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Let me tell you a little story about myself, Les luv Surprises! Thank goodness i have a wonderful wife, whom at some point in time, has taken note of this fact.

Last Friday, in the wee hours of the morn whilst many of you slumbered I was shaken awake and instructed to grab my pack which had mysteriously been packed for me. I could tell by the my trusty knowledge of navigation by the stars and ability to read roadsigns we were headed to the airport. I would soon find out that I was a surprise guest for my best friend, Kris, who lives in Ventura California. My wife and Kris’s girlfriend had been plotting for months to make all of this happen. And what a job they did, by 10am Pacific time I was drinking coffee on Manhattan Beach. By 2pm Kris and I were left alone to make an adventure of the time between now and the return red-eye on Sunday night.

Having just read All About Beer Magazine’s list of “125 Places to Have a Beer Before You Die“, I insisted we visit #111; The Library Ale House in Santa Monica.

Two words: De Licious! I mean look at that burger…. Ok, but that’s not why we were there, we were there because this is the 111th Best Place to have a Beer on the Planet. Ok, that may be pushing it, but I can see why it made the list. This beer menu was a piece of art put together by their Beer specialist Leo Stanton. It’s value was not defined by the breadth of it’s beers, like Flying Saucer, for example, but by the selection. This list recognized some of the great beers in the world providing 2 Rochfortes, Unibrues, Mad River Steelhead, New Belgian’s Fat Tire, but managed not to forget where it was from, highlighting some of the best beers California has to offer including several Stone brews and Anderson Valley’s Oatmeal Stout. Well done!

Ah, but back to the adventure, over our fabulous beers we laid out a plan. We would head North through Big Sur toward Monterey. The rest of the trip was full of places that should be added to places to have a beer before you die. Albeit, these places were nameless flat rocks on the cliffside overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

We winded up the Pacific Coast Highway, barked and growled with seals, camped under a blanket of stars, drank with Pirates at a Mid evil Festival, and threw disc golf with one hand, in the other, a 22 of Arrogant Bastard. Being that Stone Brewery and New Belgian do not distribute here I stuffed my self with the rare treats, along with several Cali brews unknown to me. Fun? You bet it was!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Beer Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.