Whelan's Wheels (go round and round, round and round): Pearl Brewery

Friday, December 10, 2010

Pearl Brewery

One of the neat things we did in San Antonio (other than eat and drink too much) was tour the Pearl Brewery. This wasn't a "brewery tour" (confused?) as in our Budweiser tour.

Pearl Brewery went out of business in San Antonio in 2001. The property was bought by an investment firm in 2002 and has been redeveloped into a multi-use facility - on ongoing project and what a project it is!

We just went there for lack of anything else to do (I guess) one Saturday morning and happened to stumble upon a tour just about to start. Talk about timing! I have no idea what our tour guides name was but she was so enthusiastic about this property that you couldn't help love the project.

There is so much "repurposing" of found objects from the former brewery - the great planters above and barely seen in the photo below were formerly gas tanks used in the brewery (nope, I don't remember what kind of gas!).

Isn't that knife in the side of the building awesome! One of the tenants here is the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). Another of the tenants is the Aveda Institute. I thought I should return (they weren't open on Saturdays) for a haircut etc., but it never happened.

Outside grill at the CIA (and our tour guide!)

More of the CIA area

Do you know what the photo below (and above from a distance) is?

It's a pandolier! Seriously, the light fixture is made of many many saute pans! Cool huh!

The stable is now an events facility - be it weddings, conferences, parties ... whatever!

Another great example of the repurposing done at Pearl is these light fixtures in the stable - aren't they awesome! Old bottles found on the property - I want one, seriously, I want one. I know there was someone in MA that made lights out of wine bottles - I know i need one!

How about the ceiling of the stable - hopefully the photo can be enlarged so one can see the outstanding detail!

The brewery was one more of the reasons we loved San Antonio - so much to do, so much to see, so friendly, so clean. We left there this past Tuesday - I with a heavy heart, I didn't want to leave. I decided there was still things I wanted to do and see, particularly after reading this post from fellow full timers about their tour of the San Antonio Missions (which we did not see).

Even the bus stops are fun in San Antonio!

1 comment:

chester said...: What an interesting building! Sounds like you guys had a blast in S.A. How are the land prices?; December 12, 2010 at 5:12 AM

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This is our story ~ and we're sticking to it.

Our attempt at a blog - quite scary isn't it?

We left MA in early October, 2007 after I (Tracey) retired September 5 as an executive assistant for a software developer and Rick retired from his job on October 1. We passed papers on our house September 28th and off we went. We traveled down the east coast to the Florida Keys ~ where we planned to spend three nights but 17 nights later had to leave our site because someone had reserved it a year prior! We then stayed in northern FL for another month and headed off to meet our Marine returning to the San Diego area after his second tour "over there". We spent several wonderful weeks realizing why grandparents get tired easily! After the San Diego area we headed to the "low desert" (certainly a new phrase for us) of CA and into western AZ .. and decided it was finally time to start the blog we'd talked about since August or so!!

So many wonderful things we saw along the way. And the people, oh the people. I have said so many times to Rick the best part of this journey has been the people. So, so many people with so many interesting stories. Think about it - think about the stories YOU have and multiply that by the many many people we must have met along the way ~ particularly a social person like Rick .. we met a rattlesnake milker in Sweetwater, TX, we met the camp hosts in the Keys who summer back in NH ~ talk about the best of both worlds! We met the female police Sgt. at the Sweetwater Elks whose son was also in Iraq at the same base as my son. We met people in Slidell, LA who survived Katrina and had a great attitude and a smile on their faces and were proud to share their local cuisine with us. We saw the Blue Angels, purely by chance, in El Centro, CA. Or the "campground" where within an hour of arriving our house had been hit three times by golf balls! Or the Elks lodge in Indio ~ the sweetest, bike riding, bartender ~ I just wanted to pack her up and bring her along on our adventure. Not to mention the aerial tram while we were there, the warplane museum for Rick who does NOT do aerial trams! The Salton Sea ~ WOW just WOW. We stayed in the lovely little town of Wilcox, AZ - there was just something about that town. How about Pensacola, FL where the Elks Lodge on the beach is now built high, very high, off the ground! Or what about Huntington Beach State Park in Murrels Inlet, SC - talk about beautiful. What a great place that was to spend our first Thanksgiving on the road with good friends - that was something to be thankful for, for sure. Our first Christmas and New Years in the Keys!! WOW. The love and support of a dear friend in FL while Rick had to fly back to Boston and we dealt with all that entailed with unexpected follow ups back in FL .. how fortunate were we through all of that. Not to mention having the new trailer outfitted in Myrtle Beach and staying at what a week or two a year is the Broken Spoke? Or the kind and soft spoken LA Police Detective who is on the gang unit? So many people, so many stories. And there is so much ahead. The people .. did I mention how wonderful the people have been - all different walks of life .. so many personalities, so many stories! I have said many times ~ I need to pinch myself every morning to be certain it REALLY is happening to US! We are so grateful.

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