Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Phoenix.

[scottland]

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.

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.

 

[weirdboy]

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.

 

[b-boy]

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.