Beaver Street Brewery - Flagstaff, AZ

I have been a Cardinals fan since they moved to Arizona in 1988; I have this picture of me as a kid with the little Cardinal logo painted on my face! Well, after 20 years of ups and downs, the Cardinals finally got their act together and made it to the Superbowl! They didn't win, but they played a great game and silenced a lot of naysayers out there. Even though I have always cheered on my hometown team, I had never had the opportunity to go to one of their training camp practices, so I decided that this was going to be the year! They hold their training camp up in Flagstaff, AZ, which is about 2 hours North of Phoenix and about 30 degrees cooler! I hadn't been to Flagstaff in about 15 years, so my sister and our friend Cynthia decided to road trip it up North for a little Saturday day trip. Well, we definitely weren't the only ones with this idea, and 12,000 of our closest friends decided to join us that day! This was apparently the largest crowd in Cardinals training camp history, and I am guessing that their last season's performance had something to do with that, but at least Cynthia and I both knew that we were not band wagoners, but die hard Cardinals fans!

Even though it was crowded we were able to find seats on the hill and watch the practice, followed by the "Red & White" scrimmage. The most fun part came when Kurt Warner came over right in front of where we were sitting and got the crowd to start the wave...I love the wave! The weather was beautiful outside, and the backdrop of the mountains and all the green trees just added to the experience. Just look at this view!

When the session was over around 1:30, we were ready to grab some lunch. I had asked a friend of mine who went to school in Flagstaff for suggestions, and she suggested the Beaver Street Brewery. At the mention of the name I suddenly recalled that I had eaten there once as a kid, and that it was where I tried my first taste of BLT Pizza! I had my GPS with us, so I plugged in Beaver Street Brewery and off we went. The restaurant is located in a building on Beaver Street in the heart of Flagstaff; the building was originally a grocery store in the 1930's that was converted to a restaurant in the early '90's. The place was packed full of hungry Cardinals fans, but we only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table.

We were very thirsty when we first sat down, so we ordered a round of ice waters, and Laura got a strawberry lemonade, while Cynthia decided to try out some of their homemade brew and got a Bramble Berry Brew that had a hint of raspberry to it. Laura said that it was the best strawberry lemonade that she had ever had and Cynthia, usually not a big fan of fruity beers thought that this was excellent down to the last drop! Since it was already 2:00 by this point, we were famished, so we decided to get an appetizer to start with, and ordered the Chips and Southwestern Cream Cheese.

Basically, it was cream cheese mixed with pico de gallo and served with tortilla chips. The dip was tasty, nothing outstanding, it definitely could have used a bit more heat in my opinion. It is a little too cold still, and the chips didn't hold up very well when trying to dip. I have to say, and Laura and Cynthia agreed, that the chips were a bit on the stale side. They were stale, thin and cold; not a good combination for tortilla chips. But, we were hungry to so we ended up eating most of it.


As Laura looked over the menu, the only thing that stuck out to her was the Salmon BLT, but minus the salmon! She said she was just really craving a BLT, so when she ordered it, she asked for no salmon, extra bacon. When the sandwich arrived, she was a bit disappointed in the amount of bacon on the sandwich, it was only 4 slices, which is what was supposed to originally come on the one with the salmon. There also wasn't any mayo on the sandwich, so she had to get a side of that, because you can't eat a BLT without mayo! Once she got her sandwich all slathered with mayo and took a bite, she declared that overall, it was a good version of a BLT. The bacon was extra crispy and the bread was toasted to a golden brown. The fries that came on the side were cooked perfectly, and she dipped them in a combination of ranch and ketchup. When the check came, the lack of extra bacon was made up for since our server just charged her for a regular BLT which was $2.00 cheaper than the salmon version. (Nice move Justin Bobby...oops...I mean Jared!) (Sorry, I had to throw this in, but you had to be there to fully understand)

Beaver Street is also well known for their array of wood fired pizzas. There were a few that looked good to Cynthia that day, but she decided to try the special of the day, the Pineapple Express (such a fitting name for a town like Flagstaff!). The pizza was topped with pineapple, ham, bacon, red onions, cilantro and banana peppers. Cynthia doesn't like bacon (we are not sure what is wrong with her!) so originally she had asked if she could substitute chicken for the bacon. Our waiter got a bit confused at this point, he asked if she wanted the ham or not, she didn't realize there was ham and said oh, leave the ham no chicken....well, Justin Bobby didn't quite get the message and went ahead and added chicken. Cynthia was fine with it, especially since it just added more topping goodness! She said the pizza was delicious, and the crust was thin and crispy. The pizza was a good size portion, and she ended up taking half of it home with her.

Lots of items on the menu looked good to me, but I ended up going with the Shrimp Gordita Platter. Basically, they were crispy shrimp tacos on flour tortillas, but the menu referred to them as gorditas, so I went with it. On the side, it was served with more stale chips and some guacamole and salsa. The tacos were excellent! The shrimp were some of the best battered shrimp I have ever had; a light, airy batter that was cooked to a perfect golden brown. A creamy chipotle coleslaw and shredded cheese was also stuffed into the tortilla giving an excellent explosion of flavor. They were some of the best shrimp tacos (gorditas, whatever) I have ever had, and I would happily venture to Flagstaff to have them again!

With our bellies full, it was time to hit the road and head back down to the Phoenix inferno. Cynthia got a take home growler of beer for her brother (which I seem to have lost the picture of), and when Laura asked her why they call it a growler, her response was, "Because beaver's growl...grrr!!" We all got a good laugh out of that one, and it pretty much summed up our day; good friends, good food, and good fun! Even with the stale chips (I guess I should give them a break, it's not a Mexican restaurant) we all decided that we would happily return to the Beaver Street Brewery.

Beaver Street Brewery

11 S. Beaver St.

Flagstaff, AZ 86001

www.beaverstreetbrewery.com