For blogging that is. Damn I have been lazy in my writing here. I have been in and around LA for almost two weeks and I still haven't finished put down anything about my drive back from Chicago. Guh.
Well here goes nothing. I left Chicago on a Monday morning and started to drive west on I-90. Which conveniently takes me through Madison, WI. At a rest stop on the way I was able to get an Autie Anne's hot pretzel, one of my favorite random food items and one I have been without for several years I think. In Madison I stopped at a beer store that came highly recommended on Beer Advocate. This was a very good stop for me as I was able to pick up whole cases of New Glarus fruit beers, along with a nice grab bag of midwest beers including a four pack of Devil Over a Barrel from Tyranena and a Bell's Hopslam, which I had failed to pick up on my last trip through the midwest.
Upon departing Madison I took a detour up to Minneapolis on I-94 solely to visit the Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery. MTH makes Masala Mama IPA one of the last beers in the top 15 or so on BA that had escaped me. I hadn't had time to really check, but I had my fingers crossed, that not only would the Pub be open since I was getting there at almost 9pm but that I would be able to have a glass of Masala Mama. I didn't know whether it was a seasonal release or something that was available year round. I was reassured immediately as I approached the bar on foot, because the place was hopping. I mean really hopping there must have been about 30 tables in a courtyard outside, and they were pretty much all full of people eating and drinking. I went inside and found myself a place at the bar where I was even more delighted to discover that they not only had Masala Mama available they had it on cask. On top of that they had a mango infused version of it called Mango Mama. I had both of these and they were both excellent. They went well with the cajun chicken ceasar salad I had for dinner too. I struck up conversation with two gentlemen next to me who both appeared to be real beer enthusiasts, one of them was even a writer for a local midwest brewing newsletter. After finishing my beers and sobering up a little I purchased a growler of Masala Mama to go and got back on the road.
I got myself an energy drink around 11:00 so I was awake enough to keep driving until 2:00am. I was able to get myself back on to I-90 and within about 70 miles of South Dakota before I decided to pull over and sleep at a rest stop. This is the only time I have done this and it didn't work out too badly but the short amount of sleep I did get caught up with me a couple days later.
Whoa that is a lot of words about half a day. So I will continue this saga later. I might get in another installment today, but if not it will have to wait until after the weekend as I am heading back to Black Mountain for some more bouldering. But before I do, today I am going to see the new batman movie, should be good.
Showing posts with label Beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beer. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Gettin' dressed up
Today, I have to go get measured for the tuxedo I'll be wearing in Pete's wedding. And later this week I'll have to go pick up the fancy pants robes I'll be wearing at graduation. I am sure I will look fabulous in both getups, but probably a bit better in the Tux. You never know though. The robes might be quite flattering. I doubt it though. I think they are designed to conceal the many ills that often plague the bodies of a life long academic.
So, as I mentioned previously, my birthday was on Saturday and it was awesome. I went to a Dodger's game with Josh, Meghan and their friend Kara. It was a good game and we had pretty decent seats. We were in the second row of the upper deck, just above the railing so that we had an unobstructed view of the whole field. I did struggle to gauge where line drives were going to land. There were hits I thought were going to be caught and lineouts I thought were going to be hits. I think I'd have to spend a few games in those seats to get used to it.
After the game we came back to Josh and Meghan's place and cooked up an awesome dinner, with bruschetta, green-lipped mussels steamed in beer broth, and steak frittes. Meghan made some amazing molten chocolate cake for desert which paired with with a bottle of the New Glarus Raspberry Tart. Speaking of beer. There were four of us drink that night so we were able to drink a few more beers than Josh and I can usually make it through with just the two of us.
Here is the list:
Stuise Earthmonk
JW Lee's Harvest Ale 1998
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Struise Stuiselensis
Russian River Temptation
Upland Wheat
Alesmith Old Numbskull
New Glarus Raspberry Tart
Three Floyds Dark Lord Stout
All in all it was a great day. And I owe a huge thank you to Josh and Meghan for making it all happen.
The next day I lazed around for a bit before taking off to go to Black Mountain a nearby bouldering area. Well not too near to LA, it is out in the mountains west of Palm Springs. To get to Black Mountain you approach from the west side of the range and drive up a dirt road towards a boulder-strewn campground. There are lots of cool problems there, but it is certainly not for the novice climber. I checked out the OK Corral area on Sunday evening and climbed a few interesting problems there. I saw many more interesting problems that were just a but too hard for me. I then drove up the road to find a spot to sleep in one of the free group campsites that climbers generally stay in.
The first one I came across had a tent and some gear in it but the owner was not around I set up my stuff on the far side of the campsite, which was actually farther away from his stuff than the next site would have been in most of the official campgrounds I have been in. I ate my dinner and listened to the basketball game (Lakers/Celts game 2). I was just getting ready to go to bed and read for a bit when the guy came back. After a couple minutes he came down to talk to me, and it was clear he would rather that I was not there. I offered to move and it took him a bit to admit that he actually did want me to move. I agreed because it really was no big deal. I was only there cause I didn't know how far up the road the next site was, and I figured this was big enough to fit both of us (and more for that matter). However after I agreed to move it came out that his girlfriend was coming up that night and since he hadn't seen her in a week they were going to be "noisy" all night. The real reason he was uncomfortable is he didn't want anyone within listening distance. I of course told him he should have said that right away. I have to problem at all giving some lovers a bit of privacy if they need it.
So I moved and it was easy. The next site was just up the road. I woke up the next morning (Monday) and headed to the Boulder Basin Campground area. This is the main climbing area but also a campground you have to pay to sleep in. Some of the boulders are right next to the campsites so it is a good place to go on weekdays and avoid on weekends. After I had checked out some of the problems and had started warming up I met another group of climbers from Murrieta. I ended up hanging out with Joel, Terry and Daniel for the rest of the day and together we went out to the summit area to find The Visor boulder and the climbs NRA and Facemeat. I was able to climb Center Visor (V6), Joel almost managed it but was unable to pull the mantle. It was a hard mantle, there must be an easier way than I did it, but I was happy to have done it however awkward it was. I think got it on the third try, but after the first go who really cares. Daniel sent Facemeat (V6) and Joel was very close. I did not try it because it involved small and painful looking crimps, that would have been well... painful. Well then proceeded back to the campground area where the guys showed me the climbs Bull Durham (V6) and Velvet Revolver (V7). The opening moves on BD weren't too bad, but the crux involved a long move off of two painful holds. I think I will wait until I and stronger and the holds don't hurt so much to try to send this one. However VR was much nice on the fingers and I almost got the crux move a couple times. And I think I would have sent it, but my should was hurting me pretty bad for the first time in months and I had to stop climbing for my own well being. I think that doing pushups the other night must have messed me up, by weakening my muscles as they recovered from the workout and then I stressed them again climbing. Hopefully a bit of regular push up work will make it so that my muscles are not too sore and weakened, and I can both climb and do push ups.
In any case, I high tailed it back to LA after that and I hung out with Josh and Meghan last night. Josh and I tried some coffee stouts, Peche Mortel and the Central Water's Coffee Stout, along with the Great Lakes Blackout Stout.
Tomorrow I will leave for Stanford, but I think I might go climb a mountain on the way....
So, as I mentioned previously, my birthday was on Saturday and it was awesome. I went to a Dodger's game with Josh, Meghan and their friend Kara. It was a good game and we had pretty decent seats. We were in the second row of the upper deck, just above the railing so that we had an unobstructed view of the whole field. I did struggle to gauge where line drives were going to land. There were hits I thought were going to be caught and lineouts I thought were going to be hits. I think I'd have to spend a few games in those seats to get used to it.
After the game we came back to Josh and Meghan's place and cooked up an awesome dinner, with bruschetta, green-lipped mussels steamed in beer broth, and steak frittes. Meghan made some amazing molten chocolate cake for desert which paired with with a bottle of the New Glarus Raspberry Tart. Speaking of beer. There were four of us drink that night so we were able to drink a few more beers than Josh and I can usually make it through with just the two of us.
Here is the list:
Stuise Earthmonk
JW Lee's Harvest Ale 1998
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Struise Stuiselensis
Russian River Temptation
Upland Wheat
Alesmith Old Numbskull
New Glarus Raspberry Tart
Three Floyds Dark Lord Stout
All in all it was a great day. And I owe a huge thank you to Josh and Meghan for making it all happen.
