vw and beer.

Beer Updates:

A week and a half ago I remade the roasted roggenbier.  I used half a pound more rye malt in #2, which should bring more rye character in addition to bumping the starting gravity from 1.050 to 1.054.  I really enjoyed the first rendition, so I am eagerly anticipating the second.  The majority of the keg might end up at the Sublime Ale House holiday party though as a part of my continued effort to build some street cred...We'll see how it turns out before I get ahead of myself.

Mashing and about to remove the oil filter. 

During the mash and mash-out I multi-tasked like crazy and changed the oil in the camper.  Its had 5000 miles put on the new engine already, adds up a lot faster than you think.  Of all the cars I've owned so far, the camper is by far the easiest to change the oil.  It has plenty of clearance off the ground, and the drain plug and filter are within easy reach from the back.

The porter is done and needs to be moved to a keg.  It has a lot of roasted chocolate flavor, I am excited to see how carbonation changes and mellows out the roasted malt bitterness. 

Uncarbonated sample of saison #1(name tbd)

Racking Saison to a keg to mix with bottling sugar.

I haven't naturally carbonated a beer in a long time, and the last time I didn't own a beer gun.  I have however bottled a lot of carbonated beer, especially recently, and the beer gun is essential.  It only made sense to use a keg as a bottling bucket and bottle out of it with the beer gun.  I can still purge bottles with CO2 and push it out of the keg.  I suppose people who use a bottling bucket would call this a waste of CO2, but it really isn't very expensive, and my 20lb tank lasts a long time. 

$60 Colana Capper/Corker

My new corker along with all the necessary supplies for bottling.  I thought about doing a step by step writeup of our corking experience, but I would just be copying all the information I found here: Brew Your Own - Corking Belgians.  It is a very well written article, and is one of the reasons I bought the corker I did. 

Watch out! She has a beer gun.

For our first belgian bottling attempt, I think it went very well.  Jammie filled the bottles, I corked them, and we both went back and put wire cages on them.  I had done quite a few practice runs with the corker to get the cork in the right amount, but we hadn't tried putting cages on them, luckily you can just take it off and try again with a new one.  I ordered 100 of both belgian corks and wire cages, so we had a few to mess up.

Jammie twisting a wire cage on to hold that cork in.

Although I haven't had any of the saison in carbonated form, I am very happy with how the bottling process went.  Bottling uncarbonated beer is substantially easier, enjoyable, and way less messy than carbonated beer.  I might just do this for a lot more beers in the future. 

More beer related news:

Here is a sweet write-up from a beer blog about a beer vending machine.  Pretty awesome concept and I am impressed with the execution.  


Moped update:  The Peugeot still needs to be re-timed,  which requires a flywheel puller which I haven't ordered yet.   The pinto is running the best it has since I've owned it.  It is pulling great off the line and accelerates steadily to 40 mph.  It is very exciting to have finally tuned it to a good point and makes it a lot of fun to ride.  The idle is still a little rough, but I took it for a 4 or 5 mile ride the other day and it ran great and although the idle will go down really low it never dies.

Cheers!

Beer updates:

- Hoppy Amber - My renamed brown ale mistake.  The hop flavor, aroma, and bitterness is nice for a mellow IPA.  I am not really happy with how the malt flavor backs up the hops though.  The pale chocolate and richer malts are a little muddled behind the hops.  The hop aroma is what makes me really happy.  I was struggling with hoppy beers in Denver, and I don't know if it was water related or hops related.  I have changed both for my recent batches, and whichever it was I am very happy with the result.  My first dry-hopped beer that actually smells like hops, very exciting. 

Its a good drinkable beer, and works perfectly as a tap filler for a couple weeks.

Nice foamy head!

 
- Northern German Alt - My 2011 Temecula Valley Homebrewers Contest entry.  It is a very mellow smooth drinkable beer.  I lagered it for just over 3 weeks, so I has a very smooth lager character in its mouthfeel and malt flavor.  I remember my first version of this having a bit more malt flavor, but overall the beer is very good.  Alaskan Amber is a well known example of this style, but I don't think their version is lagered.  Jammie and I just got back from Temecula dropping off my submission, so we will see what happens.

