Caesar Salad paired with Son of Wrath IIPA

I had the privilege of attending Dust Bowl Brewing’s first beer dinner Monday evening, where they paired five courses of food with beers brewed by Don Oliver, Dust Bowl’s head brewer.  It was also a privilege to share the evening with our good friends, the Josts and the Verscheldens:) We decided to meet at the Josts and take a fifteen minute stroll to Dust Bowl’s Taproom, to avoid any possible issues with driving and multiple ales.  We arrived at 6:30 and were greeted by Don and co-owner Brett Honoré at the door.  I loved that Brett mentioned my recent homebrewer profile in the Turlock Journal, that ran alongside a great article about Don and Steve at Barley & Wine, our local homebrew supply store.

We ordered up a starter ale for the evening and I got my favorite, Don’s Red IPA.  Sadly, this ale will probably be going away soon as it relies heavily on Galaxy hops that are just not available in the quantities Don needs to brew this beer (or the Galaxy Pale Ale as well).  Get it while it lasts!

Wild Mushroom Soup paired with Buckwheat Ale

Don was the Master of Ceremony for the evening’s event, and before every course, Dust Bowl’s chef, Abel Larios, came out of the kitchen and described the food we’d be seeing shortly.  That was followed up by Don describing the beer, and the nuances of how the beer and food flavors would either complement (sweet to sweet) or contrast with (bitter to sweet or salty) each other.  He announced the first course, a Caesar Salad, paired with his Son of Wrath Double IPA.  The saltiness of the anchovies in the salad paired beautifully with the aggressiveness of the hops in IIPA.  This pairing was a hit!

The second course was an amazing wild mushroom cream soup – chock full of chunks of mushrooms, paired with Don’s Buckwheat Ale.  When I broke the skin (cream soups do this:) an aromatic burst of mushroom assaulted my nose, and a taste followed, by the Buckwheat Ale, proved to be a truly wonderful experience.  I’ve always like the Buckwheat Ale, as it is one of the signature ales that Dust Bowl puts out there.  I’m hoping to see this in bottles for retail sales some day!

Crab Cake paired with Red IPA

The third course was an amazing, piping hot crab cake, smothered in Hollandaise sauce, with perfectly cooked asparagus arranged on top.  This was paired with my favorite, the Red IPA!  I mentioned to the ale server that the Red IPA was my favorite of the Dust Bowl brews, and he returned with an additional Red IPA after serving all of the other guests.  A very nice touch indeed!  The crab cake was perfectly cooked, and the Red IPA was a great paring to go with the flavors the course offered.

The fourth course was the main dish, an amazing filet mignon, covered in an mushroom sauce made with Don’s Stock Ale.  This was paired with a Scotch Ale that complemented the steak well.  The filet was cooked rare, to perfection, and the sauce made for an culinary orgasmic experience when paired with the Scotch Ale.  I savored this course and lingered over each bite.  I take great pride in my ability to cook beef at home, and rarely order red meat when I dine out, but this was one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in a restaurant.

Filet Mignon paired with Scotch Ale

We had yet to see a previously unreleased Dust Bowl ale, hinted at by Don in the weeks leading up to the dinner, so I figured we’d see it in the dessert course.  Sure enough, Don announced that we’d soon be enjoying a new beer to Dust Bowl’s line-up, a Russian Imperial Stout, paired with a raspberry drizzled chocolate lava cake.  The RIS was nice and dry, and paired beautifully with the sweetness of the chocolate cake.  It was a perfect final course to an amazing dinner!

Overall, for a first attempt, these folks hit a home run!  Don’s beers are a given, but the food we were served was amazing.  Cold dishes were cold, as they should be, and all four cooked courses arrived at the table at the appropriate temperature.  That’s no small task considering they were serving sixty plus diners.  Most amazingly, Abel’s filets were spot on!  I could tell there was much thought put into the beer and food pairings, and the result was exceptional.  Portion sizes on both the ales and food were perfect.  I left the taproom pleasantly full, not feeling bloated by a overdoing it on either.  The service by the Dust Bowl staff was top notch.  All of the servers worked the entire room, always there when you needed them, without being pesky:)

Raspberry Drizzled Lava Cake paired with Russian Imperial Stout

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Dust Bowl.  It doesn’t hurt that I met Don through our love of homebrewing, and he has a following of us that realize he’s living the dream many of us homebrewers have.  These folks brew great ales, and have brought some much needed life to Turlock’s downtown.  They are exactly the kind of business we need to revitalize our beautiful historic downtown area.  I’m looking forward to more of Dust Bowl’s special events, if this is any indication of what is to come.

Here’s a photo gallery of the evening’s fun!  Warning – lots of toasts!

Well done, Dust Bowl, well done:)

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Lighted Logo in Bar

News Flash!  They are opening tonight, Monday, August 1, 2011, at 5:00pm!

I had the opportunity to visit the Dust Bowl Brewing Taphouse before their public opening on Friday and for a private opening on Saturday evening, compliments of brewmaster Don Oliver.  I took a bunch of photos to share what will soon be available to the greater Turlock area.  This place rocks!

The Dust Bowl Taproom will be opening sometime in the week of August 1-5.  Be there!

