Bluetarp and High Card Brewing - Decatur Altanta Georgia

I'm writing this as I've been meaning to for a while - Bluetarp Brewing is moving to a different location and I wanted to relate my experience at its current.

You can find Bluetarp Brewing at 731 E College Ave, Decatur, GA 30030. I've always thought this are as more part of Avondale Estates but it seems it's actually at the border of Avondale and Decatur. You'll pull down a short road that feeds long industrial/commercial style buildings - Bluetarp is on the left with parking to the right facing and down the street.

Bluetarp Brewing is part of a triangle made up of Three Taverns, Bluetarp and Wild Heaven - I've managed to do a short brewery walk between the three on a couple of occasions but usually visit each brewery solo, unless there's a bottle release. On this most recent occasion I attended the BA Deep Helm release down the street so stopped into Bluetarp and visited with them, along with High Card Brewing who are currently contracting with Bluetarp to brew their delicious White Queen Blonde Imperial Stout (and others) and share one end of the counter where you can pickup their current draft and a few varieties in cans.

The space is what I would call your typical warehouse location with a small door leading into the taproom - you order beer along the end back-wall (there's a long bar). If they're busy they may be checking your ID near the entrance - to the left is some casual seating. There's a pretty good patio out front where you can do your usual patio-things - this is also a pet friendly establishment (seems most breweries are). Bluetarp is really setup for the purchase and enjoyment of beer so it's a bit no frills. Pricing is fairly typical for craft breweries and they're good about providing half-pours in lieu of flights - this is one of the oldest Atlanta breweries so they go back to the ticket-and-glass system before the brewery-direct-to-consumer laws changed a couple of years ago.

The people behind the bar are very nice and attentive - you queue up until you get your beers and they'll let you start a tab if that's your preference. Of the beer I like the following from Bluetarp (these are my short reviews from Untapped):

* Blue Moon Pale Wheat Ale - 4/5 Interesting beer, mostly due to the beautiful blood red color. Otherwise fairly slammable with a dry finish.

* Juicin' IPA - 4/5 Juicy and Hoppy IPA with a pretty decent amount of citrus and a fairly dry finish.

* Last Place Stout - 4.25/5 Nice Imperial stout, fairly boozy, great coffee, chocolate and malt nose. Good mouthfeel and lacing.

* All I Want for My Birthday is a Big Booty Baltic Porter - 4.25/5 Delicious almost oily porter with great nutty/malty profile.

* Go Funk Yourself Farmhouse IPA - 4.25/5 Tart, hoppy and fat - might be too tart for most IPA fans and maybe too hoppy for sour fans. I liked it quite a bit.

* Hawking Radiation Imperial IPA - 4/5 Very solid DIPA, citrus notes, hoppy nose and finish, fairly juicy they dry.

And these from High Card:

* NE Lowball IPA - 4/5 New England IPA with some haziness, tropical notes and most of the hops on the backend - very low bitterness.

* White Queen Blonde Stout - 4/4 This is a delicious blonde imperial stout with nice mouthfeel and a complex flavor profile.

* Wild Pirate Queen - BA White Queen - 4.25/5 Take the most excellent Pirate Queen and add slight tartness and rum BA notes - it’s a beautiful combo with great mouthfeel.

Bluetarp and High Card will be moving to Tucker, right behind Local 7 on the Tucker Square, sometime in 2019. Looking forward to them moving closer to my home.

(also posted to Yelp)

Three Taverns Craft Brewery - Decatur Atlanta Georgia

You can find Three Taverns Craft Brewery at 121 New St, Decatur, GA 30030- while this is property Decatur by city districting lines, it may mean more looking for the Brewery by it's proximity to Avondale Estates as New St comes off of East College and is basically on the border between Decatur and Avondale slightly west of the Avondale MARTA station, a great travel option.

The photos and experience are a bit old - it's from a visit on 2017.01.28 back before the laws were changed regarding the direct purchase of beer in Georgia - at the time you could pay for a "Brewery Tour" which usually included a glass and tickets that could be used to sample the beer. On this occasion I put together a small brewery crawl with some friends - there are three breweries within walking distance of each other: Three Taverns, Blue Tarp and Wild Heaven. We also made stops at My Parents Basement (for lunch) and closed things out at Palookaville for dinner.

Three Taverns Craft Brewery in on New Street, about two blocks from East College - you turn onto New and then make a right into their parking lot. As with most Atlanta breweries, the facility parking is almost negligible - but fear not as there's plenty of street parking. This is a metal warehouse-style building with an awning above the taproom tentrance and "121" to the left of the door. The exterior belies the expansive rooms within - the facility is pretty big. 

The taproom itself has reclaimed wood walls and an interesting gear/wheel sculpture behind one counter and exposed brick behind the main tap counter - by the exposed wooden ceiling this was probably the original structure. If you're a beer geek (and who isn't?), make sure you take the tour - it's a nice facility - you'll also spot some barrels with goodies aging inside and if you're lucky they'll have something available that's unusual and not found locally in cans - and really, that's the best thing about visiting local breweries, experiencing the delicious limited offerings found only on site.

