LTHD & California State Homebrew Comp

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday morning, Izzy & I attended a National Learn to Homebrew Day event being held at the home of fellow SF Homebrewers Guild members Karlo& Sami. For those who don’t remember our event last year, this is essentially the annual event where people who are interested or novice homebrewers can come to check out somebody’s setup… and learn the basic information about brewing… and whatever else they really want to know as most of the time is waiting for water & wort to boil or cool. Karlo & Sami were AMAZING hosts… and they showed us their new brew system called the (Fairy) Grainfather, which is an all-in-one brewing system… and it’s pretty damn amazing. Here are some pictures…

 

Sunday, Izzy went to her sister’s Baby Shower in Sacramento… and I assume she’ll elaborate on her Untidy Venus blog… but apparently it was a lot of fun.

 

I however went help setup & steward at the annual California State Homebrew Competition at Anchor Brewing which is easily one of the largest homebrew competitions in the nation… nay, WORLD!!! You all know my love for Anchor Brewing… and their magnificent beers… and their incredible hospitality in hosting the SF Homebrewers Guild for the past few years… and just being at the forefront of the craft beer movement… so having them as the host for this incredible event is always awesome. Hats off to them, first & foremost!

 

First was the final round of judging for the beers entered. You may recall a few weeks ago (while I was having a bout with food poisoning) that the bottled entries were collected & sorted, then the following week (when Izzy & I were helping her mom move) was the preliminary rounds of judging so that those beers that scored the best made it to this final round. We first set up a bunch of tables and a proper & efficient judging area… so that we could spend two hours judging beer… then that would leave more time for eating & drinking beer. It makes perfect sense! Hats off for the judges & stewards who helped make this happen!

 

 

 

After the judging portion, it was time for a little break (aforementioned drinking & burritos were obviously involved) and then we held a raffle for some incredible prizes… and then the big moment… the final results and giving away some ribbons to the best homebrewers in the state. All in all, there were dozens of ribbons given away… but fellow guild member Keith Kost was awarded with Homebrewer of the Year and walked away with TEN more ribbons (to go with his… I’m guessing well over a hundred in various competitions) to add to his collection. Congratulations Keith!

 

Then… it was time to award to the Homebrew Club of the Year… and that award went to Strand Brewers Club in Long Beach (I think there are a few pictures from NHC) who walked away with the prestigious award. Congratulations to them!

 

Now… was I expected for SF Homebrewers Guild to get the award for Homebrew Club of the Year? Well… obviously we boasted not only the Homebrewer of the Year, the most award winners, probably one of the largest clubs in the state, great showings at both NHC & NCHF, setting up & orchestrating the competition where it was awarded, and just overall great experiences in promoting homebrewing… but it just goes to show that there is a LOT of great competition for a prestigious award like this. Also, I’m a little biased… so that may play in it as well. Hopefully we can have a real chance at winning next year… and if the plans for the next few months are any indication… we’ll be taking that trophy home next year. Here’s hoping!

 

Again, a big thank you to Anchor Brewing, senior leadership of the event, and everybody else out there who made this event happen… it was an incredible experience& a great time!

 

Join us next time when I share our adventures in Belgium... inspired beer techniques. Have a great day everybody!!!

Bottling Bitters & the Apple Spa

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

This past week, Izzy has been helping out Seven Still Distillery with bottling their latest large shipment of their one-ounce bottles of Bitters. Because they are such a small operation that’s basically ran by a handful of people, they’ve needed a little help to make the timetable… but luckily Izzy has had some free time so she was able to help out. Wednesday night, I was even able to help out… and let’s be honest, bottling is kind of the monotonous & tedious part of just about everything involved in… really any industry, not just beer and/or spirits… but owners Tim & Clint were great and we were able to crank out a few thousand bottles in just the two hours that the four of us were there. Here are some great pictures of their modest setup…

 

 

Afterwards, we had both had a long day… so Izzy decided to make us some fantastic “Old Fashioned” cocktails using Seven Stills’ Fluxuate Whiskey which is distilled using Coffee Porter and Flux Cold Brewed Coffee. The whiskey itself is of course 47% ABV but even after the initial burn, you get some great coffee flavors… and notes of vanilla which are quite smooth & pleasant. This is probably my favorite whiskey from Seven Stills. For the cocktails, we modified the recipe a little bit… so it was essentially ice cubes, Seven Stills’ Fluxuate Whiskey, Seven Stills’ Cocktail Bitters & Maple Syrup (instead of simple syrup) and… it’s f**king fantastic. I highly recommend it…

 

My mom, stepdad & grandma are actually on a wonderful cross-country trip to see a lot of the major monuments in the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Starting in Buffalo and going through places like Kirtland OH, South Bend IN, Nauvoo IL, Omaha NE, and ending in Kansas City to see some of the Mormon Temples, the Mormon Trail, and a slew of other sights & sites. I have to say… I’m a little jealous. Not necessarily for checking out a bunch of temples… but I remember when I used to be able to go on vacation without… you know… being absolutely necessary to every single aspect of my job. It’s been a good… six years or so since that was the case… and it f**king blows… and frankly I’m not fairly compensated for it… so yeah, changes are definitely on the horizon. You’ve been warned/notified that there’ll be EVEN MORE trip pictures coming soon. I’ve already bugged my mom to send me a pictures of Rick James’ grave (in Buffalo) but we’ll see if she can even operate her text messages any more. Love you mama…