Dining Tables in the Taproom

Sidewalk Patio Seating

The Lighted Bar

Comfy Chairs to Enjoy an Ale

The Tap Menu

Hops and Grain!

Mr. & Mrs. Lazy Brewer

Brewmaster Don Oliver and Me

My Son of Wrath Double IPA (I named this ale:)

Taproom Food Menu (Click to enlarge)

Taproom Beer Menu (Click to enlarge)

View of the Taproom

Flight of Tasters

My French Dip Sandwich and Beer Battered Onion Rings

They Pour Honest Pints!

The Bar

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Lazy Brewer Photo Galleries

A photo gallery from the Lazy Brewer’s San Diego adventure has been posted.  Enjoy:)

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2011 NHC Conference Flyer

Yesterday was a travel day to the 2011 National Homebrewers Conference in San Diego.  The drive was long, but uneventful, other than me just about dozing off while driving in Fresno.  I haven’t had an issue staying awake while driving for probably 25 years, but this morning I was just wiped out.  Brenda took over the driving from Fresno to Bakersfield, and while I didn’t actually sleep, I drifted on the edge of consciousness for about an hour and a half.  We got to the Town and Country Resort Hotel, the conference host, just before 3 o’clock, checked in, went and picked up our NHC registration materials, beer schwag and three lovely bottles of ale:)  Shortly after that we were enjoying our first complimentary ales from the conference hospitality room.  We visited with Steve and Maggie for a bit and then decided to head out to check out Green Flash Brewing’s new tasting room.  This will also be their future brew house in the coming months.

Green Flash Brewing Tasting Room

While the Green Flash tasting room doesn’t actually serve food, on the evenings they are open, one of San Diego’s gourmet food trucks parks outside the tasting room and serves up incredible fare.  Tonights food truck was Devilicious.  We enjoyed lobster and cheese sandwiches, fabulous burgers, BBBLTs ( the extra Bs were for all the extra bacon they throw on the sandwiches), truffled parmesan fries and some Fried Yumminess (tonight’s rotating Fried Yumminess was deep fried cheeseburger and pickle balls:)  The ales at Green Flash were incredible.  I had a Hop Head Red, a Green Flash Imperial IPA, a West Coast IPA and a taste of something they call Palate Wrecker – another IIPA.  All in all, it was a great way to ease into a three day beer conference.

The opening toast for the 2011 National Homebrewers Conference takes place at 1:00 pm today.  After that, there are three breakout sessions, and at 8 o’clock, the Pro Brewers Night starts, where over 45 craft breweries will be providing unlimited pours of their best.  Additionaly, the conference organizers worked with many of the San Diego gourmet food trucks to provide a mobile “food court” each evening of the conference.  Yum!

Green Flash Tasting Room

Having two of my beers in the final round of the National Homebrew Competition will make Saturday night’s Grand Banquet (a beer dinner – go figure:) and National Homebrew Competition Award Ceremony a special event.  Cross your fingers for my Beanilla Porter and annual barleywine!

Fun times ahead!

Fried Yumminess!

Green Flash Imperial IPAs

Green Flash Ales

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New hoses, quick disconnects, HopRocket and Therminator

It’s been a while since I posted. Maybe because I haven’t brewed since the holidays.  Maybe because I’ve been busy with life.  Maybe because a major upgrade to my brewing system has me avoiding all things brewing – other than consuming homebrew.

Last Christmas, Mrs. Lazybrewer put a Blichman Therminator and Thrumometer under the tree for me and this year followed it up with a Blichmann HopRocket, and an additional March pump.  Over the last year I’ve picked up new stainless steel quick disconnects and high temp tubing, getting ready for the transition from my immersion chiller to a new plate chiller cooling system.  Yes, that’s right.  It’s taken me fifteen months to move from an old school wort chilling system to a new shiny high tech chilling system.  Because I’m a creature of habit – set in my ways – a stick in the mud!

It’s finally happening!  Today I spent a couple hours building new hoses and attaching male QDs to “devices” and kettles.  I’m 95% ready (I just need to get a couple 3/4″ F/F couplers for the water side of the Therminator) and plan of doing a water-only dry run on Saturday, followed by a Cookie Dough Brown Ale brew on Sunday or Monday.  I know that it’s going to be a worrisome brew day for me with the change.  I have well over a hundred brew sessions under my belt with my system, and current immersion chiller, and the plate chiller looks to be far more complex to manage and keep clean and sanitized.  Part of my hesitation over the last year has be concerning keeping the Therminator clean and not being the single point of infection failure for my brews.  I’ve read way too much on cleaning and sanitizing plate chillers on the web, and several of my closest brew buddies have been using plate and counterflow chillers for years without a single infection.  But still, I’m nervous, because I’m a creature of habit – set in my ways – a stick in the mud! I’m sure 5-10 brews from now, the Therminator will be my new habit, but getting there will wear on me a bit:)

I am looking forward to using the HopRocket, infusing my IPAs with oodles of hop goodness, but that’s a couple brews down the road.  I want to get the new chilling regime down first before introducing a new variable.

Where's Waldo?

