BAM Brewery Tour 2015

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday, Izzy & I took part in the Bay Area Mashers’ Sacramento Brewery Tour, where essentially this homebrewing club arranged for a Google bus to take 40-50 likeminded homebrew enthusiasts up to Sacramento where we toured FOUR breweries in the Rosemont area. This is very similar to the SF Homebrewers Guild annual brewery bus tour (coming again this December) but we had never gone quite as far as Sacramento… and this trip was fantastic!!!

 

First stop was New Glory Brewing which opened in 2012… and the taproom / brewery that we went to was located in essentially a “warehouse” area of town with lots of concrete structures, storage units, basically industrial space. That being said, the taproom had a very rustic feel to it… similar to a sort of high-class, dive bar or a Man-cave kind of vibe. Lots of wood accents, but the furniture was still comfortable, and of course, most importantly… the beer was on point. I particularly liked their Robust Porter and Hoppy Amber Ale… but that’s pretty obvious for me. They also had several variations of Saison on tap (French, hibiscus, etc) and a pretty sweet 15 barrel brew system… here are some pictures…

 

Two blocks away was Device Brewing which opened recently as well, and flaunts “Beer with Purpose.” The brewery & taproom had more a minimalistic modern aesthetic (similar to Elevation 66) with more bare-bones walls… but some great local art on the walls for sale as well as very kid & dog friendly for a great sense of community. The beer is also very good which a little bit of everything from lagers to imperial stouts and everything in between including a variety of Belgian ales. All that I tried were fantastic as well. I would definitely check both out if I’m in the area. Here are some pictures…

 

Next up was a few miles away at Track 7 Brewing which dons a wide variety of beers but is actually the only one on this trip that I’ve seen in a few taprooms here in the Bay Area. They seem to be more of a production brewery than the first two… and they also happen to have a taproom with long communal tables and usually have food trucks available to offer greasy delicacies to help you sop up their delicious beers. I personally loved their Nite Bite (Cascadian Dark Ale) & their Left Eye Right Eye Double IPA wasn’t too overpowering. Again, though, they’re all pretty good from what I’ve tried. Here are some pictures… and yes, it's located next to Cock Grease Hair Pomade...

 

Our last stop was Oak Park Brewing Company which seems to be a little more focused on the restaurant aspect of the brewery with a very diverse menu with chefs and what have you… but the beer isn’t lacking either. It was very similar to the restaurant at Sierra Nevada last month but with a 7 barrel system as opposed to the massive complex in Chico. Their draft list was really diverse with things like a Pumpkin Saison, Imperial Oatmeal Porter, Coffee Porter, Flanders Brown and frankly… they were all pretty darn good. We also order some bacon & bleu mac & cheese… and it was scrumptious. Here are some pictures…

 

Sunday, I was due to help out with the bottle sort for the California State Homebrew Competition… but unfortunately… I apparently got a pretty bad case of food poisoning. “Come on $teve, you were just f**king drunk and/or hungover! Let’s be real…” Oh no, I was VERY respectable… the entire time that I was in Sacramento with no more than two pints at a location… over the course of MANY hours… and I was perfectly fine until I dozed off on the drive back… and it just HIT me. I have no idea what it was… but I have a few suspicions… but I don’t want to go into details. The important thing was that my lovely ladyfriend Izzy was an absolutely champ, took care of me (SEE! She wasn’t drunk either! She’s a lightweight!) as well as helped the bottle sort by picking up one-third of the entries and dropping them off. I feel really bad that I wasn’t able to help out… but hey, there’s still time before the big show in a few weeks! Regardless, the rest of the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild and other volunteers got everything set for the preliminary round next week (when we’ll be moving Izzy’s mom, so I’m sure I’ll be helping after that).

 

Anyway, so it was a great weekend other than a few REALLY suck-ass hours Sunday… but it was still okay… we watched some football & some movies… but more on those later. Until then, go check out some of those great breweries in Sacramento… and have a great day everybody!!!