The next day I lazed around for a bit before taking off to go to Black Mountain a nearby bouldering area. Well not too near to LA, it is out in the mountains west of Palm Springs. To get to Black Mountain you approach from the west side of the range and drive up a dirt road towards a boulder-strewn campground. There are lots of cool problems there, but it is certainly not for the novice climber. I checked out the OK Corral area on Sunday evening and climbed a few interesting problems there. I saw many more interesting problems that were just a but too hard for me. I then drove up the road to find a spot to sleep in one of the free group campsites that climbers generally stay in.
The first one I came across had a tent and some gear in it but the owner was not around I set up my stuff on the far side of the campsite, which was actually farther away from his stuff than the next site would have been in most of the official campgrounds I have been in. I ate my dinner and listened to the basketball game (Lakers/Celts game 2). I was just getting ready to go to bed and read for a bit when the guy came back. After a couple minutes he came down to talk to me, and it was clear he would rather that I was not there. I offered to move and it took him a bit to admit that he actually did want me to move. I agreed because it really was no big deal. I was only there cause I didn't know how far up the road the next site was, and I figured this was big enough to fit both of us (and more for that matter). However after I agreed to move it came out that his girlfriend was coming up that night and since he hadn't seen her in a week they were going to be "noisy" all night. The real reason he was uncomfortable is he didn't want anyone within listening distance. I of course told him he should have said that right away. I have to problem at all giving some lovers a bit of privacy if they need it.
So I moved and it was easy. The next site was just up the road. I woke up the next morning (Monday) and headed to the Boulder Basin Campground area. This is the main climbing area but also a campground you have to pay to sleep in. Some of the boulders are right next to the campsites so it is a good place to go on weekdays and avoid on weekends. After I had checked out some of the problems and had started warming up I met another group of climbers from Murrieta. I ended up hanging out with Joel, Terry and Daniel for the rest of the day and together we went out to the summit area to find The Visor boulder and the climbs NRA and Facemeat. I was able to climb Center Visor (V6), Joel almost managed it but was unable to pull the mantle. It was a hard mantle, there must be an easier way than I did it, but I was happy to have done it however awkward it was. I think got it on the third try, but after the first go who really cares. Daniel sent Facemeat (V6) and Joel was very close. I did not try it because it involved small and painful looking crimps, that would have been well... painful. Well then proceeded back to the campground area where the guys showed me the climbs Bull Durham (V6) and Velvet Revolver (V7). The opening moves on BD weren't too bad, but the crux involved a long move off of two painful holds. I think I will wait until I and stronger and the holds don't hurt so much to try to send this one. However VR was much nice on the fingers and I almost got the crux move a couple times. And I think I would have sent it, but my should was hurting me pretty bad for the first time in months and I had to stop climbing for my own well being. I think that doing pushups the other night must have messed me up, by weakening my muscles as they recovered from the workout and then I stressed them again climbing. Hopefully a bit of regular push up work will make it so that my muscles are not too sore and weakened, and I can both climb and do push ups.
In any case, I high tailed it back to LA after that and I hung out with Josh and Meghan last night. Josh and I tried some coffee stouts, Peche Mortel and the Central Water's Coffee Stout, along with the Great Lakes Blackout Stout.
Tomorrow I will leave for Stanford, but I think I might go climb a mountain on the way....
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Four Time Zones, Two Days
Memorial Day weekend on Lake Michigan.
So when last I wrote I was in St. John, MI waiting for The Livery to open up. It was well worth the wait although it took me a little while to get to the really good stuff. I met a few very nice folks, Dixie and Tim the bar-tending couple, Mike the Livery's biggest on-line advocate and Steve the Owner/Brewer. In the course of meeting these fine folks I tried a lot of Livery brews and they ranged from merely okay to fantastic stuff unlike anything I had tasted before. Favorites of mine were the Bourbon barrel aged Triple Wheat Bock, and the Merlot barrel aged Malliot Juane (which I think is a beire de garde). I am hoping to form a relationship with those guys so I can try more of their beers despite their lack of distribution. In return I will try to spread the word of the Livery in Socal.
When I left the Livery I took with me a growler of Red Canoe, which is a wonderful Irish Red Lager, for Grant, my buddy in Indy. I rolled on down to Three Floyds which is barely out of the way heading from The Livery to Indy. While there I had a delicious rueben and a glass of Dreadnaught IPA. Both were delicious and it is hard to decide which was better. I got to Grant's place in Indy around midnight and a a brief chat with him before hitting the sack.
The next day I got up at a reasonable time and hit the road to LA. I put in two relatively long days of driving. The highlight was stopping in Albuquerque to get some chicharones a delicious crispy fried pork that can be used to fill any sort of Mexican type of dish. Along with the chicharones, little bit of fresh Mexican cheese and some flat bread made an excellent meal. I stayed the night in New Mexico and got into LA around 8:30.
Since, then I have been drinking some awesome beer with Josh, climbing at Stoney Point and eating meat with Jen. Josh has a few days off this week and we are discussing an overnight hike in the Sierra with Watson. If that happens there should be some good pictures forth coming in this space.
Stormy Sunset in the Texas Panhandle.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Lake Effect?
Well for some reason it seems there are a lots of good breweries around the Great Lakes. I am currently in Michigan stopping by a few of them to sample their more popular brews (popular with the beer geeks at least). At the moment I am taking a break in a cafe in St Joseph, MI waiting for one of the breweries to open. It is a Sunday and they don't open up until 2pm. I mean seriously! I am camping out and I wake up around 6:30 when the sun comes up, I don't need to wait until the afternoon to start drinking. If I've been up for 5 hours I think it's a fine time for a great beer.
I got here by first driving to Indianapolis to stay with Grant, a beer geek friend of mine. He was originally planning to accompany me on my Michigan beer tour, but he had forgotten that the Indy 500 was this weekend and it turns out one of his buddies has pit passes. I can't fault him for choosing that over beer, since his whole family are huge IRL fans. Apparently one of his brothers used to fall asleep listening to Ferrari engine noises. But he did have time on Friday to show me around some breweries near Indy. We hit the Upland Brewery in Bloomington which has a very nice Wheat beer. We had a very nice private tour and saw some detailed workings of a growing brewery. The discussion of the economics was almost more interesting than the brewing. I got some bottles of the Wheat to take to CA and a growler to take to another brewery as a gift. Afterwards, we headed over to Nick's a bar that has some of the best burgers anywhere according to Grant. The burger I had was very good; I am not sure it is the best I've ever had, but I can't recall where I have had one that was better.
Unfortunately, as Grant and I headed back to Indy we found out that there was a medical emergency with his family, so our plans were ditched and I took Grant to the hospital. I got out of town that night so as not to intrude while his family dealt with things (at this point it seems that everything is going to be fine). I drove up to Michigan and camped at a park. I managed to get a ticket for not paying my camping fees, despite having self registered and having the permit properly displayed. I know it was b/c I heard one of the rangers tell the one writing the ticket that I had the permit where it was supposed to be. I guess once he had started writing the ticket he didn't want to waste the paper. Of course since I had paid properly I just had to go to headquarters and hand them the ticket where I was told, "I don't know why they did that." Yeah, me neither.
After the ticket BS was cleared up I went to Kuhnhenn a brewery just outside of Detroit. I was drawn to Kuhnhenn by their relatively unique Raspberry Eisbock a beer that is firmly among the BA top 100. There was no one else in the place when I rolled up and at first I thought it was closed. I made friends with the bar tender and her husband who gifted me with a CD of his bands latest album. Maybe I will write a review of it once I give it a good listen. He also introduced me to one of the owners of the brewery when he came in. To be honest I was surprised to see him in there on a Saturday. I guess I shouldn't have been in since he is an owner of a very small brewery and weekends are busy days. My gift of beer stood me in good stead, because even though he was very busy he found a little time to chat with me and give me a taste of their bourbon barrel aged imperial stout from two years ago. He also fished out a bottle of Barleywine from 2006 too since I was desperate for any bottles of their stuff. I hope they enjoyed the growler of Upland Wheat I left with them. I also tried their Maibock, an excellent German lager, and a beer called Aldebaran, a Beglianesque IPA. They were both very good. The Aldebaran was something totally new to me and very intriguing.