On a side note, we just got back from a Northern California brewery road trip.  We enjoyed stops at Russian River Brewing, Bear Republic Brewing, Anderson Valley Brewing, North Coast Brewing and on the way home, a drop-in at Lagunitas Brewing yielded a single release tapping of Waldo – which they bill as their hoppiest beer ever.  We spent two nights at The MacCallum House in Mendocino, and enjoyed great beer, wonderful food and spirited companionship – with some of the best people in the world!

Life is good!

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Russian River Brewing Company

The secret to a thirty year marriage?  Find a beautiful woman who will accompany you on – and be excited about – a craft brewery tour on your 30th anniversary getaway!  This is a gallery of pictures from our recent trip to Mendocino – with several stops along the way, and on the way home.

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Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale

Brenda and are are escaping the hot Central California summer heat with a road trip to Mendocino. We’re staying a couple nights at the MacCallum House Inn, in downtown Mendocino, and hitting a couple breweries I’ve wanted to visit, for quite some time, on the way north.

First off, we’ll be stopping in Petaluma to visit Lagunitas Brewing Company. I’ve heard wonderful things about their taproom and I’m really looking forward to a visit.

Next, we’ll be stopping for lunch at Santa Rosa’s Russian River Brewing Company, where hopefully I’ll leave with a growler or two of Pliny the Elder – and maybe even Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Elder

Eventually, we’ll wind up in Mendocino, after about a five hour drive, and take it easy for the rest of the evening. The next day, we’re hoping to head over to Boonville, and visit Anderson Valley Brewing Company for ales and lunch – followed by a bit of wine tasting on the way back to Mendocino. Somehow, I’m also hoping to fit in a visit to Bear Republic Brewing, in Healdsburg. And maybe – just maybe – a stop at Marin Brewing Company, in Larkspur on the way home.

This is an anniversary trip for us. I’m looking forward to spending some time with Brenda – over some quality ales.

Life is good!

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Brenda's Deschutes Brewing Tattoo

Brenda and I wanted to try a new beer festival this year and I’ve kind of looked at the Monterey Beer Festival for the last couple of years.  We bought tickets about six weeks before the event and they arrived just a couple days after ordering them on the web.  That was a good sign!  We booked a room at our favorite place to stay in Monterey, the Merritt House Inn, and we were good to go.  We tried to find friends to join us, who didn’t already have something going on the weekend of June 5-6, but it was a busy time for all.  That was a bad sign!

Saturday morning we jumped in the Audi TT Roadster and headed for the coast. The weather was unseasonably warm for Monterey when we arrived.  We checked into the Inn, and then drove over to the Monterey Fairgrounds.  We arrived about an hour after the festival started and were amazed to see a line to get in that was probably 2000-3000 people deep!  We followed a car into the actual fairgrounds and ended up parking in the arena – with only twenty other cars:)  We went to the end of the line, only to hear someone in front of us mention that there was another line at the main entrance that was much shorter, so we headed up to that area.

Cheap Shitty Tasting Cup!

After another fifteen minute wait, with an ID check and bag pat-down, we received out wrist bands and (incredibly cheap shitty little (no offense intended to the Solo cup folks – I use your stuff all the time.  Offense intended for the Monterey Beer Festival folks for using such an unclassy  tasting container for this event!)) plastic Solo taster cups – and were told not to lose them.  That was a bad sign!

Once we actually hit the beer fest area, the first thing we noticed was the sea of humanity, 94.3% of who were between 21 to 26 years of age.  By 1:45 pm, many were obviously well on their way to a serious hangover.  Another bad sign!  We smooshed our way through the crowd to the center corral of tables, only to discover that all of the beer in that area was being served in a frantic, non-stop manner, by MBF folks wearing “Volunteer” t-shirts – not folks from the various breweries.  There were cases of unrefrigerated beer stacked behind the poures, who were serving out of the open cases/six-pack holders that had had ice poured on top of the open cases.  Again, that was a bad sign!

MBF sea of humanity!

A couple of the breweries’ beers I specifically went to taste, most notably Goose Island, were nowhere to be found.  These best of the bunch were ales from Ninkasi Brewing and Deshutes Brewing. Additionally, I finally tasted Sierrra Nevada’s Tumbler Brown Ale, which was good, but not as great as  I had hoped. We worked our way around the booths, waited in looooooong lines, and had probably six or seven tasters of beer.  By 3:30, many of the booths were out of beer (Sierra Nevada was closing up by this time) and it just further lengthened the remaining lines as the fest goers flocked to the booths that were still pouring beer.

Peter B's IPA - Yum!

We left about 3:30 and headed back to Peter B’s Brewery, in the Portola Plaza for a quiet ale.  I had a couple of their awesome IPAs and we noticed that several other more vintage MBF attendees (not in the 21-26 year age bracket:) also stopped by to an ale.  After relaxing on Peter B’s patio, we headed over to the wharf for a quiet dinner, where I enjoyed a nice porter with my mussels and sand dabs.  It was a great way to cap off a somewhat disappointing day at the Monterey Beer Festival.

Sand Dabs for Dinner!

