I’ve been working at my job forever, and to reward me for my unending loyalty (LOL) I get 4 weeks of vacation. It sounds like a fantastic thing, 4 whole weeks off! I love traveling but I find it hard to use all my time because 1. none of my friends have that much time off 2. it’s very hard to coordinate schedules to travel with my friends 3. it’s so expensive! So J and I try to take 2 weeks off together, I take my 3rd week at random usually in the spring, and that 4th week I have a hard time using. Add to that, I keep going on special assignment at work for 10-12 weeks at a time, which means I can’t really use my vacation at that time, I end up running out of year to use up my days. So I’ve started taking single days off, to extend my “weekend”, but again, all my friends are at work and I end up with nothing to do! So I went to dinner with my parents.

They wanted to go somewhere “new” that they hadn’t been to before, and my dad is a beer fan, so I suggested Big Ditch Brewing Company. (“Big Ditch” was the working name of the Erie Canal when it was being built in the early 1800s.) Their beer is pretty good, and their food was tasty the previous 2 times I’d been there.

My mom ordered the Dark Fall seasonal black German style beer, and my dad ordered a flight of 5, but I’ve tasted most of their beers before (except the Jalapeno Cream Ale that was a small batch special which was already sold out by the time we made it there on our last trip!) so I didn’t feel required to order beer. I never noticed that they offered a Bloody Mary made with their IPA before, so this time I had to get it.

The Hayburner Bloody is served in a pint glass for $9 and is made with their Hayburner IPA. Garnished with an olive, pepperoncini, pickled carrot, celery, and pickled something else…cauliflower maybe? It was just the stem of something, and bit tough so my mom and I couldn’t really figure it out. Pepper and horseradish was clearly visible in the house made mix, and it had a definite horseradish flavor to it but it was not overly spicy. Given that it was made with an IPA I expected a beer taste and some citrus-y bitterness to the drink, but there really wasn’t any, you might not realize it was made with beer at all. It was nice and drinkable without being overwhelming.

We ordered the flight of dips which is really good, and I had the ridiculously huge bacon mac and cheese. It’s delicious, but it could serve 4 people, so be prepared to take home leftovers. Not that that’s a bad thing!