After snatching up some of the other bottles they had available I got in the car and drove over to Grand Rapids to visit the Founders Brewery. They had a much more polished type of bar. Lots of staff, and a ton of space, but for me they didn't know have their best beers on tap and I was a bit bummed. I tried the Imperial Stout and the Rubeaus. The Imperial Stout was good, all that I expected for taste and satisfyingly robust. But I have has lot of good Imperial Stouts and this one had nothing to make it stand out in my mind. The Rubeaus was a raspberry beer that I found very disappointing after trying the New Glarus Raspberry tart. Rubeaus had nothing to recommend it after you got past the nice raspberry scent. It was neither sweet nor sour and it was thin of body with a rather weak berry flavor. They had nothing in bottles there that I had not seen before so I soon retreated to find a place to camp up in north in a National Forest not too far away.
Today, I got up and headed south along the shore of Lake Michigan to got to The Livery and after that I will move on to Three Floyds to go and sample beers, since about all I did at Dark Lord Day in April was to stand in line. Hey, it's 1:30, almost time for the bar to open! Brewery reports coming up next post.
I got here by first driving to Indianapolis to stay with Grant, a beer geek friend of mine. He was originally planning to accompany me on my Michigan beer tour, but he had forgotten that the Indy 500 was this weekend and it turns out one of his buddies has pit passes. I can't fault him for choosing that over beer, since his whole family are huge IRL fans. Apparently one of his brothers used to fall asleep listening to Ferrari engine noises. But he did have time on Friday to show me around some breweries near Indy. We hit the Upland Brewery in Bloomington which has a very nice Wheat beer. We had a very nice private tour and saw some detailed workings of a growing brewery. The discussion of the economics was almost more interesting than the brewing. I got some bottles of the Wheat to take to CA and a growler to take to another brewery as a gift. Afterwards, we headed over to Nick's a bar that has some of the best burgers anywhere according to Grant. The burger I had was very good; I am not sure it is the best I've ever had, but I can't recall where I have had one that was better.
Unfortunately, as Grant and I headed back to Indy we found out that there was a medical emergency with his family, so our plans were ditched and I took Grant to the hospital. I got out of town that night so as not to intrude while his family dealt with things (at this point it seems that everything is going to be fine). I drove up to Michigan and camped at a park. I managed to get a ticket for not paying my camping fees, despite having self registered and having the permit properly displayed. I know it was b/c I heard one of the rangers tell the one writing the ticket that I had the permit where it was supposed to be. I guess once he had started writing the ticket he didn't want to waste the paper. Of course since I had paid properly I just had to go to headquarters and hand them the ticket where I was told, "I don't know why they did that." Yeah, me neither.
After the ticket BS was cleared up I went to Kuhnhenn a brewery just outside of Detroit. I was drawn to Kuhnhenn by their relatively unique Raspberry Eisbock a beer that is firmly among the BA top 100. There was no one else in the place when I rolled up and at first I thought it was closed. I made friends with the bar tender and her husband who gifted me with a CD of his bands latest album. Maybe I will write a review of it once I give it a good listen. He also introduced me to one of the owners of the brewery when he came in. To be honest I was surprised to see him in there on a Saturday. I guess I shouldn't have been in since he is an owner of a very small brewery and weekends are busy days. My gift of beer stood me in good stead, because even though he was very busy he found a little time to chat with me and give me a taste of their bourbon barrel aged imperial stout from two years ago. He also fished out a bottle of Barleywine from 2006 too since I was desperate for any bottles of their stuff. I hope they enjoyed the growler of Upland Wheat I left with them. I also tried their Maibock, an excellent German lager, and a beer called Aldebaran, a Beglianesque IPA. They were both very good. The Aldebaran was something totally new to me and very intriguing.
After snatching up some of the other bottles they had available I got in the car and drove over to Grand Rapids to visit the Founders Brewery. They had a much more polished type of bar. Lots of staff, and a ton of space, but for me they didn't know have their best beers on tap and I was a bit bummed. I tried the Imperial Stout and the Rubeaus. The Imperial Stout was good, all that I expected for taste and satisfyingly robust. But I have has lot of good Imperial Stouts and this one had nothing to make it stand out in my mind. The Rubeaus was a raspberry beer that I found very disappointing after trying the New Glarus Raspberry tart. Rubeaus had nothing to recommend it after you got past the nice raspberry scent. It was neither sweet nor sour and it was thin of body with a rather weak berry flavor. They had nothing in bottles there that I had not seen before so I soon retreated to find a place to camp up in north in a National Forest not too far away.
Today, I got up and headed south along the shore of Lake Michigan to got to The Livery and after that I will move on to Three Floyds to go and sample beers, since about all I did at Dark Lord Day in April was to stand in line. Hey, it's 1:30, almost time for the bar to open! Brewery reports coming up next post.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Zoom...
East Coast, baby! 3910 miles after I left Palo Alto, I arrived at my parents house in Warwick, RI. Good Ol' Rhody. It was kind of epic unloading all the beer from the car but I managed with some help from Mom. That evening my parents and I headed over to Track 84 the local (and awesome) beer bar. I love this bar, they don't have the best beer and it's not the greatest atmosphere, and I sure could use some buffalo wing while I am there, but they do have some really good beer on 18 taps and the selection changes on a weekly basis. And on top of that the beer is pretty cheap 4-5 dollars a glass. Mom enjoyed a Kasteel Rouge (a sweet black cherry flavored beer). Dad had one of his favorites the Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, and I had the Stone Imperial Russian Stout and the Rouge Chocolate Stout. The Stone IRS was quite good, certainly not my favorite Russian Imperial but high quality for sure, and the Chocolate Stout was somewhat disappointing - a bit thin in the body and the chocolate was not very evident.
The next day (April 30th) was my mom's birthday. I went up to Lincoln Woods for some bouldering and had an enjoyable afternoon despite not sending anything new. Later that evening we had Mom's meal of choice which was pizza, and a nice big chocolate cake from Gregg's (a Rhode Island favorite).
The next day I drove up to Portland to visit my sister and the other folks in that area that know. I also had some beer to deliver to Chris up at Ebenezer's Pub. On the drive up I stopped in Portsmouth to visit the Portsmouth Brewery and have a drink of whatever they had on cask. It runs out that what they had was a brown ale that they had oaked in some port barrels. These were the same barrels that they had used to oak their Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout which is up to #2 on the Beer Advocate top 100 list. That evening, I went out in the Old Port section of Portland with Sarah and Brett and her roommate Addy. We enjoyed a decent band at some bar and then picked up a tasty pizza on the way home.
The next day Brett and I headed up to Ebenezer's to deliver the beer I had brought from California for Chris.What followed was an awesome afternoon for beer drinking and hanging out with Chris who is aways a great story teller. I also discovered that Chris is a big sports fan which is great because I have lots to say about just about any sport and it appears that he does too. I am not sure how much I should say about the beer that was had, partly because Chris served up some stuff that is not for general consumption, and partly because we had enough that I am not sure I remember exactly what all we drank. The one thing I remember very well was the BBB a sour belgian barleywine. Somehow that beer hit my taste buds just right. A little sour, a little complex and malty with a nice full body.
Brett and I managed to sober up and drive home (although I had a bit of a hangover, I think. The oncoming headlights were very bright.) Once we got back we watched the end of the Celtics/Hawks game 6 which was a lot of fun b/c the Hawks once again managed to pull out a win at home in a very loud arena. (I am currently watching game 7.) Sarah was off at work, she works nights at the hospital, and sleeps during the day after a work night.
On Saturday, I lazed around the house until around 4 when I drove over to visit my college buddy Brett. We went out for some damn good wings at a local place and then headed over to a bar called the Great Lost Bear for some pretty good beer. I had the Allagash Four on cask, followed by a St Bernadus 12, a Gouden Carlous Classic and a Duchesse De Bourgogne. The Duchesse was much better on tap last night than when I had some out of a bottle with Josh and Jon before I left LA. This was sweeter and lightly tart, while the one out of the bottle was almost vinegary. I think the Duchesse is highly variable which is why there are so many up and down reviews on BA.com. (I have had it out of the bottle before and it was excellent.)
Brett (CB) and I headed back to his place and watched Hitman, a truly awful movie. Brett fell asleep and I was unable to wake him up to say goodbye.