All in all, we probably won’t be going back to the Monterey Beer Festival.  The overly young crowd, focused on quantity, not quality, the long lines, the fact that many beer offerings were gone long before the end of the event, and the fact that the MBF folks seem to have over-sold the attendance, will probably keep us for going back in future years.  This is more of an event for those folks looking to get sloshed on mass quantities of beer, not those who are looking to taste several quality ales.  I’m sure there are thousands of people who really love this annual event, but it’s just not what I look for in a beer festival.  My BrewBuddy Stephen has mentioned the different nature of beer festivals in the past and I wasn’t really sure what he was talking about, but there is a definite difference between a Beer Festival and a Brewer’s Festival.  I’ll be attending the latter type of event in the future.

There were positives, though.  The food was excellent.  We had a couple wonderful sausage sandwiches.  There were several high quality breweries there – though I think the quality of their ales was lost on most of the attendees.  Finally, it was good to see that MoreBeer had a booth (it was good to chat very briefly with Jesse) serving some homebrew – that was well received by the attendees.  And hey, at the end of the day, I was in Monterey with my sweetie:)

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Pub Crawl Ticket

Our homebrew club, the Central Valley Brewers Guild, is looking into a Sacramento pub crawl, where the participants are delivered, and returned home, by Amtrak.  We are looking for alcohol responsible methods of transportation to ensure that our crawlers are returned home safely, as well as not endangering the public at large.

The CVBG Founders have been discussing this for some time now and we finally decided to make a trial run to see if an Amtrak pub crawl is feasible.  We checked train schedules and made reservations (a bit funky as you can’t print tickets made by web reservations – come on Amtrak, it’s a new century!) by phone.  The train departed at 10:34 pm on Saturday and was scheduled to arrive in Sacramento at 12:30 pm.  The return train departed at 4:55 pm, so we knew going in that time would be tight.  Four and a half hours, and four potential pubs in downtown and midtown Sacramento sounded just short of undoable.  Additionally, we were looking at moving 18-20 blocks either by foot or exploring public transportation options.  Our idea was to head out to the farthest pub on the list, Rubicon Brewing Company, and then work our way back towards the Amtrak station.  Our fear is that keeping 30+ pub crawlers somewhat organized, and moving between pubs with such a tight schedule, will be similar to herding cats.  The possible pubs on the list included Rubicon Brewing Company, Pyramid Alehouse, Brew it Up and River City Brewing.

Rubicon's Hop Sauce

We arrived at the Denair Amtrak station about fifteen minutes before the train was supposed to arrive.  Once we boarded, we paid the conductor for our reserved outgoing tickets.  We were told to just pick up the return tickets when we hit the Sacramento station.  About twelve minutes later we picked up Steve at the Modesto Amtrak station.  Modesto has a relatively new, and very nice Amtrak station with a ticket counter, so we will probably buy advance tickets there for the real rail pub crawl.  All went well until we were about eight miles out of Sacramento.  They were working on the tracks, and we sat for almost twenty minutes while workers moved equipment and allowed a freight train to pass.  That kind of delay on crawl day would be a huge blow to the agenda.

Once we arrived in Sacramento, we lined up to buy return tickets and burned probably another fifteen minutes.  We discovered that Regional Transit buses would get us within a couple blocks of Rubicon Brewing Company.  Better yet, the Amtrak conductors could provide us with free transfer passes for the buses.  You just ask for them before you leave the train.  Too bad we didn’t know that.  Stephen was able to get four passes and we had to pay for the others.  We arrived at Rubicon about 1:30 ready to imbibe.

Mmmmmm! Bacon Cheeseburger!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Rubicon had their wonderful imperial IPA, Hop Sauce.  It is served in a 10 ounce goblet and they will only serve you two. I started with a Hop Sauce, followed by a couple of Rubicon’s exceptional IPAs. Rubicon’s IPA is definitely in my top five IPAs for its wonderful flavor and drinkability.  Stephen went all Belgian on us and even introduced Brenda to a sour beer she really enjoyed.  We enjoyed a leisurely lunch and picked our waitress’ brain on bringing 30+ crawlers in on a Saturday afternoon.  We decided that the curb-side outdoor seating would probably best fit our group.

After lunch and ales, we headed back over a block or so to a RT bus pick-up area and rode a bus back to the head of the Westfield Mall and one of my favorite brew pubs, River City Brewing.  RCB has awesome food, decent ale (but no IPA…) and great atmosphere.  I particularly enjoy grabbing and ale or two on a warm day and sitting in their outdoor seating and watching the mall traffic wander by.  Time was getting short, so we ordered up a round of ales and headed outside.  Strangely, while we waited at the bar for our beers, one of the folks sitting there asked if we were on a pub crawl.  Go figure!  After a quick ale, it was time to head back to the Amtrak station to hop on board the 4:55 pm train home.  The ride home was uneventful and we had one last ale on the train to cap off the day.

Feeling Empty and Sad...

Looking back, my impressions of the day are as follows…

I was surprised how many people actually ride Amtrak in California’s central valley.  Pleasantly surprised:)

Four and a half hours is a pretty short timeline for a pub crawl.  Even without our 20 minute Amtrak delay, we’ll probably need to cut the pubs down to three to fit the alotted time.  Rubicon is a must (they have the best ale of the four pubs, in my opinion:), as well as River City, since it is only two blocks from the Amtrak station and it will be pretty easy to move a lubricated crowd onward on a moments notice.  That leaves either Pyramid or Brew it Up to axe.  Since we didn’t have time to visit either one, we may need to go back and do further research.  I’m sure both of the establishments have their upside so we really need to enjoy a pint or two in each to get a feel for the atmosphere – and their ability to handle a group our size.

