Of all the trips I’ve taken or will take in my self-appointed role as a doughnut ethnographer, Detroit may not be the most touristy destination or have the most exotic-sounding treats, but I’d say visiting Hamtramck to explore the larger-than-life world of Polish pączki (“poonch-key”) had me drooling the most. For one, I love jelly doughnuts. For two, pączki are unlike typical jelly doughnuts and they can even be enjoyed spiked with a shot on what others call Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras but in the Upper Midwest everyone knows it as Pączki Day, which I got to write about for TheTakeout. Take that, other immigrant doughnut styles.
That was the most memorable thing random drunk kids–and by kids in this case I mean people who were over 21 but not by much–said to my wife and I as we made our way around the 2012 Great American Beer Festival with our 9-month-old baby boy strapped to one of our chest’s.
Answer: We do!
And our kid is a better young man for it!
Izzy Parker Yaeger, a.k.a. I.P.Yae, checking into his first brewery, Thirsty Bear in San Francisco, age: 5 weeks.
I cannot count how many articles and social media threads I’ve read, and chimed in on, about why you’re a terrible parent for bringing your minor to a brewery or establishment that serves alcohol. And I don’t doubt that some parents are truly irresponsible or inconsiderate by letting their booger factories interfere with servers carrying lots of glasses or climbing on expensive equipment not meant for climbing or what-have-you. (I def remember the first time I put him in a high chair and didn’t have to use my one free hand to hold my beer away from him as well as when he learned to climb out of the high chair and I had to really start monitoring him.) But this is not that post. This is about the flip-side, about just one young man who’s now double-digits and can socially engage with younger kids, older kids, and grown-ups in part because part of his own socialization took place in pubs–remember, that’s short for “public house,” AND who can probably beat the pants off you in a game of corn hole.
Laurelwood was possibly the first ever family-centric brewpub in America. Although it was his 5th brewery, as a new dad I wanted it to be his first. C’est la vie. Age 7 weeks.I.P.Yae’s first onesie: Boneyard Beer. Few breweries cottoned to this aspect of branding by 2012, though most gift shops sell them now. Now if I can only get them to make Youth tees! Age: 2 months.There’s a crazy back story to how we got to travel through Denmark with a 6-month-old. But suffice it to say, Mikkeller was I.P.Yae’s first brewery abroad. Two years later, he’d actually get his first toddler tee!Just a dad’s opinion that this is the cutest baby picture ever. Snapped before ending the Fresh Hops Fest in Hood River, OR, it was the perfect place to show off his “Don’t Worry Be Hoppy” shirt. Age: 9 months.Speaking of Hood River, kudos to brewers/parents extraordinaire Josh & Annie pFriem, who’ve always demonstrated the perfect way to have kids be comfortable in a brewery.Proof he was there. BTW GABF DOES allow minors under 2. Age: Almost 10 months.Possibly Charlie Papazian‘s tiniest fist-bump. Age: 63 (I mean C.P.)Hopworks is renowned as one of the most family-friendly brewpubs. You can’t fathom how many kids count it among their pivotal, cherished memories growing up. Here’s I.P.Yae, 1, with cousins Zach & Ethan.L’enfant Terrible 🤣 (Pointedly, I.P.Yae has possibly been to more breweries that no longer exist than you’ve been to ones that are still in operation. R.I.P. Bridgeport.) Age: 1 1/2. Living abroad in Europe, no one ever bat an eyelash at a kid (or dog) at a brewery like this one, De Halve Maan, our first in Bruges, Belgium. Age: nearly 2.Not only does he know how to properly cheers, but he could say it in multiple languages by the time he was age 2. Here he’s demonstrating prost at Paffgen drinking Kölsch in Köln.And developing the finer points of beer tasting at La Cervesera Artesana in Barcelona. Age 2 1/2.Here’s one he’ll learn from later on. But it still teaches something about family. And reverence. Cheers to Jean Van Roy (seen, age 47) and his dad Jean-Pierre van Roy (age 72) at Cantillon. I.P.Yae age 2 1/2.Rob and Kurt Widmer, aka the Widmer Brothers, helped turn Portland into “Beervana.” Neither had kids. Hell, I was once adamantly opposed to having a kid:-( I.P.Yae has a knack for winning over the childless. Age 2 1/2Tell me this kid doesn’t know how to hold court, even with the likes of “the Beer Goddess” Lisa Morrison and “Wicked” Pete Slosberg at Belmont Station. Age almost 3.Sometimes breweries are a good place to meet girls. Sometimes you’re not in the mood. Age 3.Family is everything. And everything goes with pFriem Family beer.Age 3
At Ft. George Brewery in Astoria, OR, the kid just butted into this fierce game of foosball. When you’re a kid, you can get away with a lot. Age 3 1/2
Like, a lot a lot. I swear this was the brewer’s idea and that’s his hand in the vid. Age 3 1/2 It’s quite something to get together after a handful of years with old and great friends and we’ve got kids! I can’t wait to get back to Triple C Brewing in Charlotte, NC to reunite these tots. Age almost 4.No matter how remote, where there’s people, there’s beer. And where there’s good beer, there’s good people. At nearly 4 years, I.P.Yae found himself at the world’s southernmost brewery, Cerveza Cape Horn
I like to joke that I.P.Yae has probably been to more breweries than any kid his age. Same goes for hop fields! Here he is in Rogue‘s. Age 4.
