Picking Up My Belle

So i found myself in Philadelphia to pick up my daughter and bring her home for winter break. Of course i can't find parking close to the apartment, never had that problem when she lived in the ghetto, always parking available, now that she lives near Center City, parking is an issue. So i found a spot around the corner, right in front of the Jamaican Hut restaurant, which is a pretty good spot to eat. We had a roommate help us so we only had to do one trip which was good because it was very cold out.

Before we left, we decided to grab a slice of pizza to hold us over until we got home. So off to Lickety Split Pizza Shop where Belle told me that they had good pizza. THe pizza was good, slices kind of large plus a 2 slice and soda special. They had a bar in the place, so i tried the Philadelphia Brewing Company's Newbold IPa which was very good, nice malt/hop combination. Not a bad drinking beer.

Made it home real quick, no traffic, it was late but the last 30 minutes on the Saw Mill always feels like hours.

Pour Farm - New Bedford, MA

 Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti & Rapscallion Premiere

Wachusett Larry

So we find ourselves in Massachusetts to open a kiln last week and after driving, we need to find nourishment, both the liquid and the solid kind. So we go to New Bedford, MA to a place called the Pour Farm. I saw ads in a local beer paper about this place and with the symbol a skull and harpoons and being in this part of MA, I thought it was a biker bar with a good beer selection. When we got there it was a long and narrow place with the bar running down one side of the room, almost the whole way down and some 4 tops on the opposite wall., dark but nice looking bar. A nice local joint it seemed. I saw the taps and i knew that i was in the right place.

22 taps, 22 bombers and 24 12 oz bottles with the only mass produced beer in the 12 oz bottle. A beer menu was delivered and we ordered a Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti and a Rapscallion Premiere, a belgian style ale. We ordered a house salad, pulled pork sandwich and a falafel wrap. The food was real good and real cheap, Hello we ain't in NY anymore. Since I still had to drive a bit, we split a bottle of Larry, an imperial ipa. We really enjoyed this so much that on the way home we had to stop in Yankee Spirits in Sturbridge, MA and pick some up.

What really turned me on to the place was that 2 kegs kicked while we were there and after the beer was changed, they printed up new beer menus, i like this touch. No asking for beers off of the menu, to be told that the keg is kicked but we have ....

If i am in the area again, i will definitely stop for beer and grub

Phoenix Airport

so we have a three hour layover in Phoenix, need food, need a beer to knock me out on this 4 1/2 hour flight, didn't get much sleep on the 6AM flight and the thought of sitting on a plane again is not fine with me. So we walk around every terminal in the airport looking for something to eat and the best we can find is the Fox Sports Bar that is in every airport in America. Surprisingly i found a non Bud/Miller/Coors/Sam Adams product, a Pyramid Hefeweizen. Since that compressors are down all they had were bottles, i was surprised that they had 22oz bombers but what the hell, i need sleep. The beer was pretty good and it made my burger, which i don't know if it was beef or beef by product tolerable.

Should be arriving in Newark at 8PM tionght.

Damm Good Beer

This is supposed to be a fine beer from Spain, it is a decent yellow fizzy beer, i wouldd drink again but if i ever get to Spain, i am sticking with the red wine

CFL Playoffs

Calgary Stampedes vs Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Western Division Playoff in the Canadian Football League

 Our hotel is across Crowchild Trail from McMahon Stadium, we are also right next to the Banff Trail LRT station. There is a pedestrian bridge crossing the road and leads right into the stadium parking lot

So my little guy and i were walking to the Stop and Go to get candy and check our lottery tickets to see if i was paying this trip off in Canadian money. At the corner by the LRT station, a ticket scalper stops me and asks if i want to buy tickets to the game, so i have to stop and BS with him. I told him it was halftime and we start negotiating, off course i am not buying anything because we are meeting some Milwaukee people for dinner in about an hour. I finally tell him that i wasn't interested in any tickets so then he proceeds to tell me he is a musician and he is not really a scalper and shows me his hip hop CD's. He wants $10 a disc, i like to support the arts plus i have a pocketful of this funny Canadian money which will be useless to me in 18 hours, so i told him that i will take the 2 discs for $20can if he throws in 2 free tickets, which he proceeds to do, so instead of getting candy, we are off to the game.

We walked into the game at halftime and proceeded to stay for the third quarter because the people we were having dinner with were looking for us. Also, it was friggin' cold, -24C which is -4F, so our feet were frozen and since we weren't prepared to sit on snow covered metal bleachers, we didn't bring seat cushions so our asses were frozen also. It was fun and definitely an experience which we probably wont do again, what is with the three down rules? so we gambled on the tickets. I was assuming they were counterfeits but they weren't.