- Saison #1 - I went to hydrobrew the other day to get a few yeast vials and I also made sure to get a champagne yeast packet for the saison.  After testing it I didn't need to get a champagne yeast.   The beer has finished out to 1.010 which puts it right around 90% apparent attenuation.  Attenuation is a measure of the amount of sugar the yeast actually consumed compared to how much was available for it to eat.  Apparent attenuation is a technical word for I can't measure the actual attenuation because the alcohol now present in the beer has an affect on the accuracy of the measuring device.  Either way 90% attenuation is remarkable, and I certainly didn't expect the saison yeast to go that far.  I am calling this beer done and moved it to the kegerator to cold crash.  I have been using my heater blanket to keep this beer warm as the saison yeast performs the best and produces the best flavors at warmer temperatures.

I have ordered some more equipment for an exciting project involving the saison and the champagne yeast I bought for it.  Check back in a week or so for an update on that.  

- Porter - The porter has been progressing a little slowly.  I am having a good problem in 'winter' carlsbad, its too cold in my garage, or maybe its just right.  I started the fermentation of this beer in a water bath, which is a large tub that I put the carboy in and fill with water.  The water acts as a big heat sink and keeps the beer at a relatively constant temperature.  A stable temperature is very important to yeast health and the resulting beer flavor.  The problem I'm having is the temperature that it is stabilizing to is around 64F - 65F, which is a little low for some ale yeasts.  After a week in the water bath the beer was only halfway done.   Now that the heater blanket is available from the saison primary I moved the porter out of the water bath and attached the heater to it.  I have started to slowly raise the temperature on it and will do so about 1 degree per day for the next week to finish it out.  My initial taste test, although a little sweet still, was spectacular with a delicious chocolate roasty finish.

Porter with heater blanket...

- Kegerator - I have expanded my beer tap capacity by 30%!!!  Well almost.  I added the tap to the kegerator although there isn't a 3rd beer ready for it yet.  ALSO in my search for some cheap small tap handles I came across a very clean/simple solution.  It is called a threaded coupler and is basically a really long threaded nut.  The best part is they cost $1.17 at True Value, which is good with me.  They also provide the perfect amount of leverage on the taps, making them easy to operate without being big.  The big handles I have are extremely bulky, often in the way, get bumped (which wastes beer), as well as providing the operator with way too much leverage on the little tap assemblies.

Third tap and new handles.

I only have one of the middle tap, which is also the nicest of the taps I have.  I have 3 that match, I just didn't want to go through the work of changing it out.  Expect to see a better picture of 3 matching taps/handles in the near future. 


VW update:  It is running. Though the idle bouncing drives me crazy...

Moped update: They aren't running.  More on this soon.

Bike update: I put a pair of BMX pedals that I've had for a while on my fixed gear.  It required some new small fasteners to attach my feetbelts to them, but they are nice and big and very comfortable to ride with.  They are also plastic and lighter than my metal ones; I saved at least 10 grams.  haha.  I have no idea, but I'm sure they're lighter.  next is some front brakes for the fixie. Although I've been riding it a lot more and I am pretty sure my legs are getting in better shape.

Other:

I got glasses again.  I haven't had a proper prescription for my eyeglasses for quite a while(say 4 years?), and I lost my most recent pair of glasses a year or two ago, so I have been blissfully floating though life with much less than perfect vision.  My parents came to Carlsbad last week, where our long time optometrist has an office, my mom has been having some weird problems with one of her eyes..not good. I decided to piggy back their appointment and get my eyes checked out.  Dr. Fitzpatrick seemed a bit put off by the fact that I didn't have any glasses at all, and after an eye exam his frustration seemed justified.  My eyes are pretty bad.  SO long story short I have a new pair of glasses.  I let Jammie have input on the style of frames I got and although I was skeptical at first, if glasses have to be a full time part of my life, then they might as well be visible and stylish.

Sorry for the poor quality picture.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea.  I like them, and although it is very different, being able to see really well is also pretty different.  I drove at night for the first time tonight and I felt like there was a significant improvement in my night vision.

155 Gallons in 2011.

I brewed Jammie's Saison the other day.  It turned into an epic beer with a 9.5% alcohol potential.  We also put quite a few flowers/spices/seeds into the beer.

All of this went in the beer.  CRAZY!

The list: Crushed Coriander Seed, Orange zest, Part Wild Blossom Honey/Part David Darling Vintage 2010 Honey, aroma hops, Chamomile, Rosebuds, Juniper Berries. 

This is me trying something different and siphoning out of the boil kettle.  The idea is to whirlpool the wort after the boil in order to pull all of the sediment to the center of the kettle.

 

 Proof that my whirlpool actually did something.  The sediment is showing through in the center I ended up netting a half gallon less than I wanted but the proof is in the sediment.  The biggest problem I was having was the chamomile flowers clogging my racking cane.

My first time committing to the whirlpool/siphon method.

