Got plans for this Saturday? Read this first...

Arizona has some pretty outstanding breweries producing a ton of spectacular beers.  But who has the time to drive all around the massive state to visit and taste them all?  

Man, if only you could go somewhere and try them all at once. That would be pretty amazing, eh?

Thanks to World of Beer in Tempe, you can.  So find a babysitter, call all your beer-loving friends (skip the ones that only like Bud Light), get a cab (please) and head over on August 10th, 2013 for The Arizona Great Fifty-Eight!   

The Arizona Great Fifty-Eight will feature, you guessed it, 58 amazing Arizona craft beers.  All on tap. ALL. AT. ONCE.  

The hardest part will be deciding which ones to try.

Here's the current draft list (updated 8/1/2013):

Bad Water Saison

Borderlands Hibiscus Saison

Borderlands Jasmin Sour

Cartel Coffee Brown

College Street Big Blue Van

College Street Jesse's Malt Liquor

Desert Eagle Dunkelweizen

Desert Eagle Imperial Adler IPA

Dragoon Batch 100 Black IPA

Dragoon Tequila Barrel Aged Saison Blue

Dragoon The Dos

Dragoon Unihoper Pale Ale

Fate American Pale

Fate Oatmeal Double IPA

Four Peaks Barrel Aged Kilt Lifter

Four Peaks Hop Knot

Four Peaks Oatmeal Stout

Four Peaks Short Hop

Four Peaks Sirius Black

Grand Canyon Vienna Lager

Lumberyard Imperial Red Ale

Lumberyard Prince George Pale Ale

Mother Road Gold Road

Mother Road Lost Highway

Mudshark Bourbon Barrel Stout

Mudshark Dessert Wood Barrel Aged IPA

Mudshark Gone Bananas Wheat

Mudshark Marshmallow Stout

Mudshark Peach Lunacy

Nimbus Old Monkey Shine

Oak Creek Nut Brown on Steroids

Papago Brewing Orange Blossom

Phoenix Ale Bière De Garde

Phoenix Ale Homefront IPA

Prescott Liquid Amber

Prescott Ponderosa IPA

SanTan Beer of The World

SanTan Gordo Stout

SanTan Hibiscus Pale AleSanTan Moon Juice

SanTan Negro Nitro

Sleepydog Leg Humper

Sleepydog Red Rover

Sonoran Inebriator Cask (yep - a CASK!)

Sonoran White Chocolate

SunUp Galactic Pale Ale

That Strawberry Blonde

That West Coast IPA

Plus additional beers from O.H.S.O and Ten-Fifty-Five!!

Day 2: Dog haiku

Laying on the ground,
my head upon Master's toes...

keep wiggling please.

 Happy National Wiggle Your Toes Day

Day 1 of the National Something Day challenge

I love the internet.  Thanks to the vast and never-ending wealth of information accessible with only a few clicks, today I learned that August is National Catfish Month, National Golf Month, National Eye Exam Month, National Water Quality Month, Romance Awareness Month, Peach Month, and Foot Health Month.

I also learned that every day in every single month is dedicated to something. That's 365 (or sometimes 366) days with awesomely random reasons to celebrate -- other than being alive, but I digress.

Upon learning all of this, I decided to challenge myself (and Mr. Suburban Suds, formerly known as The Husband).  For the next 30 days, my beertography goal is to make each one of these silly days somehow apply to our choice of beer or come alive through our beertography.

So without further delay, I wish you a happy National Mustard Day.

Honker's Ale (4.3% ABV)
Goose Island Beer Company
Chicago, Illinois

Edmond Fallot mustard from the La Moutarderie Fallot, a family-owned company since 1840. Mr. Suburban Suds and I purchased this on a rainy day after a fabulous 6-hour wine tour in Dijon, France.  Damn, now that I'm eating it again, I remembered that this is really really good mustard.

Neighborly beers

Got three carseats?  Fill three growlers.

Fully embracing the desert heat and the asphalt island we live in, we meet our neighbors in our blazing hot concrete driveway on Friday afternoons with beer, despite having a giant hole full of 17,000 gallons of nice cool chlorinated water in our backyard and another giant hole full of water in their backyard as well.

We take turn filling three growlers with the filler's beer of choice (usually an IPA, a light beer and a random beer) of sweet nectar and put them in a bucket on ice.  We dig out some plastic solo cups of assorted colors, usually leftover from one of the kids' birthday parties, and we are set.

Out come the camping chairs, folding tables and whatever assorted snacks we happen to have in the pantry.

Someone puts our newest neighbors, Bill and Ted, the two foot tall fluorescent yellow plastic people holding red caution flags, out in the street on both ends of the block to warn any crazy drivers that we are playing and having fun in the area.  And by we, this time I don't just mean the kids.

Bill.  Or maybe Ted. 
They're hard to tell apart.

In the meantime, someone cracks into the beer(s)

While other neighbors are driving home from work and looking at us strangely, the kids are in the garage dragging out the soccer balls, scooters, sidewalk chalk, bikes, jars of bubbles, the dog and anything else they can find that is even remotely entertaining.

