oktoberfest/Marzen was probably in the top 3 that I've ever had. It is a fabulous example of the style. It is, however, a place that I have easy access to here in LA so not exactly top of my list when traveling.

Well, got back from the trip yesterday. I had a great time.

Went to Phoenix, Tuscon, Sedona, and Las Vegas. Overall I was pretty happy with just walking into a bar and having some West Coast options on tap. I drank a lot of Lagunitas in Phoenix.

I did check out Lumberyard. They had a Red Ale I really enjoyed. I brought some back with me.

I went to a small brewery in Sedona called Oak Creek. I wasn't that impressed. They had some basic styles, but nothing interesting. They were mediocre at best.

I loved Todd English P.U.B. The place was awesome, but ridiculously expensive. I wandered in during Happy Hour (after 10PM), when the $12 pints were half-priced. I took the 7-second challenge and won - meaning I chugged an expensive Ale and got it for free. I drank a bunch of cask ales there. Very good stuff. My favorite was a cask Inversion IPA. I tried to get reservations for dinner the next day, but they were booked 1 week out, so I had to settle for just drinking at the bar.

I think the highlight of the trip was going to a concert at the Crescent Ballroom in downtown Phoenix. I saw HFL, Guttermouth and the Reverend Horton Heat. I loved that place. They were serving Lagunitas IPA and Pils in plastic cups right out of a keg in the corner for $4 a beer. The Reverend Horton Heat was fantastic. The lead singer for Guttermouth was completely bombed. He swore at the crowd all night and mooned everyone a few times as well. You couldn't understand a single word he was singing. He fell off the stage twice. It was awesome. Punk - as it was meant to be. For a while I felt like it was 1980 and I was back at CBGBs.

Thanks for the tips.