 The other day I was on my way home from La Quinta, and when passing through Temecula I decided to stop by Black Market Brewing to have a beer.  It's always tempting, but I'm usually deterred by Temecula traffic, but I figured Saturday was probably one of the better days of the week to venture into town.  I had a delicous Schwartzbier, and hung out for a little while.  While there I learned about a homebrew competition that they were having.  After looking at their website I not only found out they were indeed having a competition, but also hiring.  I have been wanting to enter a competition and took this opportunity to register for the AHA (American Homebrewers Association) as it is an AHA sanctioned competition it is required.  I feel like this is a little step forward, and I hope this experience positively influences my confidence.  The best of show gets to brew a commercial batch with Black Market and it will be submitted to the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am.  I also sent them my resume.  I will plan a trip up there to try to talk to someone in person.   I have previously applied here and was in contact with the head brewer who subsequently blew me off.  Apparently he no longer works there, so I feel like I'm starting with a clean slate.  I plan on submitting my Northern German Altbier into the competition which I kegged on Saturday when I got home.  It is tasting pretty darn good and I think it is right up the ally of the Black Market guys who brew a lot of traditional German beers.  I really wish I had some of the roggenbier to submit.  I ordered ingredients yesterday for a couple batches of it.

I made a porter today.  I would submit it as well, but I don't know how it will turn out and I don't think I can get it ready in time.  I started early which was really nice and provided my with almost half the day afterward to do other things.  Jammie's friend from work who is also a home brewer stopped by for a beer, it was fun to talk to someone else about home brewing.  It would seem I need to branch out and maybe join a club and meet some other people in the hobby.

Here is an amazing video of wolfgang I found on Jammie's camera.  He ate the whole piece, but the video is only of the end of it.  

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate it.  He loves watermelon and eats it just like we do.  Wolfgang is the man.  Okay one more picture, from our month of August van camping.

Los Angeles

I will start off by saying that I've been having the worst technology interaction so far today.  My iPhone won't talk to my computer, so I can't easily get the photos off my phone anymore (the reason the last post was my first non-picture post).  After getting frustrated with that and going to the work to email all the photos to myself, I went to download them to my laptop and now the mousepad on the laptop isn't working.  I tried restarting and everything.  Frustrating to say the least.  Now I really need a job so I can replace the two of these. 

Saturday was a blast.  I had to get up relatively early to head up for a 12:00 load in.  I ended up getting there a bit early as I made sure to allow for traffic delays through LA.  The Nokia Club is right in the entertainment complex that is the Staples Center, and there was quite a bit going on around there.  Something with Breaking Dawn had a whole area filled with people camped in tents. Crazy!

Staples Center home of the worst team in basketball...

Monitor World - Soundcraft Vi6 console, Crown amps, 12AM wedges

The whole day was good, setup and sound check was a bit drawn out due to various reasons, but everything was good to go with plenty of time to walk around to find some food.  The situation was a little weird, as the guy that has mixed monitors for them a few times showed up late, took over and mixed the sound check, then left halfway through the first song to go work somewhere else.  It was nice of him to do the majority of the work, but it made it even more awkward for me to step in after the first song and take on a mix someone else set up on a console I hadn't used before.  I paid careful attention to what he was doing throughout the day so I wasn't walking in blind.  I felt pretty useless throughout the day as I was just learning how to set all their gear, but both chris and chad recognized that was really all I could do and were very appreciative of my help.  Chad, the tour manager, was a very nice guy and I really hope I will get offered a job on their tour, even if its not strictly in monitors. 

View of show.  Crazy Lighting rig

The show itself was the craziest most intense show I've worked in a long time.  The whole band brings a lot of energy to the stage, combined with an awesome light show and a sold out crowd, it was a lot of fun.  I was sweating my ass off and really stressed out, but I think I did okay.  It was a pretty ridiculous situation to be put in, but the only thing I think I could have done better was to help the drummer fix his pedal when it came apart during the set.  In my defense he didn't really communicate with me and I couldn't see the pedal due to the amount of lights and equipment between us.  In the photo above shows about how much of the drummer I could see.  I was able to see his face through the lighting truss for any monitor changes, and I walked out in front of my console regularly to try to make sure he was good.  All in all a lot of fun and I definitely enjoyed it.

I almost forgot.  Being that Donald is also a writer/actor/comedian he is heavily involved in the entertainment biz out in LA.  There were quite a few minor celebrities there which was fun.  Blake Griffin, white redhead who plays for the LA clippers, jumped out on stage at one point, and I saw at least a couple actresses there.  Most of what I have worked hasn't been on this side of the music scene, so its a little weird to go to work and have it be that.  

