Our first stop was C.H. Evans which has some good reviews and a decent beer list.

Since I’m writing this while waiting for the check, here’s the synopsis:

The beers are OK, with one or two being good depending on your taste. Nothing great but worth trying if you’re in the area.

We got their “signature” burger and ordered it cook medium… This is what we got:

Ya… We ate it, it was warm in the middle and we were starving, but I’m not too impressed with a place that gets it that wrong on a simple burger!

Overall, stop by for some beers if you’re nearby but maybe skip the burger.

Last Friday we had the “Drafternoon” which was probably the greatest draft I’ve ever been too – it started out with beers and grilling, and ended with everyone picking a bottle out of a cooler while blindfolded. The drink you pulled out decided what team you were on:

• Seagram’s Wine Coolers – Team 1%
• Budweiser – Team Redneck
• Smirnoff Ice – Team Jersey Shore
• Strongbow – Team Damn Dirty Brits

The draft was complete with team appropriate music and outfits – it was awesome! Not only was it awesome, but I think it really helped get people excited for the 4th of July and the coming events. I ended up on Team Redneck

As it happens we ended up with 20 people actively participating, enough for 4 teams of 5, anyone that shows up the day of will get randomly assigned to a team. In the meantime we’ve been working more on the pool and have got it to the point where we are ready to let people swim in it. After a few more chemical treatments and a lot more vacuuming we pulled the last of the maple seeds/leaves (those helicopter leaves that spin around when they fall) out of the pool. Those things have been a huge pain in the ass to get out of the pool – more than 3 of them and they start to clog the filter – and there were hundreds in there!

Once we get things set up we should have the backyard fully ready for the Beerlympics, the pool ready to go…and…drumroll…a new grill! We sold our old washer and dryer last night after a few missed attempts over the past couple of weeks. We’re taking that money and getting a propane grill today. I got rid of my last one when I moved out of Seattle to go to grad school in 2010 – 2 long years later I’m getting a new one!

I’m going to be taking a ton of pictures tomorrow and plan on posting them up here after the event – we’re starting at 3pm and probably going to go until late at night…the 5th might not be quite as fun as the 4th!

Update: 7.6.2012

Wow – that was a kick ass 4th of July! I think the short version can be summarized by this video:

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7tgX_Uaqs[/youtube]

Ok, things didn’t get that out of control, but we did have jousting! We ended up getting started around 3:45 with people showing up from around 1:30 until 4 or 5. We kicked off the Beerlympics with a team introduction, complete with music, as well as a good way to have pictures taken of each team before the mayhem began.

The complete list of planned events was:

• Opening Ceremony
• The Pentathlon (Cross-country skiing, Cup Carry, Basebeer, Beer-back Mountain, and Shooting)
• Cornhole
• Beer Ball
• Discus
• The Beer-Legged Race
• Fishing
• Chuggernaut
• Fencing
• Flip Cup
• Closing Ceremony

We did some moving around of events due to prep time (specifically the Pentathlon – that required some serious work as the cross country skiing was a group event with boards and rope…). The events got off to a great start – a side “competition” was each team continueing to drink their team beer to add to their wizard staff that would be used for the fencing/jousting at the end; the upside of this was that the games weren’t really need to get everyone inebriated, working on the staff took care of that! In all honesty, the games were planned really well. There was a total of around 17 beers required per team for the games, and with 5 people on each team that worked out to just over 3 beers each.

When the Pentathlon did come around we experienced our only real problem. The event got off to a great start, but one of the visiting team members tweaked their knee during the beer-back mountain portion (one person carrying another on their back while running across the yard – the person getting the ride has to chug a beer while being carried) and went down. He ended up having to go in and have his knee looked at by a doctor – it turned out to be a torn LCL. At the time we weren’t sure how bad it was, we’re happy that nothing “worse” happened as a result of falling.

As the games went on and the memories became a little hazier we even got some last minute team additions! People that hadn’t signed up to be on a team decided to also get in on the action and help us out.

By far one of the funniest events was the fencing/jousting. Some of the wizard staffs were in the 35+ beer can length. We ended up taping them to the competitor’s arms and basically having a no rules, crowd determines the winner, type of event. It was great! One of the event organizers, dressed up like Snooki, ended up loosing in the final round as he fell down while attempting to swing his wizard staff at the Damned Dirty Brit crusader – good times!

We never did really “finish” the games – by the time we finished up with flip cup everyone was really hungry and happy to jump in the pool as well. With the games out of the way we concentrated on finding food to put on the grill and going to work on the remaining beer. All in all, it was a great night – but not one we will be reliving anytime soon. Time to give the livers a well deserved break while we really start training for the Ultra Ragnar and Green Mountain marathon in September / October.

Sadly there were two additional casualties – both of our phones! At separate points throughout the night we both got tossed into the pool with our phones. It will be interesting to see how we can work this out with Sprint – Jeney just got her Samsung Galaxy S3 a couple weeks ago and my Galaxy S2 isn’t exactly old either…going to keep the fingers crossed that this one work out ok. We are trying to try them out for a few days but are not really holding out much hope!

Update 7.7.2012:

After 2 days in a bag of dry rice Jeney found some dessicant at her lab that she thought would work better than the rice. She brought it home and we put our phones in. 24 hours later I have a working phone! I can hardly believe that it is still working – I was probably in the pool for at least a few minutes before I realized the phone was in my pocket! I believe the dessicant is called Drierite. If you ever get your phone completely soaked I recommend finding some of this stuff, or something like it to help dry your phone out after you disassemble it. We honestly got pretty lucky, we both had tried plugging our phones in and turning them on, which is a big no-no with wet phones. Jeney’s is still drying out – after trying to turn it on this morning it began to “boot” and then black screened. We’re holding out hope that another day of drying will see it working again!

Update: 7.17.2012

R.I.P. Jeney’s phone. It was a good little Samsung Galaxy S3. It even showed signs of life from time to time. Unfortunately it never really made it back and the choice was made to get a replacement. On the upside, we only had to pay a “small” ($150) replacement fee after making sure there was insurance on the phone.

I showed up around 5:30pm on a Wednesday and went right in; the place was fairly empty, which was actually too bad. The layout of the place is meant to accommodate large numbers of people: lots of open space, large bar length, seating outside. I got the feeling that it would have been more fun if it was actually a little bit crowded, which I have a hard time believing I’m saying – I generally go for the more relaxed atmosphere. I think that it could have used a little bit of background noise to help set the mood. Anyways, on to more important issues like beer!

Beer selection – outstanding!

Number of taps – pretty good! I estimate about 30 beers on tap.

Bottle selection – Really good! I didn’t count, but the menu was about 4 pages front and back…so probably at least 125

Availability of said beers? Not too shabby, I ended up drinking a local IPA and then moving on to the Duchesse De Bourgogne which they had in bottles. Sadly they showcased a bottle of Pliny over the bar but did not have any on hand.

What I like about the Tap and Mallet

• Huge selection of beer
• Fast service at the time I was there
• Nice place, funky feel to it

What I didn’t like so much about the Tap and Mallet

• Seemed a little empty, even for a weeknight – is there somewhere better nearby?
• Bartenders seemed busy interfacing with themselves and their friends, service didn’t suffer, but it was a bit odd
• A bit of a hipster feel to it – but hey, that’s just my take!

 
I would definately go back to the Tap and Mallet when I’m back in Rochester. I think it would be a great place to go hang out with a few people that also want to have some exceptional beers. They talk up their pub fare on the website, I didn’t have a chance to try it but would certinaly give it a shot the next time around.

Thanks for the good beers Tap and Mallet!