The Burning of Atlanta Completed

Trail of Beers

Nov. 23-24

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so most of the bars were closed. 

Maryellen and Kenny were coming to pick me up a little after one, so I set out in the direction of Max Lager’s in search of beer shortly before noon. 

On the way, I passed what qualifies as a historical site. This is the kind of stuff you find all over the former slave states, and most of it dates to the period after Reconstruction until the 1930s or ’40s. 

A plaque in a park on Peachtree Street has the headline “Historic Reconciliation.” Jefferson Davis sometime in the 1880s (long after the armies of the rebellion lost the Civil War) was dedicating a statue in memory of some local bigwig. According to the plaque, the former rebel general James Longstreet, who had been “estranged from Davis since Reconstruction,” rode up on his horse, dismounted, and gave Davis a big hug. 

Big deal. By then the slavery side leaders were all dying off. Robert E. Lee had his stroke in ’69. So they couldn’t be as picky any more about who they would associate with. 

This was an unusual find for my secessionist memorabilia collection because, on the one hand, it didn’t commemorate the boys in gray who fought for the principles of the Founding Fathers, and on the other, it had nothing to do with Stonewall Jackson.

While I was wiping off the oak leaves to photograph the plaque, a guy named Scott came up to me and started talking. He knew a lot about the neighborhood, or just as useful, was very skilled at making things up.

Max Lager’s is next to that little park, but it was closed.

The oldest church in Atlanta was down Peachtree Street, St. Luke’s, founded in 1864. The Methodist Church on the right was burned by Sherman. All that’s original is the bell.

Scott pointed out some other stuff, too, as we walked down the street together. Then we parted ways when he directed me into St. Luke’s Park, which is part of the church grounds. That’s when he asked me for a little help. Hell, the tour was worth five bucks, easy.

I got back to the hotel in plenty of time to meet Maryellen and Kenny at one-thirty. So I had a couple of beers at the hotel bar. The Stella was better, but still too close to flat. They also serve a local IPA there called Hoplanta, and that was very good.

Ken and Mare’s son, Thomas, was with them. 

We went to a very good place called Legal Seafood, which is part of a chain that has restaurants up and down the East Coast. There’s one in Paramus, N.J., and I saw one in Washington. This one, on the west side of Midtown Atlanta, is in a perfect location, directly across the street from the Georgia Aquarium. Fish doesn’t get fresher than that. (After all, Legal says it’s seafood is so fresh that “one day the main course took a bite out of the appetizer.”)

This franchise was running a turkey special for Thanksgiving. 

There was a nice wine menu, so I had a Latour Chardonnay with dinner. Raw oysters are always terrific, and they are very good for dietary iron. I know this from the Internet, so it must be true.

Turkey is great because of the go-withs. The meat itself isn’t all that tasty, but the gravy and the stuffing are always comfort food. So are Southern style vegetables. I never enjoyed broccoli more. It was cooked soft and mixed with a cheese sauce.

The chocolate pudding cake went perfectly with port. 

After dinner, we walked down the block and took a stroll through the Centennial Olympic Park, where the Olympic games and the bombing took place in ’96.

The park apparently replaced a rundown neighborhood and now is crowded by commercial and cultural buildings, including the World of Coca-Cola. The photo of the day is a feature of Coke World, with a four-story Coke bottle inside a glass tower.

The skating rink was playing loud music, but the real attraction was the fountain. Maryellen pointed out to me that it is a mosaic of the Olympic rings. Jets of water come up in various patterns out of the rings, and that’s what I saw first. People cross the jets to have their photos taken. One lady was stuck inside the fountain for a while.

Friday morning, I got up at five so I wouldn’t have to rush and would still get to the airport early.

I walked uphill a couple of blocks to the Peachtree Center MARTA station, and was at the airport in about half an hour or so. I was there a couple of minutes past eight for a ten-forty five flight.

All I had taken was a couple of cups of coffee, and when I started for the gate, I became concerned. Except for a Starbucks, the only food and drink that I could see were Cokes out of vending machines and pre-made sandwiches offered on shelves behind plastic curtains. I walked to the other end of the D gates terminal. There were two bars, but they were closed. Just about when I was ready to despair, I fell on the Georgia Peach Bar and Grille.

They couldn’t draw beer before nine. Fair enough, I guess, so I had the BLT with a glass of water and waited. At nine, the bartender started mixing a champagne cocktail (another excellent breakfast drink) and let us all know the taps were open for business.

