Blueberry Wheat at 75th Street

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. In my world a dentist appointment = a trip to 75th Street Brewery for lunch. After Sunday night's trip over to the brewery I had a couple of scratch off cards that may win me some merchandise, but I had to scratch them off this week in the presence of a server. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it back to 75th Street for the rest of anniversary week, so I really had to take this opportunity to get over there.

I walked in and was greeted by a couple of bartenders. I asked if they had any lunch specials, which they didn't. I asked what they had that was seasonal and the bartender ripped off the seasonals; a dubbel, IPA, cask IPA, Irish Red, golden ale and blueberry wheat. I think at this point it goes without saying that I chose the blueberry wheat. I know you're laughing at me, I don't care, I can't resist an off the wall beer. Actually, I only asked for a sampler, but I kind of liked it so I got a full pint.

The blueberry taste was barely part of the beer. It was like they used the blueberries to cut a little bit of the wheat flavor out of the beer. Blueberries definitely weren't as present as raspberries are in the raspberry wheat. This is a good thing because I'm not a big fan of blueberries.

At the bar were 4 or 5 beer afficionados and they were discussing beers they'd had around the U.S. One guy told us of his harrowing tale of trying to sneak a 12 pack of Alaskan microbrew onto the cruise ship. One of the other fellas won a t-shirt with his scratch card and complained to us that his wife was going to get upset that he was bringing home another beer shirt. I told him I have a similar problem and pointed out my Russian River Valley Brewery shirt I was wearing.

I had the Southwestern chicken egg rolls for lunch, a typical order for me. 75th Streets egg rolls are not that great as they fill them with rice . They taste an awful lot like a Chipotle burrito when they use too much rice. I couldn't quite eat all of them and had to have another beer to wash them down.

I got a cask IPA. IPA's aren't my favorite choice for casked beer because I like my IPA's with a little chill on them. Casked brown ales or porters are great, but since it's summer, an IPA kind of makes sense. The cask IPA was fine, but not stellar. I won't recommend it unless you just absolutely love IPA's. I'm not even that big of a fan of 75th Street's regular Good Hope IPA.

I was lucky enough to win $5 off my meal and a free 15th Anniversary pint glass with my scratch cards. If you have any of those scratch cards, the odds seem to be good so go on over and scratch them off at 75th Street and enjoy some good beer.