Having suffered through months of lumbering, senseless posts about nothing, I thought I would take a break and hip you to a few of Atlanta’s best kept secrets this weekend.

Best place for a great beer.
Most of you already know what a great place Octane Coffee is. But what you may not know is that they now serve beer. And not just any beer. A limited selection of the most premium high gravity beers around. Many of them monk-crafted Belgian delights! Regardless of your spiritual leanings, after of few of these puppies you will be singing (chanting?) the praises of monks everywhere! The Octane grand opening (for beer) isn’t until next month. But for those in the know (that’s you!) they started serving this week.

Best bands in the ATL.
Here are two of them that you may not know about. Both of them are playing this weekend:

The Gates of Berlin. This is just tight Rock ‘n Roll with a hint of soul. They just released an album, Mercurius, and you can get it on iTunes. They are playing at 10-High in Virginia Highlands tonight (Friday)

Variac. Pure Rock ‘n Roll with a whole lot of swagger. No album yet, but soon. You can download a few tracks from their MySpace site. They are playing at Smiths Olde Bar on Saturday night.

So there you go. Atlanta gems. I’ll be at all three. See you there!