Everything I Learned From Movies #eilfm

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Tuesday night, we finished off the Softball regular season with a great barbecue and… a 24-12 victory over our biggest rival (another branch of the company). I didn’t play a whole lot as we had something like 15-16 players, but I did get one at-bat, single, and run it in. So… if memory serves me correctly, my regular season stats are 9-for-11 batting (all singles) with two walks, and 8 RBI, with 6 runs. That’s about 85% on base percentage… which ain’t bad at all, even in softball. Anyway, championships are on Tuesday but… I have a scheduling conflict with the SF Homebrewers Guild monthly meeting so… I’ll probably have to be there in spirit only. We shall see…

Saturday, Izzy & I helped out at the Meals on Wheels Fallfest Gala which is where dozens of vintners & high-profile restaurants in the Bay Area come down to Justin Herrmann Plaza near the Ferry Building to help raise money to feed the elderly. Annually, this event raises MILLIONS for this great cause & we’re always glad to help out in any way that we can.

The other night, we watched “The Relic” starring Tom Sizemore, Penelope Ann Miller, Linda Hunt and directed by Peter Hyams (“Timecop”, “End of Days”, “Sudden Death”, etc). This movie is essentially set in the Natural History Museum in Chicago… and is about a superstitious homicide detective (Sizemore) and an entirely too hot anthropologist (Miller) trying to find a vicious killer… and then discover that it’s actually a South American beetle-lizard god running a rampage in the museum (and nowhere else). The weird thing about watching this movie… is that I kept thinking that I had watched it last week when it was called “Mimic” and as I looked into it… yeah, it’s pretty much the same movie… released the same year (this one just a few months before in 1997) but yeah… some mysterious supernatural being is killing a lot of people in surprisingly dimly lit areas (not sure why no lights in the museum EVER, but subways at least made some sense) and there’s a superhot scientist in the middle of it all… but yeah, honestly if you’re going to watch one of these things, watch “Mimic”. This movie wasn’t good at all… well… you know, it wasn’t horrible… but yeah, you’ve seen the movie before or some cookie cutter version of it probably. Not a lot here… and the superstitious stuff was just irritating. Oh, you have a problem with black cats? Then you probably don’t want to be a f**king homicide detective in Chicago.

Sunday night, we watched a 1990 independent movie called “Hardware” starring Dylan McDermott & Stacey Travis, directed by Richard Stanley (the guy who was originally going to direct the 1990’s Island of Dr. Moreau disaster). The story is set in a bleak apocalyptic future that’s kind of Blade Runner meets Mad Max… it’s a barren red radioactive desert wasteland… but with gritty metal & wire kind of cities as well with toxic green rivers… and if there’s one thing about this movie that was REALLY impressive, it’s the atmosphere & setting this really f**ked-up future that global warming will apparently lead to. The red tones & darkness kind of make your eyes hurt, there’s a lot of quick subliminal shots that are just odd & upsetting, you can almost feel the dirt and broken glass and grime that this world has all around them. Anyway, in this future, there’s a scavenger who comes to town and sells a cyborg skull to another scavenger named Moses (McDermott) and he takes it to his ladyfriend (Travis)’s super-secured… I guess, art studio apartment… and she wants to use the skull as the center of one of her pieces that she does. Well, they soon find out that this skull can actually rebuild itself into a six-limbed killing machine. Now, this movie was… awkward to say the least. It’s a very unique & memorable world… and the ladyfriend is kind of a badass… and there are strange turns in the story where you’ll find yourself yelling at the screen… and there are some extremely violent, bloody scenes (was apparently cut a bit to become R rated in 1990) but overall, it’s actually a pretty twisted little sci-fi horror tale without being too predictable or cliché. I highly recommend watching it with some friends this Halloween season… and best of all, I’m pretty sure that none of your friends have seen this little flick. Fun game: See if you can spot Lemmy from Motorhead.

Monday night, Izzy & I hung out with my neighbor J-Mo and we watched “The Dead Lands” starring a mostly New Zealand / Maori cast. Essentially the movie starts at a peaceful Maori village… and they have visitors from another tribe / former rivals… so you know some sh*t is about to go down. Anyway, there’s a burial ground that’s sacred to the rival & they come back saying that the grounds have been desecrated, so basically… this means War. Well, instead under the guise of going back home, they attack like thieves in the night & slaughter the peaceful tribe, leaving behind only one teenage son of the chief who was able to escape. Now… the son wants revenge… but he’s just a boy, what can he do? Well… there’s a mythical monster in the area known as The Dead Lands who may be able to help him… if he/it doesn’t decide to just kill him. This movie… is awesome. It’s a total Man Movie with plenty of fighting involving blunt force trauma, cannibalism, tales of vengeance and honor, talking with dead people thanks to deprivation & mushrooms, but overall… it’s just a great hard hitting movie along the lines of “Apocalypto” a few years back where even with the “primitive” time setting & traditions involved… you find that it’s really still a human story just in their context & beliefs and beautifully shot (except some of the camera work with the fight scenes may cause seizures). I highly recommend checking it out if you can handle the little bit of gore & reading subtitles. Enjoy!