While I was nursing a Sweetwater 420, a lady came in and asked, “What local brews do you have?” Like wow, man, deja vu. That’s my first question.

I’ve got this good system worked out. You drink on the ground and sleep in the plane. I was so far out that when the plane touched down in Charlotte, I got tossed. I thought we were dodging missiles.

The Taste of Carolina in the B terminal at Charlotte has North Carolina brews. I sampled the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery Copper, an amber ale made in Charlotte. It was Americanized, quite a bit lighter than I expected. It won’t replace Duvel or an ESB, as ales go, but it was still good.

Hoppyum IPA from Foothills Brewery in Winston-Salem is well named, very tasty and bitter.

I’m on the last leg of the trip right now. I’m waiting for Joanna, who’s coming in from Phoenix at seven. 

I killed an hour at Ruby Tuesday next to the gate in terminal A. My bag was waiting in an office next to the baggage claim.

I’m in terminal C and have two hours to kill. I may have to go back to A, though, to find a bar.

P.S. Terminal B has the City Point Bar outside the security perimeter. I’m sending this from there.

Except for the cab ride, Harry’s back home for a while.

Be well, all.

The Burning of Atlanta, IV

Communing With the Plant and Frog World

Nov. 22

It’s a little bit different here. I looked it up and Atlanta is about seven degrees of latitude south of home. It’s late November, and half the trees are losing their leaves. Even so, the pansies are still in bloom.

Inspired by my insights into the wonders of Nature, I headed for the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Piedmont Park, one of the city’s principal public spaces. When I got there it was sunny, and it looked like a regular park.

But that’s not the case all over town. I passed Mayor’s Park, a triangle on Peachtree Street, a block from the Folk Art Park, at dusk a couple of days ago and people were bedding down there in sleeping bags. 

On the way to Piedmont Park, I passed an ancient (or ancient-looking) brick building labeled “Atlanta Chapter, D.A.R.” It was clear that the ladies hadn’t been there for a while. I can’t imaging the Daughters of the American Revolution letting the paint peel that much. Or living with a window out.

I learned many things at the gardens. Camellias bloom in the winter here. Some vegetables—collards and spinach, for instance—are also in season all winter long. I found a recipe for kale chips. 

The Canopy Walk is an elevated walkway a few hundred feet long that lets you get above the shrubs and walk among the upper limbs of the trees.

This trip has not been hard traveling. I haven’t been lost once. But I did have some trouble finding my way out of the Conservatory (Yes, as in “Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe.”) but that was only for a few seconds. 

The Conservatory is one of several climate-making enclosures in a complex at the Botanical Gardens. There is an orchid house. That was almost spooky. Orchids take many shapes and come in a wide variety of colors. Some are huge, like the Flower that Ate Cleveland, and others are tiny. They’re beautiful, but somehow they all manage to look dangerous. Some samples were n pots and others were growing out of the bark of trees. 

To give the orchids and the jungle the moist climate they need, a misting system spreads a fine artificial rain from time to time. It kicked in while I was in the orchid house, so I had to get out before the mist took the creases out of my suit.

The same complex also houses a desert exhibit of plants from Africa and Madagascar. The sign says none of the plants is a cactus. Cacti are American. But like cacti, the plants are frequently covered with spines and thorns. This is to keep animals from eating them for their stored water. Some have developed toxins for the same purpose.  

The most striking thing of all was the exhibit of frogs. They live in miniature rainforest habitats, and it’s sort of like those puzzle illustrations where you have to find the hidden animals. The something or other terribilis is a yellow Colombian frog about an inch long. It carries enough toxins to kill six people—that is, if the poison gets into the blood stream by eating it or through the skin. At least, that’s what the sign says. 

There’s another variety of frog that is almost transparent, as some tropical fish are.

But the photo of the day is of the blue frogs. They are just about that blue. Some fish and birds are blue, but this is the first time I have seen a four-legged animal this color.

There is an extensive “edible garden” outside. That’s where I learned about winter vegetables in Georgia.   Kale chips is one of several recipes on signs designed to be photographed. A striking feature is a wall of herbs trained to grow in horizontal flats.

One of the real reasons that I wound up at the Botanical Gardens is that it is in Midtown. I have learned since Sunday that Buckhead has lost its position as Atlanta’s top party spot. Now it’s Midtown.

