Enter the Lone Cicerone

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Last Tuesday, we had our monthly meeting with the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild at Anchor Brewing and we were treated to a wonderful talk about fermentation temperatures by MULTI-AWARD-WINNING homebrewer Keith Kost who… damn… just always has about 50-60 kegs of wonderfully prepared beer at his disposal. Winners of the Guild’s own competition were also announced… and it may not also shock you that he won a ribbon in that competition as well. Our Dunkelweizen didn’t earn a ribbon… but still did fairly well scoring wise. It’s just tough when you’re always going against some of the best brewers not just in the city… or state… but the f**king nation really. We’re truly blessed to be around this caliber of competition on a regular basis. Here are some pictures…

 

We also tried our Strawberry Hefeweizen that we bottled about two weeks ago… and yeah, it’s fantastic… we’re getting this recipe down pretty good…

 It's a Pretzel Stick...

Saturday morning, Izzy & I harvested our Galena Hops as they were prime and ready… now we’ve also dehydrated them and will use them in a wet hop pale ale or something VERY soon… we’ll keep you posted…

Later that morning, Izzy put her pictures up at her first art gallery showing at Elevation 66 Brewing in El Cerrito. She’s such an amazing artist and a BIG thank you to Super Dave & his lovely wife for allowing her to put up her art.

 

Please come check it out… and of course… enjoy some of their wonderful beer and food… here are some pictures from the lunch that Big Ben & his wife Kristin treated us to in celebration of Izzy’s exhibit…

 

…and Kristin is a newly minted cicerone and we convinced her to start her own blog at Lone Cicerone. Please check it out… it’s hella entertaining.

 

That afternoon, we also stopped by Fieldwork Brewing for a quick drink as Big Ben & Kristin recommended that we try some of their new beers, including a Golden Stout & a Rye Red… both were amazing…

 

Sunday & Monday, we went to some wonderful barbecues in San Jose and Pinole… but yeah, great people, good times, no pictures to really show for it. Trust me though, it was awesome.

 

Super busy week at work… and more importantly outside of work… with concerts, new brews, and prepping for NCHF in less than two weeks… so stay tuned… and of course, check out Kristin’s blog at Lone Cicerone. Have a great week everybody!!!

Kick Ass Weekend of Independence

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Yes, another year has come & passed... and America is now another year older and... maybe more senile? I don't know... that's another blog out there. This blog is about my weekend more than any of that controversial stuff. There's is NO controversy... that this weekend was pretty cool. True... there was some unfortunately news the week before with my Wingman's father passing away... and my stepmom's mother as well... but that was last week. So without further ado... here it is...

Friday was the official holiday... and we decided to spend it by enjoying a 4th of July Barbecue in San Jose at the home of a friend of Izzy's from childhood that we'll call Bob Burgers. He & his new bride hosted a wonderful barbecue... I got to meet him, his friends, his family... and like all great parties, it involved a lot of beer & Cards Against Humanity. He's also a fellow Jeep owner... so he's obviously a bad ass.

Friday night, while others were out watching the fireworks (it was really foggy where we were in the Presidio) we instead spent our time... playing with our new Food Dehydrator... and we dehydrated strawberries, oranges & honeydew... and they were pretty amazing... and only took a few hours to dry them out & preserve them. Why do this? Well, fruits expire quickly... these don't. Also, down the road, we will probably want to involve them in a nice homebrew experiment... like adding them in secondary fermentation to get some of that sweetness into the brews even when the fruits are out of season... but that's for another entry.

We also started marinating for what we really got the food dehydrator for... JERKY!!! This first entry was to be a Cherry Pepsi Spicy Jerky recipe that we found... and so far so good, but it takes a few days for end results. Fun fact about food dehydrators: The smells coming out of them are amazing... either potpourri if it's fruit, etc... or like a smokehouse if it's jerky. Good times.

Saturday morning, we stopped by the store & found a new Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Variety Pack which was a mix of 12 collaborative brews with some other great breweries... and the beer was great. Some of the real highlights are two bocks (tropical & rye), Coffee Milk Stout & the Imperial Dark Ale... but all of them are pretty good thus far. Try them out while you can. Spoiler: It's going to cost about twice as much as a standard twelve pack.

After starting up some beer bratwursts marinated in our red ale, we then transferred our Bock from the primary fermenter which he had kept fairly cool (about 45-50 degrees in our sleeve mentioned two weeks ago) to an empty keg so that we can put it in the kegerator & keep it about ten degrees colder for lager fermentation. About the most interesting thing out of this transfer... was what happened when it was nearly full... and the foam started to rise...

While transferring, we also started up JJ's award-winning recipe for California Common... and it smelled amazing... and we actually got a great sparge this time around (we've had all-grain mistakes in the past) so we're really excited about this one. About the only mistake thus far... we forget to add the gypsum or whirfloc tablet for clarity... but hell, I'm okay with dirty flavorful beer. Cold crashing will help out too... but here are pictures...

Izzy also made some Spent Grain Bread and it turned out pretty amazing...

After all that, we were pretty exhausted... and this next week should be pretty exciting but I'll save all that for next time. Have a great weekend everybody!!!