Brian "Somehow No Longer Elite" M.'s Profile

So I write this beer blog, right? It's called The Beer Student (http://thebeerstudent....). I recently wrote a post about Broad Ripple Brewpub. Here are the (less wordy and beer nerdy) excerpts from that entry. Viva la Brewpub!
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Many of you know that I used to live in the wonderful neighborhood of Broad Ripple, on Indianapolis' north side. This trendy blip on the map is home to two spectacular independent brewpubs: Broad Ripple Brewpub, an English-style pub specializing in traditional English ales and hearty pub food with tons of vegetarian options, and Brugge Brasserie, specializing in all things Belgian.

Anyway, back to Broad Ripple Brewpub. I have always liked this place. But being away for so long has made the heart grow fonder. I LOVE this place. If I still lived in the neighborhood, I would be there at least four times a week. Good beer with many of my favorite styles? Check. Smoke free? Has been for years, check. Lots and lots of good veggie options? Check. Wi-fi for when you're chillin' at the bar alone? Check. Walking distance to everything? Check. So seriously, Broad Ripple Brewpub, I love you. As was our plan, this is the perfect place to get some beer and a bite prior to heading to the cathedral of college basketball, Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Poured into a nonic pint glass, the Replic Ale, an oatmeal coffee stout, is an inky black with a one finger light tan head that dissipates slowly. The flavor up front is beautiful - thick and hearty, you can really taste the oats and malts. Coffee and hops linger around in the finish with only a slight alcohol taste.

One thing of note (that makes me love the brew pub that much more) is that their pints all come out at the right temperature. None of this waiting around for it to warm noise. Nope. Perfect from the second it hits the table. For as hearty as this beer is, it went down really smooth.

The Brew Pub is always sure to have at least two beers on cask, and as much as I enjoyed the Replic Ale, it would be a crime not to have at least one cask ale. I opted for the Wee Alec Heavy, a Scotch style wee heavy. Poured into a tulip glass, this amber, almost red beer is syrupy sweet. The warmer, smoother texture of a cask ale brings out the syrup-like qualities even more. Though it's not characteristic of the style, I think it would be nice to have a little more hops in here. Not bad, but nothing compares to the Replic Ale.

As for the food, I got the vegan shepherd's pie. Rich and hearty, it's a pretty solid interpretation of a traditional shepherd's pie. The veggie crumbles aren't my favorite, but good nonetheless. Good enough to order again for sure.

Oh yeah. Get the pretzels with beer cheese. It'll change your life.

Let's just say if your school's colors are crimson and cream, you might be outnumbered here.

I had to chuckle at a small group of Indiana fans that wandered in here on a recent college basketball game day and muttered "Oh great, this is a f----ng Butler bar." Of course everyone knows this is a Texas football bar (sorry Sooners), but come winter, Brownstone is the home of Butler basketball! They hook it up with banners, stadium cups, specials specific to either school, and of course, blasting the school song. They even open early for those noon-EST tipoffs.

Any place that sponsors a college alumni club is bound to have good drink specials and the like. But of the many homogenous Lincoln Park/Lakeview spots with the typical "fry everything" approach, North Center's Brownstone outdoes them all with their menu.

Naturally there is a good selection of traditional bar food for the Coors-Light-and-a-deep-fryer crowd, but if you're like me and have a desire for some big boy food and drinks while still having the sports bar feel, nothing compares to Brownstone. The kitchen cranks out full salads (which can be turned into a wrap for free!), a thick selection of healthy or deliciously fried appetizers, sandwiches on a variety of breads and buns, plus tater tots and the skillet cookie, which get their own category. Sixteen taps and a stellar bottle selection that's heavy with American microbrews keep this beer nerd a happy guy.

Oh, and there's shotskis. Hopefully you brought three friends with you, maybe for the awesome Monday and Tuesday trivia. If not, make some. You can thank me later. Preferably with a beer while I'm watching a Butler game.