Of course Calgary lost so it was a good thing that we left early.

Brewsters Czech Pilsner

Bottle of Brew from Brewsters, trying to be like Pilsner Urquell, it is dark for a pilsner, grainy nose, not a lot of hops. i get some diacytal in the taste, don't know if that is too style, not bad but not good

Saison with the aid of cell phone for light

tonite we did our expensive dinner, we went to Brewsters Brew Pub which was located approximately 9 kilometers from us, i was told to try the saison and the barleywine by some Canadian beer drinkers. Brewsters is a chain brewpub, the food was ok, kind of expensive, tasty but in my opinion a lot of money for what you get. We had a lamb burger and a steak sandwich. The steak only came with the bottom piece of bread but not the top, i think they ripped me off a piece of bread, lol. Of course it is Saturday in Canada so we were watching Hockey Night. Another fun night with my little guy, who has now left me alone so he could hang with the Minnesota crew.

Opa

the campus has a food court to rival most malls. There are 30,000 kids here and a lot of them commute so they need places to eat. For the past three days i have been lunching at Opa, which is a greek type fast food joint. Soulvaki, Calamari, all pretty good stuff. They also have a Subway, 3 different type of asian food places, another Vietnamese sandwich place, Pizza, A&W burgers, a pastry place, a Coffee City and 2 Tim Hortons, because Tim Horton means Canada. They also have a little bodega type store, a pharmacy and a lotto/ticketmaster, everything college kids need.

One thing that i found out, everything is expensive up here, in reality, i couldn't afford to live here, i was in sticker shock when i went to the supermarket to get skater snacks. It is not like the good old days when the Can $ was $1.30-$1.40 to our dollar, now it is even up. I actually can get lunch cheaper in NYC than here, amazing

McMahon Stadium

Big Football weekend for McMahon Stadium located on the campus of U of C. Today the university football team, the Dinos beat St Mary's from Halifax to win the Mitchell Cup, next stop, Laval for the Desjardin Venier Cup for the #1 team in Canadian College Football.

Tomorrow, the Calgary Stampede meets Saskatchewan for the right to go to the Grey Cup against the winner of the Montreal Alouettes vs  Toronto Arogonauts.

Canadian Football the field is 110 yds by 65 with endzones 15-25 yard long, 12 players, no formations, all receivers in the backfield moving towards the line during the count, kind of crazy, all downfield passes and lots of punts. Kind of interesting

Lucky Beer

Bought this because the name of this beer can lead to many comments, i don't know if i am even going to drink this, i just love the name. Can you get Lucky?

Hotel Beer

a beer from Austria, cheaper than Canadian beer, golden pilsner can't really see it because the hotel only gave me Styrofoam cups, a decent beer, going down smoothly

Cask

Oatmeal Stout

Wild Rose Taproom - my garmin got us to the gate but got us totally lost. The Wild Rose is in an old Canadian Defense base that was bought by some developer to them into condos.  after driving around having my GPS Bitch tell me the place is right there, where??? we finally gave up. As we were leaving the base we decided to give it one more try by driving back to the gate and asking the security officer for directions, turned out we need to go left instead of right. 

We got a spot in the front row and walked into a small, crowded brewpub, took a seat at a big table and started BS'ng with the brewer of the place. We had pork BBQ sandwiches with curried cole slaw which tasted better than it sounded. Ordered the cask ale, which goes on at 4pm and now it is 6:30 so i chanced it. It was the SOB, 4.1%, an english bitter with Glacier hops added to the cask. it was prety good, nothing great just a decent cask ale. I then order the Alberta Crude Oatmeal Stout, 5.5%, this beer was pretty tasty, i enjoyed it but had to drink it kind of quickly because we have to be up at 6am.

Deer Tail's Extract

saw this in an Asian market in Danbury CT and I have been wondering, WTF does this shit do? if you know, message me in Facebook with your answer,  just in case i need to pick up a case or two....