It seems most of the beer I have been writing about was unavailable only a few years ago.  Nobody in town was allowed to sell a beer with more than 5 percent alcohol by volume. An ordinance changed that in the middle of the last decade and the craft beers started to flow in.

Most of them are available in Midtown. 

After the Botanical Gardens, it was past three o’clock. So I strolled back to Peachtree and 10th Streets, near the Midtown MARTA station. A chain of bars down here under the unlikely name of Taco Mac sells a selection of literally hundreds of beers. Most are craft beers from the United States. I stayed with Georgia beers to maintain some focus. There were only one or two dozen of those.

The food menu didn’t look great, but I had had a sandwich at the cafe in the Botanical Gardens, so I wasn’t looking for food. Red Brick Laughing Skull Amber is nutty with a bitter finish. Terrapin Golden Ale is flowery. Joanna would say “like drinking perfume”—but in a good way. 

O’Dempsey’s Big Red, at 6 percent, was the strongest of the three. After all it was still mid-afternoon, and I didn’t want to incapacitate myself that early. This one tasted a little more like an IPA than an Irish red. It was less nutty and more hoppy. 

I went back to the hotel to rest, and to call Maryellen about arrangements for Thanksgiving Day.

Later, I went to Maxwell’s Tavern, also in Midtown, for dinner. They served up steak frites with a filet mignon and a salad for twenty bucks. The bartender, Matt, introduced himself and asked me if this was my first time there. A few minutes later, the manager came up to me, called me by name, and set down an appetizer of nachos, because this was my first time at Maxwell’s and they wanted to make sure I had a good time. 

With the filet, the bacon in the nachos, and fried potatoes, I didn’t even try to finish it all. It would be enough to stop my heart. And if my vices are going to take me out, then dear God, please don’t let it be something as boring as eating too much red meat.

By the end of the evening, I was feelng my age and took a cab back to the Hilton.

To Kate

Another note to Brian

If you blow up the photo and read the signs on the windows, you'll see that Brian doesn't have to go to Pattaya, after all, to find an establishment that needs a sign specifically prohibiting weapons.

This is Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta.

Love ya, Darlin.

Dad

The Burning of Atlanta, III

Folk Art and House Brews

Nov. 21

I needed a map to find a place to have breakfast outside a hotel. It seems this part of downtown is hotel central. The Corner Cafe Bakery is easy to find. Turn right outside the hotel, left onto Baker Street, cross Peachtree Center Avenue to Peachtree Street, and there it is.

A block away, West Peachtree Street branches off Peachtree Street. At the corner of West Peachtree Street and West Peachtree Place, there is the Best Western Plus Inn at the Peachtree. That “at the Peachtree” really narrows it down.

A brewer at Max Lager’s brew pub told me Atlanta has 84 streets with “Peachtree” in the name. Maryellen said more than a hundred, but she may have been counting the suburbs, too.

I stepped out of the hotel and noticed a building in the distance. It may have been there the day before,  but I was only now catching up. Very tall, red, and by itself. But the funniest thing is the top, which looks like the framework for an incomplete pyramid. And then instead of the usual Zeppelin mooring mast in the manner of the Empire State Building, the thing is capped with what from a half mile away seems to be a marble obelisk, like something Cleopatra lost.

After breakfast I went out to see what it was. on fhe way I passed a memporable piece of work. Anything involving nake ladies dancing with whips is notable.

I found that the mystery structure was the Bank of America building. I had passed the Bank of America Plaza, the building’s front yard, in the dark the other night on the way to the Fox Theater and the Publik Draft House. The large plaza in front of the building was lined with lighted trees, and I didn’t notice the top.

In the morning the tree lights were out. It’s November and the petunias are blooming next to the walk.

On the way up I passed Max Lager’s Wood-Fired Grill and Brewery. I made a note of that. 

On the way back I passed something very curious. There was a windmill, almost a large pinwheel, turning so I went to find out what it was.

What I found is called Folk Art Park. It occupies three corners of the intersection of Frank McGill Boulevard and Courtland Street. Interstate 75 runs under the intersection. You can zoom in and see the top of all this on Google Maps in the satellite view.

One corner has a painted wall and several cylindrical structures dressed as heads—a little touch of Easter Island here in Atlanta. Another has fantasy animals, striped and polka-dotted creatures on cutouts that suggest a rolling meadow.

The wheels are on the third corner, and part of that is the picture of the day.

