The first time we drove past Snooze, we saw their ever-present line, too. Now, we’ve often waited around in LA for a seat at a table, but it seemed quite out of place in Denver. Plus in LA, what the crowds were going crazy for wasn’t always all that. We couldn’t put Snooze out of our minds though, and when a local friend suggested it for our Brunch date, we jumped at the chance. Was it going to worthwhile? Was it hipster-central? Was the staff going to be rude?

Snooze calls itself an “A.M. Eatery:” they are open only for breakfast and brunch, or until 2:30pm (yet somehow, they have a full bar). We showed up just before 9am, and had to wait for over an hour. While we excused ourselves past waiting co-eds to the free coffee stand, our spirits began to sink. Yes, this was going to be LA all over again… Then we were seated. The menu wasn’t rambling, which is a plus: it’s hard to make decisions on an empty stomach. The waitress was refreshingly normal, the staff cared about us and checked back often. We were allowed to linger over our coffees and finish our conversation.

Cuban Hash and Breakfast Pot Pie

The food was pretty outrageously delicious, and obviously the reason everyone was waiting outside, salivating at our plates. It wasn’t all hype; Snooze delivers, and won us over on heart. The faces behind this establishment know what they’re doing: Snooze is a sibling of a few local restaurants.

Whether you like tea or not, the Celestial Seasonings tour is going to be recommended to you 3 times a day if you’re planning a trip to Colorado. You know you’re curious to see the tea bagging, the mind-clearing mint room, and the psychedelic box art posters that all the midwestern visitors are photographing.

Where else can you wander around an industrial facility in white mesh shower caps and taste tea until your bladder explodes? Seriously friends, don’t miss it.

And you thought they made just 10 kinds of tea

Beard caps for the lucky gentlemen

Tours are free and take place many, many times a day. And yes, you can drink all the tea samples you ever thought you wanted. The bathrooms are very clean.

Denver is more multicultural than we thought. Prior to our visit, a friend said that he got some “salsa” on a burrito in Colorado one time that turned out to be ketchup. We’re happy to report that’s most likely a lie, and there’s lots of well-executed international fare all over town. We were particularly intrigued by the so-called “Far East Center” along Federal Boulevard, between West Alameda and West Mississippi avenues. Young locals we talked to said they didn’t get out that way much, but it struck us as a great place to go for some “destination” lunches.

Dim Sum didn’t disappoint (from Both Super Star and Empress) along with Soup Dumplings at Lao Wang’s, and we found some tasty Vietnamese as well as Thai.

Great cheap eats at Taki’s on Colfax

And coming back to that Colorado salsa… Our experience with the locally famous green chile was no laughing matter: it was so spicy we barely made it through 5 spoonfuls in a row!

Sneaking spy shots of the seven-pounder

The salsa wasn’t the only over-the-top offering at Jack n’ Grill either. Their headliner, the 7lb burrito, deserves a post all to itself. Larger than a newborn and concocted with seven potatoes, 12 eggs, a pound of ham and a whole onion, plus cheese and chili, it has to be put into something resembling a trough to get to the table. And it’s not just Man vs. Food that’s ready to take this beast on; while we were having dinner 5 others ordered one. We thought we’d show restraint and pick their “standard size,” either way, we got schooled by Colorado Mexican Food.

Jack n’ Grill’s smaller burritos & green chile

For more handheld and manageable faux-Mex, skip the Chipotle flagship (they’re from Colorado) and sit down at Illegal Pete’s instead. These two are set up somewhat similarly: you pick your fillings, they roll it up and you enjoy. Illegal Pete’s shows some style by putting a big ol’ spoon to your burrito fixings and giving it a nice swirl. Somehow, this is the magic that’s been missing your entire life. Highly recommended breakfast burritos and crispy fish burritos aplenty. And since this is Colorado, a good selection of beer is available.

Illegal Pete’s

Or, when you’re tired of taking stabs at authenticity, and want to have some fun instead, head over to Noodles & Company and choose your own adventure. Yes, we’re sending you to a chain, but it’s really quite a cool, nicely-executed idea. Their customizable menu is broken down into three categories: Asian, Mediterranean and American. You’ll pick out a pasta (rice noodles, penne, macaroni), veggies and a sauce (peanut, pesto, stroganoff) with options like chicken and tofu. Everything is made fresh, tossed to order. It’s quick, easy and kind of clever.

Noodles & Company

So we started out with breakfast, had some tea, dinner and all hours dim sum — all we need now is dessert. Enter Marczyk’s Fine Foods.

Marczyk’s Fine Foods

This place is reason enough to move to Denver. Carefully stocked, well designed, noisy, aromatic and connected to the community; Marczyk’s is what you’ve always wanted in a neighborhood store. Stop by here for wine, groceries, pantry items, the deli counter and all manner of specialty foods. You’ll find our favorite locally-made ice cream sandwiches, too. Jeremy’s is peanut butter ice cream on a chocolate bacon cookie.

Colorado is very proud of its beer. You’ll often see the claim that they are the largest producer of beer in America, with the most Craft brews per capita. They also like to argue they are #1 for beer quality overall, but that seems a little personal. We’ll let that one be a fight between them and Oregon, with California, Seattle and Vermont barking at their heels. I know, the Vermont one surprised me too, but turns out that they take their beer very seriously as well (now, if we could just get a Magic Hat Lucky Kat on the west coast…).

Tasters for the tour group at New Belgium

Whatever the argument, Colorado does have roughly 100 Craft brewers in production. This term can be a little misleading: see, Microbrews come from small production breweries, typically limited to about 15,000 barrels a year. A Craft brewer doesn’t have to operate within a specific capacity. Instead, “Craft” signifies a brewer with higher aspirations for flavor, brewing with little or no adjuncts such as corn, which supplement the malted barley and help cut costs but don’t add flavor. But it’s tricky: some microbrewers such as Avery Brewery of Boulder, Colorado claim to make Craft brews even though they often add what might be considered adjunct sugars, but only with the intention of adding flavor. In comparison, Sam Adams of Boston, Massachusetts argues they are a Craft brewer, but their production of roughly 1.4 million barrels a year make them too big to be a Microbrew. So a Microbrew can be a Craft beer, but Craft beer can be made by large producers as well.

Our beer haul from Colorado

What does all this mean? It meant we had too many breweries of varying sizes and distribution to try in our short time in Colorado, but we already had our eyes set on what we thought might be the best of the bunch.

First off, we had to visit the antithesis of the Craft brew, in fact one of the reasons that Microbrews exist today… Coors!

Coors in Golden, Colorado is considered the largest single brewery facility in the world… too bad they are turning out cold piss. Sorry, I tried hard not to say it. We’d actually recommend Coors’ tour: the size of the facility is really something, the tour is free and they give you free beer. Quantity over quality folks, their beer is pretty awful. Luckily their samples include Blue Moon Brewing Company whom they own.

Sadly, the Blue Moon Sandlot Brewery is located in Coors Field and you can not enter without a baseball game ticket (it’s kinda tempting to buy but it with scalpers all over the place on game days).

Even freshly brewed, Coors isn’t that nice

Strangely, Coors doesn’t hide their use of adjunct grains like corn: you’ll see big containers of the cash crop on the tour, but they fail to differentiate corn from the traditional ingredients for making beer. Corn is simply used to increase sugars in the beer cheaply, without adding color or flavor. Corn is exactly why Coors tastes like piss. See all this for yourself on their free self-guided tours which run about 5 days a week.

On the other side of the argument, just because Microbreweries have smaller, more personal production, doesn’t mean they are any good. In downtown Denver we tried locally famous Wynkoop (the Mayor’s a part-owner), but they kind of left us flat. The beers weren’t that exciting, the food was bland, and the bar was just like every other bar.

Tasting the taps at Wynkoop

Patty’s Chile Beer was interesting, but don’t go out of your way

An unexpected surprise came from Breckenridge Brewery which actually has two locations in Denver. Downtown they are across from Coors Field, and cater mainly to game fans by serving the standards (no taster sets on game days, beware), but their other location in the Golden Triangle district has outstanding barbeque (woah nelly, and it’s cheap too) to go with their agreeable beers.