I am not sure what is on tap for today but Sarah is not working tonight so we'll go do something fun I bet. Okay, I have basketball to watch and hopefully pancakes to eat courtesy of Addy.
The next day (April 30th) was my mom's birthday. I went up to Lincoln Woods for some bouldering and had an enjoyable afternoon despite not sending anything new. Later that evening we had Mom's meal of choice which was pizza, and a nice big chocolate cake from Gregg's (a Rhode Island favorite).
The next day I drove up to Portland to visit my sister and the other folks in that area that know. I also had some beer to deliver to Chris up at Ebenezer's Pub. On the drive up I stopped in Portsmouth to visit the Portsmouth Brewery and have a drink of whatever they had on cask. It runs out that what they had was a brown ale that they had oaked in some port barrels. These were the same barrels that they had used to oak their Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout which is up to #2 on the Beer Advocate top 100 list. That evening, I went out in the Old Port section of Portland with Sarah and Brett and her roommate Addy. We enjoyed a decent band at some bar and then picked up a tasty pizza on the way home.
The next day Brett and I headed up to Ebenezer's to deliver the beer I had brought from California for Chris.What followed was an awesome afternoon for beer drinking and hanging out with Chris who is aways a great story teller. I also discovered that Chris is a big sports fan which is great because I have lots to say about just about any sport and it appears that he does too. I am not sure how much I should say about the beer that was had, partly because Chris served up some stuff that is not for general consumption, and partly because we had enough that I am not sure I remember exactly what all we drank. The one thing I remember very well was the BBB a sour belgian barleywine. Somehow that beer hit my taste buds just right. A little sour, a little complex and malty with a nice full body.
Brett and I managed to sober up and drive home (although I had a bit of a hangover, I think. The oncoming headlights were very bright.) Once we got back we watched the end of the Celtics/Hawks game 6 which was a lot of fun b/c the Hawks once again managed to pull out a win at home in a very loud arena. (I am currently watching game 7.) Sarah was off at work, she works nights at the hospital, and sleeps during the day after a work night.
On Saturday, I lazed around the house until around 4 when I drove over to visit my college buddy Brett. We went out for some damn good wings at a local place and then headed over to a bar called the Great Lost Bear for some pretty good beer. I had the Allagash Four on cask, followed by a St Bernadus 12, a Gouden Carlous Classic and a Duchesse De Bourgogne. The Duchesse was much better on tap last night than when I had some out of a bottle with Josh and Jon before I left LA. This was sweeter and lightly tart, while the one out of the bottle was almost vinegary. I think the Duchesse is highly variable which is why there are so many up and down reviews on BA.com. (I have had it out of the bottle before and it was excellent.)
Brett (CB) and I headed back to his place and watched Hitman, a truly awful movie. Brett fell asleep and I was unable to wake him up to say goodbye.
I am not sure what is on tap for today but Sarah is not working tonight so we'll go do something fun I bet. Okay, I have basketball to watch and hopefully pancakes to eat courtesy of Addy.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Tornado Tag
I had interesting last few days despite mostly driving around and standing in line. After leaving Boulder I drove along I-76 to I-80 into Nebraska. It was very windy and raining, which made the driving less than relaxing. On top of that the prospect of camping out in the storm was becoming less attractive by the mile. I headed into a rest stop/state recreation area around 12:30am MDT, unfortunately I had passed into CDT sometime in the previous couple hours. This meant that I was losing a hour of sleep. I had found the camping spot on-line the previous day and although it turned out to be largely what I expected, I did not expect them to charge for camping since they provide no real amenities there. Well, it was already late at night and I had nowhere else to go so I just camped there and said to myself that I was sure no one would check while I was there and I refuse to pay 6 bucks for a piece of dirt to sleep on and a locked bathroom.
Well I was right; no one checked and after a few short hours of sleep I got up and hit the road again. I would have slept longer, but I tend to wake up with the sun when I am camping, and given the windy weather and bit of rain I could not go back to sleep. The weather continued to be unsettled, and I heard new reports of a tornado touching down somewhere in Nebraska that night. I have to admit that I still have not checked to see how close that tornado was to where I spent the night.
My goal for the day was to get to a brewery in rural southern Wisconsin. The New Glarus Brewery has two beers that make the top 100 list on Beer Advocate. My plan was to get there in time for the tasting which was available until 4pm. I entered Iowa fairlyearly in the morning and I was lured off of the highway to an Iowa visitor's center by a sign that mentioned wireless internet. I needed to figure out exactly where in New Glarus the brewery was located. So I drove off the highway down a very strange one lane road past a few athletic fields and arrived at a very out of the way visitor's center. I then waste twenty minutes trying to get on their internet. I signed up for some free password, giving away way more information that I should have to, and despite telling me that my new user id would work every time I entered the id it just reloaded the same home page and took me nowhere near the internet.
This made me very mad at Iowa and I drove back on to the highway cursing Iowa. Fortunately for this mid-western state I gave it one more chance on the free wireless thing. 100 or so miles down the road I stopped at another rest area to try the wireless, but this one was right on the interstate like a normal rest stop. And there were fewer silly hoops to jump through for wireless. I think I just had to look at a couple ads for 15 seconds. I located the brewery and hopped back on the freeway, singing a different tune about Iowa and their free roadside wireless internet.
I skirted around Cedar Rapids and on through a very soggy northeastern Iowa. Most of the rivers around there are at or near their flood stage and it was crazy to see some of the flooding as I went through. Lots of trees and fields half under water. There were also tornado warnings in the area as a storm cell north of Cedar Rapids followed me as I headed to the northeast on route 151. I made it up into Wisconsin and headed off of the highway towards New Glarus. I wound my way though the quite pretty (in the quaint rural way) countryside and arrived at the brewery around 3:45.
The nice woman at the gift shop desk told me that I could do a tour and a tasting and that I had plenty of time for both. The tour is an audio deal where you get a hand set and punch in the number on the wall in various places to hear a sounds bite that accompanies it. The woman failed to mention that the tour takes over two and a half hours if you punch every number and listen to the whole sound bite. I felt guilty skipping around the numbers until I heard that. My tour did not take very long as I honed in on the parts that were specific to the brewery, such as the founding of the brewery and their awesome copper brewing kettles that were salvaged from an old brewery in Germany.
After the tour I got to do a tasting of three of their beers. I got a three ounce taste of each and got to keep the glass all for only $3.50. The most interesting to me was their best seller (they sell only in the state of Wisconsin) a beer called Spotted Cow, which is a farmhouse ale aka saison. Farmhouse ales have a distinctly funky aroma and taste. Not sour but definitely funky. Not what I would expect to become the best seller for any brewery that does not specialize in saisons. I enjoyed my tastes and asked the gift shop woman's advice as to where I could buy their highly rated beers for cheap. You see I had read on their website that their prices are higher than local retailers because they can not undercut their distributor. I guess that is bad business or something. In any case, I went a block down the street to a local market and saved a dollar per bottle on the two fruit beers.
After getting my beer I headed south into Illinois aim to get to Rockford and camp in a local state park. At this point the weather turned awful, driving was really slow as the wind and rain were very intense. The storm abated a little as I got down into Rockford, where I went to the local Library hoping for more internet access. I did indeed get online where I found that this was only a lull in the storm. As such, I chose to locate a cafe where I could wait out the storm in warmth and wireless access. I did indeed find such a cafe just as the storm was ramping back up, and I waited it out in relative comfort, talking to Josh on the phone so he could inform me about the beer trades he had set up for us at Dark Lord Day.
Later, after the storm had passed I went over the park to camp and had a fine night despite the wind. I got a good amount of sleep and compared to the previous day I felt much better as got into the car to drive down to DLD in Munster, IN. Unfortunately before leaving the park I was pulled over for running a stop sign. Really I did a rolling stop while turning right at a stop sign. The speed limit in the park is 10 mph, I think I was going 15 and slowed down to about 2 at the sign. This is of course something that over 90% of people must do at that stop sign. I think the cop understood this b/c he just gave me a warning. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have been puled over in 8 years. I am glad to have gotten away without a ticket, since I can;t really afford to have to pay money for silly stuff like that.