This weekend should prove epic… as Saturday is the Bay Area Mashers’ Sacramento Brewery Tour where we’re going to take a bus ride up to Sacramento to tour FOUR breweries… all four new to us… New Glory Craft Brewery, Device Brewing, Track 7 Brewing & Oak Park Brewing Company. Also, we’ll be introduced to other fellow homebrewers from the East Bay area… and it’s always good to spread the culture. The SF Homebrewers Guild’s Brewery Tour is coming up in December too… but more on that as we get closer.

Then on Sunday is the bottle sort portion for the California State Homebrew Competition which the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild is taking control over now… so yeah, a lot of awesome beer related things to come… as well as…

WE’RE FINALLY RELEASING OUR PODCAST TO THE WORLD!!!

We found a little time on Sunday to finally focus & get some structure to our podcast “format” and this podcast is called… EVERYTHING I LEARNED FROM MOVIES!!! #eilfm Yes, there’s some resemblance to the Audrey Hepburn quote (and book I think) “Everything that I learned I learned from movies” but essentially… to start, our podcast will include movies reviews, some beer talk, and we’re working out some of the musical aspects… but until then, you get to witness the beautiful harmony of our voices in accapella versions of theme music… and just trust me, you’re going to love it. Check it out! Our first episode… we review the new Netflix release “Tremors 5: Bloodlines”!

Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Halloween Weekend 2014

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Thursday night & Friday morning at work, we (mostly my coworker Sopastar) made a pumpkin for a pumpkin decorating contest between departments... and here are just some of the amazing examples... you're welcome...

 

Friday night was our first Halloween Party of the weekend… and Izzy & I were providing two 5-gallon kegs of some of our finest beer to date… the Pumpkin Chocolate Porter & the Pumpkin Pie Ale 2.0. Basically we were traveling with about 80 pints of premium homebrew and were ready to get some people f**king DRUNK!!!

 

Now for our costume… the last two years we were basically Waldeaux (the New Orleans version of Waldo) and Carmen Sandiego… but we decided to do something a little different this year… and we went as… obscure cartoon characters from a decade ago. Remember “Drawn Together”? Of course you do… it’s an incredible Comedy Central cartoon… well, Izzy went as Ling Ling, an Asian trading card battle monster… and I went as Spanky Ham, a crass internet download who farts on retards… Google it!!!

 

Saturday morning was our event for National Learn to Homebrew Day… and we actually had a pretty good turnout of about 12 people (pats self on back for guess the other day) and it was a mix of people who had done a handful of batches before & people just interested in the idea but didn't know much about it... so Izzy & I did a great job of answering questions, showing how easy it all can be (as we were hosting a fantastic party WHILE making beer) and everybody brought some great potluck items to share. Basically we made a quick pale ale extract recipe & transferred our imperial stout to secondary. Here are some pictures...

 

Save the date for next's year Learn to Homebrew Day on November 7th, 2015!!! Apparently it's the first Saturday of November annually... which just worked out pretty well this year with Halloween. After everybody left, J-Mo showed up for LTHD apparently forgetting that it was 11 AM, not 5:30 PM... but we caught up and shared crazy stories from the past few months... and apparently, there may be a pretty epic Disneyland trip coming up soon... but details on the way. Good seeing J-Mo though!

 

Saturday Night, we had Izzy’s friend Sid’s Party over in Sacramento… and brought our beer with us too... and it was a HUGE hit! I actually knew about a dozen people at this party this year thanks to seeing them at past parties & random events here & there... but yeah, good time. I know Izzy misses all of her homeys back in Sactown... so I'm perfectly fine with making small talk with random strangers while she mingles... or just sitting back & sipping beer... but yeah, some great peeps she has up there.

 

Anyway, so yeah, pretty crazy busy Halloween weekend... and I don't really have any pictures of me as Spanky Ham... but as soon as some pop up on the internet, I'll share them with you... in the meantime, here's a preview...

 

Happy Halloween everybody!!!