I have a couple more pictures to compensate for the lack of pictures in the last post.

From one jetty to another.

Overlooking the Lagoon in Carlsbad.

At the time of the second picture I could see this wall of fog just hitting the beach and then within 5 minutes it has crept across the coast hwy and filled the lagoon.  Really cool/weird to watch.

I am off to brew a saison.  Check back soon.

Work!

So the good news is I have some work for this weekend.  I'll be working with my good friend Chris Petillo, who is the Front-of-house engineer for Donald Glover's band aka Childish Gambino.  Its just one date up in LA for now, but I am trying to be optimistic about doing a great job and them inviting me on tour.   The tour manager also manages a few other bands, so there is also potential there.  All boils down to doing a great job mixing monitors(on a digital console I've never used of course...) and doing a job I've had a few months off of.  Either way I'm very excited, worse case I will make a little money and get to spend a day hangin with chris p.  I will take lots of pictures and do a post event update.  It just might be the perfect place to get in on a gig that would be a lot of fun and potentially a good job for a little while...This is the second time they will be playing they new album, so I imagine there will be a full tour very soon supporting the release of the album.

I have also been doing some brewing stuff.  Planning on making a saison tomorrow.  Saisons are one of my favorite styles and I haven't made one yet.  I kegged the roggenbier (german rye beer) on 11/3, which was also a brew day.  The roggenbier is now carbonated and I am pretty happy with how the beer came out.  It is very smooth with a nice chocolate roasty finish.  The rye didn't show through as far as I can tell.  Next time I will use a larger percentage of rye.  The newest brew was supposed to be Janets Brown, which I have brewed before(was delicious), it wasn't until I recently revisited the recipe I realized it wasn't a correct reproduction at all.  So I rebuilt the recipe, but then it wasn't until I was mashing in that I realized that I completely botched this recipe too and didn't use the appropriate portion of chocolate malt.  In my bulk ingredient buying I have a surplus of a few specialty grains that go very slowly, one is pale chocolate, so I try to use it whenever possible.  Pale chocolate malt is less roasted than the chocolate malt the recipe called for.  I should have used more of it to compensate for the color and flavor difference but didn't, so the result is an amber ale instead of a brown ale.  I plan to brew Janets Brown for real in the next month to see if I can actually do it.

That's all I got for today.  I am planning on trying to make the blog a little more educational and include some specifics and step by step instructional things, not just for beer, but also bike/moped repair, random projects and cooking with beer.  Jammie and I made beer battered Jalapeno poppers with pepperjack cheese and bacon on the inside.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun, resulting in some good poppers.

P.S. I couldn't help but smile to myself that the only work I've been able to get since leaving CO is sound work.  This is only funny because it perfectly aligns with my ranting about no one willing to give you a job unless you have 5 years experience doing something and I happen to have about 5 - 6 years of experience mixing sound. ridiculous. 

Its a Van again.

There is always lots of things to do with the van, but I'm happy that I got it up and going again.  The replacement part went in very easily and it looks good too. (pictured below)

Sweet new bleeder valve/hose thing.

Its always nice to have some shiny silver stuff in the engine bay to contrast the black hoses and 25 year old dirt.  The small hose is what snapped off the old plastic piece.  I don't know exactly what it does, but I imagine it is some sort of system pressure balancing crossover.  Either way it's important that its attached so coolant doesn't leak out. 

I've been meaning to clean up the inside and outside of the van.  Although I didn't get to the outside yesterday, I managed to vacuum it out and clean up the dashboard and rear deck area over the engine bay.

I bought some long handled pruners and a trash can for yard waste yesterday, so today I spent some time on the oleanders in the front and it didn't take long to fill up the trash can.  The trash (and hopefully yard waste) gets picked up tomorrow, so tomorrow afternoon I will work on the fruit trees in the back.  The fruit trees have a bunch of white fly and aphids and such, so they need to be cleaned up and maybe sprayed with some Neem Oil. 

On friday I applied for a cable assembly position at a place in San Marcos. I might call them tomorrow and see if they will give me a chance.  I also have to drop of my application at Pizza Port, I have been hesitating because..I don't know why.  I will do that tomorrow too, I swear.

