And Now...The Link

Alas, I have been a blog slacker and not paying attention to your posts. The link, you dummy, where is the link?! Here it is; mea culpa, mea culpa. Thanks for taking the time to read my material.

As an added bonus, for your patience, here is yet another article mentioning Garrett Oliver. He is quite the quoted brewmaster these days.

The King is Dead (almost)...

Here's showing what guys like me (with a little more money and marketing saavy) can do to bring good beer back to this great country of ours. Check out the Brooklyn Brewery video. I used to drink their beer regularly when I lived in Maryland. I won a blue ribbon at the Great Frederick Fair with my Black Chocolate Stout clone. You gotta admire Garrett Oliver.

Time to Go Fishin'

My daughter and her two children are visiting us for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, my granddaughter Lucy and I went fishing. It was too early for a homebrew, and she’s only four, so I focused on the fishing aspect of the journey.

Lucy has never been fishing. She lives in Albany, NY. I’m not sure if they have fish there. Since we were in the south, we decided that her first fishing trip should involve catfish. So after an early wakeup call and some oatmeal and quite a bit of crying (apparently brought on by the early wakeup), we were on the road to the Sunrise Catfish Farm at 0700. It takes about 40 minutes for the drive up towards Deridder. We saw lots of cows and horses on the way. Lucy discussed them all with me.

When we arrived, a very nice man rented us a vintage Zebco rod-n-reel, sold us some chicken livers for bait, and directed us in our truck to the levee on the side of the main pond. I rigged up Lucy’s rod with a hook and weight and put a big fat chicken liver on the hook. Lucy said “throw it out far”, so I did, and it splashed into the middle of the pond. I told her to hold the line tight while I put together my own fishing rig. While I was working on my hook, Lucy said “something’s pulling my pole”. And indeed, something was. After quite a struggle, she landed a 4 pound channel cat! It looked bigger than her.

Lucy's First Fish

After taking care of the fish, I put another liver on Lucy’s hook, “threw it far”, and then joined her with my offering. Something then “pulled her pole” again. Another struggle; another nice catfish. She was on fire! And then she decided to count…two for me grandpa…none for you. The pressure was on. I finally caught one. Then she caught two. Then I caught another. Then she started to get tired from all of the hard work she told me she was doing. So after about 75 minutes, we took our fish and weighed them in at 16.5 lbs.

Lots of Fish!

The nice folks at Sunrise Catfish Farm cleaned our fish, and then we drove home. Lucy took a nap, as she was worn out from all of that hard work catching this fish.

Fishing is hard work

The fish are in the freezer now. We’re saving them for the fryer this weekend when Lucy’s dad, a true catfish aficionado, comes to town. I hear they’re going fishing while I am at work. I hope he can throw it far and not have the liver fall off of the hook…

Verona Craft Beer

We actually found some craft brewed beer while walking a marketplace in Verona. They had four kinds of beer – Sausa Pils, Weizen, Red Moon, and a Stout. Babs and I each had a Sausa Pils on draught. ABV was about 6%, which made dealing with the jet lag more tolerable. It was very tasty. You could also buy cheeses and cured meats that were hanging in vendors tents. I avoided this at first, but succumbed to it later. The provolone, prosciutto, ham, and salami were great (especially for breakfast)! We walked to the Arena di Verona while drinking our beer. The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheater which is famous for the opera performances given there. Unfortunately, there were no operas being performed at noon. So we just enjoyed the beer and took many photos.

A pretty good selection for wine country

George Clooney enjoying a local brew

The Arena was built in AD 30 and could host more than 30,000 spectators. A major earthquake in 1117 almost completely destroyed the outer ring. After restoration, and because of its outstanding acoustics, the building now lends itself to musical performances.

Babs thinks these were added after original construction

There is Beer in Europe

Babs and I just returned from Italy. We passed through London on our way there. We landed at Heathrow and then had to take a bus to Gatwick to catch our connection to Verona, Italy. I'll be darned - they do drive on the other side of the road in England (but not in Italy)! We stopped at an airport restaurant called Garfunkels. I thought it only right to order a couple of "pints" while on layover in England. Well, I ordered the pints and Babs, being the lightweight, had the smaller servings. I believe that I had a couple of glasses of bitter, while she had the standard Stella. Both were served on draft and were very tasty. The temperature of the brew was perfect at around 45-50 deg F. Babs, of course, thought this was not cold enough. I'm still training her. I had a version of sheperd pie for my meal, and I can't remeber what Babs had. Attribute the lack of detail to the jet lag. Our bill came to 23.35 pounds, because they don't use the euro in England. I thought that was strange. You can use euros at the airports only, but all change is converted to pounds. There is no line on your credit card bill for a tip. They don't tip in Europe. I gave them cash for the tip. That's what my grandfather taught me to do.

A work in progress

Tired but happy

Back to my Beer Roots

I graduated from Texas A&M University in 1979. Whenever I wasn't studying to maintain my benchmark 2.3 GPA, I thought about studying while drinking beer and playing dominoes at the Dixie Chicken. The Dixie Chicken was THE beer joint on the Texas A&M campus, and after all of these years, it still maintains its status as the no. 1 hangout for the beer drinking Aggie college crowd.

Babs and I visited the Chicken today while on our way back from a wedding in Cameron, TX. The beer is still served in longneck bottles pulled directly from a trough filled with ice. They've added a kitchen and a back porch also. It was good to see the college kids playing dominoes and drinking Shiner beer and enjoying life in Central Texas.

Ask Elizabeth if she ever spent time at the Chicken...

Some views of the "new" Chicken

My old hangout

Babs and my friend Jack, who was visiting from Spokane. Babs was thirsty in the Texas heat.

A good Texas Longhorn

Makin' My Way Back

It's been awhile since my last post. I've been a beer slouch. Sorry. Things will soon be back to normal and I'll be brewing again. Right now, I'm buried at work and am trying to make a bunch of project deadlines before I take my Babsy to Italy next week. I promised to have her there on her milestone birthday (I'm not allowed to tell which milestone), which is Friday 5/9. We bought a new camera last weekend and she is learning to wield it like a pro, so look for many additions to this site when we return after 10 days. I'm thinking that the thrust will be more about wine than beer, but what the hey, it's all fun and educational.

The "love bugs" are starting to swarm in Louisiana, so brewing will have to wait until they are cleared out. The little fellers love to auger in on my sweet wort during brewing. The next brew is shaping up to be a double batch during the weekend of June 3.

The Beano beer didn't work out; I added to too much Splenda. I had to dump 5 gallons of blonde ale (ouch) and am slowly consuming the IPA. Stay tuned for experiment no. 2.

You should also know that I had dinner at the "all you can eat spicy boiled crawfish" buffet at the Isle of Capri Casino tonight (the wife is out of town). I couldn't eat all they had, but they knew I was there! If you're inclined, you've got about one more month left in the crawfish season. Come on down!

Thanks for all of your kind words and prayers during our time of loss. Mom is doing fine, thank you. Be sure and check out all of the new posts at my dad's site.