Waldo Pizza Tap Room

I went to beer school yesterday. This was my second course in my formalized beer education. The first took place at Goose Island in Chicago and was fabulous.

I started out my day by cleaning out the entertainment center in my living room since we had a new one coming. I got that done and labeled some of my cords for the TV, home theater and extra DVD players so I could hook them up easier. Then my wife's brother-in-law, Natural Light, delivered one heavy entertainment center with nowhere to grip. We moved the old one out and the new one in and frantically scurried to hook everything up. Eventually we ran out of time and I hurried to get to Waldo and my beer class.

Beer class had a $14 materials fee (which meant beer) and there was quite a bit to be had. We sampled 10 beers; Schlitz (because they had a brewery in the River Market), Peroni (because we were in a pizza place), Hoegaarden White, Flying Monkey Amber, O'Dell's Pale Ale, Boulevard Irish Ale, Grimbergen Dubbel, Arcadia IPA, Val Dieu Grand Cru and Lindemann's Framboise. We talked about most of the beers as we sampled. Some of the less distinguished palates didn't like the Grimbergen but I thought it was a very good beer if you're in the mood for something with quite a bit of malt flavor. The Val Dieu Grand Cru was my favorite new beer of the day. I'm pretty sure it carries a pretty steep price tag. Of course, Lindemann's Framboise was tremendous. It's not a beer for someone who doesn't want raspberry. It's so chock full of raspberry it's actually pink.

The Waldo Pizza Tap Room is really a tremendous place too. Most of the beers mentioned are on tap and they have a fine selection of bottled beers as well as Stag beer. Not quite as extensive as Harry's Country Club, but better than 98% of bars in town. Plus the bar food has got to be excellent since it's coming from Waldo Pizza, one of the 3 best pizzas in town. I may have to split my Waldo time between 75th Street and the Waldo Pizza Tap Room.

My favorite discussion of the beer class was the reason you should always drink beer from a glass as opposed to a bottle. Two things stood out, bottled beer gives you gas if you drink from the bottle and, of course, you can taste the flavors of the beer much better from a glass. In short, Bud Light in the bottle drinkers are flatulent swill drinkers.

I also had the opportunity to meet up with another of my blogging brethren, The KC Guy. We've exchanged some emails in the past about various things and I was happy to finally meet him. For some reason I always pictured a dude in his 50's, but KC Guy seemed to be about my age maybe a little younger. I would have liked to stay after class and have a beer to chat some more but we both had stuff to do immediately.

Stella had texted me during class that I was going to have to go with Natural Light back to Nebraska Furniture Mart to take the entertainment center back. It seems that a shelf wasn't level and she found it unacceptable. Unfortunately in the transport back to NFM, we broke it a little bit and they wouldn't take it back. I was arguing with them on the loading dock for over an hour about the situation but I just couldn't get them to accept it. I ended up getting a discount and they're going to send a handyman out to fix all of the leveling and broken pieces. It will actually work out to be a pretty good deal if the defects can be fixed.

All of that was to say, beer class was a welcome respite from the rest of a pretty crappy day. I got a couple of things from class, I really like Hoegaarden White and will definitely be looking to drink some when it's hot outside. I want to go on one of Beer Jockey Jim's beer bus tours which I will post about when one is coming up. And the Waldo Pizza Tap Room may be the best beer bar in Waldo, which is NOT an easy thing to do.