SFHG Homebrew Share

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Friday night, I met up with some coworkers for Happy Hour at Hotel Nikko which was actually really nice. Typically with hotel bars you kind of expect overpriced, lackluster food and below standard service… but at Anzo & Feinstein’s there at Hotel Nikko, the food was amazing & the service was top notch. The beer selection was a little to be desired with only three choices… but at least those three were Anchor Steam, Anchor Porter & Lagunitas IPA… which if you’re going to have three local staples, that’s pretty much what you want.

 

An added bonus was that jazz vocalist Freddy Cole, the younger brother of the great Nat King Cole (one of my personal favorites of ALL F**KING TIME!!!), was playing in their performance area at Feinstein’s. As luck would have it, we were able to check that out… and it was well worth it. The man has an amazing voice for being over 80… and been doing it for over HALF A CENTURY!!! He played some great hits including “Route 66” and even a few new things from his album. Yes… he’s still releasing albums. Check him out! Sorry, no pictures during the performance…

 

Saturday, the SF Homebrewers Guild had their semi-annual Homebrew Share at Pi Bar in the Mission. Dozens of our guild members brought in a few growlers/bottles of some of their prize brews that they probably had an excess amount of… or just wanted to share & get some honest feedback like we did. Pi Bar hooked us up so that basically for $15 per person, you got a sampler glass for the beer… and all the pizza & salad that you could eat… and the pizza was actually pretty amazing (one of my favorites was a white wine sauce, bacon & onion pizza). We brought some of our Bock, ChocoNut Stout, Torpedo Clone, Pineapple Pale Ale & Strawberry Pale Ale… and all of them were hits, including a few votes for the People’s Choice award… but that ultimately went to Swany for his JD-VIP (Jack Daniels’ Vanilla Imperial Porter) which makes absolutely sense as it’s f**king amazing beer. Hopefully our Imperial Stout can be half as good. Overall, we met a lot of great brewers, had some good food & good times… and brought a lot of business to Pi Bar, which I highly recommend if you’re in the area. The pizzas good, the beer selection is amazing & the service is top notch too. That’s right, I’m recommending bars now.

 

 Badass sign in the bathroom...

Afterwards, Izzy & I stopped by her place in the East Bay… but along the way decided to stop by Flowerland in Berkeley to get a few things for my garden. I mentioned that I was growing Ox Blood Beets & Purple Carrots a while back… but I haven’t updated you. About a month ago, my carrots were pilfered. Something took every single last one of my purple carrots seemingly overnight… though I’m pretty sure it was more someone, than something. Why? Because the green tops of the carrots… were in a neat little pile on top of my soil… as if some rat bastard took out all of the carrots, put them in a bundle in one hand, grabbed the tops with the other hand, twist… and then gently set them in a pile on the soil. Also, about half of my beets were missing… as if someone pulled up one or two… noticed that they weren’t carrots… and just left the rest. Thank God those f**king asshats don’t enjoy the amazing awesomeness of beets. By the way, fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice YOU’RE GOING TO GET F**KING ZAPPED AND/OR STABBED!!! BACK UP OFF MY CARROTS!!!

 

So we had empty gardening buckets… and I had just bought a “fruit cage” to protect (or at least sway) from “animals” who might want to pilfer my sh*t. There are also surprises for anybody who wants to f**k with them… but we’ll save that for the police reports. Now, just had to add some stuff to grow, namely mixed greens & snap peas… and after constructing the fruit cage, there’s easily space in there for another 5-6 buckets (probably going to be filled by this spring with amazing awesomeness) and one of my neighbors was throwing away a slightly weathered shelf, so we’ll probably be putting some little herb pots or something in there. It’s going to be quite awesome when it’s all done… but here are some pictures thus far.