The beers are almost crashed, I had the freezer set at 65 F to finish out the primary fermentation of the rye beer, so it has taken it a little while to get 10 gallons of beer down to 35 F.  The beer acts as a big heat sink, and especially without any airflow it takes a long time for the convection heat transfer to take place.  I'd be willing to bet that the conduction heat transfer between the bottom of the freezer and the carboy provides a large portion of the cooling process.  I really need to install a small computer fan in the freezer to keep the air moving and it should really help even out the temperature inside.  Once they are settled out pretty good I am going to rack the N.G. Alt bier into the secondary carboy.  Prior to doing this I am going to prepare a couple yeast starters (starter = base beer for propagating yeast) in order to harvest some of the German Ale yeast off the bottom of the carboy.  I plan on trying out the WLP029 German Ale yeast in the Janet's Brown Ale that I'm going to brew this week.  This is an effort to save money on yeast as well as play around with different yeasts and try to find a few really versatile strains.  This particular strain is said to be very clean fermenting and suitable for quite a few styles, so why not try it out.

2 updates in one day, but only because I should have posted the first one a day or two ago.
Cheers.

VWs Beer and Mopeds

Blacks Beach from above.  Apparently its a nude beach...

 Jammie, Beth and I went for a trip to La Jolla to go for a walk/hike along the beach.  I didn't know until after the walk but I guess Blacks is a nude beach.  Jammie and Beth said they saw a nude person hanging out, luckily I missed them.  Either way it is a really nice beach and a pretty cool hike down there.  We parked at the gliderport, which was also pretty cool to check out.  We origionally planned to walk up to the base of Torrey Pines and hike up the cliffs there, but it was quite a bit further than we had pictured.  We made it most of the way there and stopped and looked around a little tidepool area on the way.  

After the hike I went and watched a guy take off and loop around a little bit.  The marine layer was in full effect, so I imagine it is scary to venture far from the edge of the cliff as the visibility was very poor.  It was cool to see though.  Takes some balls to just run off the edge of a cliff.

Cali brew day #2 - German Roggenbier.

A week ago Thursday I brewed another batch of beer, a German rye beer.  I've never had one, but it sounds good and the recipe was in my Brewing Classic Styles book, which hasn't steered me wrong.  With my second brew day under my belt, it seemed a bit easier.  I have gotten better at using my limited cleaning resources here.  This brew went into the evening which isn't the best as there aren't any outside lights in the back where I've been cleaning everything.  Both beers are done with the primary fermentation, and I started cold crashing them today.  I plan on letting the rye beer age cold for another week or so and just leave it in the primary, while the Alt beer I will siphon into a secondary carboy and actually lager it for a few weeks.  In order to do that I had to get some CO2.  Luckily the hydrobrew shop does tank exchanges on 20lb tanks.  It isn't as cheap as going to Airgas, cost me $30, while Airgas would have been 20-25, but the closest Airgas is a half an hour drive each way, so I figured it was worth it. 

Bottled a week before I drank it, oozing hop flavor and aroma.

A very nice perk of being on the west coast is the availability of some really good west coast beers.  Pliny the Elder from Russian River is a double IPA that aside from being one of my favorites, has a delicious 'balanced' hop usage.  The hop aroma is matched with good hop flavors and the bitterness is subtle and balanced with the rest of the beer.  It is my goal to find all the well made IPAs out here, and I have found quite a few while still getting tripped up by the occasional extremely bitter hop bomb.   The availability of beers is made possible by some amazing beer stores.  This one is from the Pizza Port Bottle Shop, which is known for its amazing bottle selection of something like 600+ different beers from around the world.

Jammie on the Pinto on the Strand in Oceanside.  Decent waves behind her.

We went 'pedin the day after the van broke down to make sure they were both running well, so that Jammie could ride one to work.  The mopeds are the most temperamental sons o guns I've ever had to deal with.  Just because it ran well yesterday doesn't mean that its going to run well today.  They sure are fun when working though. 

Sticking with the temperamental piece o crap theme.  The camper decided to start spewing coolant the other night when we got home from the store.  Turns out every VW I own doesn't like to keep its coolant inside.  AND just like my other VW this was related to a plastic hose barb breaking off, really strange right?.  Well I diagnosed it and ordered the cheapest of the replacement parts available, which happens to be a custom machined chunk of aluminum.

Ordered all this from van-cafe.com, whom I will certainly be doing business with again.  Spend $350 and they were kind enough to throw in a small bag of cookies.  That is what I call service :)  That shiny piece in the bottom right corner is reason the van is out of commission and subsequently the reason for the order.  The rest of the parts are to redo the fuel system up front.  When I put the "new" engine in I replaced all of the fuel hose at the back of the car, and the front has been something that needed to be addressed.  Kinda embarrassing leaking gas at the gas station and when people point it out to you all you can say is "oh yea...it does that."  The package arrived around 3:30.  I had the part in place and managed to replace a good portion of the vacuum hose in the engine bay all by 4:00.  Rode the moped to the store to get a bottle of coolant and had the van up and going by 5:00.  I used Jammie's mom's car to give Jammie a ride to work and then came home and tried to bleed the cooling system one more time.