On tap at Breckenridge Brewery

BBQ for lunch

One of Eva’s favorite beers from the trip was Breckenridge’s Agave Wheat, a beer with notes of roasted grapefruit, bready wheat, and a slight but not cloying sweetness. This is a large-scale brewer that has managed to not mangle their suds too completely for mass consumption. Though nothing is a revelation, we wouldn’t turn down the Agave Wheat or the Lucky U IPA. Their 471 IPA Small Batch Series is their hoppiest brew, but with 70 IBU it isn’t off the charts. It is, however, pretty nice to drink just about anytime.

Great Divide is a young and modern little Microbrewery with a great minimalist design sense, and a four-free-samples-per-person policy. Their tiny little tasting room smells just like a brewery should, and they give a few weekly tours to show where their great beers are made (Tours take place at 3:00 pm and 4:00pm Monday - Friday and each hour starting at 2:00 pm to 7:00pm on Saturday and 2pm to 5pm on Sunday).

We tried a lot of samples here, like Claymore Scotch Ale, Hercules Double IPA (especially outstanding) and some Belgian-style ales like Hades and Double Wit. There’s also some less orthodox beer worth trying such as their Samurai (an unfiltered rice ale), Belgica (a Belgian-style IPA), and Old Ruffian (a Barley Wine-style ale).

Avery Brewing

In Boulder we went straight to Avery Brewing, following another beer lover’s strong recommendation. With roughly twenty different and more often than not, radical beers to try, this brewery is what happens when you combine mad scientist experimentation with jock-level competition.

Lots of used barrels in the experimental aging room at Avery

Examples of beers worth trying and possibly fearing, are their limited release barrel-aged sour ale Depuceleuse or their over-the-top Demons of Ale series, all of which are over 14% ABV. Jeremy’s favorite of the series was The Beast: six hops, six malts and six sugars to get 14.9% ABV. Come by for one of their free daily tours (4pm weekdays and 2pm weekends).

Being fans of Polish Mead, we made the mistake of trying Redstone Meadery, which it turns out, is nothing like Polish Mead. Their mead is more like hard cider, sharp and sugary, and instantly gave Team Rees splitting headaches. Your experience may vary.

Taps at Odell

The nearby town of Fort Collins held two breweries of considerable interest to us. First off was Odell, an interesting mid-size Microbrewery offering a quick tour(Free; Monday-Saturday 1, 2, and 3pm) and a nice site to spend some time.

Under the fermenters at Odell

The standard IPA, Stout, Pale and such were drinkable, but we found their more innovative brews like India Barleywine with its strong hop profile, and Saboteur, a really sour brown ale smoothed by caramel-y malts, more to our liking. We weren’t able to sample them, but the oak-aged Woodcut series looked worth a try.

The second brewery in Fort Collins, only a short distance from Odell, was New Belgium. Their ubiquitous Fat Tire Ale may not be our favorite, but it’s a decent Belgian-style ale and their Mothership Wit had made some appearances in our fridge… that’s about all we knew about New Belgium.

Hanging out with the Ranger IPA

This midsize Craft brewer produces about 500,000 barrels a year, which are available most anywhere in the Western states. We found that they were so popular we had to book our tour long in advance of our arrival; it was well worth our planning. The tour is free, gives out plenty of samples and shows you one of the most interesting and fun breweries we have had the pleasure of knowing. Sometimes it’s an experience like this which can grow our appreciation exponentially — now we want to work at the brewery just to get their employee bicycle.

New Belgium has pretty huge state-of-the-art digs

Currently we are working our way through trying their Lips of Faith series, a nicely designed explorative effort featuring a couple of sours (a style which is experiencing a lot of hype lately). Unfortunately, with New Belgium’s sizable selection, not all of their beers are on draft at the tap room.

Located in the little town of Lyons, sort of between Boulder and Fort Collins (so unfortunately in the middle of nowhere), you’ll happen upon Oskar Blues, a small scale brewery decidedly worth your time.

Oskar Blues

They have become a force in the beer world recognized for canning their beers while others laughed at the idea. Tours are held every Saturday & Sunday at 2pm, 3pm & 4pm. It turns out, Oskar Blues was one of our favorite breweries. Their beers were great: complex, powerful, inventive without alienation. Our favorites were their hoppiest suds Gubna, an Imperial IPA, and Gordon, an Imperial Red slash double IPA. They have three tap rooms, each comfortable and neighborhood-y, and both serving down-home Southern-style comfort food.

On a quick aside for visitors, Colorado does not allow the sale of any alcohol, be it liquor, wine or beer in their markets, so all such sundries are sold at liquor stores which in turn don’t seem to be able to sell any food or soda.

Shopping at Argonaut Liquors

There are some really great liquor stores/bottle shops that were worth our time such as Argonaut Liquors in Denver and Supermarket Liquors in Fort Collins. Both have huge selections of Colorado brews and extremist beer staff on hand.

We don’t mean to ramble on about Denver’s breweries, after all this is a little long of a post for us… but we were really excited about this region’s Microbrews. We loved the people and the aggressive, fearless way they brewed their beers in the dark shadow of the Coors Empire. The brewers were bold and excited about what they were doing. Most breweries claimed that every employee had participated in every job done daily on site at some time in their career. The folks showing us around weren’t just hired tour guides but beer fanatics, which is what we were by the time we left Colorado. This is a really intoxicating brewing region, in more ways than just drinking the stuff. Viva la Beer!

It’s hard to look for a home and not dwell for a minute on where we’re coming from. We lived in Los Angeles for almost a decade. Decentralized and sprawling, a megacity cobbled together of diverse neighborhoods. To live in a place like that, to never have want for more options is mind-bending. We shudder to think that a city we never loved could get under the skin so that more humble surroundings seem frightening and subversive.

Jeremy walking the neighbor’s cat, on our old street

Everyone has a personal vision of L.A. fortified by the media and film industry. We’ve all made it through the fourth wall into Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, or a Hollywood premiere. But as residents, we couldn’t help feeling like we were sharing an inside joke with Angelenos when we saw the local street corner on the small screen. It’s quite a different sight when you’re beyond a certain camera angle. But still, what you’ve seen is all true: the coast, the stars, the traffic and the sunshine are all turned up to eleven. People flock here hoping to achieve their greatest dreams; it’s easy to drink the koolaid and start believing there isn’t a better place in the world to live.

Gospel Brunch at the LA House of Blues

The annual Dia de Los Muertos celebration at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Traveling made us realize how easy it is to live a mobile lifestyle, but almost as importantly, that we want to find a home. Though we’re not prepping the nest to start a family, we are ready to settle into a committed relationship with our community. Seeing such an extensive list of cities has helped us to articulate what exactly we are looking for and much of it revolves around what kind of lifestyle we want to lead.

So off we go to Denver, Colorado. Our first impression: Where was the great body of water? The dense, cooling forests? Are the trees of Colorado stunted from either the elevation or terrain, or the wrath of god? Looking upon the Rockies does recall “great mountains’ majesty,” but good lord do the plains just go on and on forever? Looks like you can take a coastal dweller from the coast, but not the coast from the dweller. At least throw us a surging river, or something… And oh yes, it was also snowing, and it was May 15th.

The city feels safe, and creepily clean. Nothing was too perfect, but just enough sterilization made us feel the lack of chaos and grime we felt at home in. Seems like a weird example of the grass always being greener, but there it was. The walkable center was designed or even manufactured, with a plan and by committee. The outskirts are beginning to be filled in with the grisly attraction of brand new gated communities and tract homes, the promise of a better life with order and precision, but without your soul. We had a Stepford Wives flashback looking at these well groomed lanes peppered with smiling people in their unsoiled city.

Housing Community outside Denver

But then we started to notice a few things. If the weather was even remotely good, the entire populace took to the outdoors running, hiking, bicycling and barbecuing with friends and family. The city planned trails everywhere: along streams through downtown, across footbridges, and straight into the surrounding Rockies. State and National parks beckon from all directions, and stores overflow with outdoor equipment as if they were struggling to keep up with market demand.