The first week when I moved into my place, I got bored, hungry, but mostly thirsty. Couple that with the fact that I wanted to watch some college football and my TV was still on a moving truck somewhere, I ventured out down to Sheffield intent on finding some place to watch the Notre Dame game and found Vaughan's. Fighting Irish....Irish bar...eh? As the Ohio State game had recently ended, the place cleared out, save for a few woozy holdovers from early boozing.

Excited to see Chimay on tap, I of course order one. I dunno guys, I think the tap lines need to be cleaned or something, because this just tasted goofy. Dirty tap lines = ruining the beer you're paying $250 a keg for. Please stop, the Trappist monks are angry. At least they poured it in the proper glassware. Plus, even though the OSU game had ended a while after I arrived and got a couple beers, there were still a bunch of dirty OSU stadium cups strewn around the place. Meh.

The bartender made good conversation when a few of the randoms seated at the bar inquired about the Guinness 250. He said it sucked, essentially refused to sell it to us, and instead poured samplers. (He was right...think Guinness with flowers dipped in it and left in rainwater overnight.) Good dude. Switching to more traditional beers (Harp!) for an Irish bar proved to be tastier.

Overall, a decent place to watch a game, better than a lot of stuff in the neighborhood, and A-OK with me.

Clocking in at #129 on the list of Stuff Unemployed People Like is Trader Joe's.
http://stuffunemployed...

As an aforementioned laid off person and broke-ass grad student, I utilize the time not spent looking at the same job ads for which I never get a call back by going to grocery stores in the middle of the day (suck it, after-work crowds!) and budget shopping my way to culinary greatness.

As Fernando mentioned, this TJ's has a really solid produce selection - better than most others. Let me rattle off a dinner salad recipe that's my staple for Trader Joe's trips:

 -  Organic spring mix
 -  Bell pepper
 -  Organic cherry tomatoes
 -  Black olives
 -  Persian cucumbers
 -  Sliced white mushrooms
 -  Fresh dill
 -  Crumbled feta w/ herbs
 -  Extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a touch of salt, pepper, and sage

This will cost you like $15, and you'll have huge fresh salads for a week. Booya. Spring an extra $6 and you've got enough wine to keep you toasted for a couple days. I do miss the California Trader Joe's though, where Two-Buck Chuck was, well, actually two bucks. But $3 ain't bad.

The employees are friendly, chatty, but never annoying, not to mention I always see the same ones working - a true sign that they treat their staff well.

Screw the parking lot, take the Lincoln bus which stops right out front, or utilize their abundant bike parking. Viva Trader Joe's!

Underwhelming, that's for sure.

I'm a falafel lover, and run lots of errands around the Belmont corridor, so I've popped in here a couple times for carryout. The falafel itself is decent - fairly well spiced (but I've had better), crisp but not dry. But...the hummus is bland, the tahini sauce is watery, and man, can we talk about the pita? Worthless industrial-strength preservative-laden stuff. The Wonder white bread of pitas. Weak hot sauce...some heat but little flavor.

Two stars for speed and convenience. The falafel search continues.

Hey, I like trains.

Sure, the Chicago to South Bend trip usually takes two hours by car and it's almost three by rail, but it's consistently three hours. Not like some of those times when it takes an hour and a half just to get out of the city by car on a Friday afternoon. Nope...the South Shore speeds right along. Sure, it's not luxury transportation, but it gets there. I've only ever had small delays, and they've never been more than 15 minutes or so during peak times. Not a biggie in my book.

Last time I took the ol' South Shore, the ticket counter was backed up so they waived the service fee to buy tickets on the train. Moved things along nicely, so props to you, South Shore operators.

My one beef is with the ticketing system. First of all, how about a ticket vending machine like Metra and CTA? It can't be that hard. Secondly, cash only at the ticket window? Bleh.

Bummed they did away with the weekend fares, but I get it.

See you this Christmas!

Ugh.

