Rally for Sanity and/or Fear

The opposite of Beckapolozza was the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear. Mandy drove up with friends and parked near my place. Teri and I headed down on bikes. It was quite a different atmosphere than Glen Beck's rally.

Pics and videos

Whet Hop Ales with Tomme Arthur

Tomme Arthur missed out on the Lupulin Reunuless this year and his beers are not distributed out here so I thought the wet hop ale or fresh harvest tasting would be a good one to attend. Teri's mom was in town for work and joined us for her first beer tasting. Not sure hops are the best place to start with people new to beer but that fresh hop taste is quite unique.

lineup...

• Solana - Low Tide Fresh Hop Ale
• Carlsbad - Plant to Pint
• Ocean Beach - Get Wet IPA
• Sierra Nevada - Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop
• Sierra Nevada - Estate Wet Hop
• Port Brewing - High Tide Fresh Hop IPA
• Weyerbacher - Harvest Ale
• Port Brewing - Mongo Double IPA

Tomme has four Pizza Port locations and runs Port Brewing. During the tasting he went through a powerpoint presentation about brewing fresh wet hop beers that gave the event that presentation type feel. The brewery is an 18 hour truck ride from the Yakima Valley where the hops are grown ($2500 per trip for an empty truck). The brewery has to be ready to brew the beer whatever day the hops are ready for harvest. The farm has to harvest all the hops the day they are ready or they will spoil. They left hops on the vine this year due to not being able to harvest it all at one time but also due to low demand. Dealing with fresh hops once you have them at the brewery isn't an easy task either.

The Low Tide Fresh Hop Pale was a good start to the evening. Most of these beers can only be purchased at the pub it was brewed in California. The bitterness of this beer came from hop pellets as opposed to the fresh hop buds.

Tomme said he had to beg his own brewpub to get a couple 5 gallon kegs of the Plant to Pint. This is a 100% fresh hop beer with no hop pellets used. It was tasty.

It was Tomme's first time trying the Riptide. It has a malt component and was also 100% fresh hops. It had a good balance. At one point Tomme said he didn't think the beer was 6.5% alcohol because usually when he has three he can feel it and he can't feel it so much tonight.

The Get Wet IPA was probably my favorite. It had that wonderful fresh dank wet hop taste that the night was all about. A beer with fresh picked hops served fresh. Too piny and bitter for many but there is something about the fresh hops that I love. Of course they are the best smelling beers as well.

The next two beers were by Sierra Nevada who Tomme credited for inventing the fresh wet hop style. They sell 1000 barrels of Northern Hemisphere a year which is quite small for Sierra Nevada. And apparently they lost money on it for many years. People at the tasting complained that the Estate Wet Hop Ale is twice the price. Tomme said the Southern Hemisphere Wet Hop beer has hops that are kilned for the travel across the globe.

The High Tide Fresh Hop IPA used pellets for the bitterness and is wet hopped twice. Another one brewed with hops driving straight from Yakima Valley.

The Weyerbacher Harvest Ale tasted like the typical store bought harvest ale in that it is not the freshed in the world which is really needed for this style.

The Mongo Double IPA was a special treat and very yummy. A typical southern CA hop bomb.

Phish in Charleston

Teri and I went to Charleston for two nights of Phish. We toured the downtown area and had some local food and beer. I heard a lot of good things about Charleston but I didn't think it was all that; old money and old school.

Friday, 10/15/2010

Set 1: Punch You In the Eye > Possum, Bathtub Gin, Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Destiny Unbound, Backwards Down the Number Line, Bouncing Around the Room, Stash, Joy, Buffalo Bill, Dog Faced Boy, Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: Down with Disease > Prince Caspian > Twist, Roses Are Free > My Friend, My Friend > My Problem Right There, Tube > Mike's Song > The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Mexican Cousin, Weekapaug Groove, Suzy Greenberg > Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Character Zero

Notes: Bill Bailey featured Page’s dad, Dr. Jack McConnell, on vocals and tap shoes. Antelope's Marco Esquandolas lyric was changed to "Mike-O."

Saturday, 10/16/2010

Set 1: Kill Devil Falls, Guelah Papyrus, The Curtain With > The Mango Song > Sand, Limb By Limb, Sneakin' Sally through the Alley, Uncle Pen, Pebbles and Marbles, Cavern > David Bowie

Set 2: Crosseyed and Painless, Dirt > Fluffhead > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Tweezer > Show of Life, You Enjoy Myself

Encore: I Been Around, Quinn the Eskimo > Tweezer Reprise

Notes: The YEM vocal jam contained Guy Forget quotes.

WBF Durham

World Beer Festival in Durham. This was one of the first times I didn't take pics. I think we had the usual transportation issues if memory serves me correctly which is questionable. Sorry for the lack of info.