REI Flagship in Denver

Red Rocks Ampitheatre

And then there’s the locals, the Denverites (Denverinos?), and they are really friendly. Maybe some people would shrug off this amity as normal, but in big bustling Los Angeles and “liberal” San Francisco, friendly can be the exception. The self interest which seems to fuel a big city was missing, and instead the locals would just walk up and start talking to us. When they asked how our day was going they expected a real response, and would give us one in return. It was a little frightening at first but eventually we warmed to this welcoming attitude.

LoDo, or Downtown Denver

Jeremy at Rockmount Ranch, the birthplace of western wear

Denver’s beloved Tattered Cover Bookstore

Everyone we spoke to boasted that Denver is “growing” and “emerging,” a lot was going on now, compared to a few years before. Because the city isn’t taking time to form naturally, residents are involved in the architecture of their communities. There are a lot of independent businesses — not quite as many as in L.A., but the ratio was higher, somehow there are no where as many chain stores. People were proud of their small local start-ups and basement projects.

Outside of Denver there are other prospective towns for us to be interested in. Boulder is hip, forward and unfortunately so full of itself that people warned us before we even got there. Yes, it is a nice little town with youthful energy from it’s College, nestled beautifully into the crook of the Rockies, but we felt instantly that the people were less friendly. Some of that smugness we were trying to leave behind in Southern California had crept in, and turned us off. It’s a familiar story, our alma mater Santa Cruz suffers in a similar way: as long as we were matriculated we owned the town, but decide to stay on after, and the community turns a conservative cheek.

Boulder Farmer’s Market

In comparison, Fort Collins seemed like a little hippie stronghold, maybe a little small for us, but with pride in its uniqueness. Both towns are within what we from Los Angeles would consider acceptable commuting distance.

And of course there’s all that snow. We took a quick drive out to Breckenridge to get a closer look at the Rockies.

We are not sold on packing up and moving away to the Great Divide yet. But there may be a place for us in Denver. We are used to cities big enough to have everything you can think of, plus a few things you couldn’t even imagine needing. We are the small fish in the big pond, and have never though of a different equation. Smaller cities are still growing, searching for further possibilities, and for us that could mean a chance to try something of our own in a receptive environment, a smaller pond.

Denver has Burlesque! The Clocktower Cabaret has a pretty full schedule.

We could try starting our own business or growing some kind of community based club. The reality is there are a lot of options that haven’t yet surfaced here and the population seems so hungry for more choice. We want pick a community which will make our transition pleasant, a city where we’ll be able to make new friends and connections — Denver residents seem sincerely interested in one another and their community efforts. Could we be received here just as warmly?

Us in early 2009, before our big round-the-world trip!

Criteria for the City of Dreams

Most people decide where they will settle down based on their jobs, and we get asked a lot what we intend to do about work. The truth is, our careers aren’t figuring in very much on our decisions this time. When we moved to Los Angeles, we were moving from college. We thought the big city would be a good starting point for our careers, much like everyone else who came there. Our plan worked, but the city didn’t. With Jeremy’s bank position, we were effectively slipped a pair of golden handcuffs: a great position with a great boss that was very hard to walk away from. Now we want to choose a home based on lifestyle.

We love seeing cities where people seem to be constantly socializing, and are able to connect across diverse circumstances. Eva finds L.A. to be quite ugly, so she wants to find a “beautiful” place, where she might find more inspiration. A progressive place. The idea of seasons sounds intriguing, after a lifetime of spring and summer, but then again… could we handle it? We’d like to be free of daily car use. We are attracted to extensive public transportation networks and walkable communities. Cities that love coming up with excuses to get together, free music in the park. Good food, obviously.

Even the concept of being a big city resident is now up for discussion. Could we be happier in a quainter, less urban environment we sometimes fantasize about? Or are we already too jaded and infected with bigger needs? We’re talking a lot about picking a home just outside a major city center where we can explore removing citified elements, but still be able to run for cover if we need to.

Forks and Jets in the country?

Can we move away from the coast?

It’s a lot to put on a wishlist, but we aren’t shy. People are happy the world over, and soon we’ll also be. The more places we see and lifestyles we sample, the easier it has been to recognize a good thing when we find it, and to see potential in unexpected places. Including places at a high altitude.

S&M Diner in London, a good spot for all the above.

This little yet historically crucial island hasn’t had the greatest culinary reputation for quite some time. Yes, I know the likes of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay have been working hard to dissuade the world but most of us still think of British food as bland, mushy, gray and, in Scotland’s case, deep fried.

Haggis: now in the chilled foods section.

For research purposes, we had Haggis. Usually made from sheep’s heart, liver and lungs among other bits all stuffed in stomach lining, alongside the traditional Neeps and Tatties (mashed turnip and mashed potato). It wasn’t bad actually, but it didn’t exactly elevate the Scotch cuisine since everything on the plate had a soft, mushy texture. We did miss out on a truly Scottish treat, deep fried Haggis.

Our Haggis in Edinburgh

We aren’t anti-Scottish or anti-UK; Jeremy is mostly Scottish in his heritage, our last name is Welsh and we have family in England. We just really love complex spices and varied texture in food that won’t give us a coronary while at the table.

Despite being instrumental in the worldwide spice trade, accessibility to this exotic bounty was costly, and heavy rationing during and after WW II further distanced local cooks from variety in the pantry. These factors coupled with heavy industrialization and urbanization saw Britain became a very consumer-oriented society. Today, you can see this in the prodigious array of fast food, and in markets where massive amounts of pre-made, take-home packages dominate the selections. They have elevated the TV dinner to a near art form.

Oh, the many wonders the Brits had tinned

For years, the best food on the Isles hailed from foreign cuisines. Immigrants whose homes had once fallen under the influence of the British Empire brought their own dishes ashore; they quickly gained the respect local fare couldn’t achieve. Many claim the national dish of Britain is the Indian Tikka Masala, some even claim it originated in Scotland. In our case, we often found that “ethnic” food, or cuisine from outside the UK like Pakistani, Chinese or Indian was more accessible, cheaper and often tastier than the local cuisine (especially since we were trying to avoid fast food).

Maoz counter

Some of the best cheap, quick and healthy meals we had were from Maoz and Leon’s. Maoz is a clever falafel counter, you pay for a pita with two or four falafel, and then you load it up to your liking at the self-serve toppings stations. You get a nice variety of flavor choices, and the price is one of the lowest in town. Leon is more of a sit-down establishment. You have a daily and seasonal menu, but no more than 8 choices. Everything is already cooking away in the kitchen, so you’ll be served immediately. Their menu toys with Thai, South American, Indian and North African flavors.

Eating Moroccan Meatballs at Leon

However things aren’t as bad as they seem, Britain has been making an effort. While food in the UK is traditionally simple, it has also meant that the simplicity showcase the high quality of the ingredients. The Slow Food Movement (the preservation of traditional and regional cuisines utilizing locally sourced materials, farmed sustainably) has long been gaining strength, and Britain displayed significant interest in local and sustainably farmed goods well before the Movement was established in Italy in 1986. Nearly every product we saw proudly claimed its local origin, nearly flawless organic upbringing, and its humane treatment. Britain has a long standing tradition of fine meat from cattle, sheep and lamb — many folks will be able to comment on veal from the Southern lands vs. Northern, for instance.

For more about fresh foods and markets in the UK, check out our To Market, To Market post.

While the UK is still using much more offal, or pluck (steak and kidney pie is very self-explanatory), in their pies than we are used to, many local dishes are being re-envisioned with a greater complexity of texture and flavor, heightening the merit of the ingredients. The table is still rounded out the traditional way with a main meat dish and two servings of veg, providing a large balanced meal, but now you can tell the difference between eating the food or your napkin.

A pie filled with game meats in a port sauce at Old Bank of England

We had flaky pies filled with a variety of succulent meats and spices, bangers and mash, puddings and fry-ups. One of the best places in London we tried for superbly made traditional fare was the Old Bank of England. It’s also an attractive place to have a pint of Fuller’s.