 

Thursday night, Izzy & I watched a few… questionable movies. First up was “Death Spa” starring… well, they weren’t the stars but I did notice horror icon Ken Foree and the lovely ladies Chelsea Field (“Masters of the Universe”) and Karyn Parsons (“Fresh Prince of Bel Air” & “The Ladies Man”). This movie was recently reviewed on the How Did This Get Made podcast… but it’s an interesting story in 1980’s filmmaking… where apparently the story was written in the early 80’s when health clubs were all the rage (featured on Time Magazine) but the movie didn’t get funded or made until 1989… and then was released in like 1991, when nobody cared anymore but it has ALL the 80’s that you could ever want. The story is about the Starbody Health Spa… and there are mysterious deaths happening… like someone being nearly steamed to death by chlorine gas in the sauna… split in half by a pec machine (that one’s particularly odd) and others… and the police are baffled… there’s a theory that it’s this super advanced (80’s) computer system that operates the machinery, but that doesn’t hold water… so a paranormal expert is brought in… because the place may be haunted. Throw in a story of betrayal and alleged man-whoring… and you’ve got yourself a flick. Now… the movie sounds ridiculous… and it really is… but it’s the best kind of ridiculous. PLEASE watch this with your friends! The deaths are super campy (and a little confusing at times), the acting is right on par with what you’re looking for in a good laugh scare, it’ll just be a good time with your friends… and it’s so confusing & contradictory of its own rules that you can easily just shut the brain down & enjoy it. There’s really no mystery to be solved. I feel like me telling you that now will save you trying to put the pieces together… because the writers didn’t both with it either.

  

Next up was “The Apple” which is a 1980 musical from Cannon Pictures starring… well, again not really people that you’d really recognize in anything. Now… as you know, musicals are not necessarily my thing (even though I have a Musical Movie List from years ago) but… this movie… well, I’ll be honest… it’s not as horrible as I thought it was based on the preview. It might actually be even worse. Okay, anyway… the story is about a young man & woman who go on a VERY popular singing contest in the far distant future of 1994 where the world is… well, very colorful… and you know, it’s a lot like 2015 in Back to the Future clothing wise… and they don’t win the contest (due to some rigging) but are invited to party with the winning band & Mr. Boogaloo (who looks like Ming from Flash Gordon but apparently runs the music industry & therefore the world?). What follows is a big psychedelic kind of retelling of the Garden of Eden story (hence “the Apple”) and just incredibly outrageous outfits and musical dance numbers and… it’s definitely an interesting watch. If you like musicals and can get through the music… then by all means check it out. Spoiler alert: Mr. Topps / God arrives at the end… and he’s played by Joss Ackland with a magnificent blond wig. Who’s Joss Ackland you ask? Well… you may know him as the bald antagonist Denomolis from “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” or I think I can give you the image in two words from “Lethal Weapon 2”… DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY!!! Now picture that man with hair in the fashion of John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard… and rolling up in a heavenly gold Rolls Royce… f**king roll credits.

 

Anyway, busy weekend coming up with Learn to Homebrew Day (we’re not hosting this time), a new brewing of a Belgian Quad, a baby shower for Izzy’s sister, and most importantly… The California State Homebrew Competition at Anchor Brewing on Sunday!!! So yeah, I’ll fill you in on the activities soon… until then, have a great weekend everybody!!!

Hercules: The Legendary Barrels

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday morning after some running around, Izzy & I transferred our Scotch Ale & Cider to the barrels (since it got rescheduled from Friday night due to coworkers’ going away party)… so here are those pictures that I promised you last time… but this time, for real…

 

Saturday night, Izzy & I went to her former coworkers’ annual Halloween party and as usual it was EPIC… here are a few pictures… and even a special one of us in our outfits… Ash & Umbreon from Pokemon…

 

 

 

This past weekend, we watched “Age of the Dinosaurs” which was a 2013 TV movie starring Treat Williams & Ronny Cox… but it was on Netflix and has “Dinosaurs” in the title… so you know that I’m down. The story is about a company who has devised some amazing flesh-regeneration technology… so now they can create dinosaurs. That’s all that you need to know. Well, they have a presentation showing off their new creatures (Ceratosaurus, Carnotaurus & Pteradons) and… spoiler alert… they get out of their cages and start running amok through Los Angeles. So… the CGI actually wasn’t that bad. I mean… considering that it’s a horrible Syfy Channel movie… the designs of the dinosaurs were pretty good, though the movements could’ve used some tweaking. The acting was… well, the script was just bad. It’s hard to go from there. Apparently dinosaurs are impervious to bullets and/or rocket launchers… but hey, I’m even willing to let to go towards an explanation like “maybe the flesh-regeneration is just super fast so they recover instantly like Wolverine” instead of “they just couldn’t afford to sway from the original design in any way because we blew our budget” or something like that. Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend it… but it’s pretty good for Syfy.