Feeling Full and Happy!

Additionally, I was really impressed with the friendliness, and helpfulness, of both the Amtrak conductors and the Sacramento RT bus drivers.  They could tell we were “out of towners” and offered friendly advice freely – all with a smile.  I was pleasantly surprised:)

Finally, we are seriously considering two paths for the day of the pub crawl.  One is the 4.5 hour run of three brew pubs. The other, for folks more dedicated to the ales, is a “Crawl Over” where we stay at the Capitol Plaza Holiday Inn – literally crawling distance from River City Brewing company:)

We’ll be presenting this information, as well as doing more research, for a late spring pub crawl to our homebrew guild. We’ll also have some work ahead of us setting up the logistics of the day with the various pubs we visit.  We’re hoping to have a couple of the brewers on hand for tours and Q&A.  Not exactly sure how that will play out on a Saturday, but we want to give it a shot for the good of our guild.

River City Brewing Guys

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Arriving at Alcatraz

Friday afternoon, after a quick lunch at Pier 39, we queued up at Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz.  I was surprised how windy it was on the bay, but the ride over to the island was uneventful.

A standard 5 x 9 foot Alcatraz cell

Once we got to Alcatraz, we headed up to the actual prison building and after going through the shower area (don’t drop the soap:), we picked up the iPod-like self-guided audio tour units and spent about 90 minutes checking out all things Alcatraz. I was unaware of the extensive military history of Alcatraz, and the years it spent as a prison were incredibly interesting. The tour is well worth the time and expense.

We spent night with our friends Eric And Patty, in Moraga, and we enjoyed several vintage barleywines that Eric had been cellering.  We chilled and then enjoyed a 1992 Old Knucklehead, 1993 Old Crustacean and 1999 Bigfoot.

Three vintage barleywines!

The Old Crustacean had lost its carbonation, but was tasty just the same. The best of the bunch was the Old Knucklehead with wonderful sherry-like flavors.  The Bigfoot was also quite nice:)  We also enjoyed several Speakeasy Big Daddy IPAs.

Three warm Brewfesters!

Saturday morning we headed over to the Orinda BART station and caught a train to the San Francisco Embarcadero station.  We walked two blocks to the ferry building and bought round-trip tickets to Larkspur Landing. The ferry over to Larkspur was filled with twenty-something kids who were enjoying the gamut of swill beers on the way over to the Brewfest.  After getting off the ferry in Larkspur, and a five minute walk to the Larkspur Landing courtyard, we bought our Brewfest wrist bands and hit the event.

Toast! A couple Old Rasputin Russian imperial stouts and a wheat ale

Larkspur Landing courtyard is arranged in a crescent shape, with all of the businesses arranged around the outside.  There were many great breweries that were arranged around the inner rim of the courtyard, under canopies.  The weather was warm, in the mid-80s, and there were lots of attendees, so we spent a fair amount of time just navigating around the event, and waiting in lines for samples.  We were some of the more vintage folks in the crowd.  We spent a fair amount of time grabbing a sample, and then enjoying it in the limited available shade.

My one rant with this event, and brewfests in general, are the fools who get to the front of the line, get their taster glass filled, and then stand there and talk forever to the brewery folks.  Jeez – once your glass is full, get the hell out of the way! There are people waiting patiently in line behind you!

Me and Vinnie Cilurzo - my hero!

The highlight of the day for me was chatting with Vinnie Cilurzo, of Russian River Brewing Company.  Vinnie is a rock star in the craft brewing industry, and I’ve been fortunate to hear him speak recently at NHC, as well as briefly chatting with him at this event.  Russian River makes one of my top five favorite ales, Pliny the Elder, and I got to tell Vinnie that he is one of my heros:)

The 9th Annual Microbreweries Battling Breast Cancer Brewfest was a great, well organized event and I suspect we’ll attend again in the future.  Using public transportation to travel to the brewfest is the easy, and responsible, way to go:)

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New Chest Freezer for Keg Storage (and old upright fridge in the background)

Last week I picked up a 13 cu ft chest freezer, and Ranco digital temperature controller, for cold keg storage.  This opens up my existing upright refrigerator as a summer fermenting chamber.  Last Friday I brewed a batch of one of Brenda’s favorite beers I make, Colona, and it is fermenting away at appropriate lager fermentation temperatures in my brew shed’s refrigerator.

Brittannia Arms Pub in Monterey

Last weekend, Brenda and I celebrated our 29th anniversary in Monterey. We stayed at our favorite Monterey inn, The Merritt House Inn.  As always, the staff there treated us wonderfully and we enjoyed several wonderful fresh fish meals, as well as a couple sessions in one of my favorite pubs, Britannia Arms.  We escaped 109+ valley temperatures for two days and enjoyed fabulous mid-70s temps.