I really need to work on writing less, more often.  I started writing this post a couple days ago...  I'm thinking multiply the number of posts by two and cut the length in half.

And Then...

So much has happened since I last updated that I probably won't do a recap, as some of it I don't want to think about again.  A short summary is Jammie and I are out in CA and have a sweet place in Carlsbad.  It is walking distance to the beach and has a garage and nice size back yard, which is exactly what we were looking for.  I'll post some exterior pictures at some point.


I am enjoying southern california so far, with the exception of no job it is a lot of fun and although the sunshine is hit and miss, it is almost always comfortable to go out in a t-shirt and shorts.  I have not purchased a surfboard yet, but it is high on my list of things to do.  Unfortunately I also have to get a wetsuit as the water is pretty chilly.  It was already in the 50's when we came out here in September.  I really enjoy walking down to the beach on a daily basis, as I never went hiking in the mountains every day so the trade seems worth it so far.  Being in Southern California I have also seen my parents more in the month and a half we've been here than I did in for year or two prior, which is a nice change.

In other news, I brewed my first batch of beer in CA.  Its a Northern German Altbier, which I brewed once before in Denver and it was delicious.  I wasn't able to find the same yeast I used before, so we will see what the new WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch yeast does with the beer.  Along those lines I really miss my favorite Denver homebrew shop, Stomp Them Grapes.  I am paying $2 more for a vial of yeast than I did out there which is a significant increase.  Also both shops I've found in North County have okay selections and their grain is average prices, but they gouge the crap out of you on some of the smaller items.  Frustrating to say the least.  I think I will resume purchasing the bulk of my ingredients online.

It was interesting figuring out how to do everything in a new setting.  I definitely miss the giant sink and sprayer of the Humboldt house.  I also miss the giant dumpster behind the house to dump grain into.  When I went to measure my pre-boil specific gravity I discovered that I didn't bring a hydrometer with me from Denver.  I managed to drive up to Hydrobrew, the homebrew shop up the coast highway in Oceanside, during the middle of the boil and grab one so I could measure my original gravity.  All in all it went well and I'm sure after a couple more brews I will figure out the most efficient way to do things at the new house.  

The other batch of beer I had the opportunity to hang out for was a 7bbl batch at Breakwater Brewing located in Oceanside, CA.

This is a view of their brewhouse and fermentation vessels.  It is very compact, and I had to get up very early (5am) to see them brew as they have to finish before the restaurant side of the brewpub starts up due to the lack of space.  It was fun to see the process from start to finish at that scale.   I was also able to ask the Brewmaster, Lars Gillman, a few questions and learned quite a bit about their processes.  Lars also happens to be the owner of the Hydrobrew - hydroponics and home brewing store.

I've also made my way over to Stone Brewing Company for a couple beers and a tour.  Perhaps the best thing about their bar/restaurant is the number of guest beers they have on tap.  I was able to try a beer from Heretic Brewing which is up in the bay area and was started by one of the best homebrewers of the past decade.  I also got a Blind Pig from Russian River, always a treat.  Russian River is one of those breweries that just doesn't release a bad beer, in fact every one of their beers I've tried has been amazing.  Oh, I had a Stone beer too. 

The Stone facility is smaller than I imagined.  Definitely seemed quite a bit smaller than New Belgium.  I've heard they are building a huge new facility across the street from where they are now, which I imagine will expand their capacity substantially.  It was a fun tour and the best part was 4 free tasters at the end.

I am sorry for the lack of updates as I know the blogs I enjoy the most are also the ones that update frequently.  I will try to 'step it up' in the near future.

Some Pictures from August

David's Huge beautiful garden.

Harvesting some hops!

Wolfgang and Ishka hanging out.

The Harris' Coach.

Golden City Brewing.  Every beer I tried was amazing.

GCB.  Second Largest Brewery in Golden.

The new moped.  '77 Peugeot 103.

Golden, CO

Since my last update we have been living at the Clear Creek RV Park in Golden, CO.  Home of the original Coors Brewery.  My second day off since we've been here was Wednesday and I put it on my schedule to do a tour, but even Coors takes Tuesday and Wednesday off of tours.  Hopefully on Sunday I get to do the famed Coors brewery tour.

