Back from a great three-day weekend in the rising and hospitable city of Nashville, TN.

In what’s become a near annual visit to Music City over the last decade plus, I stayed at Jeff and Deborah’s home in the Inglewood neighborhood. On each of the three days, we drank at tap rooms connected to what Jeff believes are the city’s best IPA makers.

Perhaps finest of all was the beer at Southern Grist in East Nashville. It’s only been open since February but has become immediately popular for its creativity and quality. Jeff and Deborah say it’s been extra fun to cheer for and directly support Grist’s success because of the level of warmth and hospitality from the trio of young brewery founders and their tap room staff. Grist’s double IPA at the moment is called (Insert Juicy Pun) and has three key qualities we’re drawn to these days. Haze, pungent smell and a little bit of fruitiness. At 7.9 on the Richter, a couple glasses of Pun put you in the groove for one of the pizzas Grist imports from their friends at 312 Pizza Company in Germantown.

The two other brewers that stood out on this trip were Bearded Iris Brewing and Smith and Lentz Brewing Company. Both had excellent IPA’s. The tap room at Iris feels like a grand old hotel lobby on entry and then eases into a lounge feeling. Smith and Lentz had really nice guys working the bar and two ping-pong tables. Both Iris and Smith/Lentz played really good music while we were there.

On Sunday afternoon, we saw the Titans beat the Broncos at what’s now called Nissan Stadium. Jeff has had a pair of seats in the south end zone since the former Houston Oilers franchise relocated to Nashville in 1997.

The Titans haven’t made the playoffs since 2008 which was Chris Johnson’s rookie year.

It’s been lean times since but it’s a quarterback’s league and the Titans now have a legitimate signal-caller in Marcus Mariota (pictured above). Taken #2 overall in the 2015 draft, Mariota is making the kind of plays that inspire Titan fans to believe he could be special. He’s dazzling on the scramble and throws powerfully against the grain. His red zone success is unusually high for a young player.

Mariota needs a big, breakaway wideout and it’s expected new Titans General Manager Jon Robinson will eye one in the upcoming offseason.

Robinson has made some brilliant transactions since taking the helm early this year. He acquired DeMarco Murray from Philly for almost nothing. He also fleeced the Rams by dangling the number one overall in a year the Titans didn’t need to select that high given Mariota’s presence. Robinson got a bevy of selections – most notably LA’s first-rounder in the 2017 draft which will end up being juicy given how bad the Rams are this year.

Among Robinson’s 2016 picks was Alabama running back Derrick Henry in the middle of the second round. Henry (pictured above) spells Murray and gives the Titans a nice one-two punch in the backfield.

The Robinson rebuild near-term will also probably include picking players who can help in the defensive backfield. The Titans have been getting sliced up defending the pass. On Sunday, Denver QB Trevor Siemian threw the slant at will, racking up 334 yards passing. The Titans bent, but didn’t break however – and held on to win 13-10. If Tennessee wins their final three games, they’ll win their division. Problem is, the Titans play KC next. Division rival Houston has both a schedule advantage and would win the tie-breaker should the two teams finish with the same record (they’re both 7-6 right now).

We ate well on this visit. Off the plane on Friday, we went straight to Arnold’s Country Kitchen for great Southern cafeteria-style cooking. I had the meatloaf. Jeff had the roast beef and mashed potatoes. Arnold’s is only open weekdays for lunch but it’s must-go if you’re in Nashville during the week.

The other culinary highlight was Saturday breakfast. Deborah scored some egg and cheese on biscuit-like scones from a neighborhood bakery. The scones had both a spicy and honey-sweet quality. Delish.

One other Nashville note: we stopped at Third Man Records on the same day it released the live recording of the Woods gig at Third Man’s Blue Room last May. We listened to it on Jeff’s record player the next night. It sounded pretty good although it didn’t properly capture the band’s backing vocals.