Flee to the Cleve

This weekend, a WebCoderGuy, a renown bobblehead collector asked if I'd like to take a trip to Cleveland to take in the Indians game (vs. the Orioles). Apparently there was a cool Grady Sizemore bobblehead. Now I don't mind a road trip, but for me it has to be about more than one stop. I countered that if we could go early and check out Great Lakes Brewery's Oktoberfest and watch the Ohio State football game, I was in.

Ok, it is pretty cool.

WCG (WebCoderGuy) went on StubHub and purchased tickets for $25, which is more than I really wanted to spend on two teams with a combined win total of 121. I was brought around as the tickets were originally $75 and we were ended up sitting in the front row behind Baltimore's dugout.

The Great Lakes Brewery is a regional brewery started in 1988 and has undertaken a number of steps to promote sustainability including composting leftovers from the resturant. I'll leave the description of their award winning brews to tBG, when we can make it there together. I will say that the beer tasted extremely fresh and tasty. There are seasonal brews (Oktoberfest in this case...duh), and brews that are found only at the brewery and not bottled or distributed.

Since this was Oktoberfest weekend, there was a special German menu, all the wait staff were in dirndls (although not authentic ones like at the Pittsburgh Haufbrauhaus), and there was a special where $22 got you a keep the ceramic stein filled with a liter of beer (under a certain alcohol percentage which really limited your choices) and $10 refills. This was the first year for the steins, with new ones to come out every year. We were also told that if we brought them back next year, we could still get the $10 refills. We had a couple appetizers which were pretty good, a german wurst platter and a very lightly fried fish (I really liked this, but WCG would have prefered a heavier batter). Our waitress was great and kinda looked like Hellboy's girlfriend from the movie. No word on if she controled fire, but I tipped her ok just in case.

Unfortunatley there were no tours today due to the Oktoberfestiness of the occasion. Tours normally take place every hour. In looking around, the basement pub was all old school brick and pretty cool. Live German music was playing down there as well. The Men's bathroom was not as nice as the rest of the place. All in all, I would love to take another trip and bring tBG with me!

Another great thing about the Great Lakes Brewery is that it is 1.3 miles from the stadium formerly known as "the Jake". We got into our seats just after first pitch and enjoyed the best seats I've ever had for a game. It was a little rainy and not a ton of fans showed up, so WCG and I dreamed of the chance to get either a foul ball or one of the players to toss us a ball. WCG was dressed in Baltimore orange in hopes of attracting their attention. FAIL

Front Row Style. Ten's of people in the stadium were jealous.

WCG is also known to have his pic taken with various mascots. I got into the spirit and buddied up to Slider. If only Chief Wahoo was available...

The game was pretty competitive, but we had to roll. WCG had a race to run the next morning and we were trying to get home before midnight.

We didn't get a game ball, but we did get the bobble head and a pretty cool stein to remember the trip!