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Bloomington Pub Crawl with Mr. Larry Bell "You can jump in line here, but you have to drink Bell's when you get inside," Larry Bell quipped to the two cute young girls waiting outside the Bluebird nightclub to see The Wailers. "Oh we LOVE Bell's. It's our favorite." "Oh really" Larry says, producing his cool birch-wood business card, "well I'm Mr. Bell." "NO WAY! Oh my god! Gigglegigglegiggle hehehehehe, that's so cool!" As Larry comes back my way I tell him it must be nice to be the king and he holds up his ring finger indicating a wedding band, "I'm promoting my beer." Yeah. Sure you are. And thusly our Bloomington pub crawl went. Bell's beers are thankfully well respected in this town, and therefore so is Bell's president. We were whisked from bar to bar with intense energy by Emily Gossett, World Class Beverage's representative in Bloomington. She wanted Larry to get around to all the big Bell's accounts in town, and get around he did. The group started off with dinner at Malibu Grill on Walnut St. Check out the picture of the group below. If you stop in, check out the wall of fame, you'll find the pic there too! From The Malibu Grill it was a quick walk across the square to the Crazy Horse Saloon where Mark Mahon got a chance to talk with Larry about his plans for the year: a Strong Belgian Dark Ale called Hell Hath no Fury is due out this fall in bottles (can't wait to get my grubby little hands on that one) and check this out, Oberon in 5L mini-kegs! Also, for those of you who look for dates on their bottles (and clearly everybody should), Larry reports that once the new web site is up you will be able to go online and punch in the batch number and get a bottled on date. Also, this year's Oberon was somewhere in the neighborhood of batch 6700 so Batch 7000 will most likely hit the streets in late fall. Bell's makes a commemorative strong ale every 1000 batches, definitely something to look forward to. Then there is the Rocky Mountain ...ah, you'll just have to wait and see for yourself...if it gets past the health inspectors! From there the group went just across the alley way to the Alley Pub, one of Bloomington's newest bars. Nice selection of beers and peanut shells on the floor. From there it was down Kirkwood to The Jungle Room. This bar has the widest selection of Bell's brews in Bloomington, eight in all. Not too shabby and it isn't far behind in the competition for biggest Bell's outlet in town. The Bluebird and Yogi's are neck and neck for that status. Each sells around 1000 case equivalents every year. That's almost three cases a day of Bell's beer at each bar. Bloomington sure likes its Bell's. From The Jungle Room it was on to Yogi's and then to the Bluebird for the Wailer's show. It was wall to wall with people, the Wailers wailed, and the Oberon flowed quite freely. I drank more Oberon than I care to remember, a couple fabulous Kalamazoo stouts and that incredible Cherry Stout that turns out to 8% abv! I had no idea. What a tasty beer. Rich and robust like a strong stout, like an Imperial stout to be honest, but deftly balanced by a sharp sour cherry infusion. Deceptively light bodied and far too drinkable for an 8% stout. Enjoy with caution! |
