Beertrip Weekend

This Fri­day I’ll leave my home at around five in the morn­ing to drive six and a half hours to hang out with my friends Thomas and John for the week­end. The pur­pose? Good friends, good times, good beer, and good brew­ing. We’re brew­ing a batch of ancient Mediter­ranean ale not unlike Dog­fish Head’s Midas Touch. As men­tioned an episode of the Liv­ing Proof Brew­cast, I fell in love with the sweet complex-but-light fla­vor of this beer last fall, and when we decided to spend a Sat­ur­day brew­ing beer together, this was the obvi­ous choice to attempt. There is also a ter­ri­bly cool feel­ing that comes from work­ing with a recipe whose ori­gin lies some 3000 years in the past. Prep for the trip is pretty light: I needed to grab some brew­ing sup­plies (honey, saf­fron, white mus­cat grape juice con­cen­trate), my brew­ing gear, the usual clothes and mis­cel­lanea, and a small selec­tion of beer from Cleveland/Akron area brew­eries to share with my friends. I love to travel, and noth­ing makes me hap­pier when I travel than to dis­cover new things or visit inter­est­ing places and write about them. I’ll be tak­ing time to write about the trip as I go, start­ing with my first stop. Squarely between Cleve­land and Wash­ing­ton D.C. is Pitts­burgh, and in Pitts­burgh is Affogato, the café where Some­thing To Be Desired was and The Baris­tas is filmed. In a con­sum­mately geek move, I’m going to stop there for break­fast on the way down, then lunch on the way back, dur­ing which time I’ll write about the trip. While hang­ing out with Thomas and John, I know we’ll be record­ing an episode of The Com­mand Line Pod­cast, and once Chooch joins us for brew­ing, we’ll be record­ing a Liv­ing Proof Brew­cast as well. I might try to rope them into an episode of The Secret Lair as well, time per­mit­ting. And now…the best thing about brew­ing the beer on this trip: when I head down to Bal­ti­more for Balti­con over Memo­r­ial Day week­end, the beer will be ready to drink. Ahhh, the won­ders of good tim­ing. If you ask nicely, we might just let you try some.

Tags: Balticon, Beer, Homebrewing