beer stock

I haven't been to Total Wine in a long time and went today.

The 750ml bottles with no neck label in back are the Allagash Victoria, Victor, and Musette. The Victoria and Victor are favorites of mine. The Victoria is made with Chardonnay grapes. The Victor is made with a chancellor grape and wine yeast strain. The Musette is part of their barrel-aged series.

I'll finally try the Dogfish Head Immort Ale. The strong ale contains peat-smoked barley brewed with organic juniper berries, vanilla, and maple syrup which comes from Sam's father's maple syrup farm. Mmmm yum.

Sailor dies during weekly races

The skipper of one of the boats I (used to) race against was killed yesterday during the race. Its a Wednesday night race series on the Magothy River off the Chesapeake. I haven’t gone out this year. A front came through that gave them very strong wind conditions. Below is an account from the boat that participated in the rescue:

In case it was missed by the fleet in the squall of last night-- the skipper of Wabbit fell overboard. Beagle was the first boat to get to the man whose head kept being covered in water. We got a life line and life preserver to him; he used the preserver briefly but then he slipped through it and went under and remained face down for about 2 minutes . One of our crew jumped in to rescue him and was able to hold his head out of the water, and we eventually got the 250lb+ man aboard Beagle, but he was then pulseless, cyanosed and not breathing. We did CPR for >30 minutes as we got the person to the nearest land/dock and EMS finally arrived. According to the news today he is in critical condition.

Lessons to be learned--if a front is predicted be sure that you are not under crewed-- and there are at least 2 people who could in emergency helm the boat in adverse conditions. If something like a man overboard occurs in those conditions alert the fleet through a radio call to the committee boat and call 911. It would have been ideal if we had access to a power boat to have reached the drowning victim faster and to have gotten him to shore quicker.

Beagle's crew worked magnificently to accomplish what we did. It took 4 people (one in the water) to get this man into the transom. I am very proud of the efforts made to give this person the best possible care and sincerely wish that the outcome could have been better,

Colin Mackenzie,
Skipper Beagle

Here is a news article from an Annapolis paper...

Sailboat Race Ends in Tragedy

SAVOR: A craft beer and food experience

My sister and a few friends came in town and we attended the Saturday evening session of SAVOR. It was a new type of event with the goal of showcasing beer’s ability to be complimented with food to enhance the flavors of both. Tons of fine breweries were there usually with the owner/brewer doing the pouring. There were seminars to attend and my sister and I were the last ones to get in to Sam Calagione’s session. It was a great time, see pics...

http://picasaweb.google.com/SlickSlopeSurfer/SAVOR2008

The Lupulin Reunulin and the Sierra Nevada tasting

Wednesday and Thursday were some great nights of fine beers, interesting stories, and good laughs. At the Lupulin Reunulin we had a group of small brewers talk as we sampled their beer. It was hosted by Daniel Bradford publisher of All About Beer magazine and the brewers were:

• Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing
• Adam Avery of Avery Brewing
• Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head
• Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey & Port Brewing
• Greg Koch of Stone

Kim Jordan of New Belgium showed up and joined the panel as well. Most of these guys know each other pretty well after a trip over to Europe they took to do some “research”. I was surprised how young they all were (except Kim). It was a good time as they joked with each other. It was not a PG rated event. We learned a lot about how they started, their early struggles, their crazy beer ideas, and their current relationships with each other and the rest of the beer industry. Not a bad life they have traveling around promoting their beer. We even talked about the beers a little bit:

• Allagash White
• Allagash oak aged triple w/ Rosalarre culture
• Avery Brewing 15th Anniversary Ale
• Avery Brewing Hog Heaven
• Avery Brewing Samael’s Oak-aged Ale 2008
• Dogfish Head Festina Peche
• Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
• Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary double IPA
• Lost Abbey Isabelle Proximus
• Port Brewing Moon Lit Sessions Black Lager
• Stone Oak Aged Bastard 2007
• Stone Vertical Epic 2007

On Thursday night I went back to hear about Sierra Nevada and sample their Harvest Ale. They are quite the interesting company and one of the pioneers of craft brewing. They are still making great new beers but they don’t go very far from the brewery in CA. They are also doing a lot of innovative things with the brewing process and doing a lot of energy conservation and recycling techniques. The beers we tried were:

• Pale Ale
• Summerfest
• Brown
• Ruthless Hefeweizen
• Porter
• Torpedo Extra IPA
• Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale
• Bigfoot

They were all quite good. The highlight was the Harvest Ale. The hops are from New Zealand and flown quickly to CA for immediate brewing. Its tasty. Definitely not available outside their hometown.