Tomorrow I’ll be brewing another batch of Black Widow Stout.  The keg just blew last week, so it’ll be a month or so before I have a standard stout back on tap.  I do have RIS on tap, so not all is lost, but it is far from a session ale:)  I plan on oaking five gallons of this batch of Black Widow Stout.  Several of my brew buddies have been experimenting with oaking stouts and IPAs lately, and I want to give it a go.  Steve’s oaked RIS is truly one of the best home brewed ales I’ve ever had the pleasure to enjoy, and I want to join that exclusive club.  Hopefully I can get an early start on the brew day (not Steve early!) so that I can have a glimmer of hope of chilling the batch.  Even with an iced pre-chiller, I’ve had problems using summer valley groundwater to get my wort down to suitable initial fermentation temps.  With the Colona still in the fermentation fridge (currently in the middle of a diacetyl rest), this batch will need to start out in the living room, so I do need to get it quite cool to start off well.

With the 4th of July just around the corner, we’ll be spending the day with the usual suspects!  Happy Birthday, America!

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After Beer Wars...

Last night a few of the Central Valley Brewers Guild folks and I went to Merced to see the movie event, Beer Wars. There were a total of 10 people in the audience for the movie, and from what I’ve read, this was pretty typical of the theaters across America. Some theaters experienced technical issues with the viewing, but our theater did a decent job of making it all happen.  I think what I took away from the movie was the absurdity of the three tier system of beer distribution in America. There are breweries, distributors and retailers. Basically, while the brewery may want to get their ale in my hands, ultimately, it is the middle man – the distributor – who controls what I will find on tap at an ale house or a retail outlet like my bottle shop or even BevMo. The distributors usually have relationships with one of the big three breweries (AB, SAB Miller/Coors), and so push the products their “parent” wants them to sell – not necessarily what the consumer wants. It a sad state.

The movie itself was interesting, but I had some gripes with it.  They seem to have chosen an questionable story line to follow with Rhonda Kallman’s Moon Shot.  It’s a caffeinated beer – focused at those folks who want to be wired and drunk at the same time.  I just can’t put this stuff into the category of craft beer.  I understand how it fits in with the theme of the movie, but then I was very confused with her efforts to sell out to the the Big Three.  She’s not about craft beer – she’s about marketing.  Hell, even her old partner Jim Koch, turned her down for financial assistance.  Sadly, much – too much – of the movie was showing her efforts to get her foot in the door at the ale house level.  I’d have liked to see the movie focus more on a couple other craft brewers than her.  Even with all this in mind, I found it uncomfortable seeing the Alstrom Brothers slam her efforts on a live stage event after the movie.  It was unnecessary.

It was still fun to see some of my beer heroes up on the big screen.  Charlie Papazian, Sam Caglione, Greg Koch, Jim Koch made the film.

My Tri-Tip Sandwich and fresh chips

We started the evening at Bubba’s Big Bad BBQ in Merced.  I had a Tri-Tip sandwich with a couple Union Jack IPAs.  The food was wondeful and Firestone never fails to please.  We’re heading back here tonight for a brewery tour of Rascal Creek Brewing, where our buddy Don Oliver is currently brewing their ales.  We’re looking forwad to getting the back story on this from Don:)  We’ll have dinner and ales again.

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Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker

Lately though, I’ve been hearing the call of charcoal and wood chunks – and wonderful slow cooked and smoked meats.  For the last year or so, I’ve been casually checking out smokers, but now I feel the need to move forward on a purchase.  I saw a tweet today on Twitter from a gent in Washington (hi Normskibrewer!) who uses Weber’s Smokey Mountain Cooker for his BBQ endeavors.  He highly recommends the smoker, as do several hundred people who’ve posted reviews over at Amazon.  There seem to be some manufacturing issues with same of the individual pieces of the cooker, but everyone seems to get those ironed out either with Amazon, or Weber itself.  Norm recommended checking out Virtual Weber Bullet web site for more info and it is a wealth of information for the unit itself, as well as cooking/smoking procedures and recipes for various cuts of meat.  I’m sold!  I’ll be picking up a Weber Smokey Mountain Grill this week, either from Amazon, or a local vendor.  Amazingly, a small, independent BBQ shop opened in the last couple weeks less than a mile from my home.  I don’t mind spending a few extra bucks to support local businesses, but I don’t know if they carry the Weber Smokey Mountain Grill, and how much more it may be above Amazon’s very low price.

I want to break in the new smoker over the Labor Day weekend, so I need to get my ducks in a row tomorrow before I head out of town with Stephen on my Summer of Music Tour to see Dave Matthews at Raley Field, in Sacramento.  The show may be a bit of a somber event as one of DMB’s founding members died last week from complications from an ATV accident in late June.  Hopefully, before I have my first Hop Sauce at Rubicon Brewing Company about 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have purchased the new smoker.

