Playlists, Detours, and Squid Ink

By Ian Guevara

Good road trips require good playlists. This isn’t a suggestion, its cannon law going back to the first road trip ever taken. I imagine Henry Ford, in his opulent wealth, employed dozens of ragtime bands from the Ford plant to downtown Detroit just to nod his head for on those 19th century cobbled roads.

I have a playlist for such occasions. It's called the “Mountain Mix'' playlist, and it's played on every road trip on which I embark. It has exploded to 254 songs and 18 hours, with artists ranging from Neil Young, to the Grateful Dead, to The New Riders of the Purple Sage.

This playlist first began in the late summer of 2019. The school year was approaching like a tsunami of dread and stress on the horizon. I needed one more summer adventure to stave off this existential dread that seeps into every teacher's soul in the two weeks before the beginning of the school year. I called up Jonathan, HMJ, and Homelessman to see if they were interested in one last hooray. As always, they were game for adventure.

We called it “The Boys” trip, the four us tucked snuggly in my small Nissan Frontier truck with the bed filled to the brim in unnecessary gear (the scout motto is “Always be prepared” right?). The night before, I devilishly downloaded dozens of songs for the trip, the goal was to download nine hours worth of material to satiate any driver’s needs from New Orleans to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It was mainly the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and the Tucker Marshall Band. But It was set and it was glorious.

We left early on Sunday morning with the hopes of reaching this po-dunk gas station in Cleveland, Tennessee that serves the most delicious breakfast biscuit sandwiches any human could consume. It was closed, and a blow was made to my gut. We endeavored, however, sustaining ourselves on shriveled Circle K hot dogs and Zebra cakes. Food of the road trip gods.

Our destination was the Standing Indian Campground. Rising 3,500 feet above sea-level, the campground offers nightime temperatures in the mid-50s no matter how close earth is to its roasting death. The perfect basecamp for tomfoolery and respite.

Between Murphy, North Carolina and the campsite there is no cellular signal and a sole Ingles grocery store that rises out of the woods like a Gibraltar of Highway 64. It has a Starbucks and wifi. The road trip gods must’ve been shining on me. As I pulled up Apple maps to get my bearings and plot the course to the campsite, I realized something.

“Holy shit guys, there’s an actual town over that hill,” I pointed, still staring at my Apple maps confounded by my discovery, “And boys… there’s a brewery up yonder.” Yes, I sometimes talk like a 1849 prospector.

Without question, our adventurers raced into the little sleepy mountain town of Hayesville, North Carolina. This is where the expression “one-horse town” found its genesis. Main Street opens briefly into a town square where all of the shops, restaurants, and insurance agencies rest. As James Taylor's Carolina on My Mind guided us through the town, there at the southwestern corner of the square was Nocturnal Brewing Company.

Nocturnal Brewing Company - Haysville, NC - 2019

We couldn't stay long enough for the full experience, but Jonathan and I promised ourselves to return, at least to grab another beer and buy a t-shirt. And return we have, on several occasions, and each time Nocturnal has grown in size of its operations and beer selection.

Opened in October of 2018, Nocturnal Brewing Company offers a dizzying array of options for any patron. From the sleek and trendy interior tap room to the outdoor seating, Nocturnal provides a care-free experience where exceptionally crafted beers are consumed and locally sourced food is expertly prepared.

As you know by now, my standard motive of operation is a flight of all the beers created at the brewery. Unfortunately, Nocturnal doesn’t provide flights of beers. However, after ordering a pint of their Gose, Cheyenne the bartender, offered to give me shot glass samples of each beer on tap. Life finds a way, as Ian Maloclm onced waxed poetically.

Cheyenne slipped the house beer menu in front of me and placed a sample of each beer over the name of every craft. Yellows, golds, ambers, and chocolates danced before me like a parade on St. Charles Ave. Sampled were “Space Is a Place”, “Saison Fleur De Sel”, “Quanassee Sunshine”, “Life on the Nautilus”, “Lichtenhainer”, “Quanassee Moonlight”, “Trail Mix”, and “Nightcrawler”.

Space is a Place is a Cold IPA, a new method of brewing an IPA straight from the Pacific Northwest. It's very bitter and hoppy from beginning to end. Space is a Place has a lasting bitterness and no sweetness to balance it out. However, it's clearly refined and has hints of corn that makes it a tasty outing. Saison Fleur De Sol is a delectable Saison that’s malty, light, and refreshing. Slightly salty and great for summer.

Lichtenhainer is a Sour Smoked Wheat beer that's very sour with a hint of smokiness. While the sourness is definitely puckering, it has a citrus aftertaste that smooths out the sour flavor. Quanassee Moonlight is a Bavarian Style Dunkelweizen that’s a thicker and darker cousin of the Hefeweizen. Oakey at the beginning followed by the mellow banana flavor to smooth it out.

Trail Mix is a Nut Brown Ale displaying an alluring, light brown color. Nutty and sweet in the beginning ita followed by an awesome coffee flavor that leaves you wanting more. Finally, Nightcrawler is a Dry Irish Stout that’s a lighter stout that still carries the atypical brown head and deep chocolate color. THe brew possesses an extremely malty and flavorful taste that makes for a decent dark summer beer.

The two stars of the day are the Quannassee Sunshine, a Bavarian Style Hefeweizen and Life on the Nautilus, a standard Gose. Quannassee Sunshine is light, crispy, and has a clove forward taste in the beginning that follows with a mellow banana flavor afterward. Makes me think that it deserves its own category of “Summer desert beers”. Life on the Nautilus POPS with crispiness and leaves you in the clouds never wanting to return. As I was tasting it I kept thinking that there was something else in it I couldn't pinpoint. I looked at the beer menu and there it was… SQUID INK!!!! Definitely interesting and unique.

Nocturnal Brewing Company is open on Wednesday through Friday from 11am to 9pm and Saturday from 12pm to 9pm. The brewery provides a refined tap room and a kitchen that pumps out locally-sourced food that is as good as its fresh. Its eight house beers are all equally delectable and are best consumed outside under shaded confines.