Theophan the Recluse Belgian Imperial Stout

Quasimodo Belgian Style Quad

Feest Noel - spiced Quasimodo

Third Age Sherry Barrel Aged Old Ale

On this day there were several beers worth trying (so I did, of course):

1. A Night on Ponce IPA - I've had this several times to skipped
2. Hoplicity DIPA - this was quite good, I think much better than their regular IPA.
3. A Night in Brussels IPA - I also skipped this one.
4. Prince of Pilsen - not a fan of Pilsners so I've never tried this one. 
5. Quasimodo - this as a pretty great Belgian Style Quad
6. Feest Noel - this is a spiced up version of Quasimodo with cardamom, all spice and clove - it was a bit too much for me but I can see why someone would like it 
7. Third Age - this Sherry Barrel Aged Old Ale - I thought I would like this more - I'm not sure what I expected.
8. Theophan the Recluse - I've had this before but like it so much I had more while visiting - this is a delicious Belgian-style Imperial Stout - strong, boozy, rich and worth it.
9. There were also three sours, but I passed on all three: Rapturous (rasperry sour), No.10-Basileus (cucumber basil) and No.11-Blacklisted (black currant rosemary tark dark ale). 
10. Rowdy and Proud IPA - not listed but also worth trying - I like it better than A Night on Ponce. 

The people at Three Taverns are exceptionally nice - both the staff and the other patrons. I didn't get that douchey hipster vibe while visiting - the crowd was a bit older so that might be it, or it may just be the location - this part of town doesn't have the collegiate attitude of intown breweries. In any case, the first location on our brewery crawl was quite successful. We had fun and the beer and brewery experience was most excellent.

@JohnEatonATL and @excitedtofeast on Instagram

(also posted to Yelp)

Piece of Cake - Decatur Georgia

You can find this location of Piece of Cake at 307 E College Ave, Decatur, GA 30030. This is in a row of connected buildings on East College near Agnes Scott where E Trinity crosses over to become E Candler. Parking is shared along one side with additional in the back or on the street (if you can find it).

Piece of Cake is my favorite local bakery for cakes. This is the best traditional multi-layer round cake I've found in Atlanta with some really fantastic variations that you don't typically find elsewhere, like the Green Velvet Cake they offer during St Paddy's Day. There are fancier cakes in town, but for a bakery where you can basically walk in and walk out with a whole cake or slice, Piece of Cake can't be beat. I ended up at this location while attending a local convention at an unconventional spot (hotel on Lavista Rd). The initial idea was to go to the Buckhead location but then I thought - I bet there's one closer - getting out the handy-dandy Yelp mobile app saved the day. A quick phone call and we were on our way to pick up a whole Orange cake.

This shop, much like the others I've visited (Collier Rd, Roswell Rd in Buckhead and Mt Vernon in Dunwoody) is a quaint shop with various food items including cupcakes, the aforementioned whole cakes (not on display usually) and individually portioned slices; and ice cream. There are other items but really, they had me already with cake and ice cream - who can resist? My favorites so far are the coconut, orange, red velvet, green velvet and banana cakes - I usually get those in slices. 

The staff here was wonderful - actually I've never had a bad experience at any location and I don't believe I've ever encountered a group in a retail situation that were this happy to work, maintaining a great attitude while retaining their individual personalities. Kudos to Piece of Cake for providing a great working environment - something other companies could learn from - ahem. 

We took the Orange cake to the nearby My Parents Basement where we could enjoy the excellent beer, eat some interesting food and finish off the evening with some delicious cake, all while enjoying the great weather on the patio. We continued to eat this cake, finishing it off the next day. A great time was had by all.

-- John

(also posted to Yelp)

Wild Heaven Craft Beers

You can find Wild Heaven Craft Beers at 135b Maple St Decatur, GA 30030 - while this is a Decatur address the location is on the back-side on the border of Avondale Estates and I would consider it more of an Avondale business. Parking is within a small lot next to the brewery or along several streets - there seems to be enough at any time except during festivals.

I've now visited Wild Heaven on several occasions and it's become one of my favorite local brands. Wild Heaven is one of the better reasons to visit Decatur, in my opinion, offering up a really fantastic and friendly brewery experience along with some of the best in craft beer that Atlanta, Decatur and Avondale Estates has to offer. I include all three as I'm sure, with the quality of their product, each will claim ownership - they're just that good.

 On this day I met with friends who share a common UYE managed by Michelle T and Kwame O that focuses on beer and settings for enjoying beer: UYE: Atlanta Breweries #6 And there were about 8 people attending. It also happened to be the day of a local Decatur festival so the place was quite hopping (see what I did there?) with tons of visitors - there was even a shuttle from nearby locations to the brewery as well as some food providers set up in the yard. I managed so run into some other friends at the venue as well.

  The interior of Wild Heaven occupies an old warehouse with plenty of local history and ambience to match. Counters on a long wall allow you to sample using tokens - I'd recommend that you stick with some of the seasonals or rarities as those kegs empty the fastest. As usual my favorites were the high-grav beers and in particular theEschaton, an amazing Belgian Quad and the Civilization, an English Barleywine but even the old standbyes Invocation, a Belgian Strong Golden and Ode to Mercy, an Imperial Coffee Brown Ale are way above average (I've had both of those before so I only sipped from some other glasses). 

Once we got going with a brew or two we sat outside and enjoyed the great weather. We all eventually ordered some food from the outside vendors - the BBQ I tried was OK but nothing special. In all we all had a great time and I'm looking forward to another excuse to visit this great brewery!

(also posted to Yelp)