I was hanging out at the hotel for a while reading the Times, checking e-mail, and being lazy. So in the afternoon when it was time for a beer, I walked back to Max Lager’s. 

The building is (or is decked out to look like) an old commercial site—iron stairs, plenty of room for vats and barrels and pool tables. It was the middle of the afternoon and when I got there it was quiet. One guy was eating his lunch and talking with two men behind the bar.

It really is a brewery. So I started with the house wheat beer, Collaborator Wheat Wine, so called because it runs about 8.5 percent alcohol. It was like no wheat beer I’ve had before. It was dark amber and downright smoky. Very full of flavor, too. 

The Abbey Ale was weak as Belgian knock-offs go, but still very drinkable. Many Belgians are too strong to go comfortably with most meals. That’s why I often save Chimay for dessert. This was a little tamer and probably would go well with a steak.

According to Gene, the bartender, the beer list keeps changing. They make a wide variety and frequently swap selections in and out. 

One of the brewers, Ron, said you won’t find any fruit beers. Maybe pumpkin ale once in a while, but nothing with blueberries, for instance.

The man finishing his lunch was Alan, the owner. He said the brewers tend to be conservative in their approach but always try to add “mmm” to the beer. They’re not looking for exotic flavors, but for something that makes you go “mmm” when you drink it.

Nothing like having a beer with guys who enjoy their work.

One that’s almost always on the menu, Gene said, is the Hopsplosion IPA. According to the menu, it is “intensely hoppy India pale ale with a toasted malt backbone to back up a citrusy/spicy finish from aggressive hopping with a blend of hops from the Pacific Northwest.” It was sharp, nicely bitter, and full.

I was dressed in the usual way for visiting a city—jacket, vest, and flannel trousers, black and grey. While I was working on the IPA, a guy came up to me and said I looked sharp. He said, “We were joking in the back. We said you must be James Bond’s consultant.”

All right. It was almost as cool as having a nomad call me “frequent flyer.”

But after three beers I was ready to go back to the hotel to wait for Maryellen and Kenny.

They were delayed so we went right out to dinner when they got to the hotel. 

We strolled to Baraonda, about a mile from the Hilton. It’s an Italian restaurant a block up Peachtree Street from the Fox Theater. 

The food is not generally good in Atlanta. I told you about the Brunswick stew. I had country fried chicken at the Publik House. It may have been country fried, but the meat clearly had been factory breaded and packed.

Baraonda (I don’t know if the “a” and “o” in the middle are pronounced together or separately) is another story. The food was terrific. I had a wonderful pasta dish with meat sauce. Maryellen gave me a sample of her lasagne, which is the best I’ve ever tasted. The Sangiovese and Chianti were good. This was another mild Chianti. Larry says Chianti has generally high in tannins, but oddly enough, the last two Chiantis I’ve had have seemed relatively mellow. But then, I was eating a very savory dish, and that would affect my perception of the wine.

The Valpolicella was terrific with dessert.

It wasn’t too late when we finished, but all the museums and the zoo were long closed, so we finished the evening a block south, at the Publik Draft House. This time I had their house brand IPA, which was crisp and tasty, as a draft IPA should be. I had another local brew, too, but I was wearing down and didn’t take notes.

We strolled back to the hotel. Mare and Ken went for their car.

I went upstairs and conked out. I found my money clip lying on the floor this morning and have no idea how it got there. So far, so good.

Nov. 22

Good observation on the Chianti....fatty food will mellow tannins and acidity in the wine. That's why it's so ideal with food! And some Chiantis are made in a more "international" style for the world market; the emphasis is on fruit and softness.

Larry

Burning of Atlanta, II

                                          Ouch.

Adventures Under Ground

November 19

Slow start today, mainly to make up for last night. After I sent yesterday’s e-mail report, I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was about noon. And of course, this isn’t New Jersey, so you can’t upset the natural order of the universe by getting breakfast at that hour.

I ordered Brunswick stew, a favorite of mine that I have enjoyed many times in North Carolina. Also a little hair of the dog in the form of a Stella Artois. It’s lager and that makes it a good breakfast beer.

The stew wasn’t quite what I expected. It was more like the West Virginia idea of barbecue—ground beef in barbecue sauce, in other words, sloppy Joes. Throwing kernels of sweet corn in it made it Brunswick stew, I guess. Barbecue beef gives me indigestion. It’s one of the few food combinations I can’t eat. It’s eight in the evening and I’m still feeling it.