Cannery Brewing Squire Scotch Ale

6.5% 650ml bottle from the Penticon, British Columbia

Scotch ale tend to be big malty bombs in the 7-9% range while Scottish ales tend to be lower in alcohol and are categorized in Schillings, 60, 70, 80, the lower the number the lower the alcohol. This beer is more in the Scottish style. Pours an amber color with a big white head, smoky aroma with a nice malt backbone, some smoke in the flavor along with a slight hop bitterness. Not a bad beer, it drinks pretty nicely, would drink it again if i had to

The Official Burger of Deliciousness

triple patty burger

Boogies Burger on Edmonton Trail, cheap food which i am having a hard time finding here in Calgary, order at the counter, find a seat and they will bring it to you. A thin patty burger but very good, shoestring fries that come out crispy and tasty. My little guy order the triple patty burger with Boogies Signature Red Sauce, lettuce and onions, i had the Faye Buger, single patty, bacon, fried onions and mushrooms, lettuce and tomatoes

My Slip and Slide

Calgary Olympic Oval

Mr. T's BBQ

Big Rock Grasshopper Wheat

Big Rock Traditional Ale along with Pork BBQ, Burgoo, baked beans

So we finally leave the rink after a quick warmup/get a feel for the ice, we find our hotel realize that there is a BBQ place right around the corner from our hotel, so we can walk instead of getting back into the Suzuki Slip and Slide.

Mr T's BBQ smells good when we walk in, friendly waitress and a place to sit. We ordered brisket and pulled pork sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy, burgoo, root beer and a couple of Big Rock beers from Alberta. Grasshopper which is a wheat beer and Traditional Ale which is a brown ale, both are non offensive and drinkable and went well with the food. Both the food and beer were alright and would probably not eat/drink them again.

After dinner, i got some type of Canadian lottery, so i guess i will be rich before we leave this town. Walked back to the hotel and pretty much crashed.

Tomorrow skating 500m & 1000m

Wednesday Afternoon

It is cold, snowy and windy, -degrees. Who gives a crap if it is C or F, it is still negative degrees.
They don't plow or salt the roads and think of nothing if there are 176 accidents, as reported by the news, i have a shitbox of a Suzuki that slips and slides all over the place.
Traffic sucks, think rush hour on the West Side Highway with an accident on the entrance ramp to the George Washington Bridge. It took us over an hour to go less than 20 miles and then 25 minutes to go 2-3 miles from the rink to the parking lot, but don't despair, to quote Eric Clapton "It's Got To Get Better In a Little While" because skating and eating will begin soon.

Did somebody say food, we're starving...

5 AM

It's 5AM, do you know where children are? I know at least the whereabouts of my little guy, he is crashed out next to me in Terminal A of Newark International Airport. Once again we are on the road in pursuit of ice and good times, both on the ice and in father/son time.

This time it is Calgary, home of the fastest ice in Canada, as told to me by a Canadian beer drinker, someone told me that Salt Lake City is the fastest ice in the world and my little guy's coach one told me tht some place in Russia, with a name i can't remember and probably couldn't pronounce, told me that that was the fastest ice in the world. This evening he recanted by letting me know that the Russia place was during it's time but know Calgary might be the fastest. Only times will tell.

Schoolteacher

Beer store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

 So i am looking at Beer Advocate Friday afternoon and the cask guy posts about a new brewery from MA called Wandering Star and they will have one of the first casks of the Summer Ale and it is a benefit for  Schoolteacher being held in a bar called The Diamond. When i opened the post i saw my friends name, who is Schoolteacher from BA. At that point i realized that i need to investigate this event. I beermailed an old beer friend and he stated that he was the organizer and Schoolteacher is wont be there because he is in LA and he will talk to me when i get there.

Since Schoolteacher was not going to be there i kind of did not want to go but i figured that i would run into a few old beer friends that i don't see anymore and check out a part of Brooklyn that i have never been before. I then made plans with some people from work to meet up in later that evening since i only planned to be at The Diamond for only a little bit.

When i got off the train i realized that i was out here on a bar crawl with Lisa and a couple of friends a few years back. I stopped at Brouwerij Lane which is a beer store/growler fill station but sice the owner is an importer of some German beers, he is allowed to sell beer by the glass from the growler beers. They have a pretty amazing selection and at $3 a 8oz glass, you can try a whole buch plus they serve the beers i very cool german cylindrical glasses. I had the Bear Republic Mach 10. I walked to The Diamond met a couple of people i haven't seen in a while, ordered the Wandering Star, then walked in Schoolteacher.

I know Schoolteacher from the very old days of The Blind Tiger Ale House when it was on 10th St. and Hudson St. back in the early days of craft beer. We would run into each other at the Wednesday beer events at the Tiger and on the occasion that i ventured into Brooklyn for a beer event. He is one of the few very genuine people that i have met, we always didn't talk beer, we talked about other stuff also, if you can believe that. I haven't seen him i about 5 years because he is very sick, this was a kind of going away party, he is off to the east because western medicine is not working. He plans on traveling and eventually settle down in a country with socialized health care, never to come home again. As soon as we started talking, he asked about my oldest so by name and about college because the last time we talked my so was in HS. Shit, sometimes i can't remember my kids names and i live with them. For me, it was a very emotional night, and if you know me, i don't get emotional. It was very sad for me to know that a friend can't find help here and has to leave the country to find some and knowing that you will never see a person again. I knew i had to leave and meet my other friends from work but i really did not want to leave. I probably said goodbye like 4 times before i walked out of the bar. It was a very sad moment for me.