Three generations. At the almighty Russian River. Magical. (Plus, my dad discovered sours!) Age 4 1/2.I could write 1,000 words about this man, Trent, at this brewery, Columbia County. In fact I did. Just before he passed away. I.P.Yae (here age 5 1/2) and I will never forget his gourmet “Mac Daddy”Nothing gold can stay. Cherish special people while they’re around; same goes for breweries. Everyone felt the loss when Portland’s cherished The Commons Brewery, which had JUST this month started allowing minors. Seen here w/ SNOB Ritch’s daughter, Lilah. Ages 5 1/2 and almost 4, respectively.Someone cuter always comes along to steal your thunder. M Special Brewing. Age 5 1/2 (Taz, age 2 months).There have been times I.P.Yae felt I was dragging him to breweries. This time, however, I had to drag him out of Arts District Brewing in L.A.’s Arts District, age practically 6. Remember this one? Six years after our first visit, we found ourselves back at the Thirsty Bear! The more things change… Lesson: he’ll always be my baby boy. Age 6..I’ve been flown all over for beer travel stories. This one time they said I should bring a companion to help me tackle “Brewed on the Bikeway.” Along the way we discovered what is possibly I.P.Yae’s fave brewery to date, Little Fish in Athens, OH. He discovered Battleship. ate fried duck, AND caught a frog! Age 6 1/2Ohio served as a launchpad for a 5-state trip across the Midwest. Visited my #1 bucket list brewery, Scratch in remote Ill. Few brewers celebrate nature like Scratch! And the family-friendly brewery is now baby-friendlier.14 breweries later, he finally beat his old man at Battleship! AND, while hosting a dog-day, discovered his favorite beer: Berliner Weisse with Woodruff. (“Tastes like marshmallow!” R.I.P. Iron Triangle. Age 6 1/2Having outgrown kiddy play areas, we now play poker. Everyone can take a lesson from this kid. At Five Threads in Westlake, CA, he noticed a man just standing around alone. He walked up to him and invited him to play poker with us. Turns out the cat was a professional poker player! He regaled us with incredible stories of Vegas, tournaments, and more. Exactly what pubs are for, no? Also shown: Seaward in Ventura. Age 6 3/4This was from a doughnut trip that yielded some great brewery visits with many great people. I know it seems like 8th Wonder Brewing‘s 36-foot-tall Beatles are the stars. But it’s that Houstonian Doak with I.P.Yae. Age 7. Urban South in New Orleans is tied for I.P.Yae’s fave. Not b/c he got to hang out with founder Jacob Landry, but b/c they have a bounce house. IN the brewhouse! Also: it’s where he lost his 1st tooth. Age 7Kinda needs no explanation. Half Moon Bay Brewing, 9 years apart. Age almost 8.This was at a beer bar called Lama Dog in Santa Barbara. Nutshell: Alex from Imperial Bottleshop was in town. I said we’d meet up for one beer. Before I knew it, he was introducing EVERYONE to “my friend Izzy” who worked the room offering massages, or magic tricks, for tips. Kid took home $57 Late Feb, 2020! Age 8You’d think there’d be no new brewery visits during a global pandemic. But Arne’s beers at Marin Brewing are too good to stay away from. Age 8 1/2Lesson: If at first you don’t succeed… I.P.Yae actually first met John Holl at Barcade in New Jersey in 2012. Not a brewery. So his first NJ brewery was Departed Soles, makers of fine #doughnutbeers. Age 9 1/2WINGS..9 1/2.wings pt II 9 3/4
There’s such thing as the All 50 States Club. It doesn’t consist of all that many people since even most Americans never visit all 50 states. But among the folks who do, North Dakota is notoriously the last one. It’s not home to major attractions like theme parks, National Parks (plural) or, in my case, destination breweries. Or at least that I knew of, because like almost everyone, I’d never been. So I deigned to hit every single one over the course of a long weekend. You can read about it here in this story for October.
It wasn’t one singular inspiration but a handful that were all blended together to form one delicious idea: exploring the world and its peoples through their sweetened, fried doughs. These aren’t delicacies that are referred to as doughnuts, but I challenge you to explain why they are not such. To workshop these stories, I get to contribute to The Takeout–a culinary website from the same publisher as the seriously-funny innovators of “fake news,” The Onion.
I traveled to Navajo Nation in New Mexico just for this. Worth it!
First up: Navajo fry bread. Yes, the Indian food staple is now part of most tribe’s cookbooks or maybe you think it’s just fry-dough or a carnival staple, the elephant ear. Here’s where the yummy treat originated.
As such, ich bin ein berliner writer: I am a doughnut writer.
This past June, in what turned out to be one of the final stories ever published by All About Beer (I’m still in mourning), I merged my two beloveds by writing up the breweries and doughnuteries of Butler County, Ohio.
