Today's Word of the Day: Beer

You may recall that Joe and I like beer.  Okay, we really like beer.  You know, you're right, we fucking love beer.  And Vancouver - like a huge swath of the pacific northwest - is a great place for beer.  There's a crazy number of breweries, brewpubs, gastropubs, tap houses, and restaurants serving infinite pints of deliciousness.  So we hit all of them today.  Alright, that's a lie, but not by much.  I had 20 beers today...17 of them I had never had before.  And I did it without really trying.

We picked up our friends Mike and Martha and headed to Granville Island.  It's really a peninsula and used to be the industrial section of the city.  But some hoser thought it'd be cool to convert the dilapidated manufacturing buildings into theaters, restaurants, shops, galleries, and breweries.  Boy, if I had a nickel...

We hopped the ferry and took the three-minute ride across False Creek.  The Aquabus dropped us off at the Public Market (a distant cousin of the Seattle public market).

Ready to party!  (I swear to god, I have the smallest head.)

We came out of the market to the sound of the pipes.  He was pretty darn good!

Since we were right on the water and basically in the middle of a giant smorgasbord, there were hundreds of seagulls, pigeons, and other birds.  You know how much I love birds (shiver).  And these seagulls are as big as cocker spaniels.  (Mine. Mine. Mine.)

Kinda cloudy today, but warm and totally comfortable.

We strolled over to Granville Island Brewing to see what they had to offer and found a lot of decent beers!  Of course we had to try them all and have some lunch.  Yum!

Shopping on the island is great!  There are a ton of art galleries and kitschy shops, but most of the stores are artisan's work and craft studios - glass works, beads, pottery, jewelry, textiles.  There's so much to see.

We took the ferry back and grabbed a cab up to Gastown.  Gastown (named for Gassy Jack Deighton) is a section of downtown Vancouver packed with stores, bars and restaurants, and breweries.  The buildings are vintage and lovingly restored, and the streets are festooned with flower baskets.  It really is lovely.  

We hit Steamworks Brewery, and I just had to have some chocolate and peanut butter ice cream to go with my smokey milk chocolate stout.  No extra spoons!

We continued down Water Street and popped into the Lamplighter.  What a great selection of beer!

And some pretty darn good nachos, too!

We capped off the evening with a trip to the Alibi Room.  Brewdogs listed the Alibi Room as one of their top five bars in Vancouver...and for good reason.  The beer selection is fantastic, and the food is spectacular!  Example: We had a couple of IPAs and buttermilk fried oysters with spicy aioli and pickled jalapeno cucumbers.  Yeah.  You read that right.  We were happy.

So Mike and Martha are heading back to Salem in the morning, and I'm sleeping in...dreaming of the adventures we'll have tomorrow.  I'm sure I can come up with something!