Tonight I managed to overcome inertia and motivate myself to check out the local brewpub, High Noon Saloon. This town looks pretty sleepy when you drive through it, so I was expecting another one of those brewpubs where you get crappy food, and a really chatty bartender who wants to talk beer with you, because you’re the only one in the place on a Wednesday night. To my delighted surprise, High Noon Saloon had very much the opposite problem. They had a line out the door for seating in the non-smoking section. It’s often much better to eat alone at the bar anyway, so I headed that direction and staked out a good seat.
The patrons on my left clued me in that it was half-price burger night when I asked them what was good, and then somehow we discovered we’d both moved to our current homes from the UK, so when I lamented the lack of good pubs in my area, they told me of a nearby town, Westin, containing a four-story underground Irish pub with live music on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. Phew! Maybe I’ll have to change my return flight to saturday morning so I can check it out.
Meanwhile, the bartender practically insisted on bringing me tasters of five of their eight beers so we could decide which would be best for me. I tasted, in order, a vanilla porter that was too sweet for me but I bet really appeals to some, a stout that was decent but didn’t grab my attention, Rough Rider Pale Ale, Annie Oakley Amber Ale, and Stumblin’ Abbot Belgian Tripel. Now THIS is a business trip! I had a Rough Rider Pale Ale with my Baja spicy burger, and for dessert couldn’t pass up their Tripel. I highly recommend this place if you happen to pass within a reasonable driving distance of Leavenworth, KS.