After that I motored down to DLD and got there and parked and in line around 10:45. Now I am happy with how things went for me yesterday, but I know enough now to greatly increase my enjoyment if I should happen to attend this event again. I waited in line for about 5 hours to get my 6 bottles of Dark Lord Stout. I have no complaints about that, there were fun people around me in line and I shared some beer with them and they shared some beer with me. Through them I got to taste the current year's DL, DL aged in oak barrels, Kentucky Breakfast Stout and several other Three Floyds Brews. All in all it was a good day, I got my trades done, got 9 bottles of Dark Lord and found a secret port-a-potty where I did not have to wait in line. Sometime during the day I realized that the line I was in was only for the Dark Lord bottles and the other line were all up near the brewery. I could have walked up at any time to go get food (sausage boiled in Dark Lord, mmmm!), some of the guest beers and other variations on Dark Lord. Ah well, next time I will go armed with friends and get there early so that one of us can stand in line while the others go to get the goodies.
After getting my beer, I enjoyed a delicious sausage and hit the road down to visit Ben in Bloomington, IN. That is where I am now, and for once I am going to hang out for more than 12 hours. Ben said that this is the most beautiful time of the year in Bloomington so we are going for a hike sometime this afternoon.
I think I'll have to bring the camera on the hike so that I won't be so texty next post.
Well I was right; no one checked and after a few short hours of sleep I got up and hit the road again. I would have slept longer, but I tend to wake up with the sun when I am camping, and given the windy weather and bit of rain I could not go back to sleep. The weather continued to be unsettled, and I heard new reports of a tornado touching down somewhere in Nebraska that night. I have to admit that I still have not checked to see how close that tornado was to where I spent the night.
My goal for the day was to get to a brewery in rural southern Wisconsin. The New Glarus Brewery has two beers that make the top 100 list on Beer Advocate. My plan was to get there in time for the tasting which was available until 4pm. I entered Iowa fairlyearly in the morning and I was lured off of the highway to an Iowa visitor's center by a sign that mentioned wireless internet. I needed to figure out exactly where in New Glarus the brewery was located. So I drove off the highway down a very strange one lane road past a few athletic fields and arrived at a very out of the way visitor's center. I then waste twenty minutes trying to get on their internet. I signed up for some free password, giving away way more information that I should have to, and despite telling me that my new user id would work every time I entered the id it just reloaded the same home page and took me nowhere near the internet.
This made me very mad at Iowa and I drove back on to the highway cursing Iowa. Fortunately for this mid-western state I gave it one more chance on the free wireless thing. 100 or so miles down the road I stopped at another rest area to try the wireless, but this one was right on the interstate like a normal rest stop. And there were fewer silly hoops to jump through for wireless. I think I just had to look at a couple ads for 15 seconds. I located the brewery and hopped back on the freeway, singing a different tune about Iowa and their free roadside wireless internet.
I skirted around Cedar Rapids and on through a very soggy northeastern Iowa. Most of the rivers around there are at or near their flood stage and it was crazy to see some of the flooding as I went through. Lots of trees and fields half under water. There were also tornado warnings in the area as a storm cell north of Cedar Rapids followed me as I headed to the northeast on route 151. I made it up into Wisconsin and headed off of the highway towards New Glarus. I wound my way though the quite pretty (in the quaint rural way) countryside and arrived at the brewery around 3:45.
The nice woman at the gift shop desk told me that I could do a tour and a tasting and that I had plenty of time for both. The tour is an audio deal where you get a hand set and punch in the number on the wall in various places to hear a sounds bite that accompanies it. The woman failed to mention that the tour takes over two and a half hours if you punch every number and listen to the whole sound bite. I felt guilty skipping around the numbers until I heard that. My tour did not take very long as I honed in on the parts that were specific to the brewery, such as the founding of the brewery and their awesome copper brewing kettles that were salvaged from an old brewery in Germany.
After the tour I got to do a tasting of three of their beers. I got a three ounce taste of each and got to keep the glass all for only $3.50. The most interesting to me was their best seller (they sell only in the state of Wisconsin) a beer called Spotted Cow, which is a farmhouse ale aka saison. Farmhouse ales have a distinctly funky aroma and taste. Not sour but definitely funky. Not what I would expect to become the best seller for any brewery that does not specialize in saisons. I enjoyed my tastes and asked the gift shop woman's advice as to where I could buy their highly rated beers for cheap. You see I had read on their website that their prices are higher than local retailers because they can not undercut their distributor. I guess that is bad business or something. In any case, I went a block down the street to a local market and saved a dollar per bottle on the two fruit beers.
After getting my beer I headed south into Illinois aim to get to Rockford and camp in a local state park. At this point the weather turned awful, driving was really slow as the wind and rain were very intense. The storm abated a little as I got down into Rockford, where I went to the local Library hoping for more internet access. I did indeed get online where I found that this was only a lull in the storm. As such, I chose to locate a cafe where I could wait out the storm in warmth and wireless access. I did indeed find such a cafe just as the storm was ramping back up, and I waited it out in relative comfort, talking to Josh on the phone so he could inform me about the beer trades he had set up for us at Dark Lord Day.
Later, after the storm had passed I went over the park to camp and had a fine night despite the wind. I got a good amount of sleep and compared to the previous day I felt much better as got into the car to drive down to DLD in Munster, IN. Unfortunately before leaving the park I was pulled over for running a stop sign. Really I did a rolling stop while turning right at a stop sign. The speed limit in the park is 10 mph, I think I was going 15 and slowed down to about 2 at the sign. This is of course something that over 90% of people must do at that stop sign. I think the cop understood this b/c he just gave me a warning. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have been puled over in 8 years. I am glad to have gotten away without a ticket, since I can;t really afford to have to pay money for silly stuff like that.
After that I motored down to DLD and got there and parked and in line around 10:45. Now I am happy with how things went for me yesterday, but I know enough now to greatly increase my enjoyment if I should happen to attend this event again. I waited in line for about 5 hours to get my 6 bottles of Dark Lord Stout. I have no complaints about that, there were fun people around me in line and I shared some beer with them and they shared some beer with me. Through them I got to taste the current year's DL, DL aged in oak barrels, Kentucky Breakfast Stout and several other Three Floyds Brews. All in all it was a good day, I got my trades done, got 9 bottles of Dark Lord and found a secret port-a-potty where I did not have to wait in line. Sometime during the day I realized that the line I was in was only for the Dark Lord bottles and the other line were all up near the brewery. I could have walked up at any time to go get food (sausage boiled in Dark Lord, mmmm!), some of the guest beers and other variations on Dark Lord. Ah well, next time I will go armed with friends and get there early so that one of us can stand in line while the others go to get the goodies.
After getting my beer, I enjoyed a delicious sausage and hit the road down to visit Ben in Bloomington, IN. That is where I am now, and for once I am going to hang out for more than 12 hours. Ben said that this is the most beautiful time of the year in Bloomington so we are going for a hike sometime this afternoon.
I think I'll have to bring the camera on the hike so that I won't be so texty next post.
Monday, April 7, 2008
We like-a the Juice...
Josh and I have had a few drinks since I got down to LA with a trunk full of beer. Here is a list of the beers we have sampled.
Moonlit Sessions - a very nice dark lager from Port Brewing
Serpent Stout - a rather muddled imperial stout from Lost Abbey
Struiselensis - a fine sour brown ale from Struise
Interlude - a very interesting buttery sour ale from Allagash
Troegenator - a tastey but plain dobblebock from Troeg
Choklat - an unbelievably chocolaty stout from Southern Tier
Pliny the Younger - Triple IPA from Russian River (need I say more)
Pliny the Elder - Double IPA from RR my favorite beer
The Abyss - a complex and robust stout (Deschutes)
Nugget Nectar - a super tasty double amber ale from Troegs
Shark Attack - a super sweet (not in a good way) double red ale from Port
Firestone 11 - a super complex barrel aged blend of beers (great stuff)
Gift of the Magi - A disappointing Beir de Garde with Brett from Lost Abbey
Double Bastard - I still don't know what it is aside from really good (Stone)
Collaboration Not Litigation - Good but I wish it was straight RR Salvation
Pannepoot - a nicely spiced Belgian quad maybe a little thinnish (Struise)
J.W. Lee's Harvest Ale - a superb English Barleywine (1998)
Some of these were way better than expected, others were very disappointing. So far Lost Abbey has proved to be disappointing for both Josh and I and I would say the the Struise brews have been a bit less than I expect from my experiences with their other brews. The Moonlit Sessions was a pleasant surprise, but i think that was mostly b/c I wasn't expecting much from something described as a lager. And the J.W. Lee's was fantastic a very nice find for us when I spotted these bottles of beer from 1998 in the wine section at a Whole Foods in Maine.
