A Slice of Downtown Atlanta

We recently visited Susan’s brother and his girlfriend who moved into a place in Atlantic Station in downtown Atlanta.  We were all fully vaccinated, wore masks everywhere, and only drank outside.  We also avoided any crowded spots.  Unfortunately, that included Fire Maker, since they were having a 1-year anniversary party.  Unfortunate because it’s Susan’s brother’s favorite of the places we could visit.  We also avoided Scofflaw Brewing because that place was SWARMING with people, of whom, statistically speaking, 70%  weren’t vaccinated.

Instead, we started at Bold Monk Brewing.  This is really more of a restaurant than a brewpub.  And it was a bit of a high-end one at that.  Nonetheless, they had a decent range of beer and two different draft lists- downstairs and upstairs.  They have a nice outdoor space upstairs and we were able to sit far away from everyone and enjoy a couple of quite nice Belgian and German beers.  A little more upscale than we usually like, and a little crowded on a Saturday afternoon, but once the pandemic is over, the upstairs looks like a fine place to have a civilized drink.

We then hit the pavement to walk to Second Self Brewing.  We tried cutting through The Works, but there’s not a path that we could find, so we went the long way, along a somewhat busy road.  Fortunately, when we arrived, there was plenty of outdoor seating spaced such that we could sit well away from the few people who were there.  It seemed like a cool, civilized spot.  We settled in and tried nearly all their beer, which was quite good.  The servers were very friendly, even once a bunch of cosplayers showed up and crowded the space.  Off to our last stop, a cidery!

Urban Tree Cidery is in what looks like an office building.  Parking was plentiful, and there was a door guy to check our ID.  Very weird, that.  There were some outdoor tables in back and we tried several tasting flights, all of which were amazing.  But, can you believe it, they close at 6:30pm on Saturday.  It seems like a serious strategic error, as I imagine people would be very happy to sit and have ciders into the evening.  It struck me as more of a production facility than a tap room, though, so maybe they don’t see the tap room as generating the bulk of their revenue.  We filled all our growlers and got dozens of cans.  Strong recommend.

We finished up at their new apartment and got takeaway to sit on the rooftop space where we were the only people to have dinner as the sun set over the city.  It was quite a pleasant little day trip, and of course there are many breweries we did not hit.  We’ll just have to go back!