Photo by Amanda Hickethier
But one doughnut story does not a doughnut writer make. How many published doughnut stories are required to be deemed a doughnut writer? Two.
Ever since moving to Santa Barbara, there aren’t many new breweries to write about (although my next story for the Independent IS on a brand new* brewery in SB. *Sorta.), but I did get to write up the American Riviera’s newest purveyor of gourmet doughnuts, Hook & Press Donuts. Voila.
John Burnett decided to do something about Santa Barbara’s lack of gourmet doughnuts by opening Hook & Press on State Street. Photo by Paul Wellman
My obsession with the Commonwealth of Kentucky is that it’s a place that’s not what it is and isn’t what it’s not. It neighbors Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia but it’s not the South. It shares borders with Missouri, Indiana and Ohio but it’s not the Midwest. It’s Appalachia, but parts are also pretty cosmopolitan. It’s KFC but also award-winning Kenny’s Cheese. Some of my greatest road trip moments occurred in Kentucky from the whales I got to enjoy in Bowling Green to a night of Hot Browns and jaw-dropping bourbons in Louisville to playing board games at a brewery in Paducah with my son who found the Hot Wheels the brewer hid in the brick walls for some kid whose dad dragged him to another brewery. Plus, I really wanna be made a Kentucky Colonel.
The drive from San Diego to Seattle covers 1,500 miles of ridiculously gorgeous Pacific coastline along Highway 101 (or sometimes Highway 1 in California). It could technically be tackled in two 15 hour driving shifts but I don’t recommend that. In fact, it took me nearly 40 years to have tackled the entire shoreline. So I reflected back on some favorite breweries along the way and wrote up this epic 15-brewery drive along the Pacific Coast.
Admittedly, it’s not always easy thinking up themes for my Beer Traveler column in All About Beer. But even at the beginning of the year I knew that with the Totality streaking across the entire USA, there’d be enough breweries submerged in darkness to squeeze a handful into a travel story. Featured herein are breweries from Pacific City, OR where the Path of Totality first hits land, through Salem (also in OR), Lincoln, NE, St. Louis, Paducah, KY (probably the first time Paducah has appeared in any beer-related travel story), Nashville, and Greenville, SC (from the comments, boy are folks in nearby Columbus and Charleston, SC upset about their omission through my lack of ability to include every single brewery that’s going to experience mid-morning nighttime.) Anyway, feast your eyes on these (you don’t even need those special glasses to view it.)
800 & counting. That’s how many breweries are currently operating in California. If you’re itching to tackle a beer trip to the Golden State, San Diego is the most obvious starting point, with several dozen breweries in the city and more than 100 sprawled out across San Diego County. Then there’s the San Francisco Bay Area, the undisputed birthplace of craft beer. But there’s one thing you’ll largely miss out on if you focus on the major cities: the beach. For this Beer Traveler column in All About Beer, let’s cruise up California’s 840 miles of impeccable coastline and discover more than 30 breweries within 1 mile of the coast. From south to north, here’s a look at 10 of them, with a few bonus stops.
Politics aside, America is a nation bursting at the seams with people and places—and beers—that make it great. It’s a nation founded on big ideas, big endeavors and big cities (and bigger open prairies, woods and mountain ranges). From the giant redwoods to the Grand Canyon to, uh, the Super Bowl, this is the land of super-sizing. That applies to American beer, too, in the form of imperial stouts and IPAs and 64-ounce growlers. Rather than focus on what divides Americans, let’s take a journey to explore some things that are uniquely American. These largest thises or thats typically are not located centrally in beer meccas, but exist as roadside attractions on highways and byways. Fortunately, given that there are now over 5,000 breweries in this vast republic of ours, we can count on finding a brewery in the vicinity or just down yonder road.
My obsession with the Commonwealth of Kentucky is that it’s a place that’s not what it is and isn’t what it’s not. It neighbors Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia but it’s not the South. It shares borders with Missouri, Indiana and Ohio but it’s not the Midwest. It’s Appalachia, but parts are also pretty cosmopolitan. It’s KFC but also award-winning Kenny’s Cheese. Some of my greatest road trip moments occurred in Kentucky from the whales I got to enjoy in Bowling Green to a night of Hot Browns and jaw-dropping bourbons in Louisville to playing board games at a brewery in Paducah with my son who found the Hot Wheels the brewer hid in the brick walls for some kid whose dad dragged him to another brewery. Plus, I really wanna be made a Kentucky Colonel.
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Admittedly, it’s not always easy thinking up themes for my Beer Traveler column in All About Beer. But even at the beginning of the year I knew that with the Totality streaking across the entire USA, there’d be enough breweries submerged in darkness to squeeze a handful into a travel story. Featured herein are breweries from Pacific City, OR where the Path of Totality first hits land, through Salem (also in OR), Lincoln, NE, St. Louis, Paducah, KY (probably the first time Paducah has appeared in any beer-related travel story), Nashville, and Greenville, SC (from the comments, boy are folks in nearby Columbus and Charleston, SC upset about their omission through my lack of ability to include every single brewery that’s going to experience mid-morning nighttime.) Anyway, 
800 & counting. 
Brian Yaeger: Beer Writer 