Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,


Also Sunday night, Izzy invited me to an event that she was helping out at for the Safe House for the Performing Arts in the Mid-Market area of downtown (corner of Crack & Cocaine?). Basically it’s a community group that rents space where available for various classes & projects that otherwise couldn’t be done in the area due to… well, ridiculous real estate costs. There were some great snacks, art being displayed, opportunities for writing & photography classes, and there were even some demonstrations by virtual artists & flamenco dancers… which I personally LOVE ever since my visit to Barcelona back in the day. Anyway, great event, great cause, here are some pictures…
Tuesday night, I also had the special opportunity to be part of the Brewing Network’s Dr. Homebrew podcast. Through the guild, the producers were looking to get a few in-house guests & I volunteered… that’s really about it… nothing like “Oh, we heard that you kicked ass at the Napa comp…” or anything like that. Then again, half of being successful is being there, right? Anyway, the podcast is actually done at The Hop Grenade Taproom in Concord, about 45 minutes away without traffic… but this was brought to my attention while at work… when Rush Hour was about to start the day of the show… so about a two hour drive later, I was in Concord… and checking out the taproom while I waited to pop my podcast guest cherry. First & foremost, the taproom is pretty legit. They have about 24 taps with a wide variety of local and national brews on tap so you can try a little bit of everything. There’s also a bottle room where they have even more to choose from… basically just about anything that you could be looking for in a beer, can probably be found there… or at least something similar. Here are some pictures…
Then it was my time to set the internet on fire with my sexy voice… so the producer led me to their soundstage and I met the stars of the show (JP, Lee & Brian) and they gave me a quick run-through of the show and how to properly make sweet love to the microphone, etc. The concept of the Dr Homebrew podcast is there’s the MC named JP who kinda leads the show & operates the equipment… and then Lee & Brian are two master BJCP judges who break down styles of beers sent in by homebrewers from all over the world… and in my case, who are willing to bring them in personally… and then they’ll break down how their beer would be scored by the BJCP standards, whether it’s a good/great beer, and offer a few tips to make it better the next time around so that you can take your brewing to the next level. Of course, along the way, they also make a few jokes, have a few laughs & just have a good time talking about beer with their bros (and I assume broads from time to time). I had only heard about it a few days prior, but the two episodes that I listened to beforehand where pretty helpful, so I was obviously intrigued.
Anyway, they invited me in… and I brought my offering… my newly bottled Raptor Red!!! The information they were about to provide would be very useful as… well, because it was newly bottled, I hadn’t really tasted the finished product yet. It hasn't been posted yet, but you can listen to the entire episode HERE!!! If you’d like… and it’s free of charge. I think it'll be Episode #44 or #45. Basically they did a quick intro, and then we poured a sample for each of us… and then they break down everything from the appearance (absolutely gorgeous, clear red ale if I say so myself), malt & hop characteristics, head retention, possibly brewing errors, tastes that seem out of place for the style, all of that. Granted, we weren’t making this beer to the specific styles that’s in the BJCP guidelines… as we were really making a beer that we’d love… but there were definitely some flaws in the beer as we were tasting it… and offered me some great pointers on how to make the next batch better that I’ll definitely try. I also got to stick around, crack some wise, throw in some questions that I thought the listeners might want to know (not just myself) & also got to try this wonderful imperial stout that a gentleman named Garrett sent in from Minnesota and… damn… it was just fantastic. Kudos to Garrett! Their scoring of his beer made me feel a LOT better about my low score… but it was definitely a great time! Hopefully they’ll invite me to come back when our Barrel Aged Imperial Stout is ready… or maybe whatever we make next. That’s right, I’m down for being a repeat guest… and with proper planning I can make it out to Concord a little easier too. Thanks for having me, guys!!!
Aside from that, it’s been a pretty relaxing weekend… still doing the smoothie thing. Obviously I’m not living exclusively on smoothies… but basically just replacing Mountain Dew with smoothies… and so far it’s been going great. I’ll keep you posted, but so far I’m recommending it. Fresh fruits & vegetables instead of high fructose corn syrup and… extreme? Not really sure what’s in Mountain Dew but I assume crack-cocaine has similar qualities. Anyway, have a great weekend everybody!!!