We have a lot of beers to go through in our cellar and we probably will for quite some time. Some of them will have to become nicely aged just because of the back up. We have over 115 beers in Josh's closet. It ought to be a while before we pay from any beer that is not pretty highly sought after.
Moonlit Sessions - a very nice dark lager from Port Brewing
Serpent Stout - a rather muddled imperial stout from Lost Abbey
Struiselensis - a fine sour brown ale from Struise
Interlude - a very interesting buttery sour ale from Allagash
Troegenator - a tastey but plain dobblebock from Troeg
Choklat - an unbelievably chocolaty stout from Southern Tier
Pliny the Younger - Triple IPA from Russian River (need I say more)
Pliny the Elder - Double IPA from RR my favorite beer
The Abyss - a complex and robust stout (Deschutes)
Nugget Nectar - a super tasty double amber ale from Troegs
Shark Attack - a super sweet (not in a good way) double red ale from Port
Firestone 11 - a super complex barrel aged blend of beers (great stuff)
Gift of the Magi - A disappointing Beir de Garde with Brett from Lost Abbey
Double Bastard - I still don't know what it is aside from really good (Stone)
Collaboration Not Litigation - Good but I wish it was straight RR Salvation
Pannepoot - a nicely spiced Belgian quad maybe a little thinnish (Struise)
J.W. Lee's Harvest Ale - a superb English Barleywine (1998)
Some of these were way better than expected, others were very disappointing. So far Lost Abbey has proved to be disappointing for both Josh and I and I would say the the Struise brews have been a bit less than I expect from my experiences with their other brews. The Moonlit Sessions was a pleasant surprise, but i think that was mostly b/c I wasn't expecting much from something described as a lager. And the J.W. Lee's was fantastic a very nice find for us when I spotted these bottles of beer from 1998 in the wine section at a Whole Foods in Maine.
We have a lot of beers to go through in our cellar and we probably will for quite some time. Some of them will have to become nicely aged just because of the back up. We have over 115 beers in Josh's closet. It ought to be a while before we pay from any beer that is not pretty highly sought after.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Vengeance will be mine!
Well I have a had a lot of fun in the past several days in and around LA. I went bouldering outside at two different location less than an hour and a half from LA. (Of course there are plenty of locations that are roughly in LA and are still over an hour and a half away) I also drank some good beer with Josh (although some of it was slightly disappointing), and yesterday we bottled our first homebrew. Also yesterday, Josh, Meghan and I sampled some typical Vietnamese food in the Little Saigon section of greater LA under the direction of our culinary guide, Jen. I enjoyed it very much, but I have been told it is not "great" Vietnamese food so I have decided to describe it as typical. In any case it was delicious and went far beyond the most common Vietnamese dish in America, Pho. I have some pictures to post from the second bouldering trip, and I want to describe the beer brewing process from my layman's viewpoint since I have been asked about it several times.
But before I do that I would like to throw up a few thoughts about my last trip to Bishop, because I am going back on Tuesday and I will stay there through Saturday. And this time I AM OUT FOR VENGEANCE!!
Well, not really, but I would like to climb a bit better than I did last time. On my last trip (March 27th-30th) I was there for about three full days of climbing. I wasted one whole afternoon on a climb called Action Figure that is fully within my abilities, but involves a relatively low probability move to stick two of your fingers as deep as you can into a small pocket. I got very close to sending the problem but I am pretty sure that in the end I was defeated because I put some tape on one of my fingers to protect the skin when it was inserted into the pocket. However the tape probably made my finger enough wider that I was never able to get the fingers deep enough into the pocket. Frustrating to say the least. I may try to go back and send it this time around, but then again I might stay away so as not to waste any more time on it. We'll see.
Other than that one semi-wasted afternoon, I was climbing with some folks who are not quite as motivated as me. I have a lot of energy at the crags and I always want to run around and get on as many different problems as I can. This was a much more relaxed pace than I set for myself, but I failed to take advantage of it and get lots of good photos. Instead I managed to climb a few good problems over the course of the trip, but I tried fewer than I might have otherwise. I successfully sent three v3s, the ultra classic Ironman Traverse v4, a less classic but popular v5 called the Anti-Hero Roof, and a v6 called Royal Jelly (I linked to a video of that send [successful climb] here) . Not too bad for me but certainly not up to the mini-rampage I went on at Joe's Valley.
So I am getting excited about the return and trying to decided on some good climbs to aim for. I think I want to stay mostly at the Buttermilks, for two reasons. One is that the area is a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the volcanic tablelands. The other is that it is at a higher elevation so I might find a bit cooler temps there. I am hoping I will find some groups of other climbers around so that I can get a spot on some of the higher problem I am aiming for. If not I will just climb some stuff closer to the ground.
But before I do that I would like to throw up a few thoughts about my last trip to Bishop, because I am going back on Tuesday and I will stay there through Saturday. And this time I AM OUT FOR VENGEANCE!!
Well, not really, but I would like to climb a bit better than I did last time. On my last trip (March 27th-30th) I was there for about three full days of climbing. I wasted one whole afternoon on a climb called Action Figure that is fully within my abilities, but involves a relatively low probability move to stick two of your fingers as deep as you can into a small pocket. I got very close to sending the problem but I am pretty sure that in the end I was defeated because I put some tape on one of my fingers to protect the skin when it was inserted into the pocket. However the tape probably made my finger enough wider that I was never able to get the fingers deep enough into the pocket. Frustrating to say the least. I may try to go back and send it this time around, but then again I might stay away so as not to waste any more time on it. We'll see.
Other than that one semi-wasted afternoon, I was climbing with some folks who are not quite as motivated as me. I have a lot of energy at the crags and I always want to run around and get on as many different problems as I can. This was a much more relaxed pace than I set for myself, but I failed to take advantage of it and get lots of good photos. Instead I managed to climb a few good problems over the course of the trip, but I tried fewer than I might have otherwise. I successfully sent three v3s, the ultra classic Ironman Traverse v4, a less classic but popular v5 called the Anti-Hero Roof, and a v6 called Royal Jelly (I linked to a video of that send [successful climb] here) . Not too bad for me but certainly not up to the mini-rampage I went on at Joe's Valley.
So I am getting excited about the return and trying to decided on some good climbs to aim for. I think I want to stay mostly at the Buttermilks, for two reasons. One is that the area is a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the volcanic tablelands. The other is that it is at a higher elevation so I might find a bit cooler temps there. I am hoping I will find some groups of other climbers around so that I can get a spot on some of the higher problem I am aiming for. If not I will just climb some stuff closer to the ground.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Oh NC, you saucy minx!
Good day today. I did some internet research in the morning and then spent some time figuring out the fuses in my car. After that I rolled over the to place BA rates as the best beer store in the Triangle area. I managed to trade some beer with one of the guys working at the store. I gave him a Hop-15 from Port Brewing and an Alpha Klaus from Three Floyds for a Sexual Chocolate from Foothills Brewing Company. There were only 500 bottle of Sexual Chocolate made so it was quite a score I think, and the guy I was trading with was very happy to get something from Port Brewing and Three Floyds which are a bit out of the way and have somewhat limit distribution scopes. A perfect trade, both sides were very pleased.
After that I went to Pep Boys to get sunglasses and more fuses for the car. While I was there I found some cheap nylon brushes for cleaning climbing holds. Then I rolled over to Umstead State Park for a short trail run (see photo).
This evening I visited with Melanie a friend from URI ultimate. We hung out at a pretty good bar in Raleigh with a bunch of her work friends. We each had an awesome soft pretzel with dipping sauce (I had spicy mustard.) and I was able to have a Bell's Two Hearted ale on draft. Quite a good beer for an American Pale Ale. Melanie and I then headed over to a place called Big Easy where armed with a buy one get one free card we each had an awesome bowl of seafood gumbo and only paid 11.25 for the two of us.
