It’s eerie to drive on East 44th Street after sunset.
Streetlights don’t hang over the road and the only guiding lights are the car headlights and the florescent light pouring out of massive warehouse doors.
The road ends at a large, bland building. To the left, peeking over the top of the building, is a silo with the letters “”N-I-M”” falling down its side.
It’s a nice location for the Nimbus Brewing Company’s brewing factory, but not prime real estate for the adjoining restaurant and bar. There’s a train track to the east and a flight pattern just north of it. When the two are in use at the same time, it’s deafening.
My esteemed landlord, Alex Causey, and I sought refuge inside the restaurant where the classic rock overpowered the noise outside.
It’s belittling to sit in such a massive renovated warehouse. The loading dock in front of us was rolled back, giving a glimpse of the small patio and black night. On top of the intimidating size, the warehouse is filled with monkeys. A few hunting-trophy-type monkey heads stared at us. Portraits of monkeys wearing suits and other clothing dot the walls.
After taking in the decorations, we focused on the menu. The six standard Nimbus beers are on the bottom left, listed at $3.25 a pint. Underneath each brew is a brief description and a statistical graphic containing numbers that have no meaning to me. As a beer snob, I’m above terms, such as original gravity, although the bitterness number provided discernable guidance – the higher the number, the more bitter the beer.
The Nimbus Rillito Red Ale fell somewhere in the middle on the bitter scale, so I ordered the red beer, and Alex, a sucker for hops, went with an unfiltered pale ale.
Halfway through the red, I realized my ability to pick apart the roasted barley drink wasn’t astute. The three different reds I tried at the breweries didn’t seem to differ much. But I can say the Nimbus red and the Roadrunner Red Lager from Thunder Canyon came out on top.
Causey got excited about the unfiltered pale ale, one of Nimbus’ specialty brews. The lack of filtering led to a beer with more hops and Alex’s favorite pale ale during this series. Even with the extra hops and some bitterness, the beer went down smooth.
But the pale ale wasn’t nearly as smooth as the nitrogen-infused Old Monkeyshine. Another Nimbus specialty beer, the Monkeyshine is comparable to a Guinness – a dark and heavy beer that glides down the throat. My dark, oatmeal stout sat next to Causey’s dark beer. And, like I’ve known from past experience, the oatmeal is top-notch. It isn’t too creamy and the flavors don’t overpower the beer. Things are level and level is good.
After half of my Nimbus Oatmeal Stout, we picked up our drinks and went outside to the patio. We talked about our beer; we talked about the renovated warehouse. Within five minutes, Causey’s voice was drowned out by a plane overhead. Next, a train came. After that, two planes passed by. We paid, went to the car and drove home with the windows down and the music low.