Ah, but just when you thought you had English pies all figured out as savory, they throw you a Mincemeat Pie. Actually a sweet apple-based preserve in pastry, this is a sweet not a savory. Those crazy Brits still found a way to stick meat in it: Mincemeat Pie often uses Suet, the rendered fat from beef or mutton. Suet is used in many traditional recipes such as actual meat pies, or Yorkshire pudding, a souffle-like pancake (also not sweet, by the way).

Yorkshire Pudding

Just because pies and puddings are mostly savory does not mean Britain has forgotten how to make excellent desserts. There may be some dubious sweets like Harry Potter’s favorite Treacle Tarts: flaky pastries of corn syrup topped with traditional clotted cream — a pleasure best left to fictional palates.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

We found our favorites to be Bread and Butter Pudding; chilled Summer Puddings made with bread and a heaping bowl of cherries; and Trifle: a fluffy mess of liquored sponge cake, custard and fruits. We loved the name, and even more the taste, of a good Sticky Toffee Pudding, a moist sponge cake with dates or prunes, shining with golden toffee sauce.

Yummy candied stem ginger in a bun

We couldn’t complain either about the big chunks of real, candied ginger in cookies and scones, or the natural spicy flavor of their ginger ale.

So if it’s not lack of flavor and variety, maybe the real argument to have with British food is for your health? Sure, using rendered fat in cooking tastes great but it clogs the arteries worse than traffic in Los Angeles. The Scottish have a huge death rate resulting from coronary heart disease.

The British Breakfast is a gluttony of fried eggs, sausage, black pudding, fried bacon, hash browns, baked beans heaped with some mushrooms and half a tomato for your “health.” This is the breakfast of a hard working farmer with a life expectancy of forty… We suppose you must eat breakfast, and the best bet for travelers is probably the Pub fare Ploughman’s Lunch, consisting of a thick piece of local cheese like Stilton, a pickle, a good crusty bread, served often with a green salad, an apple, maybe a pickled onion or a hard boiled egg.

So that brunch at S&M featured two sausages with Bubble and Squeak, a veggie cheese and leek sausage, baked beans, griddled mushrooms, a short-order egg and half a tomato, for our health.

In our experience of British food, it was not as bland and boring as we feared. That being said, Britain isn’t hiding any seriously astonishing fare from foreigners. At least we can have a good bit of fun with all the immature names on the menu.

We landed in London in the usual fog that accompanies flying and immigration procedures. We quickly snapped out of it when we realized our British official wanted to deport us before even stepping into the country. This disgruntled immigration officer could not understand why we had never visited the UK before (uh, “first time” an answer she’d never heard before?), why we weren’t carrying thousands of dollars on us (well, banks are all over the world so why carry my trip’s budget on me in cash?) or why we would want to travel around the world at all (kind of xenophobic, which is strange considering she’s an immigration officer, at least 30% of people travel for pleasure). Turns out, what she really couldn’t understand was why we would take a year off work. She pretty plainly accused us of lying our way in to live in her gray, rainy, over-priced country and sponge off the system. Even the tickets showing we had 7 more flights paid for over the following six months, complete with matching visas, would not convince her.

Eva, nonplussed with our English welcome

After the Spanish Inquisition was over, we entered. In an effort to explore and possibly escape the insane metropolitan prices, we rented a car and endangering every other driver on the road with our poor left-hand driving skills, drove North to Scotland.

Driving into Cambridge

Our first stop was Cambridge, and at just over an hour outside London’s limits, it’s a good place to stretch your legs. As one would expect of a world-renowned University town, Cambridge is beautiful. The fantastic King’s College Chapel (careful, some construction going on during our visit) sits just above the River Cam, where punters enjoy the views under tartan blankets, champagne glasses in hand.

These college shots are taken on the Corpus Christi College grounds, we think, and you can come here for free.

You don’t need to pay for the boat ride to enjoy it though, just find a way around to “The Backs” which are free gardens by the river behind various colleges, and see for yourself. You’ll have to pay admission fees to get into many of the nicest areas in the University, but the places you can stroll unrestricted aren’t too shabby either. Had we the time, we would have hired a bicycle to tour the town.

Cambridge’s pubs each boast their own famous learned patron and are all wonderfully atmospheric. The Blue has a great garden, The Eagle a stellar location and interior, The Regal is the biggest, and The Pickerel Inn the oldest.

Jeremy convincingly playing the part of a local

On the way out of Cambridge, stop by neighboring Ely to see the remarkable Ely Cathedral and it’s 170 foot high lantern.

Ely Cathedral

Established by a chieftan named Snot and renowned for it’s links to Robin Hood, we thought we ought not to miss Nottingham. Besides, one of the oldest (if not THE oldest) public houses in England can be found here: Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem.

The name is unusual to say the least… here’s wiki’s explanation: “According to local legend it takes its name from the 12th Century Crusades to the Holy Land: legend has it that knights who answered the calls of Richard I to join the crusades stopped off at this watering hole for a pint on their way to Jerusalem. It is even claimed that Richard himself frequented the pub although this is probably merely legend as the king spent little time in the country. However, the word “trip” in the pub’s name does not mean an entire journey; it derives from an older meaning of the word: a stop during a journey (ie “break in the journey to the Holy Land”).”

Strange name or not, the Trip is a fun place to stop for a beer or some traditional English food. The pub is built into a rock wall and features several caves. They even have a resident ghost which haunts one of their rooms.

Robin Hood and Maid Eva. There wasn’t much else to do in Nottingham for us, but we did take our obligatory tourist photos.

Edinburgh

The main objective of our UK road trip was Edinburgh, Scotland’s Capitol. Since we only had a day or so to spend, we started the day early with New Europe’s Free Walking Tour.

We would recommend the tour whether you have a week or a day in town. Our amiable guide gave us a interesting overview of Edinburgh’s history, well peppered with social scandals and and legends. Even Hogwarts was on the agenda. We culminated with the dramatic true history of the Stone of Destiny.

Greyfriars Kirkyard is a very old graveyard in Old Town off the Southwest corner of George IV Bridge, purportedly haunted and made famous by Disney as the home of Greyfriars Bobby.

Edinburgh is easy on the eyes, and the weather was cooperating during our visit. UNESCO liked Edinburgh so much it designated it’s New and Old Towns as heritage sites. The town’s castle is more of a citadel, and you’ll enjoy it most from outside. Perched almost 400 ft above sea level on Castle Rock, the fortress stands on the plug of an ancient volcano.

If you are lucky, enjoy a spectacular Scottish sunset like we did from Holyrood Park to the Southeast of the Old Town. Rolling hills sway with grasses and trees, and the views of the Salisbury Crags is phenomenal. The walk to Arthur’s Seat is easy, and you’ll have vistas of the city, it’s port and the neighboring countryside.

If you are staying in Scotland a little while, it might be worth getting a Historic Scotland Membership. Passes last for a year, and cost about £40 for adults; they provide unlimited access to about 70 sites in Scotland (and discounts to many all over the UK).

Looking for the family design at a Tartan factory

Edinburgh was pretty fantastic, and it was a complete shame we didn’t have time to see any more of Scotland. Suffice to say, we are very excited to put it on the itinerary for next time.

We may have blown through Scotland fast, but we had to check off visiting a distillery from our to do list. Glenkinchie is the closest distillery to Edinburgh, and offers tours daily. Lowlands varieties aren’t likely to be what you think of when you imagine whisky (note the Scottish spelling we learned), and only 3 distilleries currently operate in this area. Flavors in the lowlands are light and tight — they rarely present in single malts, rather appearing in blended whiskys to provide a broader contrast of character.

The tour at Glenkinchie was comprehensive for us whisky noobs. After wandering their self-guided area which discusses the process and history, a tour guide led us through their facility, which is highlighted by unique copper stills and a formidable spirit safe.