I've flown in and out of this airport many times in my adult life. I think I've had a flight depart on time once. Maybe twice. Out of much more than a dozen. Weather? Sometimes, but mostly just general dumbassery. Most recently, my Jet Blue ORD-JFK flight got delayed 40 minutes or so. By the time I got to the airport, it was an hour. Check back, and it's now two hours. Wander away....and it's a three hour delay. Mind you, other Chicago to New York flights scheduled after mine had already taken off. Huh? Thank goodness I stuck around by the gate instead of wandering to a bar, because they decided to move the departure time up with no announcement. Had I left the immediate area, I would have missed boarding. What's with all the switching?

So considering that everyone here gets delayed and has to kill time, restaurants in the terminals should be a pretty lucrative business. That being said, I'd expect some quality options, and there really are few. (Not all airports are like this. Food at Midway = better.) Meh to the extreme. I wasted $30 on one of the worst sandwiches I've ever had and two beers at the faux sports bar in Terminal 2. The quick food options aren't much better. I've had a little better luck in Terminal 1, which seems to be the only one that gets attention paid to it (likely due to United's financial stranglehold on the place).

Security lines are average. The special one for United first class passengers rules though. (Don't worry, I didn't pay for first class. I was only there because of a canceled flight the day before. Bastards.) Props for being accessible by CTA.

I need to remind myself to try harder at avoiding O'Hare.

A historic multipurpose arena in every sense of the word. Great moments in so many different sports have taken place here which makes any event more special, regardless of sport. Though there's little in common with a boxing match, Rangers game, or college basketball tournament, somehow The Garden just makes it all make sense.

As with most historic venues, The Garden delivers the character that many modern venues lack. The remarkable thing is that it's able to do this while still being completely relevant to modern sports. The next multi-million dollar arena could be built in the likeness of Madison Square Garden and still be considered a solid venue.

Transit to The Garden and entrance are a breeze. Some of the ushers and ticket takers seem like they've been there since the 60's and could tell you endless sports history stories. Concessions are readily available. Plus - beer mugs with pretzel rods in the handle? Score! I loved the beer-only concession area with a very respectable number of taps. A Yuengling is like $9.50, but considering stadium markup and how much you'd probably pay at any local bar outside the arena to NOT get that awesome pretzel rod, I'm not complaining.

And though my beloved Butler Bulldogs laid an egg against Georgetown that night, it's definitely planted the seed for many return trips to the world's most famous arena.

The CTA gets a bad rap, methinks.

For those of you weighing the benefits of taking mass transit vs. driving, consider this.
 -  You get where you want to go probably a little slower - unless you're on the train when it's snowing. Snow ain't no match for steel on steel. Traffic on the roads = standstill.
 -  So you've gotten there 10 minutes later than your driving counterparts, but guess what? You hop off the train or bus and you're there. Hey man, have fun driving around looking for a parking space for your car for 20 minutes before having to pay for parking. I'm already on my second beer and I just gave away your seat.
 -  Oh, you can't drink because you've gotta drive home? Ha! Night owl buses and trains rule. And late night, they're hilarious. But sometimes sketchy. Which is sometimes hilarious.
 -  Yeah, sometimes the tracks get re-routed and you've gotta re-plan for stuff. Good thing you've got that invincible car that NEVER goes on the blink and needs to be repaired which NEVER costs you hundreds of extra dollars.

Look, I've ridden public transit in many American cities, and Chicago has it good. Is it going to be as convenient as the NYC subways? Not quite. But in terms of ease of use and cleanliness, the CTA is pretty darn good. As far as trains (or buses) being dirty, I'm not sure what lines you're riding (I'm a regular on Brown-Red-Orange-Blue, in that order), but they're not bad. Gross things happen. You live in a city. It'll be okay, just watch what you sit in.

I'm car-free for the first time in my adult life, and I love it.

Did you know that if you buy a draught beer in one of the restaurants, you can wander around with it in the terminal?

That's right. You can thank me later.

All in all, Midway is a solid airport. My only beef is that the Orange Line stops running late at night, so if you've got a late flight, be prepared to take an expensive cab. But during the day, nice and easy to get to. Security lines are not bad and the whole place is pretty easy to navigate. I love having a choice in airports!