Ah Vegas! The city of conspicuous consumption of all things – water, neon, and of course money… A city where you can watch, astonished, as a man playing blackjack casually loses twenty chips to the dealer over a 90 second period. Then you realise each one is worth $1000. Still, we managed to tear ourselves away from the gambling spectacular and find some great bars.
Pub 365 is inside the less flamboyant Tuscany Suites and Casino, off the main strip. But boy is it worth the detour! With a massive array of draught beers and bottles, I am surprised my liver survived.
We had FIVE flights here, the first of which compared three releases of Founders
Kentucky Breakfast Stout – all on draught! As mentioned
previously I find the 2018 release too hoppy, but loved the 2017, so was interested to try those two against the 2016 release. Rounding off this first flight was a very tasty and refreshing
Sandia Watermelon Wheat from
Banger Brewing. In a blind tasting I immediately identified the 2017 release, much to Simon’s mystification and annoyance.
Other flights as below:
- Founders: Backwoods Bastard 2016, Wee Heavy
- Almanac: Rules Don’t Apply, Brett IPA
- Victory: Hop Devil Nitro IPA (even nitro it couldn’t make me like IPA)
- Toolbox: Passionfruit Salt Shaker, gose with passionfruit
- Revision: Mosaic Revenge, DIPA
- Alesmith: Double Red, red DIPA
- Imbib: Blackraz Nevada Weiss, Berliner Weiss with Black Raspberries
- Goose Island: Bourbon County Brand Stout 2016
- Stone: Imperial Russian Stout
- Goose Island: Bourbon County Brand Stout 2017* my favourite, although all were brilliant
- Hangar 24: Laval, Double Cream Stout, lots of taste and body
- Rogue: XS Old Crustacean 2013, Barley Wine, not sweet, quite bitter in fact
One round was kindly bought for us by the lovely Adrian, Vegas inhabitant and English music-o-phile – we had lots to talk about and when I return I promise to visit your Mexican restaurant. Oh, and if I ever do bump into Stampy I will say Hi from your adorable nephew x
I am amazed to look back at this list and believe that we then went on elsewhere, partly because I doubt we could stand up but mainly because I could have stayed all night. The Goose Island
Bourbon County stout was fabulous in all three vintages.
But we needed to collect the kids from somewhere, and so we went on to
BeerHaus to get a hotdog and more beer. For some reason we seem to have eschewed the pretty good draught menu and gone for bottles and cans – mine was a
Mother Earth Sin Tax, Imperial Stout, of course!
So, in short, reserve some money from your gambling fund for beer in Vegas – you won’t regret it.