 

Sunday afternoon, Izzy has been a part of a Creative Writing class for the past few months… and this evening was their final readings where they would go up in front of a group of their peers & read their favorite short story or excerpt from the class (usually about 3-5 minutes long). This final reading was held at Emerald Tablet in North Beach, which is actually a pretty amazing little gallery / space. Check it out if you get the opportunity. Izzy & I brought the Pale Ale that we made on National Learn to Homebrew Day to share with the rest of the group… and basically a few dozen writers and their friends helped us to finish off the entire keg! It was actually quite impressive! The short stories were too… but you know me, I’m all about the beer… which of course, rave reviews. Here are some pictures…

 

 After a while, I just let the cat Xeno take over dispensing the beer...

After the readings, a few of us decided to grab a bite at Tomasso Ristorante a few blocks away, which is kind of a San Francisco staple… and I had wanted to eat their for years, but there’s always a long wait… well, we stuck it out… and the food was amazing. We shared three different kinds of pizza (Italian pepperoni, spinach & super deluxe which is kind of a combo) and they were all great. Unfortunately my phone had long since died (running theme that week as apparently both my phone & PS3 are no longer talking to me… again… FML…) but definitely try them out if you can find a time they’re not insanely busy already.

 

Anyway, that’ll do it for this weekend’s activities… this next week is Thanksgiving so it’ll probably be a little slower on the brewing front… but the following week is the big annual SFHG Brewery Tour… so that’ll be quite epic. Have a great day everybody!!!

Harvesting Beer

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

This weekend I got around to getting some new shoes for Gretchen… the old ones weren’t horrible but they weren’t getting any better either, so she should be good for at least another five years. Happy early anniversary, Gretchen! Now we just need to get you some new brakes & spend a small fortune so that I’m allowed to insure you & drive you on the streets of California so that bikers that don’t pay ANYTHING can get angry when I use the roads. YAY!!! And f**k you, bikers!!!

 

Saturday morning, Izzy & I went through her garden and… basically she’s got a bit of a green thumb. Apparently our Chinook hops popped up over the last few weeks & are now tangled in the nearby fence… and our Mt. Hood hops haven’t sprouted (probably started them late) but we have some good garlic growing in the barrel bucket for now… and she had a nice harvest of sweet potatoes & regular potatoes… and BEETS!!! Behold!!!

 

Next up, we headed back to my place to start our Pumpkin Ale #2, which was our 2^nd batch ever made last September/October, and it was so damn good that we thought we’d do it again… and because it’s Pumpkin Beer Season! This particular Here are some pictures…

 

 

 

We also kegged our Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Porter so it should be ready for drinking in a few days… and if the test sample is any indication… it’s gonna be pretty good… but we shall see…

 

Izzy sampling from the hydrometer...

mmm... so hot...

We also tasted our Experimental Batch of Pale Ales and... they're pretty fantastic. The strawberry & kiwi pale ales especially... like we may need to do a whole batch of combining those two. The jalapeno pale ale had a nice burn, but not too much. That was with two little chilis per 12 oz bottle. Even the pineapple was good, the dry hopped wasn't my bag, but still pretty good. Very similar to our Torpedo clone. Here are some pictures... but trust me, they're all good...

 

Well, that was this past weekend… and this next weekend is OAKTOBERFEST!!! It’s a celebration of German beer & the beer community in the heart of Oakland… and I’ve been excited about it for many months now. Can’t wait to show you all… have a great day everybody!!!

Family Reunion & Anchor Brewing Tour

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Well, this past weekend was our EPIC four-day weekend trip to Utah and… it was over 1800 miles & a lot of hours in the car… but hey, it’s what you do for Adventure& Family. We drove up to Reno Thursday night after work (and a taste of the ChocoNut Stout at Elevation 66) and then continued the rest of the way across Nevada to my family reunion in Delta, Utah (central Utah desert). Now… the drive across Nevada… isn’t terribly usually (unless it’s triple digits in summer or flash flood or something) but… it’s definitely not the most entertaining either. About every hundred miles, there’s a little town with gas stations and stuff like Lovelock, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko & Wells… but the rest is mostly the high desert landscape you’d expect. Izzy has a lot more pictures of this (because I was driving) so feel free to check out her blog for some great pictures of Nevada along I-80.

