That sounds like an awesome beer adventure, and the pics are great.

I just finished bottling my beer with the help of my brother and the President of the local home brew club. It was a decent distraction to the US National Team friendly against Brazil and we consumed some Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti in the process. I'm not sure how my beer will taste fully carbonated, but it seems pretty hoppy and full bodied for a traditional Honey Brown Ale, and clearly meets the BJCP standards for an American Brown Ale. I don't expect to win my first home brew contest with this beer, but it would be pretty sweet to have it brewed by Blue Blood Brewing Company as a result of winning the contest.

No man, it was a bit of a rush job. 3 day biking trip through the valley, got into town and checked into a hotel at like 7:30, starving and with a cranky tired 2.75 yr old. Had to find food fast, went for indian, then had my two more pints alone at the brewery and crashed. Next morning, up and on the bike by 9:00. I wanna say breakfast was 2 pastries and a banana from a chain coffee place. Some nights we had time and had amazing dinners at a nice slow pace. Sometimes, we just settled and got to bed.

There is no way that Pliny can live up to the expectations I have in my head of it at this point. It's 100% beer dorkery but this and Westvleteren are at the top of my list right now. (hoping to try some Westy in Spain though, already found a couple beer bars in Madrid that have it). I've picked up that Maharaja a couple of times now and haven't pulled the trigger. May need to recitify now that you, Loog, and shiv have now sung it's praises.

Awesome pics Cap. Thanks for posting them. Sounds like a blast. So you literally biked the entire time? Where did you start out of?

Oh fuck no.

So we flew in/out of san fran, rented a compact car fucking dodge minivan because that's all they had, drove down 1 through Big Sur to a resort where First Mate had a work conference thing. You need to join facebook already goddamit. So then we drove north past SF up into the north coast, stayed in an airstream at a state park, then a hotel in Boonville, then rented bikes in the Sonoma valley and biked / bussed for 3 days in a giant triangle through wine country (largely ignoring the wineries, actually), then turned the bikes back in and drove to SF again for the remaining weekend.

Damn...other than a visit to RR, you and I have a very different idea of what to do in wine country. I noted to Fem G last visit to Napa that riding bikes looked fun but that there was no way we'd be able to visit 6-7 wineries per day on bikes so we better skip it.



Pliny isn't really any better than a handful of other exceptional DIPAs that don't have the same cult status and I could see being disappointed based on the hype. It is a great beer though and I love that they price it at a reasonable $4.99 for 500 ml bottle when they could probably get away with charging a lot more. Personally though, I prefer their Blind Pig, Supplication and Consecration to Pliny.

Blind Pig is really, really spicey, in a good way. That shit crackles and snaps.

BG you know of Continuum Winery by any slight chance?

I know of it (eg that Tim Mondavi is the wine maker and that they get great reviews) and read a couple of articles about them recently in Wine Spectator and the Wall Street Journal. I've never visited the winery though and I don't think I've ever had their wine unless it was just a small pour at a Napa Themed tasting.

So First Mate was at Esalen (which i suspect you may know of, people seemed to have all heard of it there) for a conference / work thingy, and met this guy Tim, who said "I have a winery you guys should come visit on your bike trip next week." So we did, but the hill was super goddamn steep / long, and we couldn't even walk the bikes up it longer than a mile. But he was a really nice guy, she said, and we really wanted to see it, so when a truck came by we bummed a ride:



I sat in the bed with the bikes, FM and Squirglette sat up front. He says "where you headed?" Continuum Winery. "Oh I think it's appointment only, you know that right?" Yeah it's ok, I met the owner Tim, he told us to come up. "...Tim Mondavi?" Oh is that his last name? "Yeah. He's one of those Mondavi's."

The guy laughed pretty hard apparently. She had no idea, it never came up at the conference. Once we got to the top and he dropped us off, Tim took us around for two hours (!) in this thing, which he'd just gotten fully restored a few days prior.



He answered all my dumb questions about weather and fermentation and stuff, and knew a shitload about all of it. Such a patient, friendly guy, and very progressive (water usage, etc).



You could actually see San Fran down there, waaay out.



The labels, with that gold grape vine outline, he got his daughter to do. She was really reluctant. She finally agreed, and went out into the actual vinyards at dusk and backlit this really old vine onto a canvas and traced it. Originally it was just this huge tryptic panel painting (in the guest house there), but he liked it so much he made it his label art.




So after all that, he says "where you headed?" We tell him whatever town it was, about 8 miles away, and he insisted on driving us. really incredibly friendly, normal guy.

Cool story. Everything I'd read made it sound like he was a really down to earth guy very passionate about winemaking and much more interested in the wine itself than making a lot of money from it. Did you try any of their wines?

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/free ... r-kit.html

If anyone is looking for a super cheap home brew kit or some free home brewing gear, this is a pretty sweet deal.
It goes until 11:59 CST tonight.

Sadly, no. He didn't offer and I wasn't gonna be all coughcoughBOYamIParchedcough. Said the bottles go for $165 each, which was a bargain for that region...?

It's hard to call any bottles that expensive truly a bargain but many of the neighboring vineyards on Pritchard Hill charge $200-500+. It wouldn't have been rude at all to tell him that you were interested in tasting his wine, most people that visit are. But if you ask, you should expect to pay a tasting fee (which he may or may not have waived given that he personally invited you) and or buy wine. The sort of unspoken etiquette of wine tasting is that if you go to taste at the smaller, appointment only places that you be a serious buyer that intends to buy their wine if you like it. They typically don't have large staffs and as they don't have wide distribution they aren't all that interested in brand marketing. If you don't buy there, you're not likely buying later.