The Black Keys

The plan on Tuesday was to get some shit done. I had an errand to run and lots of cleaning and personal paper work to do before I host guests for the weekend. I’m busy tonight and tomorrow night so last night was the only time to do it. Well a friend of mine is a weirdo and claims to enjoy running errands and cleaning. She convinced me to allow her to help me and I accepted knowing it would slow me down but we hadn’t hung out in a bit. I figured she could lend an opinion towards furnishing and organizing my apartment that would be a hell of a lot better than mine.

Anyway, of course none of that got done. We did run the errand but ended up going other places and having a long dinner. Nothing in my apartment got finished. The Black Keys are in town for 2 sold out concerts. She happens to have a friend who works at the venue that can get her in for free. So she convinces me to go with her last night. It was a free show and I was curious about them which was much more appealing then scrubbing my toilet.

This is the same friend who invited me to her uncle’s cocktail party where I would have been rubbing elbows with Cheney (the devil himself) and Alan Greenspan. So I wasn’t surprised to be handed a VIP pass with backstage privileges. The place was absolutely packed. Definitely over sold, as they often do at the 9:30 Club. You couldn’t even get in the theater room with the stage. So instead of getting crushed on the floor we hung out in the VIP area with a perfect view and plenty of space to lounge comfortably. The show barely lasted 90 minutes and we saw the last hour. I wasn’t all that impressed with the band so I didn’t press to go backstage, but I should have since I go there all the time and have never been.

Off to taste some fine beer and meet the brewers tonight.

a glorious week for the taste buds

What a week it will be. In advance of the SAVOR event this weekend there are all kinds of craft brew tastings and tapings this week. My sister and friends will be coming in town this Friday for the SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience. The event is described as:

SAVOR the experience - enjoy a reception-style sampling of your choice of 35+ sweet and savory appetizers and 96 craft beers from 48 breweries. Converse with the luminaries of the craft beer industry - brewery owners, brewers and representatives will be on-hand - serving you your beer.

There are 3 different sessions, each with two seminars. On the evening we are going there will be Cross Drinking Without Social Stigma and He Said Beer, She Said Wine: A Debate on Food Pairing. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery will be leading the latter one.

So to start the week off a friend and I will be going to Pizzeria Paradiso to taste a host of rare beers on tap for this week only. I’m specifically going to have some more Red & White which I discovered this spring.

Tomorrow Sam Calagione will be at the Dogfish Head Alehouse for lunch. I’ll be working, otherwise it’d be a very unproductive afternoon. Tuesday evening there is a Bell’s Beer 6 course dinner at Rustico. I do believe the brewer will be on hand for that one but I’ll be passing on that as well. At the Brickskeller tomorrow and Wednesday is an event they are calling The Lupulin Reunulin. The guests include:

• Tomme Arthur of San Diego's Pizza Port and Lost Abbey Breweries
• Vinnie Cilurzo of Santa Rosa's Russian River Brewing Company
• Adam Avery of Colorado's Avery Brewing Company
• Rob Tod from Maine's great Belgian style brewery Allagash
• Sam Calagione of Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery

I plan to hit that on Wednesday night. And I’ll be going back on Thursday night to see Steve and Ken Grossman of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. They should be bringing their Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale.

Last Thursday Garrett Oliver was at the National Geographic Society talking about the recent renaissance of Italian beer.

Mmmm... tastes so good. If only beer wasn't a poison.

US Air Force Cycling Classic

I rode my bike to the US Air Force Cycling Classic today. It’s a road bike race laid out on an 8km course around the Pentagon and Crystal City. Things lasted all day with the amateurs and finished with the mens professional race that started at noon and was supposed to go till around 4. I probably rolled up to the north side of the Pentagon around 2:45. I saw a road blocked off and assumed it was for the race but saw no one around. I wondered down towards the Pentagon parking lot upon two cops that told me I was on the course and it would be wise to get off. I hung out there with the cops for the pack to come around for a lap.

I was skeptical about riding behind the Pentagon and all the way to Crystal City but the cops said I could try it. So I ended up behind the Pentagon on the lawn off the road because the road was the course. There was no one back there but I’m sure there were a dozen cameras focused on me. And lots of security guys talking about me. Once the road opened up on the other side of the Pentagon a few cops signaled me over and told me to get off the course. I blamed the other cops but they didn’t want to hear it. They pointed me down a road that eventually got me to Crystal City.

There were great views of the race in Crystal City. You could hang out at a corner all by yourself as long as you weren’t near the crowds at the finish. I captured some pics seen on the link below. I only saw them make a few laps so I didn't get too many good pics. The second video towards the end is pretty good with them coming around a turn after a long straight within 800 meters of the finish. The finish was close but I didn’t see it all that well. The spectators were leaning over the barrier and it was hard to see and take pics.

Picasa pics