Brewery Tour and The Woodward Dream Cruise

This Saturday Kevin, Katie, Alex and I all went on a walking brewery tour of three breweries in Royal Oak, which was put on by Motor City Brew Tours.  We started out the day at the Royal Oak Brewery where we were given beer samples of each of the beers they make.  After sipping a few samples we were able to take a tour of the brewery.

The vat on the left is where the barley is dropped into after it is cleaned.  Then it travels through the blue thing on the right.

We ended up learning a lot about the brewing process and were told that it's standard practice to add hops to beer three times during the brewing process. So most all beer is "triple hops brewed," despite Miller Lite's advertisements. 

These are the containers where the finished beer is stored

Enjoying some beer samples

The usual suspects

After our tour at the Royal Oak Brewery we all walked over to Lockhart's BBQ for some pork and chicken sliders and a side of mac and cheese.  Our meal was part of the price of the walking tour.  Pretty sweet deal.

After lunch we walked to Bastone for another brewery tour and a beer sample.  We were surprised to find out that Bastone Brewery is the most awarded brewery in the state of Michigan!

Katie's on the left and mine on the right

Bastone beer list.  They also have awesome craft cocktails.

Yummy!

The last stop on our tour was Lily's Seafood Grill & Brewery.  Kevin and I had eaten here before when my mom was in town and we had no idea that it was also a brewery.  Their brewery has glass walls so everyone can see it when you are eating.  Pretty cool.  I wasn't a fan of the beer though, so I opted for their frozen drink special.

At Lily's

After Lily's we met up with my co-worker Amy and her husband Ryan to check out the Woodward Dream Cruise.  This was my very first Dream Cruise and I was really excited to check out all of the cool cars.  We walked up and down Woodward for about an hour and then grabbed some dinner at the Blarney Stone Pub.  It was very cool because inside the pub they had a closed circuit TV that showed live footage of the cars rolling up and down Woodward.

Paddy wagon

Very cool four person bike.  It was funny to see the people try to get down off of the bike!

This was the weirdest car I saw. It was completely chrome with the biggest tires/rims I've ever seen.  Then it had a TV that popped up from the trunk.  It was hard to get a good picture because so many people were crowded around it!