Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

Please forgive me, still recuperating a bit from two lengthy trips, gotta get all those bearings adjusted a bit and get back to writing here.

Where in the world?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Back In Town

I'll try and get some local updates in here soon.

Random Hopmonk Tavern

Garlic fries and two Pliny's, outside

This Wont Make Sense

The bathroom at Russian River smells like heaven

Real Time

Russian River Brewing Co. Perdition and Pliny the Elder

Umm

Pics are all out of sorts, will try again when comp is up and I can respond to comments.

Travel Day III (Part II)

Chimay cheese during complimentary wine tasting at the hotel

Russian River Damnation 750ml at Brasserie by the hotel

Travel Day III (Part I)

At Moylans in Novato, Hopsickle, Summer Kolsch, Wet Hop Hopsickle, the beer board and bar/taps

Quick Thought

Anchor Steam, Fat Tire and even Pliny the Elder are ubiquitous here but the Marylander in me feels like such a criminal each time I pass them up!

Travel Day II (Part II)

Three pics of the 60+ taps at Jacks Bar at The Cannery in San Francisco

Travel Day II (Part I)

Only beer pics (er, mostly) from here out.

1) Dungeness crab and sourdough bread at the Wharf, very cliche, with a contract amber made by Marin Brewing

2) Great find, Jacks Bar at The Cannery, 64 taps. This is the first round of Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale, El Toro oatmeal stout and Racer 5

3) My second beer, an awesome floral pale ale from Mt. Tam

4) Magpies towel, I believe theyre the rugby club Russell Crowe owns?

Travel Day One (Part IV)

Sorry for all the posts, phone mail has a size limit for image uploads

As you can tell it's the wharf in San Francisco around sunset, great setting

Travel Day One (Part III)

1 and 2)Sunset dining at Alioto's at the wharf in San Francisco, the Golden Gate bridge off in the distance on No. 2

Travel Day One (Part II)

1)Outside shot of the famous Toronado pub in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district

2)Marin Brewing's contract brew and some sourdough at Alioto's on the Wharf

3)Seafood sausage, interesting

Travel Day One (Part I)

Care to guess where? Details to explain the pics soon.

1)Southwest travel mag had a lengthy feature on Baltimore

2)Stopover in Denver, Boulder Brewing's IPA and Pale Ale

3)Snow capped mountains somewhere in the American west

4)The guy looked like President Obama

5)One of those weird Go Cars, somehow street legal

6)Moonlight Brewing's Twist of Fate bitter at the famous Toronado in San Francisco, yum

7)Twist of Fate and Pliny the Elder, Toronado

8)Its hard to see, but the clock in the corner says Guenther Brewing, a former native of Maryland

9)A delicious sausage sandwich from Rosamunde's next door to the Toronado

Joint Baltimore Beer Guy, Summer of Beer Homebrew Update

On my recent trip to California I made a stop at my friend Steve's -- of Summer of Beer fame -- place, to make a batch of beer. That is, basically watch him make it after he'd procured all necessary ingredients since I'm such a novice at this.

We settled on a Belgian Strong Pale/Golden Ale to make. After much debate various malts and yeasts were decided upon. It would have been one yeast strain but I'm crazy and didn't feel like doing things perfectly by the book.

The brewing was fun, and we enjoyed much delicious beer in the process. But that's over with and its now in that intermediate stage of fermentation for a bit. Steve was kind of enough to send along a few photos of the early fermentation. It isn't much to look at but I thought I'd share. Can't wait to see how this puppy turns out.

Update: one more image -- initial fermentation complete!

Night In

InNOut double double (no onions, extra cheese) and grilled cheese (off the not so secret menu, no onions, extra cheese).

Plus, I picked up a cold Port Brewing Wipeout IPA and Boulevard Brewing Saison at BevMo. Good times.

And and and, Orval is I think $5.49 here, way cheaper than what I've seen in Maryland.

Ridiculous

So I'm back in San Diego for a while ...

One day, I hope, what San Diego has as far as beer, will happen in Maryland.

Look at what is possible on this Friday alone:

Stone Brewing has tours at 2 and 6 Monday through Friday. They'll also have a special Smoked Porter + Vanilla Bean on cask. Lost Abbey just down the road, is open from 4-8 and they're holding some kind of welcoming event as they hired a new brewer from the excellent Boulevard Brewing, complete with some special brew they've put together for the event.

Other breweries with tasting rooms and/or tours on Friday and Saturday include AleSmith, Green Flash, Ballast Point, Alpine and Lightning among others.

At perhaps the greatest bar in the world if you dig hoppy beers, O'Briens, they're having a Green Flash event with 10 taps. And then Summer of Beer Steve tells me at a place I also need to check out named Downtown Johnny Brown's, they have Ballast Point's wonderful Sculpin IPA on tap right now. Tentatively we have plans to check that out (or O'Briens, or La Jolla Brew House or Toronado or Hamilton's or...) and catch the Ravens game down here. Good times.

I've got some things to do Friday so I'm pulling my hair trying to figure out how much if any of that I can squeeze in especially with traffic and family but wow. The best and worst part is its not any particularly special weekend, there's just a ton of great beer down here and the big boys tend to have something going on all the time whether its special beers, events, growler fills and so on.

All that said, I've got my eyes on the prize, one of the greatest beer events anywhere, the February 13th-15th Belgian Beer fest at Max's in Baltimore. San Diego would be lucky to have that kind of event, glad we have it in Baltimore though.

Happy New Year

Er, Brew Year?

Anyway, hope your New Year's Eve festivities were safe.

Hopefully I don't take for granted that last year I was able to drink great beer all over the United States, from Florida to Maryland, to Washington D.C. to Las Vegas, Northern California and San Diego.

I can't wait to see what 2009 brings, particularly in Maryland!