Visiting @MotherBunchBrew in Phoenix

Mary and I are on vacation this week, and while I hope to be able to make some posts to the blog from the road, I thought I might do a quick write-up about the brewery I visited a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix:  Mother Bunch Brewing Company.

The brewery is in an old grocery
(photos from their web page).

I was in town to participate in a trade show, giving a short talk and then networking in our trade show booth.  Back in 2003, I’d had a great project with Maricopa County that meant I traveled there three or four times for a week each trip, and I ended up at the same hotel as I used to go to back then – one of my favorite business hotels, in fact, although that is probably more due to familiarity than anything else, but it’s nice and the service was very good.

After we had packed up the booth, I had time on my hands, and as fate would have it, I was traveling with my trusty sidekick Eric (I posted about our trip to Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City here).  He had family in town and planned to meet them, but when they showed up we talked them into driving over to Mother Bunch.  It turns out they knew the place and were happy to accommodate.

Nice daylighting and an ample bar.
(Photo from their web page.)

Mother Bunch is one of the more interesting brewery names I’ve come across, and as it turns out, the name honors a local woman there.  They have a portrait hanging in the tasting room, but there’s not much about her to be found on the internet.  In addition to a 7-barrel nanobrewery, they have a full bar and a restaurant.

Since I had been sampling local IPAs for most of the week (Four Peaks and Sleepy Dog), I ordered their Saison de Peche, made with local seasonal peaches.  The other guys went with the IPAs.  I checked in on Facebook and also Untappd – there was an immediate “like” from the Facebook post, and we were soon invited back to the brew kitchen.

They were wrapping up a collaboration brew with BlastedBarley, another brewery in the area.   They used the visitor’s recipe on their system – I’m sorry I won’t have the chance to taste it.  After a quick visit in the back, Eric and I returned to the bar to finish our pours.  I had a second taster of the Grapefruit Wit.

A couple had joined the bar scene, by coincidence they were in town from Falls Church, VA.  We had a good visit, and I invited them to check out Hawksbill Brewing on Facebook, which they did (we’re still planning a fall 2016 opening, by the way).

All in all, we had a good time checking out Mother Bunch.  I really liked the Saison, we share an inspiration to use locally grown ingredients.  I had been wanting to try something with peaches in it, and Saison de Peche checked the box very well.

Now it’s off to Massachusetts, New Hamshire, and Maine.  Hopefully we will get a few brewery stops in on the trip.  We’ll see!