The best part of a distillery tour, of course, is the tasting room. Glenkinchie contributes its single malt to many blends, and all were available for sampling. In addition, the distillery must realize how many visitors are just learning about their spirit and makes nice efforts to educate. Aside from house whiskys, Glenkinchie also stocks a full tasting room of whisky from other Scottish areas, which allowed us to distinguish the influence of soils and waters on the spirit. Overall, very recommended.

So at this point on our travels, we think we need to out Eva on one or two little facts she somehow missed. Wales is, in fact, a country. Somehow, this never registered. Sure, she knew where it was and that the area has it’s own language, but that was about it. And, despite taking Rees as her wedded last name, she didn’t register its origins. So here we are driving past Rees Brothers Auto Shop when the realization hits.

Thank god our last name isn’t quite as tongue-tangling as some other Welsh names.

Confounding language aside, Wales is breathtaking! Mostly we just meandered country roads, counted sheep and stopped to admire some cemeteries, crumbling abbeys and natural splendors.

It would have been quite easy for us to spend an extra day or two here to see more. The weather in Wales is a bit reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest, and you’ll be wise to bring some galoshes if you want to run across any fields of peat.

If you happen to be in Wales and are interested in whisky, Penderyn Distillery is located in the Southeast. We missed their visitor hours by 20 minutes, but their facility is new and beautiful. They are the last remaining distillery in Wales and their single malt reviews quite well.

Manchester has an Eye, too

Before making it back to London, we swung through Manchester for a night and then through Bristol. Manchester was fun — great nightlife, great people. Again, since we only had a week for this tour, we missed out. Would have been great to stay at least another full day and enjoy some of the great suggestions Heather on her Travels had for the city.

We already knew our slated two weeks in the UK wasn’t going to expose us to much, but we figured it was worth a try to get out of town for some of our time. We were also hoping our costs weren’t quite as high outside of London. While prices plagued us just about everywhere, we’d have done it again without a doubt. In reality, the UK is probably best enjoyed on a leisure vacation (as opposed to long term backpacking) — we would have fussed less with hostels and overlooked some admission charges more readily. The UK is a beautifully green island. The rolling fields wind on forever and ancient towns are hidden away in the countryside, often identified in the distance by dark stone steeples from the town’s time worn church.

A few logistical notes and observations:

Don’t drive a rental car in London. Whether or not you are familiar with driving on the “wrong side” of the road, the city itself is a proper madhouse. Even locals are loathe to drive within city limits. Roads are usually unmarked, and if they are, you’re unlikely to spot the sign you need in time. Traffic laws are truly convoluted, and the streets are just plain narrow. We avoided the chaos by taking a train to a Europcar pickup outside of central London, which was easily accessible by public transport. We even saved some on our day rate by doing so.

English roads are excellent. Whatever the situation in London might be, outside of town it’s a different world. Express highways are toll free and very nicely marked. In fact, UK’s roadway system most reminded us of our own during our travels. We often favored small country roads over the M1 and found the same well-thought out signage system. We did have thorough Thomas Guide-style map which we borrowed from Europcar to help us plan, but we were able to mostly avoid getting lost.

BBC Radio is scary. And we thought radio in the States sucked!? The BBC controls virtually every radio station, but the choices are few regardless. The news center provides headlines and related dialog to the stations, and they just replay it over and over. There is not editorializing — they just deliver the same exact dialog on every station. The pieces are often social scandals of the lowest shock-value variety. Music is rare and has little range beyond the Top 40. Our little rental didn’t have an AUX jack for the iPod and we suffered. Try to avoid our mistake.

Plan mealtimes carefully. Outside of major cities we found out most places have a lunch hour and a dinner hour. Between the two they are closed. This included pubs. You can easily throw supermarkets into the meal mix, since they come stocked with so many ready-to-eat choices, but take the time to verify hours if there is a specific place you’d like to eat.

Don’t arrive at hostels too late. In general, UK hostels are the worst we saw in the world — yes, this includes India and Southeast Asia. High housing costs make providing low-cost choices difficult and standards really suffer. Most places are just plain filthy, and filled with a high percentage of gross housemates. You’ll only find hostels in major cities, but with the prices of hotels, you’ll often make reservation out of necessity. We thought we could minimize our exposure to icky hostels by arriving late, but this is a bad plan. Most hostel only accept check-ins before 10pm, sometimes much earlier. If you think hotels are pricey, you’ll really be screwed if you miss your hostel check in.

Devote a day to Sandeman’s New Europe. Free walking tours in the UK are offered in London, Edinburgh and Dublin. You’ll get a lot out of these 3.5 hour walks, and finish well oriented for the rest of your stay in town. Tours are informal, fun and busy.

Our guide takes us to the “Most Spat On Spot” in Edinburgh

We might consider ourselves amateur beer aficionados. At home we try new beers whenever we find them. We seek out specialty bars that import and serve rare beers, and visit back alley wholesale distributors with broad-minded selections. It’s part of a true appreciation of food: good food is made better by a refreshing accompaniment, and a complex, full-bodied beer is just one of the better experiences in life. Prior to this trip, we had very little experience with beers from the UK, but a local beer is the best match for local food, so we jumped in with both feet.

Everyone has tried a variety of German or Belgium beers by now, they are common and widely renowned. In comparison, the UK is mostly known for Guinness, a little less for Fuller’s, Young’s or Boddingtons. With some work you can find good beers from Brit brewers like St. Peters with their excellent Organic Ale, but there just isn’t that broad of a selection or even knowledge of English ales in the States.

We discovered on our trip through England, Scotland and Wales that this seemingly little island is actually home to a surprising diversity of beers, and a rather devoted microbrew culture. It’s actually argued that the term Microbrew comes from the UK. Traditionally, way back when, on this little island and in nearby Europe, Public Houses or “pubs” brewed their own beers.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the UK, larger brewers emerged and began distributing. Most pubs were happy to stop cumbersome in-house brewing and the brewer Pub-Tie (a large brewer finances or owns land then leases to pubs) began. For example, you can find a Fuller’s bar that essentially serves only Fuller’s ales. This would be like Americans finding a bar which serves only Coors’ product, except the beer is better.

Where in America Prohibition put most breweries out of business and only large companies were able to begin or restart after the repeal, the UK carried on uninterrupted. Instead, most small breweries could not compete on size, distribution or the pub-tie system, and died out. Beginning in the 1970s organizations such as CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) and SIBA (Small Independent Brewers Association) began to rise out of public dissatisfaction with limited choice and quality coming from the few large brewers who controlled 80% of pubs (and therefore the market). Microbrews and Free Houses, independent pubs that had no pub-tie, began to grow. In a backlash, the IFBB (Independent Family Brewers of Britain) formed in the 90s to support the pub-tie System; the IFBB is made up of some of the largest brewers such as Young’s and Fullers.

Over the course of this evolution, a diverse, rich and experimental beer culture emerged. A lot of locals brew their own beer, share recipes, start small breweries and wax poetic on the philosophy of good beer.

We had the good fortune to try Porters, Lagers, Stouts, Ales and so on. Beers are brewed with a variety of fruits and spices on top of the vast array of malts, barley or hops. Ginger, coffee, honey, coriander and cinnamon are not uncommon ingredients. Alternately, some brewers take real pride in brewing their beer from only the four traditional parts: barley, yeast, hops and water — a sort of purist beer. Overall, we found English brews to be to luscious, and tasting strongly of fall fruits and herbs. Most Ales have a dark mahogany color.

Traditional English beer styles include Brown Ale, Mild Ale, Old Ale, Bitter Ale and Porter. Brown Ales are on the sweeter side, and feature lower alcohol content. Mild Ales are malty, and well, mild — in alcohol and profile. Alternately, Old Ales are often strong yet malty — you’ll find a lot of bottle-conditioning in this category. Bitter is a broad term, and refers to strongly hopped beers. A Porter, done the British way, is akin to a stout.

An Ale differs from, say, a Lager basically because its fermentation process is carried out at a different temperature for a different period of time. It’s not exactly rocket science, but the styles end up differing quite a bit. Ales are somewhat sweeter than other styles, and brew quite quickly.

