North Alabama is full of fun experiences for folks of all ages.
But to enjoy parts of this trail you must be 21 or older and have a hankering for smoked
pork.
Ride along with us as we hit spots from the North Alabama Craft Beer
Trail and the North Alabama Barbecue Trail and enjoy an amazing weekend of food and drink.
The first stop on our adventure is Back Forty Brewing Company in Gadsden Alabama where we
caught up with founder Jason Wilson for a quick chat about their history and beer.
Tell me a little about the facility you have here.
I know it used to be a Sears and I'm guessing you don't still sell washers.
No, but I will tell you a cool story.
It used to be a Sears repair center actually.
It wasn't a Sears store.
So in other words, in the 1940s, if you bought an appliance anywhere in the southeast from
a Sears, they would send it back here if it broke to be repaired.
Is there a specific beer or two that flies off the shelves that everyone loves?
Hands down, no doubt about it, Truck Stop Honey is our flagship beer.
You know it's a really approachable, roasty, english style brown ale.
I'm going to see if I can finish this by the time you...
Yeah, go for it.
ur next stop, and first stop from the North Alabama Barbecue Trail, is at Local Joe’s
Trading Post in Rainbow City where we talked to owner, Jodie Stanfield about what to eat.
Our baby back ribs, last year we got number one in the state.
It was voted on by the people so that means a lot to us.
It's a small place, but we go through a lot of food.
Aside from the great barbecue, Local Joe’s also sells fried pies, and delicious locally
made products from pickles to pork skins.
And if you aren’t totally full yet, you can keep on trucking north to Dale’s Barbecue
in Boaz, one more stop on the North Alabama Barbecue trail.
When did you know you had a hit on your hands with the potato?
When we went from doing five or ten a day to fifty and one hundred.
Just on any day?
Any day.
Everybody loves it.
And when they pull in and they asked for a stuffed potato, a lot of people say they want
it floating.
Floating means a whole lot of white sauce that floats the potato.
After a second full lunch, you might want to find a nice place to take a quick nap because
the journey isn’t over yet.
Our next stop on the Craft Beer Trail takes us to Guntersville and Main Channel Brewing
where we learned a little about what the brewery on Lake Guntersville has to offer.
Being a lake community a lot of people have grown up drinking the domestics, your light
lagers and such.
Hammer them down on the water...
Yes, as quick as they can just to stay hydrated.
Right, right.
So to come in here and to try to drink twelve of these beers is kind of foolish.
So.
That's a good way of putting it.
We do have to put some lighter stuff out there and kind of meet a lot of folks in the middle
on some stuff.
But we've had a very warm reception.
It's been very flattering to have people keep coming back and to talk us up the way they
do.
Our final stop for the day takes us north to Huntsville and Straight to Ale Brewing
where we caught up with Matt Broadhurst and explored the massive space that makes Straight
to Ale a fun place to hangout.
We've got a roughly 3000 square foot tap room in the main building.
We've got almost 2000 square feet on the back patio.
We've got the new biergarten that's opening up this weekend, a German style biergarten.
We've got the speakeasy, and we're about to open the newest space which is the Cafe Benelux,
that's going to be a Belgian style tap room.
You can literally get lost in here, cause there's just so much to do.
And you hear a noise in the distance you're like, oh I gotta check that out.
You walk and then you're like, wait.
I've lost everyone.
But it's a good lost.
You're not sad about it.
I had customers last night that were here and they were trying to find the speak easy.
They were like, we can't find it at all.
And I walked over there and when I showed them the way they were just like, what??
It's always fun to see that.
After a night of rest in one of the many accommodation options in Huntsville, you can continue along
with us to Lawlers Barbecue . And don’t let the fishing decor fool you.
These guys know how to barbecue.
We actually cook a North Carolina style which is basically smoked with hickory and vinegar
and peppers are added to it.
And in this area there's a lot of good competition.
There's a lot of good barbecue.
So I'd say outside of maybe North Carolina this is maybe one of the biggest barbecue
areas in the country.
Aside from the barbecue what else do you guys have on the menu that's really popular?
Well we do a really good smoked ham.
People really like our ham.
It's probably our 2nd best seller.
And then we do a pulled turkey breast which kind of is our healthy item.
There's not a lot of healthy stuff in barbecue.
Not really a diet food is it?
No.
We sampled the smoked ham baked potato and some barbecue nachos.
Mmm, people.
That baked potato!
So good!
With several locations across north Alabama, you'll have a lot of chances to stop by LawLer's
if you're in the area.
But if you thought you were done eating for the day guess again cause the we’re headed
down to Old Greenbrier Restaurant in Madison.
We talked to owner Jerry Evans about the menu item you might not expect on the Barbecue
trail.
I know this is the barbecue trail but talk to me about some hush puppies.
Well that's kind of what brought us to where we are.
And what we do is when people come in we put a basket of hush puppies on the table right
away no matter what they're eating.
And it's pretty much however many they can eat.
To show you how many hush puppies, we serve a ton of onions a week and that's pretty much
all hush puppies.
A ton a week?
There's a lot of onions in the hush puppies.
Wow.
There’s more to learn and more to taste as we head to Cross Eyed Owl Brewing in Decatur.
Here we talked to Trey Atwood about how he came up with such a unique name for his business.
Cross Eyed Owl...how did you come up with that one?
Well, so I'm a military brat so I did some time in England when I was in high school.
I got accustomed to the English drinking culture.
And if you think about English pubs, they all have names like the Drunken Hedgehog,
or the Angry Duck, or the Mad Nun, or something like that.
And so there's a formula there, it's adjective noun, adjective noun.
So I followed that formula.
My wife and my oldest daughter are both huge owl fans.
I got more stupid owl nick nacks in my house than anybody should have.
And so owl was easy.
It was low hanging fruit.
And then it was just a matter of coming up with something fun and beery and whimsical
that sounded like that.
And so...
Cross Eyed Owl.
And if beer isn’t your thing, Cross Eyed Owl makes their own soda drinks in house,
so you can try their root beer, butter beer, or whatever interesting flavor they’ve invented
that day!
If you’re not full yet, you will be.
We’re headed to Florence for some Smoked Bologna at Smoking’ on the Boulevard-- our
last stop from the North Alabama Barbecue Trail.
Ok, Jeff.
So my producer, Josh has been here before.
And ever since he's been here he's non stop talking about this smoked bologna.
Tell me about it.
Just take a 2 and a half pound chub actually and cut it in half, dry rub-- which everything
here is just dry rubbed.
Hickory smoke it.
It takes about 7 to 8 hours slow smoking it.
It's a thing we've always done and like I said, people here just absolutely love it
and we're tickled to death that they do.
How did you come up with the idea to smoke bologna.
Oh we've always tried---we'll smoke anything.
Yeah.
If the bologna scares you, grab some ribs or pulled pork, then come along to our last
stop on the Craft Beer Trail, Singing River Brewing, also in Florence.
Right now our number one is Apocalypse Now.
It's our West Coast style IPA.
That's been on the market for about a year and a half.
It's our number one seller.
It won silver in the Alabama craft beer competition last year and it just it does well where ever
it goes.
With so many things to taste in North Alabama, there’s a flavor for all of your friends
and family members to try --barbecue, beer, smoked bologna and floating potatoes.
So bring your ID and your appetite cause the North Alabama Barbecue Trail and Craft Beer
Trail have something for you to discover.