Wall adornment in The Diamond's bathroom

I had the Wandering Star and a Kelso Satisfaction which is a 3.2% beer which was very good.

Onto Barcade where i met some work friends, the place was crowded, had the Sierra Nevada Celebration and a McNeil's Old Ringworm before i left to go home. The place was crowded on this Friday night and i realized how old i am. I was definitely the oldest dude in the place. Caught the 11:06 train at 11:02 and made it home.

Veterans Day

Thanks to New York State I have today off so I spent a portion of today enjoying a nice cigar while raking some leaves, damn, I hate raking leaves, my little brokedown palace doesn't have that many trees so where do all of these freakin' leaves come from.
Today is Veterans Day, a day where we give thanks to all of the men and women who served and continue to serve our great country to keep it free and allow me the privilege to rake these leaves.

All of Lisa's uncles who served during the WW II and Korean War era, i have traveled to Pennsylvania too many times over the past 7-10 years to bury another family member and hear a 21 gun salute, a couple of Lisa's cousin's who just retired after 25-30 years of service, Hollywood, a couple of people who that I work with Tony V, Vince and the rest of the veterans from downtown, and all of the veterans from Day 1 of the formation of the United States of America to today, thank you.

Homebrewing Again

about 3 months ago, son #1 wanted to learn how to homebrew so he asked me to show him how. I started homebrewing about 23 years ago, a probably the last time that i did it was 15 yrs ago. I bought my original equipment from Milan(?) on Spring Street in NYC, they are closed know but the store has not been leased so the sign is still up.

Back in the days, i did not make anything that i was impressed with, my friends thought that the beer was good but i kind of knew better and it wasn't what i was aiming for. I probably brewed only once or twice a year because i hated bottling. It is time consuming, boring, and very easy to procrastinate from. I did not have space or money to buy a kegging system and a kegerator, and today, i still don't have a system. With this request, i started checking out home brew shop websites, the blood started flowing and my interest was piqued once again. I figured that we can make a half batch, 2.5 gallon as opposed to the standard 5 gallon batch, because if we screw up, it is only a half batch that we would need to drain pour. I started to save and clean bottles and I probably have a case of bottles which ='s 2.5 gallons.

I decided on a wheat beer because it is pretty easy to make. I don't even know if son #1 even likes the style but hey, you have start with something simple. Since you can make a wheat beer with just extract, hops and yeast, we are going to make a dunkleweizen because i want to include grains to the mix so that he get the full extract brewing experience.

When me and my little guy were in Milwaukee, he was showing me a shortcut that he learned from being out there so much, we passed Northern Brewer, a huge home brew store. We stopped and checked it out. I was only going to buy some of the stuff, the light stuff since we were flying, but he talked me into buying everything needed and since he is an expert on how much your luggage weighs even without a scale, i listened. So I bought the extract, specialty grains, siphon hose (which i misplaced and had to go buy some more), and yeast. I wanted to buy liquid yeast and show #1 how to grow a starter but HB Dude told me that since i was flying, the yeast vial might explode so i had to settle on dry yeast. I guess thru time and technology, dry yeasts are getting better.

Today i ran to Maltose Brewing in Monroe, CT to get a fermentation bucket and some more of that missing siphon hose. So tomorrow is the big brew day, at least for us. Question, do we do it indoors on the stove or outside on my Cajun Cooker that i bought 15 yrs ago and never used.

I would like to thank Capt Lawrence for unofficially sponsoring this post, without their many samples today's post could not have happened.

Captain Lawrence 10/30

One of the many reasons why I love Captain Lawrence Brewing Company, you never know what you are going to find on the bar. Today was a cask of the DIPA with pineapples. I am not a fruit beer fan but this was fantastic. Don't ask me how they get those big pineapples into the cask.

It's Back

and it as i remember it.

Last meal in Milwaukee

Back to the Comet Cafe after the last race for brunch. Once again, we got seats at the bar, very little waiting. Spinach and bacon omelette, rye toast, hash browns with a Three Floyds Alpha King. Chris got the pancake, eggs, bacon, hash browns, rye toast and coffee. Not a brunch fan but needed the belly full for the plane ride home.

The Giant Pumpkin

Temporary Halloween store in the parking lot of the Pettit Center. It is a huge pumpkin. Supposedly last year or the one before, this got blown over in a huge wind storm. Now that would be a site.

