Peoria Hofbrau has something that has always intrigued me: A World Beer Tour. And this is a tour that you can take without even leaving the bar. Here’s what happens, you get a World Beer Tour Ticket and you keep track of the different beers you drink on that, it gets validated by the bartender on duty. When you get fifty points you get a t-shirt. When you hit hit one hundred points on your ticket, you get your name on a gold plaque on the wall. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time and today we start the MBIP World Beer Tour! There’s no time limit on completing this tour, so I figure we’ll go every other week until we’re done. So let’s be on our way and see how far we get in this inaugural week of our World Beer Tour!
Here we are at Peoria Hofbrau, one of Peoria's finest beer emporiums. Not to mention the home of great German food.
I've come after the lunch rush hour and it's nice and quiet in here, let's grab a seat at the bar and get ready to begin the World Beer Tour!
Here's our tour guide, Andy, one of the owners of Peoria Hofbrau and the daytime bartender and host. Andy told me that a lot of people start the tour, but many never finish it. Well, I'm in it for the long haul! We will finish this thing, it might take a while, but hey, that'll be part of the fun!
My friend Ash is joining us for this first week of the tour. Ash is a writer, seamstress, costume maker and artist. Ash has secretly dated Willie Nelson for over 40 years, which is really something considering she's still in her 30's!
The first beer has been ordered and marked off on my official touring ticket.
And here's that first beer, Bell's Special Double Cream Stout. We have officially started our World Beer Tour!
You get two stamps for each of these beers, my plan is to stick to this list today to get a decent start on the tour.
Vanessa pours beer number two of today's tour, it's a draft beer called a Tommy Knocker. Cheers!
Speaking of draft beers, they have quite a selection of beers on tap here. I thought I'd showcase a few of them at a time throughout this tour. Here's four of them, more to come in following weeks.
Here's a shot of one section of the back of the bar. There's Spuds MacKenzie's German cousin back there, Hans MacKenzie. Rinde, Rinde!
This tour has to include some of Peoria Hofbrau's great German cuisine, so we got an order of the beer cheese and crackers along with Hofbrau's great homemade German hot mustard. This is some good fuel for this tour! We'll be sampling a lot of items off of the menu in this tour.
Pete Berres from Born Paint was having lunch nearby and stopped by to say hi. Great to see him, we need to stop by Born Paint for a return visit one of these days. It's been a while!
Time for beer number three, a brew called, Hopalicious.
Okay, the cheese and crackers were just an appetizer, now for the main course of the day, the Hofbrau Nachos. I've never had the nachos here, so I was anxious to try them out.
Great nachos, but check out the hot sauce, Frank's, there's no escape from that stuff!
I got a Milk Stout Nitro to wash the nachos down and it packed quite a punch!
These guys are all World Beer Touring veterans and have multiple tours under their belts. But check out the guy second from the left...
This is Bob Whitaker and there's a reason he's pointing at this section of the World Beer Tour wall...
It's because he owns this section, all the gold plaques belong to him! He's done the World Beer Tour here an unbelievable 116 times! And I thought I was a big shot for going to 365 Bars in 365 days! Well, this guy is my new idol! And notice the lines underneath his name, they're all lyrics from Grateful Dead songs.
As you can see, Bob is a dedicated Grateful Dead fan and wears his appreciation of the band not on his sleeve, but on his arm!
Here Bob points to his first gold plaque which he got back in 1986. I'm still trying to wrap my mind of the fact that he's done the World Beer Tour 116 times! And he's on a new tour now, he told me he never stops touring.
This Wall Of Fame plaque is well deserved, he certainly has earned it!
In addition ot being a world class beer drinker, Bob's also a painter and here's one of his paintings he showed me on his phone. No surprise that it's inspired by The Grateful Dead. I'm sure we'll see more of Bob as this tour continues in the week's to come.
Okay, Ash has hit the road and Andy's pretty sister Henrietta has taken over the bar for the evening and is serving me up a Distorter beer.
I love wandering around the Hofbrau and looking at all of the mugs and knick-knacks on display in here.
Back in the kitchen they're getting ready for the dinner crowd.
One thing I love about this place is that it's always dark in here, a classic, "Al" bar if ever there was one!
I'm really enjoying these beers, here's my ticket so far, I've got quite a ways to go.
I think Good Juju is a perfect name to end this first week of the MBIP World Beer Tour at Peoria Hofbrau. Thanks to Ash for stopping by and to everyone at Peoria Hofbrau for a great time and wonderful hospitality!
This is my World Beer Touring book.
The stats from the first week are listed below. We'll see you all tomorrow...and hey, let's be careful out there!
World Beer Tour Stats—Week One
Number of beers drank: Seven.
Names of beers: Bell’s Double Cream Stout, Tommy Knocker, Hopilicious, Milk Stout Nitro, Distorter, Shlafly and Good Juju.
Number of points for this week: 14
Total number of points for The World Beer Tour: 14
Hofbrau House
2210 NE Jefferson Street
Peoria
309-686-9739
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Related Blog: A Guy Walks Into 365 Bars.
Touring, touring, is never boring!
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