At some point either the pizza man arrives or someone drives to the corner to pickup an armful of pizzas and sometimes some wings.  The kids rush over to the cardboard boxes and unintentionally spit all over the pizza while declaring loudly which piece they want to eat.  They take their prized slice and sit on the ground, usually in some sort of a circle, or in the grass and eat their dinner with dirty hands and giant smiles on their faces. It is quiet.  The dog slinks around looking for unattended plates or dropped slices.  When they are done, they wipe their greasy fingers on the grass or on their clothes.  The grown-ups eat what is left and life is good.

West Coast IPA (7.3% ABV)
Green Flash Brewing Co.
San Diego, California

As the night progresses, creative and protective dads equip the kids scooters and bikes with insanely bright mountain bike lights.  Moms begin to hand out glow sticks despite the inevitable squabble that breaks out when the wrong kid gets the wrong color glow stick ("Noooooooo mom, I said I wanted the yellow one!!!!!!").

A few other neighbors walk by with their dogs or to get their mail.  Sometimes they stop and chat or stop to have a beer and sometimes they pretend they don't see us.

The party continues.

As the night progresses, the laughter gets louder and the jokes get funnier.  The little kids disappear and are replaced with baby monitors.  The dog goes into stealth mode and begins to sneak in and steal any unattended beers.

Gus waited until it was dark to get in stealth-mode and steal a RoadZoda.

And sometimes, in the middle of the night after a driveway Friday ... the beer fairy comes and leaves beers by your front door.  Man, I love our neighbors.  I love our neighborhood.  And I love when life and things are simple, like they are on Driveway Fridays.

Sixty cent special

I try to support local businesses so I am not normally a Safeway shopper, but one day after picking my kid up from school I decided to stop at the Safeway on the way home.  I picked up a sixer of the Mudshark Up River Light because it was one of the few local beers they had in cans (side note: wish more of the local breweries would start canning their delicious brews so that I can pack them in my backpack when doing outdoor things like hiking or biking and also drink them in the pool).

I'm also not normally one to look over my grocery store receipt either in the store or at home.  Sometimes it makes it home and sometimes it doesn't.  But today, for some reason, I happened to glance at it when I got home and was unpacking the groceries.  The first thing I noticed was the Mudshark line item.  Turns out the sixer was on sale ... for a whopping $3.49.

THREE DOLLARS AND FORTY NINE CENTS!!  

That's cheaper than the gallon of gas I just purchased! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?

And no, it was not a mistake.  It was on sale, twice.  Dammit!!!  Had I known what a steal this sizer was, I would've picked up a few more for the pool.  Bummer.  Maybe now I'll start looking at my receipt (at least at the beer line items) before I leave the store so I can run back and load up on any crazy booze bargains.

UpRiver Light (4.2% ABV)
Mudshark Brewing Company
Lake Havasu, Arizona

According to Mudshark, UpRiver Light is "a light American lager; this is our lightest beer with the lowest carbohydrates. This lightly golden colored beer is made for easy drinking with a delicate smooth finish. This beer pairs nicely with any meal."  According to me, it is a crisp and thin light beer.  There really isn't much to this beer, but that doesn't mean that it is bad.  It is a well executed LIGHT LAGER.  To me, it is the perfect 100+ degree day beer to drink in mass quantities in your pool or to drink in on a brisk evening while sitting around the campfire with a bag of Cheetos.

"Upriver Light is not your downstream beer"; "Pack It In ... Pack It Out".

Summer melonbeer

It doesn't take any slide toward room temp to taste the watermelon in the Strange Brewing Company's Watermelon Hefe. The initial sniff of the 400+ pounds of organic watermelons used in this beer is subtle, yet unmistakably that sweet and musky summer watermelon smell.  Thankfully the taste follows the smell, flip-flopping with the wheat through the whole drink to stay light, unsweet, and just melon enough. The finish and slight aftertaste are lovely and dissipate just as they should. It would be ideal on a hot hot hot day, although I could drink gallons of the stuff even on the rare rainy day in Denver. 

The Watermelon Hefe is Strange's most popular seasonal brew (5.9% ABV and 20 IBUs) and as one of the meisters here put it: "The name practically sells it." The first time, maybe, but not the 3rd, 15th, or 28th. This, along with GoodJuju from Left Hand Brewing Company and any cold Czech Pilsner (sorry, New World), has just become my go-to summer beer. 

Brewery art.  Strange Brewing Company --- 1330 Zuni, Unit M, Denver, Colorado 80204

The brewery, which opened in May 2010 after the two owners lost their jobs, hides in an industrial strip mall under the highway, next to a shop selling neon signs, and just across the train tracks from a restaurant supply store. The requisite food trucks replace any need for a food kitchen (today it is crepes) and the only thing missing is outdoor seating. 

Interestingly, the brewery is currently being sued by Strange Brew Beer and Winemaking Supplies in Marlboro, Mass. for allegations of trademark infringement. (Even though if you Google "Strange Brew" you also find  a tavern in Manchester, New Hampshire, and a coffee shop in Austin using the phrase in their names.) As a result, Strange Brewing (in Denver, Colorado) appears on Facebook as "That Brewery on Zuni."  Bottom-Side Up Brewing Co in Vernon, Conn., and 21st Amendment in San Fran also appear to do watermelon hefeweizens. You don't see THEM suing, do you?

Rating 4.8 out of 5.