 

We got to “The Compound” around 4:30 PM, about ten minutes after my mom & cousin Alicia got there, so we helped them set up the camper… and then made our rounds to see the rest of the family… and then set up our homebrew station. Basically, we brought a five-gallon keg of our award-winning Honey Amber, a five-gallon keg of our Pale Ale, and a few bombers of our Bock, Cali Common, ChocoNut Stout & Torpedo Clone to share with my family. Needless to say, when you bring free beer to a party of rednecks, it goes pretty quickly… even if most of the people drinking are now in their 40’s & 50’s. As far as feedback, we make some pretty damn good beer… especially for people who don’t know much about craft beer. There were even some potential investors in the bunch… but probably not exactly multi-million dollar endorsements.

 

Saturday, we basically enjoyed each other’s company in the heat (high-80’s?) and played games… made ice runs into town… and even The Wingman stopped by for about two hours to say howdy since he lives about two hours away, so we caught up for a bit… and are already planning our next meetup… hopefully bringing his new wife and their NINE kids to the Bay sometime. I told him… “maybe just the two of you for a honeymoon… leave the kids with the dogs or something” but he seems REALLY happy & healthy so I’m glad about that. He’s had a rough year thus far…

 

Saturday afternoon, I headed to Salt Lake City to hang with my dad… but I had gotten some bad news just before we drove up there when apparently my stepmom’s dad had… he too has had a rough year since his wife died and… basically he called all of his kids in for… basically his last words. Yeah, I know… kinda of a kill buzz… but that’s what happened… and this was after I found out that my dad’s work schedule got flipped again… so he was going to work all day Sunday instead of hang out & watch football or something… but hey, obviously after my stepmom’s dad’s situation, that was kind of the least of our worries. Grandpa W was a great guy (spoiler alert, he passed away Monday while we were driving back) and basically the sweetest man you could ever hope to meet. I know a lot of people say that about people after they’ve gone but… I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it a few times while he was still around. Every Christmas he would have a family get-together and read the passages from the Bible about the Nativity Scene (until I took over this year) and the Birth of Christ… and you could just see him light up every time he saw one of his family members. He was just a treat through & through… and hopefully he’s in a happier place with his wife again. That’s about all you can really hope for. If anybody deserves to be “up there” then it’s Grandpa W.

 

So yeah, Saturday night, we watched some TV while catching up with one another… my dad was pretty sick (as he tends to be whenever I come to visit, which concerns me but… you know… he’s a guy so he brushes it off… pretty much like I would too) and we had a good time before we all turned in pretty early.

 

Sunday, dad went to work & my stepmom went to see her dad… so Izzy & I ended up going to a newly opened brewpub called “The Annex by EPIC Brewing” which is basically the gastropub for EPIC Brewing up in Sugarhouse. They serve the great beer that I briefly touched upon when I visited the brewery in December… and they had brunch offered this Sunday morning, which was actually pretty good too. From their fall selection, they had a Pumpkin Imperial Porter… and it’s pretty f**king fantastic… but then again, most of their beers are that way… and we sampled most of them during the meal. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re in the Salt Lake area… either at “The Annex” in Sugarhouse… or at their brewery downtown. They specialize in higher alcohol beers… but they also have a great selection of average-alcohol too… like their Festdevious Maerzen, which is among my favorites. There’s also their Brainless series which is their Brainless Belgian style ale… but barrel aged with other things like raspberries, peaches, cherries, or extra hops. They also have a relatively new Double Skull Dopplebock which… being a fan of bocks, I really liked. Definitely check them out if you get a chance.