Wolfgang has adapted to the water..maybe a little too well.

In other recent news I sold the Jetta on August 15th, which was a great day.  It is very weird for it to be out of my life (I've discovered that I develop a significant attachment to vehicles that I have worked on for seemingly hundreds of hours), but quite a relief as it was definitely not the most reliable vehicle I've owned.  I hate to even think about how much money I put into that car.  Oh wait, I must not have learned anything and did the same thing with the westy.  The largest downside of the Jetta being gone is the resulting lack of separation between the only car we have and our home.  Only a problem when Jammie and I are both working and Wolfgang needs a ride to the Humboldt house to hang out.  Luckily Rande and Lexi have been very generous with the lending of their vehicles.  Strangely both their cars have the check engine light on and make lots of noises that they shouldn't.

I have been working 90% of the time we have been in Golden so I have not had much time to take it in, but due to some unforseen work cancellations I have had the past couple days to enjoy some of Golden.  I went fly fishing for the first time in at least a year on Wednesday, and although I didn't catch anything I feel like I got back into the groove a little bit and by the end I was comfortable casting and placing my fly.  Unfortunately during my fishing adventure one of my flip flops/fly fishing shoes broke and left me fighting to walk through what is a fairly large and fast moving "creek".

Jammie and I walked down the street to downtown and went to several shops looking for replacement sandals and settled on Golden River Sports, which in addition to flip flops carried fly fishing and kayaking equipment.  I am rather reserved, but I've heard the best thing to do for fly fishing is to talk to someone at a local shop to find out when where and what to use when fishing.  I am glad I stepped up and asked the guy that was working as he said he had some good advice and also managed to sell me on $8 worth of flies.

I worked yesterday and although I got back before dark it was very windy and stormy and not at all appropriate for fishing.  I rode the moped to work yesterday and will today too, the pinto has become the primary mode of transportation and I have to say I love it.  It is not the fastest as my commute yesterday was a good 40 minutes, but I went to work from Golden and back on less than 1 gallon of gas.  I got a few raindrops on the way home but luckily it didn't open up as it is known to do...

Jammie and I woke up at 7:30 yesterday morning to go talk to the woman at the campground front office.  Yesterday was day 14 of a 14 day maximum stay at the campground (I have to say I have been working so much that it really only feels like we've been here a week, August has flown by.)  We had spoken to her the evening before after we realized it was our last day.  We created conversation over a minor RV collision that had occurred about an hour before, of course it was her fault that the dude backed into the 5th wheel next to his site.  This morning she was kind enough to 'reset' our stay period and we paid for 5 more days, quite the relief as we really like it here and I just got the right flies to hit the brown trout on the Clear Creek.   My last day of work will be Monday, and regardless of how weird that is, we will be headed out of CO very soon.

I know, you're saying to yourself, 'wow this update is crazy long'...Its been a great couple weeks, and that's why I like Golden and Clear Creek RV Park.  On Wednesday Jammie convinced me to go tubing, and although the creek is freezing cold, IT WAS AWESOME,  trout unlimited and Coors (of course) recently partnered to rebuild a mile of the creek, and they have created some great fishing holes and tubing/kayaking chutes.  It was a lot of fun to cruise (fairly quickly) down the creek and occasionally speed through a little white water chute.

I leave you with one last bit.   Richard and Joneel Harris from Denton TX.  They have been here a little over a week, and Jammie (of course) was the first to interface with them.  They have a beautiful Prevost 40' Coach, they seem like the cool retired people that aren't rolling in dough (both retired from University of North Texas) but found something they really enjoy.  They tow around a H3 hummer and go off-roading all the time, they also carry a sweet 1980s BMW motorcycle with a sidecar for their dog.  They have a Basenji dog, which is an African breed that is very similar to Wolfgang.  Their dog doesn't like most dogs, but gets along with Wolfman as long as there isn't food nearby or the Harris' aren't petting Wolfgang.  I was introduced to them Wednesday night, we were walking back from talking to the campground lady and they invited us to stop for a beer, or vodka tonic, you can guess who drinks what.  A few miller lites later and they had invited us out to dinner.  It was a great time and ironically ended up going to the same place that Jammie and I went for lunch, luckily their menu is very diverse.

I'll post a picture of their 'coach' in the next update.