If the England’s heritage is in Ale, then its real pride is the Cask Ale. The term “microbrew” originally indicated small brewers with a focus on producing Cask Ales, spurred on by CAMRA’s campaign that this was the only “Real Ale”. Cask Ale is essentially considered the original form of brewing. The Ale is unfiltered, unpasteurized and conditioned, which includes a secondary fermentation, in the cask it is typically served from. The cask is then tapped with a hand pump or gravity pour instead of using any nitrogen or carbon dioxide. This is commonly felt to be the greatest and oldest of traditions — few of the pubs we visited lacked at least one Cask Ale.

The mouthfeel we felt was synonymous with British Ales results from the use of a hand pump tap system, also called a Beer Engine. Unlike pressurized draught taps which dispense carbon dioxide to force the suds out of the keg, hand pumps feature an airtight piston chamber; pulling down on the handle raises the piston which drags up a half pint of beer.

See the handpull in the back in operation?

A glass is filled with long slow pulls and the difference is immediately noticeable: a tighter head caps the glass, and the brew tastes far less carbonated, much more velvety. Beers here are served at “cellar temperature,” which is actually lower than we expected — it’s cold, just not ice cold.

If anything, it is the pride of tradition that is so great about the United Kingdom’s brew and pub culture. The history of their beer is tied heavily to the Public House, which was a meeting place, a gathering spot for villagers, friends and family. The result is that these old, distinguished pubs and traditions still remain. Beautiful dark wooden interiors invite with patrons spilling out into the streets and alleys — they can be found anywhere in the country. We loved the ornate beer taps and wooden furniture warped by years of wear and polished by generations of patrons. And best of all were the names of the pubs: harkening back to old slang, local lore, famous natives and most often sounding like titles of some strange British porn.

Where America is young and our experiments range to every type of brew in the world, the British Isles ground their beer, their brewing and their pubs on their heritage and tradition. No country in the world really comes close to the depth and breadth of social interest in brewing and brewers that America and the UK share. Guess the fruit doesn’t fall that far from the tree.

Check out CAMRA’s website for more information about Ale and “Real Ale”

RealAle.com provides a more in depth look at the history of beer in England

Resources for finding Real Ales in the UK are available from Real Ale Hunter and Quaffale

Last year, we celebrated our 5th anniversary somewhere in the Peruvian Andes trekking to Machu Picchu. So when our 6th came around a few weeks ago, we thought we deserved a little more luxury and relaxation this time around.

We packed some picnic necessities into a cooler and drove our Mustang to Marin. North of the Golden Gate the Bay Area becomes suddenly wild and verdant. Natural sights include the Muir Woods Redwood Forest, Point Reyes and Mt. Tamalpais. Highway 1 attracts a fair share of bikes pedaling along a stunning rocky coast. It’s actually pretty amazing how far away you feel here just half hour to an hour outside of San Francisco.

So a leisurely mid-week drive through these areas will eventually lead to a small town called Point Reyes Station. This would be a pretty great time to pull over. Cowgirl Creamery (of Mt. Tam and Red Hawk cheese fame) is located here, ready for your picnicing needs. Bovine Bakery peddles some unpretentious sweets and solid espressos are available in the feed barn from Toby’s (located next to Tomales Bay Foods). The whole shebang gets pulled together with a Hostel and a few sweet B&Bs. It’s a pretty solid plan to come out here for the weekend and hike the vicinity.

At the Pt. Reyes hostel

Our destination, however, was just a little further up the road at Hog Island Oyster Company.

Oysters are best enjoyed in months that end in “R,” because they spawn in warmer months and don’t taste as yummy. We, however, walked up to Hog Island in April — but oh well, Northern California had an unusually long cold Spring this year, right? No Kumamotos when we showed, but it’s probably best not to do those rapturously delicious morsels the injustice of slurping out of season.

They did have Sweetwaters on hand, in three sizes. The crew told us that the smaller sizes were better for eating raw while the mediums did better on the grill. To make the whole thing easy we just grabbed a dozen of each and happily paid our cheap-o oyster fee ($12 dozen for the smalls, $15 for the medium).

A secluded, romantic picnic spot

Though there is a picnic area here, it didn’t call out to us. We set course for a pretty little spot about 4 miles south of Hog Island which had three picnic tables on a sunny, wind-blocked overlook of Tomales Bay.

We made a feast of our oyster bounty by bringing along some plates, trays, silverware, napkins, shucking knives, dishtowels (protect your hands while shucking), homemade mignonette, lemon, horseradish, bread, wine, and local cheese.

And if our shucking video is a little less than educational, check out Hog Island’s video on how to do it.

All our Sweetwaters were delicious, flavorful and fresh. I actually think they got better and better the more of them we ate. Aphrodisiac? Maybe. But the last oyster eaten that day was heaven.

All 3 dozen oysters laid to waste not pictured

Hog Island, by the way, is open to sell you your bivalve mollusks seven days a week 9-5. Tomales Bay Oyster Co. and Drake’s Bay also operate out of this area. Each excels in something different.

A Donut standing in for our cake

So after our luxurious anniversary feast, we headed inland through the redwood forest to Fairfax. Known jointly for being the birthplace of mountain biking and for a mid-1960s softball game between Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Fairfax is a unique place. It’s a pretty big town around these parts and there are quite a few spots worth peeking in to in the walkable downtown.

Local Iron Springs Brewery falls into step with the environmentally conscious and progressive community by keeping everything homemade and handcrafted in their restaurant and brewpub. Tuesday nights see a percentage of profits being donated back into the community and live music is featured throughout the week.

This place was pretty busy when we arrived — besides a brewpub, the restaurant is quite a neighborhood hub, parents and lots of youngsters had filled nearly every table. The bar stands a bit apart from all the table action, and keeps up more adult appearances.

12 beers were on tap for our visit, with another special brew available from Iron Springs’ cask collection. The suds were pretty good. They have a nice sampler paddle which includes 6 of their brews, which we could choose. We liked the Chazz Cat Rye and the JC Flyer IPA best. We typically lean towards hoppier varieties, but Iron Springs surprised with some neatly balanced beers getting the most of our attention. As you might expect in a smaller community, everyone, from the patrons to the bartenders, was outrageously friendly.

Happy 6th to us!

The Bay Area may have lots of metropolitan diversions, but the community spark is in its smaller towns and further-flung areas. We couldn’t have been more happy with our anniversary picnic in Marin.

Shopping is a worldwide phenomenon, a seemingly genetic impulse written into the DNA of society. This makes sense; people need food, clothing, fellowship, and even comfort. Marketplaces have provided this since man began to collect in villages. In America, we have massive city-size malls and supermarkets to make our shopping easy. But what about England? Britain has been a center for trade and consumption for longer than they were an empire. Cities like London are crowded and busy, filled with businessmen, travelers, families, and sight-seers. From this, their markets have an almost unparalleled sense of history, refinement, variety and creativity.

Shopping Arcade in London

In our opinion, the most visible and attractive chains are Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. The former sells only groceries, while M&S has both grocery-only stores as well as full department-style locations selling clothing and household goods.

Though their prices creep somewhat higher than base-level grocery outlets like Tesco and Sainsbury’s, we were surprised that such seemingly classy stores were still within the general shoppers budget. A higher level of attention is given to the consumer experience here: trendy items are swaddled in award-winning packaging and even store brands exhibit a unusual diversity we’d think would be too far outside mainstream tastes.

Ready to Eat salads at Waitrose

Parsnip Chips

Cute Onions

One of our more surprising encounters was at a freeway-side rest stop. Here a savvy full-size market lured shoppers in with aisles of locally produced goods and lovely handmade pies. An architecturally striking fresh food area was expanded into a near-restaurant offering a salad bar and bain-marie lunch choices. Floor to ceiling windows faced away from the freeway onto a small pond and acres of beautiful rolling green countryside. We were baffled, but quickly picked up some snacks and sat down to enjoy the view.