A very good day in NC, and tomorrow I head for Horse Pens 40 and my first climbing of the trip. I may not post for a while but when I do there should be plenty of climbing tales and hopefully a few photos too.
Yee Haw!!
So, I left a wet but sunny DC yesterday and headed into the South. Now I have been to NC a few times before for various reasons, but tomorrow I head into states that are completely new to me.
After hitting the road relatively early I made few good decisions to avoid some DC rush hour traffic and got going pretty well. After a smooth ride and some chilling at the Barnes and Noble (where I purchased Nietzsche's classic philosophical novel, Thus Spake Zarathustra after debating whether or not Sun Tzu's Art of War could be applied to rock climbing) I finally met up with my friend Liz W. whom I had not seen for several years. She was excited to see me since apparently no one (of her friends I guess) comes down to NC visiting or otherwise. We went to play disc golf at a nice course on the outskirts of the UNC-CH campus. Disc golf proved to be a great time for catching up with friends. There is a lot of time walking around chasing after your disc and it is easy to chat the whole time. I had a great time despite totally sucking for about half of the time. I am out of practice for sure. My days of disc golf proficiency are long in the past.
After disc golf we met up with Liz's boy Jared and a couple other friends to have a beer. After pre-gaming outside the Whole Foods-like store Liz, Jared and I headed over to a nice belgian beer bar place and had a quality dinner. (Goulden Carlous Triple at the pregame and GD Hercules Double IPA with dinner)
Today I am going to an auto store to try to replace my blown out radio fuse. Yep that's right blew out the fuse when the Honda needed jump start #1. Hopefully I will keep that number low. Gah, I hate that I have turned out to be so dependent on the little beep that used to let me know when I left my lights on. I have an issue with turning on my lights during the day without realizing it, and the beep helped remind me when I did it. No more and I am proving incapable of merely remembering to turn my lights off.
Alright, today I am hunting for fuses, rare beers, cheap movies and interesting photo subjects, before meeting up with Melanie after she gets off work. And then tomorrow I am off to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama. I have made the decision to skip Rocktown and I will be really pumped to try to make it back some time.
After hitting the road relatively early I made few good decisions to avoid some DC rush hour traffic and got going pretty well. After a smooth ride and some chilling at the Barnes and Noble (where I purchased Nietzsche's classic philosophical novel, Thus Spake Zarathustra after debating whether or not Sun Tzu's Art of War could be applied to rock climbing) I finally met up with my friend Liz W. whom I had not seen for several years. She was excited to see me since apparently no one (of her friends I guess) comes down to NC visiting or otherwise. We went to play disc golf at a nice course on the outskirts of the UNC-CH campus. Disc golf proved to be a great time for catching up with friends. There is a lot of time walking around chasing after your disc and it is easy to chat the whole time. I had a great time despite totally sucking for about half of the time. I am out of practice for sure. My days of disc golf proficiency are long in the past.
After disc golf we met up with Liz's boy Jared and a couple other friends to have a beer. After pre-gaming outside the Whole Foods-like store Liz, Jared and I headed over to a nice belgian beer bar place and had a quality dinner. (Goulden Carlous Triple at the pregame and GD Hercules Double IPA with dinner)
Today I am going to an auto store to try to replace my blown out radio fuse. Yep that's right blew out the fuse when the Honda needed jump start #1. Hopefully I will keep that number low. Gah, I hate that I have turned out to be so dependent on the little beep that used to let me know when I left my lights on. I have an issue with turning on my lights during the day without realizing it, and the beep helped remind me when I did it. No more and I am proving incapable of merely remembering to turn my lights off.
Alright, today I am hunting for fuses, rare beers, cheap movies and interesting photo subjects, before meeting up with Melanie after she gets off work. And then tomorrow I am off to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama. I have made the decision to skip Rocktown and I will be really pumped to try to make it back some time.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Surprise!
So last night Pete and I went out to search for food, and our wanderings led us to Georgetown. After we parked and walked down to the main drag we were thinking about what kind of food we'd like to eat. Pete looks around as we are crossing the street and says "hey there's pizza right over there. How's that sound?" "Sounds good to me."
So we walk into this place and the greeter asks us if we would like to be seated downstairs in the Birreria. We were like "Oh, hell yes." So as we are being led down to the bar, the guy says "we were just rated the #11 beer bar in the country" and so I ask who did the rating and he says BeerAdvocate.com. And right about then it started to feel very promising.
We get down stairs and are seated at the bar directly across from the largest cooler. They had big selection of bottles and a decent number of taps, about 12 or so including one cask beer (which was my first choice of course). Pete and I had an extremely enjoyable evening of beer and pizza. Pete has a Rochefort 8 and a Goulden Carlous Triple while I had The IPA that was on cask (I can't remember the name), a TenFidy Stout from Oscar Blues Brewing and the Duchess DeBourges (probably not spelled right) a Flanders Red. The bar tender was nice and friendly and certainly knew his beer. The pizza did not live up to the beer, but I would be willing to give it another try. We got a bread plate with roasted elephant garlic which I ate a lot of and I am guessing it was a little too much, b/c I got to smell it again this morning from a source I wouldn't have expected.
I had a nice day of tourism today in our nations capital. Took a few photos, which I will share soon. The weather was practically hot, I was wishing for shorts at one point. But now it is raining and I am heading out to meet up with Babin and Jack for dinner.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Whoo....
Quite a day today. I left Mel and Joe's house around 10 to drive down to Washington DC. The night before I had made a careful study of the route to DC so that I could avoid the horrible tolls crossing Delaware. They charge 7 freaking dollars to drive across 11 miles of their tiny little state. Total BS. RI is free and it's almost 40 miles across ole Rhody. In any case, I tool drastic measures heading west to Harrisburg on route 78 and then south on 83 to meet up with 95 around Baltimore. This reduced my tolls for the whole trip to $1.45. Bingo!
However, I made my first gas price mistake of the trip. Gas in Jersey was 2.95 or so but I foolishly did not fill up and just drove on into Pennsylvania with half a tank. I ended up paying 3.25 a gallon in PA. I only added 6 gallons in the hopes of finding cheaper prices in or around DC. Gas is cheaper here but not by too much.
It also appears my parents had been holding out on me in my childhood. Route 78 goes right through Bethlehem, PA which is where my Uncle Butch and his family live. However when I drove through there on 78 there was a sign for Waffle House! And we had never been to Waffle House there. Seems like a horrible case of parental neglect, depriving my sister and I of Waffle House. In fact, keeping us ignorant until reaching adulthood might be criminal. My parents are fantastic in most ways, but sometime there are oversights that can not be explained by rational waffle-eating people.
In addition this route allowed me to visit the Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg (there should be a sideways ":" over the o in Troegs, but I am not sure how to do that in this program.) Troegs brews some good beer placing their Nugget Nectar at #30 on the Beer Advocate Top 100. The Nugget Nectar only comes out once a year in February and I figured that they might still have some available since we are barely into March. Well I got to the brewery slightly before 1 with only a few wrong turns. I had a couple samples of their beer (Troegenator Dopplebock and Nugget Nectar) while I perused their merchandise (which would have been more attractive had I ever tried their beer before) and bemoaned the fact that they did not sell six packs or singles. Well the very nice girl who runs the retail store told me where to find six packs at a bar down the street. And although I felt a little bad about having two samples and not buying anything, I went down the street to find Troegs beer in volumes that would fit in my car.
Once the beer was successfully purchased I was on my way south to DC. I was almost to the Beltway in Maryland when some kind of accident blocked all four lanes of traffic on 95. I pulled a U turn on one of those police turnabouts after sitting at a dead stop for about ten minutes longer than I should have. I managed to navigate off interstate to reach the Beltway and I got to Pete's place in short order.
I immediately offered Pete one of my Troegs brews (Nugget Nectar) which he greatly enjoyed, and of course I chose not to let him drink alone and had one myself. After a little catching up we decided to head out to find some food, but I'll cover that in my next post: Unexpected Beer Bar. (also a driving time/distance update)
However, I made my first gas price mistake of the trip. Gas in Jersey was 2.95 or so but I foolishly did not fill up and just drove on into Pennsylvania with half a tank. I ended up paying 3.25 a gallon in PA. I only added 6 gallons in the hopes of finding cheaper prices in or around DC. Gas is cheaper here but not by too much.
