Welcome back Andrew, our favorite (yet reluctant) scenester, offering up his tasting notes on the flavor of the saison tapping now, ‘Seven Wives Saison’ by Sonoran Brewing. Read on, to find out where to drink up.

Dear Phoenix,
Arizona’s brewers have been growing both in number and in notoriety for years. Dozens of local watering holes from sports bars to high-end restaurants alike are offering local brews on tap or in the bottle. Arizona beer is finally reaching the point where it’s embraced, both in-state and nationally. It’s in this background that Sonoran Brewing, a well-respected Scottsdale-based brewhouse, kicked off its chef collaboration series in March of 2012, starting with the Seven Wives Saison.

This beer is the first saison made in Arizona. A saison is a beer that was originally made in a French-speaking region of Belgium, known as Wallonia. What primarily differentiates a saison from other light-bodied ales with medium alcohol content is the unique Belgian yeasts that ferment the mash and create a floral, “funky” flavor at the back of the taste. Brew-master Zach Schroeder used a mix of two slightly different farmhouse-style yeasts in this iteration. »READ MORE

Here’s the latest from Andrew From AZ. (This might shock you, but that’s not his real name.) Plucked from the obscurity that is our comments board, Andrew is snarky and a bit of a (reluctant) scenester, and he’s back documenting where to be and be seen in AZ.

They don’t look like much, hanging from the ceiling. When they’re blasting the fullest, clearest sound you’ve heard in Phoenix, it’s hard not to be impressed. The Crescent Ballroom’s four Electro-Voice speakers fill every corner of the space with a full sound that you can feel in your chest cavity. If you sit in the wooden bleachers in the back of the room, you can feel the sound in your a$$ and through your feet. “Everyone here is smiling,” a friend screamed in my ear during an intense guitar solo. We were standing about ten feet from the three-foot-tall stage, surrounded by a couple hundred hipster music lovers, plastic cups in hand, enraptured.

»READ MORE

Heres the latest from Andrew From AZ. (This might shock you, but that’s not his real name.) Plucked from the obscurity that is our comments board, Andrew is snarky, single and a bit of a (reluctant) scenester. In other words, he’s the perfect person to document the trials and tribulations of life in the world’s hippest suburb.

Pizza isn’t one of those sexy ethnic foods (Korean BBQ! Tapas! Peruvian!) that people who live in real cities fail to fully appreciate, but there is certainly more to it than the ubiquitous Pizza Hut would suggest. Pizza has to be among the most popular foods in the US (what picky teenager won’t eat pizza?), and yet, too few Americans are willing to experiment and explore the flavors, textures, and variety it can offer.

I was a clueless kid when I first ate at Pizzeria Bianco. I’d just graduated from ASU, and at that point the most adventurous thing I’d ever eaten was a quesadilla from Chino Bandido.

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Introducing our latest contributor, Andrew From AZ. (This might shock you, but that’s not his real name.) Plucked from the obscurity that is our comments board, Andrew is snarky, single and a bit of a (reluctant) scenester. In other words, he’s the perfect person to document the trials and tribulations of life in the world’s hippest suburb.

Dear Phoenix,

Some days the entire world seems to be in flames – lately, if it’s not dozens being murdered on the streets in Egypt or Libya, it’s earthquakes and tsunamis killing thousands in Japan. Almost worse is when the bad news hits closer to home. Where, in a bustling city full of generally unsympathetic, busy people, does one turn for some (inner) peace and quiet?

»READ MORE

Introducing our latest contributor, Andrew From AZ. (This might shock you, but that’s not his real name.) Plucked from the obscurity that is our comments board, Andrew is snarky, single and a bit of a (reluctant) scenester. In other words, he’s the perfect person to document the trials and tribulations of life in the world’s hippest suburb.

Dear Phoenix,
“Why are Light Rail pub crawls so popular? Last fall I couldn’t go a month without getting invited to at least one “So-and-so’s Birthday Pub Crawl FIESTA/ BASH/ EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!” on Facebook. Who decided this was a good idea? Everyone knows that the train only runs once every thirty minutes after 7 PM, right? And that you’re not (technically) allowed to bring alcohol on board? And that the florescent lighting will make everyone look ugly? That’s not even getting into the practical issues. Let’s relive part of one less than magical evening, not all that long ago:

»READ MORE

Introducing our latest contributor, Andrew From AZ. (This might shock you, but that’s not his real name.) Plucked from the obscurity that is our comments board, Andrew is snarky, single and a bit of a (reluctant) scenester. In other words, he’s the perfect person to document the trials and tribulations of life in the world’s hippest suburb.

Dear Phoenix,
“Why are Light Rail pub crawls so popular? Last fall I couldn’t go a month without getting invited to at least one “So-and-so’s Birthday Pub Crawl FIESTA/ BASH/ EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!” on Facebook. Who decided this was a good idea? Everyone knows that the train only runs once every thirty minutes after 7 PM, right? And that you’re not (technically) allowed to bring alcohol on board? And that the florescent lighting will make everyone look ugly? That’s not even getting into the practical issues. Let’s relive part of one less than magical evening, not all that long ago:
»READ MORE