But this is part of the broadening experience of travel. You get to see different takes on culture. That’s worth a little indigestion now and then, I guess. but I’m not going to overlook their serving me a nearly flat beer.

It wasn’t the waiter’s fault, and he was a nice guy. But if I go there again, I’m going to stick to something mainstream, like hamburger. Or peanuts and little dried fish like the appetizer at the Taiwanese restaurant in Kowloon.  How can you screw that up?

Underground Atlanta is kind of fun. It’s a 20-minute walk from here. Back in the 1920s the city elevated three streets so they would cross above the railroad tracks in the center of town rather than cross them at grade. The railroads are where the city came from.  They all crossed here carrying the goods the slaves made. That’s one reason that Sherman burned the place.

After the viaducts went up, street level became the old second floor. The old first story, with the original shop fronts, was now below ground and was used for storage and speakeasies.

It became gentrified later, maybe in the 60s. It’s now a mall. The main street is two blocks long and the cross street is shorter. Stores sell souvenirs, shoes, clothes, and there are a few chain restaurant franchises. They also have video games, kiddie rides, old trucks, and a railroad exhibit complete with sound effects. There are statues, recorded music, and if you think New Hope, Pa., meets Six Flags (only much smaller), you’ll just about have it. 

One of the statues commemorates the intersection as a grifters’ gathering place. In addition to con men, snake oil salesmen, and other clever sorts, it was also a place where entertainers could try to pick up some spare change, like the man with the dancing bear.

You can’t see it in the photo, but when you get up close, the bear trainer’s suit is rumpled and frayed, and he’s missing a button from this coat. Very cool indeed.

You can buy beer in a hidden street called Kenny’s Alley that is outside the enclosed area. I know this because that’s where I took a break in the Jamaican Restaurant and Lounge to look over my newly acquired guidebook from the Atlanta Visitor’s Center upstairs at street level. 

I forgot to ask them about the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

I was drinking Heineken because that was the only thing the lounge had on tap that wasn’t made by Anheuser-Busch, which I find too light for my taste, even the Amber Bock. Red Stripe is the national beer of Jamaica, at least when it comes to exports, but I have never seen it on tap. 

The photo of the day shows the Georgia State Capitol dome being attacked by Mothra. You may have heard about that on the news.

The giant antennae are a decorative installation over one of the entrances to the Underground.

I went to see the Fox Theater for some reason I can’t fathom. Probably because it was near a place called the Publik Draft House. It is kind of strange to see a quaint old structure among the office and residential towers. It has a dome topped by a Moslem crescent. that’s part of the strangeness, too, because although it was called a mosque when it was built, it never was a real one. It was originally the meeting hall of the Shriners, who are mostly Protestant.

The Publik Draft House had Southern fried chicken on the menu. There was mashed potatoes with gravy, too. Since it fights cholesterol, I had a couple beers, both local, to go with dinnert. One was a slightly too sweet stout called Jailhouse Breakout. The other was from the Sweetwater brewery (maker of the 420 pale ale). It was an India pale ale called Low Ryeder. It was hoppy, lighter in flavor than a bitter, a Belgian, or an Irish red, but a bit stronger than many IPAs. Like the 420, I’d have that one again.

Believe it or not, that was it for Harry for the day.

He passed at least two bars on the way back and didn’t even think of going in for one more.

It’s 9 p.m. Do you know where your correspondent is? He’s getting ready to crash. He must be getting old.

Harry

Hi Harry,

You got me questioning the status quo of passing through life accepting all the names and places on the superficial face value… so this is what I found out…

Unfortunately the Jackson portion does not hail from such a prestigious lineage as the Virginia Jacksons, but this is what I found out from a very detailed history of the airport website (http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Airport/ATL/Airport_History.aspx )

“October 2003: To honor late Atlanta Mayor Maynard H. Jackson, the Atlanta City Council legislated a name change of the Airport. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport recognizes the visionary leadership that both William B. Hartsfield and Jackson had for the Airport. Hartsfield-Jackson, the world's busiest passenger airport for the fourth consecutive year, stands as a testament to two of the city's greatest leaders.”

Dee Dee keeps asking when you and JoAnn are coming back to the Phoenix area.

Bill

Thank you, Bill.

I can use that.

There are so many things named Peachtree down here that they may not have room for much Stonewall Jackson. A city map, though, shows a Stonewall Street in the area known as Downtown. 

Harry