I'll toast to that!

Today, my all-time blog views eclipsed 20,000. I know that this is not a lot of views compared to big-time established bloggers, but I am still going to celebrate it anyways. Hopefully this number will one day look small to me too (like the celebratory blog post that I did for a whole 100 twitter followers, hahaha)!

This post's celebration takes us to Bier Station. Bier Station is a friendly little neighborhood tap house located in Waldo. It is part liquor store, part tap house, and part restaurant. Despite being a friendly spot, and "the greatest place ever" to some of the regulars, it can be a little intimidating to a first timer. When you walk into Bier station you see the beer cases off to the right, taps & scrolling beer list straight ahead, and a literal hole in the wall that the food comes out of to the left. Hopefully I can help to guide you a little bit so that your first trip to Bier Station is as enjoyable as mine was.

As far as the beer cases go, just like a liquor store, you can buy any of them to go. But the ones that have a red sticker on them, you can also enjoy in house. *DISCLAIMER: There are two prices on each red sticker beer, the "to-go" price and the "drink here" price.* You can give the beers a try and then take a couple more of them home, if you like them. If you want to start your night with a beer from the refrigerated section, simply walk over and grab the beer you want, then take it to the bar and they will put it on your tab.

If you wish to forgo the bottled beers and go straight to the draught beers, walk up to the bar (taking a possible detour to go see the screen that is displaying all of the beers on tap at that moment). *Quick note about the tap list screen: There are two pages of beers; if the beer you were not done looking at disappears, don't worry, it will come back around. The pages are flipped a whole page at a time (book style), not scrolled (movie credit style). Also from left to right: The beer's brewery & name, the type of beer that it is, alcohol content, size of beer glass that it is served it, the price of said beer glass, then the price of a 4oz sample of the beer are listed.* The beer list is great and you will definitely find something for everyone on tap (and in the fridges for that matter). The hop heads will be hoppy (bad pun intended) with the IPA selection and us Belgian lovers can sip slightly sour beers to our hearts' content. You will also place your order at this time and they will give you a funny greeting card to put on your table (as seen above) to identify you as the person that ordered said item.

The food menu is much more limited than the beer menu, but you could have guessed that you may run into that kind of a situation at a place named Bier Station. The few menu items that they do offer are very good. You can get cheese plates, cheese sandwiches, Farm to Market pretzels, or Brats that are hand crafted by James Beard Award winning chef, and owner of Affare (downtown), then stuffed inside a FTM pretzel bun (and we all know how good FTM bread is!). I went with the Fujisan brat, which is a Japanese inspired Pork brat, topped with a red cabbage slaw and wasabi mayo. The Fujisan was very good, but I felt out ordered after seeing my buddy's Saint Marcel. The Saint Marcel is a cranberry-turkey brat, topped with sliced green apple and melted brie, man it looked incredible! Each brat is supposed to come with a side of pretzel dipping sauce of your choice, however if you don't know that ahead of time and do not ask for a specific sauce, you may not get one (as they may assume that you do not want one). This happened to me until I was clued in by a friend that was with me, at which time they were more than happy to bring me one out. The cheese sauce is good, but the Dusseldorf Mustard is out of this world good! The house mustard sounds good as well, but I cannot vouch for it.

This is probably just the first of many celebrations that will take place at Bier Station.

"Eat My Sausage!"

This post is titled after what the Haus twitter account once told me. I took their advice and I advise you all to do the same!

Haus is a German style sausage and bier haus that serves wurst made locally (by The Local Pig), on bread that is also made locally (by Farm to Market). The interior of Haus is what I consider to be the perfect mix of modern and retro, just enough retro that the modern decor isn't over the top, and just enough modern decor that it doesn't feel like Zoo Bar (which I do enjoy, from time to time). They even have a stack of board games in the corner if you just want to sit at the bar and enjoy some bier.

There are so many delicious sounding options on the wurst menu at Haus, I had a very difficult time deciding which one to order. The duck-ginger-sage, lamb-cumin-oregano, and roasted eggplant-feta were all calling my name, but I went with the pork-tequila-serrano pepper sausage with homestyle sauerkraut, which is a more "rugged" alternative to that store bought junk that they label "Kraut", and sweet peppers. It was a fantastic choice, it had a little bit kick to it that was offset by the sweet peppers and the vinegar from the sauerkraut. My wife went with the smoked chicken and apple sausage (also with kraut and sweet peppers), which was a great milder, slightly sweeter option. All of the mustards are great on both wurst that we had.

As a side, we had the large haus cut fries with cucumber-yogurt and curry-sour cream dipping sauces. I had high hopes for the cucumber-yogurt sauce, reminiscent of a tzatziki sause, but it was the curry-sour cream sauce won my heart. 

We washed all of this down with two beirs. I went with the Aventinus Weizenstarkbier, a dark German wheat bier. My wife went with the Weihenstephaner Kristallweiss, a light German wheat bier. Both were great options, both had playful fruity notes. Haus also has a plethora of draft bier options for those who prefer a freshly poured glass of bier to bottles.

Haus is a great place to take a date or to meet friends for a bite to eat before a night on the trolley. It is certainly awesome and we will be back soon to try the rest of the sausage options.