Never attempt to keep up with them
That Saturday was supposed to be a light day. We were going to do a hop on hop off tour like the good little tourists we are. Yeah, but that went to downhill thanks to Thursday when we agreed to catch up with our newly found Australian friends at a random brewery in Sydney somewhere.
The day started off as usual, poached eggs at the Hyatt, walk to Circular Quay, snap picture of Opera House. We boarded a ferry over towards Darling Harbour, there is a long running joke with my father, and every time I travel somewhere I buy him a plain white Hard Rock shirt. He has a closet full of them, he tells me every time “don’t buy me one I’ve got enough, but if you do, please don’t get me a white one”. I ignore him every time, that’s just how I am; I believe he secretly likes them. There is a HRC over there and our plan was to buy a shirt and head over to the brewery, but first we’d take a pit stop at a YEERO shop, as again, oddly no good Greek food in Sao Paulo. I think I should open up an Indian/Greek restaurant here. I digress. Here are some pictures of our boat ride.
Or picture, I haven’t uploaded the pictures from my SLR yet. We got our shirt, and then headed to The Yeeros shop in Marrickville. We enter and the smell is glorious boarding on magical, heaps of meat and FRIES (chips) on a grill. Everything looks like it’s covered in grease, which IMO is a sign of quality. Not sure what to do we kind of stood around and someone looked at us and we blurted out we’ll take a YEERO (I know it’s Gryo), we’ll take large chips. Ok that will be who remembers AUD. Handed over our credit card and were told cash only. Crap, we haven’t used cash in days; we asked where the nearest ATM was. We were told it was down the road at the Woolworths. We ventured down there and attempted to us our Brazilian debit card to get out AUD, hahahahahahhahahahahaha no go. I wasn’t carrying my US debit card, and my wife tried hers, it also didn’t work. Crap. We just gave up. I was pissed as I really want a gyro, I still actually want one.
After giving up we walked to the brewery we agreed to meet at called Blackfont Brewhouse. It was literally a house with a brewery in the basement of this house. Walking there from the train station was slightly sketchy and we were wondering if we were talking towards our death and after not getting my gyro, I felt like dying.
Waking -
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bl...2!4d151.159994
It was fine looking back on it, but it was really weird walking there. We made it, alive I may add and this place was very cool. You would never know this place existed where it does unless you read about it from here or met someone that knew about it. They had about 17 beers on tap, which is odd given how small the place is. I was unsure what I wanted to order and thankfully they do beer flights, 4, 5oz servings. I told the owners I promise to try ALL THE BEERS, I made good on my promise.
First flight up:
An interesting little tidbit of this brewery is they have sour beers, something that again is becoming more and more popular as more people try them. They had two I believe on tap, but they could add different flavorings in them to change them slightly.
Our friend showed up, he brought two new people an Australian woman co-worker and her British husband. We started chatting and drinking, some more drinking, and finally some more drinking. Eventually I went through all the breweries beer and our friends proclaimed they were hungry and there was another brewery nearby with food. I did not know of this plan, I thought we were only going to this brewery; hence why I just consumed 17 beers (even though they were samples)…time to put on the big boy pants and continue.
Our next stop was Batch Brewing and since we haven’t really eaten that much I was pleased to see they had grilled meats that were being applied to bread in front. The conversation continued on, more beers were consumed and sandwiches were eaten.
I liked their logo and well, their beer too:
Some more of the same, beer, conversations, we were told that they had planned on going to Staves, the brewery we met our ex-pat friend at on Thursday. Oh good, I wasn’t aware of this either and hadn’t planned on that. I’ve been drinking for 4 hours now.
I believe we uber’d over to the brewery and we weren’t sure if they were going to meet us there or blow us off. I guess it didn’t matter, but we were having a good time. We made it over to the brewery and our new friends were right behind us. This time at the brewery we were recognized from Thursday and welcomed with open arms and more PINTS of cold, delicious beer. The owner introduced himself as we just missed him on Thursday. Everyone was chatting, drinking pints, typical and a jolly time. After a few pints our ex-pat friend said that he had a date and had to leave, but the odd thing about Australians, they don’t let you stop drinking and was conned into staying with more beer. Two pints later he really did have to go, we exchanged business cards and he wished us a great rest of our trip. We stayed for a little bit chatting with the other couple before it was time for dinner.
It was around 9pm when we arrived at dinner at 10WilliamSt -
http://10williamst.com.au/menu/ that I saw on a TV show and knew that I needed to try it. It’s a very strange looking menu with very funky natural wines. We popped in and asked how long the wait was, we were told 90 minutes. Ouch, ok, well I know of a place to get a drink, because you know, that’s what we need right now. We walked up the road to a place called The Wine Library, again more funky natural wines. We walked in and ordered, my wife was waving the white flag and couldn’t possibly drink any longer, me, eh I kept truckin’ on. I grabbed a glass of something I don’t remember. It was good and as soon as we sat down I got a text message saying our table was ready. Did 90 minutes just fly by? Downed the wine and walked back to dinner.
We arrived and got seated upstairs, I knew I wanted and bottle of something natural and pink and the pretzel, which was amazing and if you’re reading this and are from Sydney and or planning on visiting Sydney, eat this pretzel. Also eat the tagliatelle, it was divine, I may have been intoxicated, but I know when food is good and this, this was good.
The Wine Library:
Upstairs at 10WilliamSt:
No picture of the pretzel because that was drunk eaten, our pasta
For some reason, I had this bottle when I left:
We made it back to the hotel in one piece, somehow. Good thing we drank literally all day, countless beers and a bottle of wine. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I know it’s a very long walkabout along the coast.