After work last night, Jammie told me they invited us out to dinner again, we didn't go to dinner with them but met up later at a local bar where ladies drink free after 9, which also happened to be overflowing with freshly returned Colorado School of Mines students.  Afterwards we went to Woody's wood fired pizza where again they insisted on buying, but it was a really fun time with a couple much older, but cooler couple than you could imagine.  They told us of their old volkswagens they've had throughout the years as well as their various RVs and travels.  We find that everyone is either interested in our dog, our camper or the tent attached to the camper.. sometimes all three ;)


I have more great pictures on the camera that I will post in the next few days...

P.S.  I haven't made it to Golden City Brewing (the second largest brewery in Golden) yet, but I got to try their red ale at Woody's Last night.  I have to say that it was a pretty darn good beer.  A good balanced red, Rande would probably like it.  I hope to make it to the second largest brewery in the next couple days as well.

Long time no writing...

I haven't been writing because I haven't had the time or the internet.  Camping and working is fun and exhausting.  Jammie and I have had a busy work week as well as my parents stopped in town for a few days on their way to Minnesota.  It seems like a lot longer than a week...either way we decided to get out of town for a day or two, and packed up the camper yesterday for a trip to David Darling's.

All packed up and ready to go.  Our new Add-a-room tent fits perfectly in the over cab storage

!

There is a new brewery in Eagle Colorado, Bonfire Brewing, that we stopped at to check out, but as with most new places their hours are pretty limited.  We were there an hour and a half too early for the tap room hours.

Wolfgang likes road trips.  He just sits in the back for the most part, sometimes he like to be on top of someone in the front seat so he can see out better.

Wolfman hanging out with all of our stuff.

As long as I've known David and all the great things I've heard about his house this is my first trip out to visit.  And now I wish I had come out here sooner and more often.  His yard is amazing.  I will take more pictures of his garden today, it is beautiful and makes our little planter look little.

8 chickens.

Oh yea he has a sweet little hop farm too!

Glenwood canyon on the drive in is pretty unreal.  I forgot how much I like the small mountain town feel, and Glenwood is a beautiful town, hopefully some exploration and tubing is in the plans for today.  

I have to work tomorrow at 11am so we will probably head back to Denver tonight so we don't have to leave really early in the morning.  I am going to stick around until the sun goes down so we can help david harvest some of his hops, very exciting.  The camper did pretty good climbing some steep mountain passes, but it did take us a good 3 1/2 hours to get here.  We will probably crash at the humboldt house tonight and try to get in at a new campground tomorrow. 

So much to do.

So I finally let go of my BMX bike.  I listed it for $150 on craigslist, which apparently wasnt enough as I had a dozen people contact me about it.  I ended up selling it to a couple 10-14 year old kids, which made it a lot easier when they came and picked it up this morning.  They were very excited about it and their mom said they saved the money themselves, so it felt good.  It reminded me quite a bit of a 30 year old dude who sold me a surfboard for really cheap when I was their age. 

In other news I really like gardening and the rewards of it.

We have almost a dozen jalapenos growing (pictured above) as well as this sweet huge pumpkin on the vine.

Today is the final brew day here at the Humboldt house.  I opted to make a bunch of beer to try to use up some of the grain and hops that I had sitting around.  The grain should last the move, but the hops are a flower and will really lose their umph if they get hot and stuff during the move.  The objective was to use up as much as possible.  We will see how the beer turns out.

One negative about brewing stuff is my brother, who owns around half of the stuff we have, decided to ask for money for everything he bought.  When we previously talked about it, it seemed like he was going to let me have/use all our equipment for the time being.  It really complicates things and now post move I will have to spend a decent amount of money to be able to make beer again.  Its only frustrating to me because I have been the only one who has used and taken care of any of the equipment for pretty much a year now.  I will let him sit on it and maybe a year from now after he he will be willing to part with it. 

Only 4 more days...til campin time.

ITS TOO HOT!

Its way to hot.  You can't move without sweating and our house always seems to be warmer than it is outside.  I can't wait for that nice coastal breeze..  Unfortunately I don't have too much to talk about.  Busy with work and trying to prepare for the pending homelessness/move.

I do however have a few pictures from the brewery tour we did a couple days before my birthday.  It was a lot of fun even though we didn't go on any brewery tours, we tasted a lot of good beer.  My favorite of the day which I unfortunately did not take any pictures there was Funkwerks.  Its an awesome 1 1/2 year old brewery that makes some fantastic belgian beers.  They specialize in the Saison style and they do it very well.  The guy won a medal for his homebrewed saison, after which he went to brewing school and then started a brewery.  Some people make it seem easy...

Anyway here are a few pictures:

Randes face is priceless in this one..

 

Touching Cheeks.

Wolfgang came too! He goes everywhere he can.