Travels

Sunday Morning, San Francisco

May 8, 2011, by
fifthandmission

I’m stay­ing at the cor­ner of Fifth and Mis­sion at the Pickwick…a decent hotel built in 1922. The rooms are smaller and old-fashioned, the hall­ways still have fire hoses in alcoves in the walls, the ele­va­tors are barely large enough to hold four peo­ple. It’s a nice place, feels like some­thing out of a Chan­dler or Ham­mett novel. Old-style claw­foot tub in the bath­room, win­dows that open to I can bask in the glory of the noise out­side which is, oddly, com­fort­ing if very dif­fer­ent from home.

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Beertrip Weekend

May 2, 2011, by
beer-homebrew-equipment

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.

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