It also appears my parents had been holding out on me in my childhood. Route 78 goes right through Bethlehem, PA which is where my Uncle Butch and his family live. However when I drove through there on 78 there was a sign for Waffle House! And we had never been to Waffle House there. Seems like a horrible case of parental neglect, depriving my sister and I of Waffle House. In fact, keeping us ignorant until reaching adulthood might be criminal. My parents are fantastic in most ways, but sometime there are oversights that can not be explained by rational waffle-eating people.
In addition this route allowed me to visit the Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg (there should be a sideways ":" over the o in Troegs, but I am not sure how to do that in this program.) Troegs brews some good beer placing their Nugget Nectar at #30 on the Beer Advocate Top 100. The Nugget Nectar only comes out once a year in February and I figured that they might still have some available since we are barely into March. Well I got to the brewery slightly before 1 with only a few wrong turns. I had a couple samples of their beer (Troegenator Dopplebock and Nugget Nectar) while I perused their merchandise (which would have been more attractive had I ever tried their beer before) and bemoaned the fact that they did not sell six packs or singles. Well the very nice girl who runs the retail store told me where to find six packs at a bar down the street. And although I felt a little bad about having two samples and not buying anything, I went down the street to find Troegs beer in volumes that would fit in my car.
Once the beer was successfully purchased I was on my way south to DC. I was almost to the Beltway in Maryland when some kind of accident blocked all four lanes of traffic on 95. I pulled a U turn on one of those police turnabouts after sitting at a dead stop for about ten minutes longer than I should have. I managed to navigate off interstate to reach the Beltway and I got to Pete's place in short order.
I immediately offered Pete one of my Troegs brews (Nugget Nectar) which he greatly enjoyed, and of course I chose not to let him drink alone and had one myself. After a little catching up we decided to head out to find some food, but I'll cover that in my next post: Unexpected Beer Bar. (also a driving time/distance update)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Beer!!!
I listed my status on Facebook as drinking beer in Portland for the last few days. Oh man, was that true.
Monday: had lunch at The Great Lost Bear (Sheepscot Boothbay Bitter on cask), visited the Allagash brewery (tasters of Allagash Black, Double, Triple and White), hung out with Sarah and Brett at their apartment (Weyerbacher Insanity, Allagash Triple)
Tuesday: visited Brett, Megan and Hannah (Casco Bay Pale Ale)
Wednesday: Ebenezer's Pub (Struise Earthmonk, Port Brewing Hop-15, Struise Black Albert, Lost Abbey Judgement Day)
Thursday: Portsmouth Brewery (Portsmouth '07 Barleywine on cask, sour brune taster) Track 84 with Abomb (Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout)
Yep that's 16 different beers in four days. Time for bed....
Monday: had lunch at The Great Lost Bear (Sheepscot Boothbay Bitter on cask), visited the Allagash brewery (tasters of Allagash Black, Double, Triple and White), hung out with Sarah and Brett at their apartment (Weyerbacher Insanity, Allagash Triple)
Tuesday: visited Brett, Megan and Hannah (Casco Bay Pale Ale)
Wednesday: Ebenezer's Pub (Struise Earthmonk, Port Brewing Hop-15, Struise Black Albert, Lost Abbey Judgement Day)
Thursday: Portsmouth Brewery (Portsmouth '07 Barleywine on cask, sour brune taster) Track 84 with Abomb (Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout)
Yep that's 16 different beers in four days. Time for bed....
Is There a Heaven For Beer Drinkers?
Well if there is a heaven for beer lovers then it is a magical place where the beer changes to fit each person's individual palate, presenting the perfect taste and consistency for that moment in time. Changing to create the perfect fusion of mood, food, climate and beer. Unfortunately a place serving such a beer does not exist on this lowly planet. There are however places that can only be described as outposts of beer heaven. Places where mere mortals labor in the world of beer to produce or serve the pinnacles of brewing. Beers that exceed all reasonable expectations for beers of that type and leave your mouth dying for another taste. Beers whose flavor and texture leaves a lingering imprint on your mind for years to come. I have been to three such places and many more poor imitations. Yesterday I drove up through the snow in Maine to reach Ebenezer's Pub.
Is there a Holy Grail of Beer? I would say there is not. I mean no two beer drinkers have the same palate. For example, my dad doesn't like heavy beers. He likes good beer. But I have tried several of the mostly highly regarded beers (among the beer drinkers world) on him and he just kinda makes a face and says "Not bad, but not for me." So with him I took a different tack. I have been plying him with the better rated beers in specific types that appeal to him, and this has worked out quite well. However this means that my "Holy Grail" would be nearly undrinkable for my father, and his would just crack my rotation as a refreshing summer beer.
Keeping that in mind, if there was a Holy Grail of beer you would find it at Ebenezer's Pub in Lovell, ME. Chris and Jeni, the proprietors have created a bar that is truly amazing. With 35 taps serving a crazy variety of always great and often incredible beers from around the world. The tap selection is fantastic but it is quite literally overshadowed by the unbelievable bottle selection. Chris has put together an absolutely unparalleled collection of rare and vintage beers. Stuff you just can't find anywhere else.
Well this is the part where I come in. Chris loves beer from a brewery in Santa Rosa, CA, Russian River. (As do I. It is another outpost of beer heaven, but it is one that will have to be addressed in a later post.) I recently made a trip to California and brought back some beer from Russian River. That is not as easy as it sounds, I brought back 19 bottles and they were all wine bottle sized. Bubble wrap and my clothes sufficed to keep them whole in my checked luggage despite my concerns. Both bags were nearly overweight, but not by much and the woman who checked me in didn't look at the scale.
In any case, yesterday I drove up to Ebenezer's to bring Chris the beer I brought across the country for him. And he was stoked. He drooled over the beer for a bit, and then we went into the bar and hung out drinking some of his excellent beer for a few hours. He fired up the deep fryer and we ate a medley of fried chicken parts to soak up the alcohol. Despite that I had to hang out for another hour or so 'til I was good to drive back to Portland through the snow.
We had some Struise Earthmonk, Port Brewing Hop-15, Struise Black Albert, and Lost Abbey Judgment Day.
Another fantastic journey into the woods to visit the man who would guard the Holy Grail of Beer if there was such a thing.
Is there a Holy Grail of Beer? I would say there is not. I mean no two beer drinkers have the same palate. For example, my dad doesn't like heavy beers. He likes good beer. But I have tried several of the mostly highly regarded beers (among the beer drinkers world) on him and he just kinda makes a face and says "Not bad, but not for me." So with him I took a different tack. I have been plying him with the better rated beers in specific types that appeal to him, and this has worked out quite well. However this means that my "Holy Grail" would be nearly undrinkable for my father, and his would just crack my rotation as a refreshing summer beer.
Keeping that in mind, if there was a Holy Grail of beer you would find it at Ebenezer's Pub in Lovell, ME. Chris and Jeni, the proprietors have created a bar that is truly amazing. With 35 taps serving a crazy variety of always great and often incredible beers from around the world. The tap selection is fantastic but it is quite literally overshadowed by the unbelievable bottle selection. Chris has put together an absolutely unparalleled collection of rare and vintage beers. Stuff you just can't find anywhere else.
Well this is the part where I come in. Chris loves beer from a brewery in Santa Rosa, CA, Russian River. (As do I. It is another outpost of beer heaven, but it is one that will have to be addressed in a later post.) I recently made a trip to California and brought back some beer from Russian River. That is not as easy as it sounds, I brought back 19 bottles and they were all wine bottle sized. Bubble wrap and my clothes sufficed to keep them whole in my checked luggage despite my concerns. Both bags were nearly overweight, but not by much and the woman who checked me in didn't look at the scale.
In any case, yesterday I drove up to Ebenezer's to bring Chris the beer I brought across the country for him. And he was stoked. He drooled over the beer for a bit, and then we went into the bar and hung out drinking some of his excellent beer for a few hours. He fired up the deep fryer and we ate a medley of fried chicken parts to soak up the alcohol. Despite that I had to hang out for another hour or so 'til I was good to drive back to Portland through the snow.
We had some Struise Earthmonk, Port Brewing Hop-15, Struise Black Albert, and Lost Abbey Judgment Day.
Another fantastic journey into the woods to visit the man who would guard the Holy Grail of Beer if there was such a thing.
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