Yesterday we found ourselves at another Tour de Brew LNK ride, this month's featured brewery was the relative upstart Zipline Brewing located right here in good ole Lincoln Nebraska. For a brewery that's been around for only 5 years or less they really put out a quality product, some of my favorite local beer for sure.
We managed to prepare a little better for this one and get a much better jump on traffic coming from Omaha, as a result we made it to Moran's Liquor Works to partake in the festivities and samples being served there. Standing room only, which is good if you're a bar selling beer but probably not the best if you're a liquor store giving beer away so hopefully these rides are producing some return business.
Once the samples were tried at Moran's it was off to Cycle Works to try the Lemon Drop Pale Ale that Zipline had brewed for the event. Lemon might make you think shandy but this was less lemony and more pale ale but with just a hint of lemon it would still makes a great lighter summer sipping beer. Tents seemed to be a theme for this ride, Cycle Works/Moose's Tooth had theirs up and as we would find out later Empyrean had theirs up as well... indoors.
Only two more rides until they raffle the Pugsley off, had to pick up my ticket last night lest I forget and miss out on the opportunity to make her mine. I would suggest that you all do the same next month but why would I do that, the fewer of you that buy a ticket, the better the odds are for me.
The Kitchen Sink Cookie Company was back with new cookies... doesn't it sound delicious?
With a name and description like that I just had to try one, thankfully the cigarette ingredient turned out to be a candy cigarette and not actually someone's burnt down tossed out butt. It was, of course, very delicious as all of their cookies have been that I have tried.
Had to drool over the new Salsa Cycles catalog, they have some really rad new bikes coming out for 2016 and some new paint on older models that just screams 1980 and who doesn't love the 80's. Best of all there is a demo this Saturday at Tranquility Park where you can ride all of the new models.
From his I pooped today button to this shirt, Gary's flair is always on point.
Speaking of flair, Gary's ride (Black Betty) got a little flair of it's own... Bam-a-lam indeed.
Crowds got large, stomachs got hungry, so it was time to head downtown in search of food.
$200 for a Baconator with fries... and they said that raising the minimum wage wasn't going to significantly raise the prices people pay for fast food. Seems like another of those political truths.
Not having that kind of cash on me, we opted to head to Dempsey's and some more affordable food prices.
I don't know about you but at less than $10 for a Bloody Mary with a slider, a chicken wing, bacon, olives and assorted peppers; it's a relative steal next to what Dave Thomas was offering... god rest his soul. Seriously though, someone needs to put together a Bloody Mary tour, between Dempsey's, Longwell's, Leadbelly, the Green Gateau and Jake's Cigar Bar we could easily pull one together and maybe even find another spot or two that would make it a nice ride. Who's with me? As a bonus a couple drinks like this and you wouldn't even need to eat anything else.
I was so in love with that Bloody Mary that I forgot to even get any pictures of the fabulous Smoke Stack burger that I had at Dempsey's, oh well, off to Empyrean it was. SEE I TOLD YOU THEY HAD A TENT INSIDE!!
We didn't make it early enough to grab a table and were relegated to standing around a barrel, it was crowded and hot as balls!
Feeling my own family jewels starting to transude and not wanting to leave a pool of my essence on the floor of the Empyrean tap room I decided to head outside and do some bike watching until the raffle... yes it was actually cooler outside. This New Belgium cruiser was pretty cool, not sure how many iterations there are, I know of three different colorways, but this one is probably my favorite.
Couple of fixies, probably wouldn't own one of my own but as a lover of the single speed I can admire their simplicity.
This old Gary Fisher was my favorite of the night, not the most expensive bike even when they were new (sub $400) but to see one still around and in such good shape was kind of nostalgic.
Once the Bahm brothers started heading in, it was time to head back to my spot around the barrel and mind my tickets hoping for winners.
Before we got down to the nitty-gritty they brought up one of the guys from this month's charity, Skate for Change, to talk a little about what their charity does. I can't remember the dudes name, asked the fiance and she said it was "Oh f&ck I can't remember" but while I don't remember exactly what his name was, I'm positive that was not it.
It's time!!!
While there were some other fantastic prizes, Cycle Works had a $40 and $60 dollar gift card as well as a complete tuneup, two that I was especially hoping for was the growler with refill from Zipline and the $100 gift card from Moran's... I won neither.
Actually, nobody from our group except Gary won anything this time around... the luck of that guy.
So much awesome in this picture! While our group came up nearly empty handed, this lady won on all three of her tickets and she was more than a little pumped as she rightfully should be.
Did I mention that she was just a tad excited? Someone get that lady a lottery ticket STAT... and they guy in the yellow shirt some band-aides, seriously, chaffed nipples are no joking matter.
While I didn't win anything, I didn't exactly go home empty handed either. I did pickup the winning ticket for the Pugsley, just you watch, and two other scrumptious cookies from the Kitchen Sink Cookie Company... if you're a fan of oreos pick up the double dutch, it'll cause a mouth-gasm. Sad to think that we are down to two more of these rides for the year and I'm going to miss the next one because of the Lady Antebellum concert, so really only one more for me; but we are going to organize that Bloody Mary tour though right, so there's that too look forward to.
Seriously though folks, don't forget to pick up your $20 raffle ticket for the Pugsley, it's $20 for a chance to win a $1500 fat bike... that's like one tenth of a Baconator with fries!
Don't let me just walk away with the bike, as much as I'd love to add it to the collection I'd also love to see it go to someone who would also love it just as much as I would and who might be more in need than I.
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