 

After watching some football during the day, Izzy & I met up with some of my former coworker friends at Red Rock Brewing downtown to share a few beers, catch up on happenings… and basically just have a good time. It had been a while since I’d seen a few of them… but we reminisced about the “good ol’ days” and everybody had questions about things they’d read on Facebook… which I think is a pretty standard thing now. As for the beer at Red Rock, I don’t believe I’ve mentioned much about it before… but about five years ago now, I used to live across the street from there… and it was one of my first experiences with craft beer right after my few months in Denver. Basically my apartment was between Red Rock, another microbrewery called Squatters, and the Utah State Liquor State… the three places in downtown where you can get alcohol over 3% ABV. Not a bad spot… especially when I would go over to Red Rock and try their Amber Ale& Honey Wheat mostly… and they’ve also won a number of awards like Brewpub of the Year 2007 at the Great American Beer Festival & recently the Gold Medal at the 2014 World Beer Cup in the Experimental Category for Paardebloem (Belgian style ale with dandelions in place of hops, but unfortunately they were out of it). This time though, I tried their 20^th Anniversary Imperial Red Ale (very good, my kind of beer) and a Honey Wheat along with a personal pizza & some hot wings that I shared with Izzy. Great spot. Check it out if you’re in Salt Lake City.

 

That night, we came home a little early to watch football with my dad… but he wasn’t doing any better so he went to bed early & we did too as we were heading out at 6:30 AM or so the next morning for a long drive back to San Francisco. We made REALLY good time… and we were about to hit rush hour in Sacramento… so we decided to do an impromptu meetup with Izzy’s sister & her boyfriend at La Fiesta for tacos. Since we were early though, we stopped at Sierra College’s Natural History Museum because Izzy said it was badass… and it certainly was. Do you like DINOSAURS??? HISTORY??? SKULLS??? TAXIDERMY ON SAFARI??? FOSSILS??? Then this is the place for you… and bring the kids too. Behold the pictures of me having a full-frontal nerdgasm…

 

Tuesday night, I had the privilege of a special behind-the-scenes tour of Anchor Brewing which… is basically the grand/godfather of Craft Beer in the United States as far as I’m concerned. With over a hundred years of history behind them, constant expansion into nearly every bar in America & now overseas too… and looking to double their production in the next few years with another brewery in the Bay Area… this was truly a treat… and as part of the SF Homebrewer’s Guild, I can hardly believe that they allow us to have our monthly meetings there. If you’re willing to arrange it 4-6 months in advance, get the tour! Did you know Anchor is also a distillery? Me neither… it’s called Old Potrero & apparently their limited supply made (especially compared to their beer production) is so popular that you’ll rarely see their spirits on the shelf. Anyway, here are some pictures from my little tour that might stimulate you to go check it out first-hand… but keep in mind, this is just a camera phone so… it’s not going to be the best…

 

Another thing about Anchor… is I’m finding that their beers are among the best in the world… and if you haven’t tried them, then I suggest you try their lineup on almost any chance you get. In my humble opinion… the following samples are basically my benchmark for their respective style:

 

·         Anchor Steam – California Common (of course)

·         Old Foghorn – Barleywine

·         Christmas Ale

·         Anchor Bock – Bock (but I hear they’re discontinuing it?)

·         Anchor Porter – Porter (also rumored to be discontinued?)

·         Anchor Saison – About the only Saison I actually like a little

 

The rest of their lineup is also incredible like their IPA, Big Leaf Maple, California Lager, Brekle’s Brown, etc. but the ones above are basically what I judge other beers upon when they claim to be the same style. Yes, I know different recipes produce different results… but again, my humble opinion. I highly recommend checking these guys out if you haven’t (for some unknown reason).

 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this week’s adventures… plenty more coming up this weekend. We start a new batch of Pumpkin Ale, transfer our Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Porter to secondary, sample a variety of pumpkin-based beverages, and even non-pumpkin related activities. Have a great pumpkin everybody!!!