Freeway grocery stop

Yet there is a dark side to these wonders of good taste. Busy city life makes for busy people, and it seems like most Londoners aren’t setting aside time to cook. To make grabbing quick lunches and dinners easy, M&S and their ilk are filling aisles with the most ornate prepackaged family meals we have ever seen, obviously in lieu of raw ingredients.

Indian at home

Large packages of five or seven course Indian and Chinese dinners serve a family of four. Prepared sandwiches, microwavable dinners, and ready made salads dominate the lunch choices.

If you’re not fooled, you can pretend to cook by purchasing from a series of mix and match packages — numbered trays combine (1+2+3) to create a variety of diverse meals by substituting pasta for rice and teriyaki glaze for alfredo. Though the packaging is seductive, this stuff can’t taste good.

M&S and Waitrose take care to not stock items packed with preservatives, but frozen meals often have high sodium levels and low fiber. We haven’t tried any, so the verdict is out, but for all the effort these stores make to keep product local, we’d prefer to see more raw goods rather than processed meals.

Ah, but all is not lost in England. The street market culture is alive and fighting back. Pop-up flea markets play host to shoulder-to-shoulder crowds picking through handmade goods, attic castoffs, and steaming trays of grandma’s secret recipe. Close-up ready farmers markets deftly charm any passerby into exchanging the contents of their wallets for their beguiling bounty. Don’t forget to bring your own tote when heading out onto the London streets. It’s hard to pass these wonders up.

The cadillac of the street scene is the Borough Market in South East London. Foodies shouldn’t dare call themselves so if they visit London and miss this market, which takes place on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Wiki calls the Borough Market one of the largest food markets in the world (maybe the 1st World…) and you might need more than a day to take everything in. We liked the market so much we came nearly every day it was open during our stay in London, always sampling and finding something new.

Video Warning: do not watch this absurdly mouthwatering documentation of Borough Market on an empty stomach.

Though Borough sets out to be a place to buy local produce and grocery, the majority of stallholders seem to be interested in selling you ready-to-eat temptations. For this reason it’s a madhouse around lunchtime. But don’t let the crowds detract you, amazing meals can be had here, and if you share like we did, you can walk away with some cash left over. And even if you don’t, we always felt everything was more than worth the price paid. Our favorites included the boar sausage, Fish Kitchen, Cheese Shop, cider flights, Raclette and rustic baked sweets.

Banger Sandwich

The Chippie

Incredible Raclette

Cider Barrels

Monmouth Coffee

If you are in the London Bridge area, even if it isn’t a market day, be sure to grab of cup of the World’s best drip at Monmouth (seriously!) and have a look at the beer selection over at The Rake — a pub which likes to claim it’s the smallest in London, but carries over 100 varieties of bottled brews in addition to well curated taps.

Camden Market

If you’ve gotten your fill at the pinnacle of foodie markets, you might want to go take a look at the the sprawl of linked markets at Camden Lock, which operate every day. Now this is a madhouse! Miles of stalls tangle their way around absurdly outsized horse idols. You can get just about anything here, and it’s no surprise that this is also a major tourist trap in London.

Camden is fascinating, but not always connected to the trends on the street, despite the fact that they ban anything but independent retailers. For a more grassroots bazaar, go clear across town to Brick Lane Market.

Brick Lane Market

Easily the quirkiest of all London markets, Brick Lane is a self-styled flea market where stall holders do little but spread their merchandise along the street for passerby to browse. The charm is surely in the hodge-podge selection and general camaraderie.

Treats at the Brick Lane Market

A central indoor hall also hosts about 20 food vendors, each offering tastes from a different corner of the world. Here you can bargain or even make friends with the sellers, nothing is commercial or stuffy. Brick Lane Market is only in session on Sundays, while it’s food-centric neighbor, Spitalfields, is open daily (but stalls/vendors rotate, so check their site before making plans).

Harrod’s Candy Counter

The tradition of markets, market halls and grocery outlets goes back a long way for England. The Grande Dame of it all, Harrods, was started in 1834 and has seen a prestigious line of customers come through its doors.

The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique: All Things for All People, Everywhere. They forgot to mention which income bracket these “people” are all in. Despite the rich prices, Harrods makes for fun browsing; the classically styled interiors and gilded elevators are among the oldest in the world. Their haute foods hall and 28 restaurants shine, but it’s the 300 other departments that you’ll get lost in.

Fortnum & Mason

Even older and degrees more posh, Fortnum & Mason seems more concerned with theatrical displays than actually existing as a marketplace.

Looking glasses employed at the sweets counter

Fortnum’s vends only foods so you won’t be distracted while rubbing shoulders with local celebrities picking up beautifully tinned gifts, which are often priced well enough for flashy souvenirs and counter decoration.

All these great markets have almost gotten too popular for their own good. Crowds are often absolutely maddening, because most markets only operate for two days each week, it feels as though the entire population of London is descending on each one to fill its need for shopping and browsing. It’s best to come as early as possible.

Waitrose Market

In contrast to the markets we’ve grown up with the US, British markets are stunning. At grocery outlets all products, including store brands, utilize high value packaging and attempt to engage the consumer on a personal level. Distributors provide clearly marked “birth” places for goods, both raw and processed: milk from whatnot County, lettuce from so&so farms, Bangers + Mash meal with meats from xxxx farms.

Both grocery and mixed “farmers”-style markets infiltrate all neighborhoods and commute lines, so shopping can easily segue into daily life, encouraging residents to drive less and shop more. Though it was sometimes hard to manage the crowds, we’d love to see this level of involvement in our stores back home — this is something we should be learning from our big brother!

PS: These Lays chips are awesome.

Not only do we remain big fans of beer, our appreciation of the art has grown and evolved. It wasn’t always easy, considering there are a lot of bad beers in the world. Indian cuisine may be amazing, even awe inspiring, but Kingfisher is no winner in its category with that unhealthy glycerine additive. The “Worst Beer in the World” award has to go to Morocco for Flag Especial: foul, expensive and yet blissfully difficult to find due to strict Muslim laws. Most of the world really only produces your basic pale lager, in the vein of, but thankfully better than, Budweiser.

In Morocco choose the mint tea instead

There are only a few countries really known for their “brewmanship”. Germany’s legend sets the bench mark for many beer connoisseurs, but its’ strict purity laws limit the types of suds brewed. Belgium is famous for strong trappist-brewed bottle-fermented ales, and England is king of smooth pints with a pillowy mouthfeel served at cellar temperature from hand-pull taps. There are further distinct styles, but suffice to say, good beer is not universal. We’d love to sit down with Gadling’s staff and hear all about their 24 Greatest Cities in the World for Drinking Beer (over half of which are in the US!)

Belgian beer with rub-off sexy lady

Back in the States, here’s our market haul with local beers, Japanese suds and even some special Scottish ale aged in whiskey barrels.

Which brings us to our next point… After traveling with food and drink on our minds for one year, we now know America has some of the richest beer culture in the world. Yes, we do apologize for Anheuser Busch and Budweiser (and even more so for stealing its name from an age old Czech company), but dig a little deeper and you will find that we not only import some of the best beers in the world, we are one of the most dedicated micro-brewing countries, where the public wholeheartedly embraces locally produced pints.

With this in mind, Team Rees has now settled down for the summer in the San Francisco Bay Area and we are beginning a local brew & pub quest. In California and in the Pacific Northwest it seems like every city has a brewery or two up it’s sleeve, and local markets nearly favor local ales. We’re hoping we can hit up a brewery once every week to get to know the brew culture and sample the offerings.

For an easy start, we stopped by Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley, well known for their Hefeweizen (recently renamed Haywire). Pyramid started out in Washington, but today they have 5 Alehouses along the West Coast which feature a small-scale brewing operation onsite. Each Alehouse offers some free tours of the facility and they work hard to have a social, community-based atmosphere with quiz nights, souvenir nights, movie screenings and more.