 

We followed it up with a Halloween movie that was recommended via the internet called “Stake Land” starring Nick Damici (“Late Phases”) and Kelly McGinnis (“Top Gun”). It’s the story of a post-apocalyptic world where these zombie-vampire hybrids have taken over… and human are struggling to get by. A teenager’s family is killed right in front of him… but he’s saved by a mysterious man called Mister (Damici) who then takes the boy under his wing & teaches him to survive in this wasteland full of these zompires, cannibals, militaristic religious zealots, militaristic military outfits, and so on. Basically it's like "Zombieland" but with absolutely no humor whatsoever... which was kind of the best part. Overall though, the movie is really good & gritty (though the narration gets annoying at times) and the action scenes are actually pretty damn good. I'd highly recommend checking it out. Just don't expect it to be funny... it's more of a think piece about what things might be like if the world were overran with zombie-vampires who are impervious to many things...

 

Sunday we watched football… and ate Halloween candy… and then eventually we started watching bad movies like BOTH 1983’s “Hercules” & 1985’s “The Adventures of Hercules” starring Lou Ferrigno and from Cannon Pictures who I mentioned last entry in that documentary. So… we all know the story of Hercules, right? King of the Greek gods Zeus bangs a mortal woman named Alcmene and they have a demigod baby… he grows up to be super strong, Hera (wifey of Zeus) is angered with this bastard child, 12 labours or tasks that he must complete to form Voltron… or something like that… lots of side adventures… basically super tough Greek dude who wears furs & beats down foo’s. Well… in this interpretation of the Hercules mythology… it’s… a little different. This starts out more like Moses in the Bible, where he’s the child of Zeus & a queen… but then there’s a coup and the royal family is slain… except the nanny floats Hercules down the river… and then he’s raised by a regular family (so opposite of Moses?) and then… he just kinda grows up to be a badass… and there’s an evil King Minos who is all about SCIENCE!!! Then there are some chicks in robes… and robot dragons with laser beams… and Hercules can grow big enough to separate Europe & Africa which apparently is one of his labours? And there’s a lot of dubbing… or is there? Yeah, it’s definitely dubbing but nobody gets credit… and then there’s a sequel that we had to watch too… but yeah, if you’re looking for another odd interpretation of the Hercules legend… then definitely check out these movies. They’re not good… but definitely interesting. Made in Italy!!!

 

There have been MANY Hercules movies made over the past… let’s just say 50 years. So how does this one fare? Well…

 

Ultimate Ranking of Hercules Movies:

 

1.       Kevin Sorbo in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” (1995-99) – I’m sure that it’s a lot easier to tell the epic tales of this legend when you have six seasons of television to do so (and guest spots with the likes of Bruce Campbell & Lucy Lawless spin-offs) but yeah, easily the best representation thus far… and you’ll see why with the rest of this list. He’s got the Fabio look… pretty well built… the charisma… yeah, he was the 90’s

 

2.       Dwayne Johnson in “Hercules” (2014) – I reviewed this movie a few months ago… and yeah, he’s amazingly well built… he’s got the charisma… yeah, he’s the new millennium.

 

3.       Arnold Strong in “Hercules in New York” (1969) – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first movie… and it’s horrible… absolutely horrible… but he’s Hercules… and he has no problem with reminding you something like 78 times during the course of the movie. Let’s be honest though… he’s in the Guinness Book for World Records for having the best body ever. That’s something to take into account… and this was the movie that started the American Dream that is Arnie.

 

4.       Lou Ferrigno in 80’s movies – Look, it may not be his voice… but his mannerisms and stuff aren’t bad in this movie… and the youngest Mr. Olympia ever didn’t do half bad… it was the script that was pretty bad. SCIENCE!!!

 

5.       Tate Donovan in Disney’s “Hercules” & TV series (1997) – Look, Disney makes cutesy stuff… and James Woods was Hades… that’s about all I remember from this movie. Had you asked me who did the voice of Hercules, I probably wouldn’t have responded that guy from “Love Potion #9”

 

6.       Ryan Gosling in “Young Hercules” (1998-1999) – Didn’t even know this existed… so it must not have been good, right? You’re welcome for bringing it to your attention, ladies. Enjoy.

 

7.       That Big Dog in “The Sandlot” (1993) – This version of Hercules was just completely ridiculous. He didn’t seem like a mighty warrior at all… more like a slobbering beast. Absolutely deplorable.

 

8.       Kellen Lutz in “Legend of Hercules” (2014) – Well… but still not the worst. This movie was horrible. I feel like this movie was in the spirit of “Oh sh*t, did you hear they’re making a Hercules movie with the Rock?” “Oh man, we should do one first! Who’s available? I’ll work on the script while you find the actor & we’ll start shooting on Monday…” “Ooooh… we got one of the guys from the Twilight movies!” “Which one? You know what… doesn’t even matter… they’re all horrible. Sign him on the cheap & send him a trainer. He’s got four days to get ready!”

 

Anyway, that’ll do it for this past weekend. More fun stuff coming up this week… including new brews… and the California State Homebrewing Competition!!! Have a great day everybody!!!