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Since they have free wireless Internet access, I looked up local brewerys to see if one was nearby.  To my surprise, there was a brewery within 25 minutes waking distance.  It was just across the train trestle the crosses the river beyond the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  We headed over to the Seabright Brewery for lunch and ales early Wednesday afternoon (well, more like late morning:).  We were greeted by one of the owners, Charlie, and were warmly received by our waitress.  I went straight for an IPA, The Blur, and was not disappointed.  It has a wonderful aroma and nice deep hop flavor.  We ordered lunch and noticed that there was a busy gentleman traveling through the pub, who appeared to a part of the brewery operations.  He was!  Steve and I were treated to a tour of the brewery by the head brewer,  Jason Chavez.  Jason showed us the entire brewery, which was very compact, but a very nice operation.  He and his assistant brewer, Sam, were brewing a batch of their most popular ale, Pelican Pale Ale.  Jason was kind enough to spend 10-15 minutes talking about Seabright Brewery, and their specific brewing operations.  We had a chance to talk about hops, and the current shortages, and he told us that he is in pretty good shape for the near future, based on relationships he has with various hop distributors.  We ate and I grabbed a growler of their Sacrilicious Ale to bring home.

All in all, Seabright’s beers, and food offerings are top notch.  Seabright has won many awards at GABFest and is celebrating their 20th anniversary.  Jason told us that he is just about to brew their 3000th batch of ale in the coming weeks.  I’d go back and spend a few hours in the pub in a heartbeat.  Thankfully, when we headed back to the Dream Inn, they were serving Seabright’s Sacrilicious Ale at the pool bar.  I had several more of their ales as the afternoon progressed.

If you ever find yourself in Santa Cruz, with a thirst for quality ale, be sure to look up the Seabright Brewery!

Seabright’s 20th Anniversary

My lunch, Salmon Bites – and a pint of The Blur IPA

Mmmmm!  Garlic Cheese Fries!

Sienna Brown, Seabright’s official BrewDog!

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We went back to the hotel, checked in and than headed over to Old Sacramento, to have a beer on the Delta King.  The Delta King is a permanently moored river paddle wheel boat that has been converted into a floating hotel and restaurant/bar.  Brenda and I stayed overnight on the Delta King about four years ago.  It was very nice and the restaurant was wonderful.  Their bar had nothing on draft, so I had a Newcastle brown ale and we watched the boats go by on the Sacramento River (man – there are really a lot of stupid twenty-somethings with boats…)

Next it was back to River City Brewing for an ale on the patio.  They were out of their Kolsch, so Brenda had a wit and I had a Woodenhead.  I tasted their cask ale again, but found it to be watery and flavorless.  We watched the world go by at the head of the mall and I made dinner reservations for 7:45.  We went back to the hotel and chilled until dinner time.

We shared a Brewmaster’s pizza and a Caesar salad for dinner.  The food was very good – so good to forgot to take a picture:)  We had originally planned on seeing a move, but decided to head back to the hotel after dinner, since there were no movies playing that we really wanted to see.

We slept in the next morning, and headed over to Johnny Rockets for lunch, before heading out of town.  All in all, it was a very relaxing trip.

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We usually stay at the Holiday Inn Capitol Plaza.  It sits at the head of the Westfield Downtown Plaza Mall, near state capitol, and is just a hundred steps from one of my favorite upscale brew pubs, River City Brewing Company.  I like their ales – I just wish they had an IPA.  I really do enjoy their Woodenhead Ale and Kolsch, though.  Their food is second to none as far a pub food goes.  Their wood-fired oven pizzas are fabulous, and they have a wonderful rib eye steak with a huge dollop of blue cheese and crisp onion strings.  Mmmm!

Right above River City Brewing Company is Johnny Rockets, easily the best burger chain in America – even better than In-N-Out!  Their meals are expensive, but after you have one of their bacon cheeseburgers, half rings – half fries, and a vanilla malt, you’ll pay twice what they ask:)  We hit Johnny Rockets at least once every trip for either lunch or dinner.

If you head out of the hotel and go west, instead of going east into the mall area (which has really great shopping opportunities – Brenda can attest to this:), you immediately go into a walking subway that passes under I-5 and drops you directly into Old Sacramento, with more dining and shopping than you can take in in a single day.

We really like this hotel as the rates are pretty good (and we belong to their rewards program – this stay is completely free for us:) and the surrounding amenities are second to none!

Right after we check in to our hotel, we’re going to visit Rubicon Brewing Company for an ale or two and lunch.  Their IPA is easily in my top ten IPAs on earth.  It is such an easy drinking IPA – very representative of West Coast IPAs without being over the top.

Shhhhh!  Zales recently had a special on black diamond earrings, so I got a pair for Brenda as an anniversary gift.  I think she’ll like them:)

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I have several brews on the horizon.  I need to brew my Klassic Kolsch again, an English Bitter, a standard Pale Ale and finally, I want to brew an American Style wheat – possibly with some fresh watermelon in the secondary.  I have the yeast for all of these brews, so time is ticking on their shelf life.  Unfortunately, the Kolsch will require the use of my conditioning fridge for the necessary cool fermentation, so I’ll need to find a home for those five kegs for a month – or have a party and drink down the brews that I have on hand:)

I recently found this picture I’d taken with my cell phone while waiting for my daughter’s plane to arrive at the Sacramento Airport.  Her flight was delayed for an extra hour (and I arrived early anyway), so I dropped by one of my favorite pubs in Sacramento, River City Brewing Company for a pint of Woodenhead Ale.  They’ve had a cask ale the last few times I’ve been in, and I’ve tasted it each time, but it always seems thin and lacking the body I like in an ale.