We were never big fans of the Hefe, which is pretty ubiquitous in California grocery stores and bars, but the Alehouse offers many more brews which aren’t widely distributed (or in some cases, distributed at all). Our waitress was sympathetic to our trouble picking from the available taps and brought us over some free samples. Their flavors range from very mellow to very hoppy. The Apricot Ale and Blonde were a bit dull, but at the farther end the Grifter (from the MacTarnahan line) and Outburst (4 different hops) hit the spot. They were even pouring a Belgian-style Triple which had a gorgeous color and tasted satisfyingly herb-y, almost enough for us to forget it’s silly name.

Colorful tasting at Pyramid Alehouse

Something to go with all that beer

This is a decent brewery with some solid beers. Food is squarely in the bar category, but the location is clean, bright, and nicely decked out. Sitting at the bar all but guarantees knowledgeable tidbits from the staff and some free tastes from the taps. We even lucked out with the Earth Day sale on growlers — $10 for a new one and $5 for a fill. Not bad for a half gallon of IPA!

Our Pet Growler

And when in the Berkeley area, stop by the Cheeseboard Pizza Collective for a though-provoking slive. The Collective only makes one type of pizza everyday, and each day brings new surprises.

It’s not hard for us to make a brewery to do list: check out this list of Craft Beer Brewers in Northern California alone! Since we’re also looking for a new city to call home, we’ve scheduled trips out to Colorado, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon over the coming weeks — beer-ability is a big deciding factor, so hopefully we’ll be able to report on those areas as well. We can’t wait to tackle some taps from Alethea’s list for Portland. While we can’t hit everything… what with time, budget, and liver constraints, we will work diligently at what we feel is a foolhardy tumble into the warming, numb embraces of the best brewsmen (and women) on earth.

Jeremy and Eva’s Uncle Rys seem to be getting along

We were greeted at Eva’s Uncle’s home with the news that today, September 19th, was in fact the first day of Oktoberfest, that tricky anachronistically-named festival! So away we went to the tents. But over the next ten days, despite the lure of clinking steins and slurred AC/DC hits, we managed to see quite a bit of what Bavaria has to offer.

Munich, Bavaria’s capitol city, is always flush with tourists. Despite its notoriety for beer, the city has much more to do with Arts and the outdoors than with drunken debauchery. Over 15 museums grace the city, many within walking distance to one another. The massive Englischer Garten stretches from the city center all the way to Munich’s Northeastern city limits.

Englischer Garten

Biergarten Lunch

Biergarten Lunch

One of the largest parks in the world it is host to beer gardens, a Japanese teahouse, pagodas, a lake, surfers, sheep, streams and even nude sunbathers. Entry is free, and since it crosses most of the city — it’s easy to tuck away for a short stroll no matter where in town you are.

The famous River Surfers at Englischer Garten

Though Munich has a very thorough and efficient transit system, the best way to see the city is by bike. Bike lanes are deriguer in town as many residents pedal their commute. The city is relatively small, and you won’t have to sweat too much to make it to even some further landmarks.

Though it is hotly contested as one of the best places to live in Germany, Munich, as well as the whole of Bavaria, is quite conservative. Tradition reigns supreme, and the best place to immerse yourself in history is Stachus, the city center, made up of the Marienplatz, Karlsplatz and Odeonsplatz.

Olympiapark

Further afield Munich’s Olympiapark, home of the Munich Olympics, remains a must-see. At once the site of the 1972 Munich Massacre as well as an achievement of modern architecture, the Park continues to serve as a venue for cultural, social, and religious events.

The glass tent atop the Olympiapark

View from the Olympiaturm

The BMW headquarters, BMW Welt, are just across the road. Entry is free to the museum and all sorts of nicely presented information about BMW technology, cars and motorcycles. You can also sign up for a tour of the plant, which we believe is also free, but must be done in advance.

Munich BMW Headquarters

More Munich BMW

And if that wasn’t enough, Munich even has it’s own castle — the Schloss Nymphenburg. Once the summer home of Bavarian rulers, Nymphenburg is now open to the public. The beautiful gardens and grounds are free to wander, and several restaurants sell treats you can enjoy in the same place as some poshy princess once did. If you have the time, the Gallery of Beauties is worth seeing. King Ludwig I seems to have gotten around quite a bit, and the hall features over 30 portraits of his favorite lovely lady friends.

Schloss Nymphenburg, click for wiki’s great photos

Jeremy and Uncle Rys

So while we were in Munich seeing all this great stuff, Eva’s uncle Rys worked overtime to make sure we were happy, full, and totally familiarized with as much of Bavaria as possible. Though he was the only family member we
visited in Germany, he did the work of at least 3 families in looking after us.

View from Neuschwanstein Castle

Andechs Abbey and Brewery

Rys is an architect, and naturally his interests follow suit. Twice we packed up for the day to tour the Bavarian countryside and visit several of the Baroque and Rococo churches which highlight the region.

Andechs Abbey

Andechs Abbey

One of our first stops was the Benedictine Abbey of Andechs. A large functioning monastery near the Ammersee, in the middle of Upper Bavaria’s Five-Lakes Region, Andechs has for long been a destination for pilgrims. Today it remains fully independent and sustainable. The Church itself is a shock of flamboyant color and Baroque style.

Baroque details in the Abbey Church

Worshipers offer the Abbey thanks for acts of mercy through donated artworks depicting the events which befell them. Besides being saved from disease, thanks are offered for such things as passing exams and surviving car crashes.

Lunch at Andechs’ Klostergasthof & Bräustüberl

And it’s pretty clear why the Abbey is also a pilgrimage site… People come here for the beer! With proof of brewing dating back to the Middle Ages, the Benedictine Monks at Andechs have been cultivating the art for hundreds of years. Today Andechs beer is available at grocery stores in Germany, but the best is clearly at the source — at a long communal table alongside a giant roasted pork knuckle. The tavern, Bräustüberl, is older than the church, so you’re still sightseeing all throughout lunch.

Inside the Tavern

Lunch at Andechs’ Klostergasthof & Bräustüberl

Take a look at the menu, Andechs is as affordable as it is delicious

Fortified and fed we went for yet another pilgrimage site, Wieskirche. The Wies Church is one of the only true Rococo churches in Bavaria. Unlike others, it was build Rococo from the ground up, while others have started with Romanesque architecture which was converted to Baroque and Rococo as the church attempted to lure followers.

Wieskirche is built to a unique oval shape

Colorful scenes literally explode from the walls

& of course some lightness

Wies Church

The church is beautiful, but it’s setting even more so. Rolling green hills, sunshine, distant mountains and happy Bavarian cows.

Pilgrimages to Wieskirche started after worshipers saw tears on a statue of Jesus. Today the church is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and all pilgrims are rewarded with some traditional German sweets.

Eva and Rys

Luscious apple strudel

On our next outing we were bound for the fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Neuschwanstein’s image has graced millions of postcards and calendars, and is one of the most recognizable sites in Bavaria.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Though it may look romantic and magical, the Castle itself is actually quite modern. Built to the demands of the eccentric Ludwig II, the final neo-Romanesque design was completed in the very late 19th century. Regarded by most as a fanciful flight of kitsch, Ludwig II drew upon the Middle Ages and “the musical mythology” of Wagner for inspiration for his palace.

It’s quite easy to say that Ludwig II was crazy, and there have been many questions regarding clinical insanity. He sequestered himself in the palace, and spent hundred of thousands from the kingdom’s coffers. He is said to have had trouble finding a partner to share his time in the Castle, and never raised any heirs. When his construction debts reached 14 million Marks, the people began to get restless. The government officially decided to depose him, yet he mysteriously died the next day. Ludwig II was Bavaria’s last ruler, and his death in 1886 left the Castle to the public. Today the exterior and grounds can be visited for free, while tours which view the garish interiors will come at a price.

Meeting locals

So another day well spent in Bavaria!

The contrast between Bavaria and our other German stop, Berlin, are mind boggling! But it would be hard to pick only one place to see. As with Poland, the time we spent in Munich made us wish we lived just a little closer to this side of the family. Eva really enjoyed talking to someone who works in a field closer to her own. Rys was a great source of inspiration, and we know we’d have a close relationship were the distances not so vast.

Airport Goodbyes