We’ve jumped off the projected path of this blog just a wee bit, but I promise to return soon. I just had to share this fun monthly event that benefits our local community. The first Friday of every month Drake’s Brewery puts a bunch of beers on tap and has a special caterer in for their “First Friday” event. The idea is that people donate $5 to a local school, club, etc. and then you can buy tokens for beer and a glass for $15. Not a bad deal at all, and hey, it’s for the kids! This week’s caterer was Go Streatery and they did a wonderful job.
It was my mom’s birthday the next day, so we took her to do something she’s never done before—going to a loading dock, eating food from a mobile restaurant, and drinking beer in the rain. It was a glorious celebration.
There were about 6 items on the menu, although we didn’t get the salads (it was a dark and stormy night, not quite salad weather) we ordered the hot meaty yummy pork sandwich, the ox tail stew with grits, and an order of the lemon ricotta zeppoles (mini doughnuts). Oh and a few rounds of beer from the Drake’s loading dock, of course. This is the page of all their beers if you were curious what they have to offer. Their most popular one, that you can easily find in stores is their IPA.
With all these people in line and waiting for food you’d imagine that we waited a looonnngggg time for food, and in fact were told that we would have to wait a while, but man were they hustling! The food didn’t come out immediately, but who would expect that when there was 15 people in line, and 30+ waiting for food? We had just barely started staking our claim on a barrel and chairs, when my name was called!
We luckily scored a ‘table’ and chairs for our feast. Go us! It’s apparently a little hard eating a pork sandwich filled to the bursting with cole slaw, apples, cherries, and big chunks of slow roasted pork while drinking a beer.
The ox tail was falling-off-the-bone tender and delicious. The grits soaked up the juices and the soft baby carrots were cooked just right. A nice filling meal for only $9.
As you can see the pork sandwich is obscenely large. You could order the root vegetable chips on the side, for an extra dollar, we declined but still got them. I’ll definitely get those again too. How did they expect us to put this in our mouth? Well we found a way.
We tried a couple different kinds of the Drake’s beer. The Hefeweizen is refreshing and light tasting, while being nicely cloudy and wheatey. The Expedition Ale was a beautiful deep red color and came across as a hoppier version of an amber ale. At 7.0% ABV it packed an unexpected, smooth punch, without any Steel Reserve overtones. My Mom liked the Amber Ale, even though she’s not so into beer, and we all gave her a big birthday cheer.
Neither the food nor the beer stood a chance.
Drake’s Brewery: 6.4 miles roundtrip
Total travelled so far: 11.7 miles