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We killed some time shopping and then picked up the Jag. Traffic was light (spring break?) and we got to Redwood City with plenty of time for dinner. We had Mexican food for dinner, at a place called Margaritas, about a block from the Fox Theater. As we were finishing dinner, Paul Thorn and the band walked by the restaurant, presumably heading out for dinner before the show. I waited in line at the box office to pick up our tickets, while Brenda got in the main line to enter the Little Fox.

There was open seating, so we were hoping to get good seats. There were only a dozen or so people in line in front of us, so we weren’t too worried:) Unfortunately, there were having sound board problems, so we had to wait an additional half hour, out in the cold, before we were let into the theater. At 7:30 p.m., they let us in and we grabbed two seats, literally in front of the center-left side of the stage. We were so close I rested my feet on the stage for most of the show! I grabbed a couple of beers for us (I had a Sierra Nevada Pale). We kicked back waited for the show to start. It was a older crowd, and many of the folks had Paul Thorn stories to tell. Paul and the band came out exactly at 8:00 (I love people that are on time:) and he immediately apologized for wearing an ugly shirt.

He said he’d gone out for a run that afternoon, come back to the Little Fox, and was bummed that there was no shower – so he’d taken what he called a “whore bath,” where you clean yourself with paper towels and water. Then he discovered that the venue didn’t have an iron to press his shirt for the show, so he had to wear a shirt that he could pull directly out of his suitcase, and didn’t need ironing. It was an interesting shirt…

He played almost all of the new CD, but the cuts sounded polished, like they’d been playing them for years. Paul sang an acoustic set in the middle of the show, to spell the band, and he played one of my favorite unrecorded tunes, “Might as Well Stay Married.” One of the lines goes “I couldn’t get laid when I was single, if you threw me in a women’s prison, so I might as well stay married.”

All in all, the band played for two solid hours, without a break, and it was the best show I’ve seen Paul put on. After the show, Paul met with crowd to sign CDs and take pictures. He is a gracious guy and took the time to chat individually with everyone who wanted to meet him.

Me and Paul. Aren’t you glad I Photoshopped out the bloody eye?

Brenda and Paul

My autographed CD

We were on the road by 10:15 p.m. and home a little after midnight:)

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Dinner at Valley Brewing was good. I was hoping they would have their Uberhoppy IPA, but we had to settle for their regular IPA, Cobra Hood IPA – but it was very good:) To top off the evening, the Thunder won the hockey game.

Probably the highlight of the day was several very nice beers that Eric brought back from his recent trip to Washington DC, to share with me! What a guy:) . He brought two Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPAs, one 120 Minute IPA, and one World Wide Stout (an Imperial stout that comes over 18% ABV!) and two bottles of Bell’s Hopslam Ale. I have a new definition of a true friend – one who packs bubble wrap in his suitcase so he can bring home quality beer 3000 miles to share with his buddy. Thanks, Eric! Eric was gracious enough to leave an additional 90 Minute IPA and a Hopslam to share with Stephen:)

Since we were having an Imperial ale kind of day, I broke out two ales I had. Firestone Union Jack IPA and Sam Adams Imperial Pilsner.

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Blue Flame Imperial IPA

Size: 5.04 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 487.58 per 16.0 fl oz (ouch!)

Original Gravity: 1.108
Terminal Gravity: 1.027
Color: 11.8
Alcohol: 10.84%
Bitterness: 171.39

Ingredients:
1 tbsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer – added during mash
19.0 lbs American 2-row
.5 lbs Cara-Pils
.3 lbs Crystal Malt 60°L
.3 lbs Crystal Malt 40°L
1.0 lbs Corn Sugar
1.0 oz Summit (17.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
.5 oz Summit (17.0%) – added during boil, boiled 45.0 min
.5 oz Nugget (13.0%) – added during boil, boiled 45.0 min
.5 oz Summit (17.0%) – added during boil, boiled 20.0 min
1 oz Nugget (13.0%) – added during boil, boiled 20.0 min
1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 15 min
.5 oz Summit (17.0%) – added during boil, boiled 7.0 min
.5 oz Nugget (13.0%) – added during boil, boiled 7.0 min
1 oz Summit (17.0%) – added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Summit (17.0%) – added dry to the fermenter once fermentation is complete
1 oz Nugget (13.0%) – added dry to the fermenter once fermentation is complete
1 1400 ml White Labs WLP001 California Ale Starter

Mash In – Liquor: 6.28 gal; Strike: 160 °F; Target: 152.0 °F

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I’ve already re-brewed this once before, but it didn’t turn out as well as the first batch. The wonderful piny and citrusy aroma weren’t as bright as the first batch. I think that it was the hops I used the second time. I do have more of the original Summit hops I used for the first batch (they seemed fresher and more brilliant in aroma than the hops I used for the second batch), so I’ll be using those for the flavoring, aroma and dry hop additions. I plan on entering this in in the Modesto Mashers June open category competition.

We have lifelong family friends coming into town to join us for a Stockton Thunder hockey game, so I need to blow this brew session out in a timely manner. Eric was the first person I knew who was a homebrewer, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy arriving while I’m still brewing. We’ll be heading up to Stockton before the game for dinner and a couple of pints at Valley Brewing. Hopefully they have a couple hop bombs on tap for the pre-game warmup!

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