So I left Bishop on Saturday after an interesting night around the campfire in the Pit. I realized from talking to the folks there that I am merely a Junior dirtbag at this point. There are much more intense than me in terms of staying put and living out of tents and stuff. I am moving around too much, staying with friends too much and certainly showering too much to be a real dirtbag. I'll have to work on that.
I grabbed some stuff at the bakeries in Bishop and jetted down to LA in a mere 3.5 hours. Very good time considering the fact that I wasn't even really speeding it's just that there was almost no traffic (relative to the areas). I pulled in to Josh and Meghan's place and took a shower before we headed over to a bar called Lucky Baldwin's for their Barleywine/High Alcohol/Belgian Beer Fest. Oddly strange name for a Fest and not much of a festival either. They did have some interesting brews on tap though, and I was able to have another glass of Pliny the Younger from Russian River. Josh tried some Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine from 2000, and despite being 8 years old it was still too hoppy for his tastes. Meghan enjoyed the Collaboration not Litigation and Watson generally caused havoc to napkins everywhere.
That evening Josh and I had an Allagash night opening up bottles of Odyssey and Curieux both barrel aged belgian beers. The Odyssey impressed and the Curieux did not, but was passable nonetheless.
The next day we had planned to go rock climbing, but it was too damn hot in LA, like mid 90's. So we ended up taking my suggestion and heading up into the mountains north of LA for a hike with Watson. We went to a place near Horse Flats and hiked down to a couple waterfalls. It was up over 6000 feet where we parked the car and so there was not only cooler air to be found (like almost 25 degrees cooler), but there was also some snow still on the ground in shady places.
On Monday I hung out and did my state taxes, and in the evening went to get some pretty decent buffalo wings in Westwood with Jen. After dinner I went over to Josh's place, where, along with Josh's buddy Jon, we sampled some of the beers that I had brought across the country from the Portsmouth Brewery in NH. We tried the Imperial Pilsner, the Imperial IPA and the Baltic Porter. They were all quite good, although the IPA was not of the type that Josh prefers. I think the Baltic Porter may have been an exceptional porter, but since I am not really in to porters I don't think I can really comment from an informed standpoint.
Tuesday I hung out with Watson when packing up the car with some beers for trade at Dark Lord Day, and trying to fit a good portion of the homebrew in there too. Later I got this song stuck in my head.
Yesterday, I said my goodbyes and hit the road, heading north to the Bay Area, and failing to convince my silly friends to ditch their silly jobs for an afternoon, I headed right through SF and rolled up to Santa Rosa to visit the Russian River Brewpub by myself. I was psyched to get up there right away because they are releasing their barrel aged and spontaneously fermented beer now. These beers only come out once every two years in somewhat limited quantities (not a limited as the ones I picked up at Alesmith) Beeradvocate.com lists these brews as being some of the best in the world, with several of them making the Top 100 list.
I was able to try the Compunction which was not bottled so it was the first thing I asked for. I also tried the Supplication which I had been told was amazing. They were both fantastic in my opinion, very interesting complex sour beers with the sour being part of the character of the beer rather than a dominating force. I look forward to trying some more of it when the bottles that Josh ordered online are cracked open sometime this summer.
I also got a couple growlers filled up with some of my favorite beer from RR. Pliny the Elder and Salvation. I brought the growlers back down to Redwood City for Patrick and that is where I am now. Yesterday evening Pat and I cracked open the Salvation and drank quite a bit of it. (Note to self: do not allow Patrick to take charge of refilling your glass.) And brilliantly we also decided to go for a run while Bridgette watched American Idol. It was a long run and Pat runs quite a bit faster than some of the folks I have been running with recently. It was okay though, I was able to keep up, but I was reminded that Pat is a much better athlete than me and even when he is out of shape he is very strong.
Today I have been very lazy, catching up with my NBA playoff coverage, and just generally unwilling to get back in the car after driving so much yesterday. I used Pat and Bridgette's scale to see if I have lost weight, since I think that I have lost a bit. I came in at 171 pounds on their scale, which is about a 4 pound loss from my normal 175. I am not sure why I lost weight other than my diet not being so replete with the fatty fried foods I crave normally. Their scale also has a body fat measuring feature, and I came in at 41.1% fat. I am not sure that the scale is too accurate though. (wink) In fact I would be willing to debate whether or not you could possibly have a live person who was 5'10 171 pounds and 41% fat. I mean the bones and essential organs have to weight more than 59 percent of your body right? With a frame of 5'10 and a weight of 171, I don't think 41% fat could work.
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