A little strange though that he showed you around for 2 hours and then didn't ask you if you wanted to taste anything.

Cool, and interesting. I had no idea.

huh. i'm thinking about jumping on this.

Maybe he just wanted to fuck?

I was soooo waiting for that vibe, after where we met him. That resort is clothing optional in a lot of places, and everyone's pretty heavily invested in not giving a fuck about nothin'. But I have to say, I got zero TT essence from him. Straight shooter.

So, uh, did he, uh, you know, haveabigone?

had to provide a visual

You know If I was you and had $150-200 lying around that I wouldn't miss, l'd have bought a bottle (preferably from Squirglette's birthyear) and had Tim sign the bottle to her and either give it to her on her 21st birthday or drink it with her then. It would probably be in its drinking prime then provided you could store it at least somewhat properly.

This is the logo that my brother designed for my Brown Ale. I don't think I'll actually make labels for my bottles, since I want to reuse as many as I can and only have a few bombers saved up for use during the home brew club tasting, but I might make a few post cards to distribute at a home brew contest.

genessee

That would've been really cool. I pretty much bled money that whole trip, and have been sweating blood trying to pay it off since, so it wasn't likely to've happened even if it had occurred to me. Some of the shit we did was pricey. Had fun though.

So, homebrew...

Hoppy Tripel is still "in trouble." Peeked into another swingtop bottle yesterday to see if I maybe 1) had a bad bottle the first time (VERY little carbonation) or 2) things had magically improved. Negatory on both, it made a tiny pop when I opened it and that's it. I sprinkled some brown sugar into it, figuring it might re-carbonate that bottle, and closed it back up. So Loog et al, if/when you try the bottles I sent (gonna wait another month I think before I touch them again to see if it's better), you may need to calibrate your expectations to more in the Special Olympics range. Shit.

Made Batch 4 last night, the second Gluten Free batch. Same base ingredients as last time, but I adjusted the hops based on what the first go-round tasted like. I wound up boiling an hour (same) but this time used NO bittering hops, because the sorghum pretty much does that for you. I didn't add any til T-minus 15 minutes, then every 5 after til flame-out. Wound up using more total hops than last time, too, all Ahtanum and Crystal for a very citrusy west cost flavor, and I zested half an orange and added that for the last ten minutes of the boil. In short, the sorghum / rice / maltodextrine doesn't have a flavor worth featuring - it's just "plesantly light beerish" at best, so the hops etc become the show.

Recent Purchases:

The Lost Abbey "Judgement Day Ale" Quadrupel - 1
Dogfish Head "Festina Pêche" Berliner Weisse, Delaware 12oz - 2
Haandbryggeriet "Haandbakk" Wild Ale, Norway 500ml - 2
Mahr’s "Helles" Lager, Germany 500ml -2 (supposedly Germany's only craft beer whatever that means)
Russian River Brewing Company "Salvation" Belgian Dark Strong Ale, California 375ml - 2
Victory/Stone Brewing Company/Dogfish Head "Saison du Buff" Spiced Saison, California 12oz - 1
Pretty Things "X Ale February 22nd, 1945" English Mild, Massachusetts 22oz -1
Pretty Things "X Ale November 22nd, 1838" English Mild Ale, Massachusetts 22oz -1
Firestone Walker "§ucaba" Barrel Aged Barley Wine - 1
Ballast Point "Victory at Sea" Imperial Porter - 750ml - 1
Russian River "Supplication" Sour Ale - 2
To Øl "Sleep Over" Coffee Imperial IPA, Denmark 330ml -1
Brasserie Dieu du Ciel! "Aphrodite" Stout Brewed With Real Cocoa and Vanilla Beans, Canada 11.5oz -1
The Bruery "Otiose" Sour Brown Ale Aged in Oak with Guava - 750ml - 1

Most of them are orders that I haven't picked up yet let alone consumed.

I was driving through Orange County Saturday and took a short detour to stop in at the Bruery. Had a five beer tasting sampler trying:

Otiose Sour Brown with Guava
Gremlin Belgian Blond w/ Pineapple
Loakal Oaked American Red
Go Team! Belgian Mild Ale (Collaboration with Eagle Rock Brewery)
Tradewinds Belgian Style Trippel

They were all at least good. The Gremlin and the Go Team! were my least favorite of the five. There wasn't anything wrong per se with the Go Team! but I'm a big fan of Eagle Rock's Solidarity Mild and so had high expectations for this. It's a Belgian though not an English Mild and was a little on the bland side. The Gremlin was a decent blond but not really noteworthy and for better or worse I really couldn't detect any pineapple flavor or aromas. The Loakal was a very good red ale. Tradewinds was pretty interesting. They use Rice in the mash in place of candied sugar which apparently makes it lighter bodied and ups the specific gravity. They also added Thai basil which imparted an interesting spice to it. The Otiose though was my favorite. I'm a sucker for a good sour ale and while I didn't like it as much as Russian River's, it was pretty damn good. Not sure what the Bruery's distribution is but they make some damn good beers and have a great rep around S. CA.