Caribou Coffee

At the Quality Inn we got free Breakfast but I needed coffee so this was the stop every morning on the way to the rink. A midwest coffee chain, good coffee, changes style, like every other coffee shop, everyday.

Back to NY

New Galrus Enigma, New Glarus Abt, Bells Expedition Stout

Fatty Boombalatty

Furthermore Brewing Company - Belgian Pale Ale. Very nice beer from Spring Green, WI

Jelly Belly Land

So after skating on Saturday, Jelly Belly Land was calling us, only 40 miles south of Milwaukee to a place of yummy goodness. In reality, it is a  trip on some cool disney like trains that just drive around the warehouse. No factory, no seeing Jelly Belly production in process, just Andy driving the train, stopping in front of projection screens shaped like jelly belly's and tv's giving us the history and the how to's of Jelly Belly's
Received a free bag of jelly bellys and let off in the store to sample some and purchase a lot. The coolest thing is that they have the Bean Boozled flavors; baby wipes, boogers, barf, pencil shavings, toothpaste, moldy cheese, canned dog food as opposed to dry food, centipedes, rotten egg and skunk spray. Who are the tasters that sit around and make booger flavored beans, how do they know what boogers taste like. Do they sit around and say" that is a good booger flavored bean that you came up with, jean?"

Gumballhead

Hotel beer. Three Floyds from Indiana. American wheat style, not my style but this beer is fantastic. Usually i find American wheats kind of like pale lagers ut this is one tasty beer. Unavailable in NY so any chance that I can drink some Three Floyds, I do.
On a side note, a friend of mine's brother in law used to work for the brewery. That and $2 will get you a 24oz MGD at Grand Central

Culvers

lets get to the right to the point, i don't eat fast food, you name them, i don't eat them, maybe but once a year i will eat at McD's and feel it an hour later, but when we hit Milwaukee, we need Culver's butter burgers. Culver's is a family owned fast food restaurants located in Wisconsin. It is a standard fast food joint with burgers, chicken, and other items that you would not find on a burger restaurant.
This is a very good fast food joint with, get this, happy employees. When you order your food, they give you a number tag and cups for your soda, you then go sit down and they bring your food to you. even better, in the drive thru you pay and they give you a number, you pull into a spot so the person behind you doesn't have to wait for your order, and guess what, they bring your food to you in your car, amazing.

Table number tag

Car number tag

The best part of Culver's is the burger, it is a normal sized fast food burger but if you notice the toppings are on the bottom with the burger on top.. These are very good burgers and we hit this place twice every 3-4 day weekend in Milwaukee. They also have very good frozen custard.

Culver's is far better than Kopp's in the burger department

Frost

Frost on rear view mirror, WTF? It is only October. Welcome to the midwest

Sprecher's IPA2

Hotel beer to watch with the Phillie's/Giants game. Local beer, it was alright, not what i want in a double IPA, lacking a lot of double. Wasn't that bad, tired from the 3:30AM wake up call that morning to get to Milwaukee, fell asleep and didn't finish it.

Sobleman's

The first place we hit for dinner when we hit Milwaukee is Sobleman's for bacon burgers.
http://www.milwaukeesbestburgers.com

 Thanks to Wisconsin's law that allows minors to sit at the bar and eat, we never have to wait. With the tables all full, we always seem to get a seat at the bar in about 3 minutes. The burgers are good and inexpensive. This is our go to place to start our skating weekend. Bartender put on Phillie's playoff game or should i say the Giants playoff game upon our request

Of course Sprecher's Root Beer on tap in the proper glass
We are there for burgers, beer selection is passable, along with $1.50 MGD 64's special and the bucketload of PBR's that they sell, hey it is Milwaukee, they keep the local Lakefront Stein Beer on tap.

Capital Octoberfest

They serve all of there beers in the proper labeled beer pint glasses. For a glass geek, i appreciate this.

I am not an Oktoberfest style fan, not my choice to order but Capital makes some good beers, is from Wisconsin, ad was between the Lakefront, which i had may times and a beer never tasted, Captial won out and I enjoyed it very much. Not getting into tasting notes because i was in a bar, no pen/paper and i was there for the food.

School Visit - Official Absence

Toured the school

Sample Store - Brookfield, WI

So right after we finish at Kopps, we hit Brennan's, just across the parking lot the greatest sample store in the world. As the sign says, that is what they sell but the reason that they are so great is the samples that they put out for the customers or non customers. every type of fruit is sliced and diced for you to taste; 2 types of pineapples, 6 types of apples, plums, melons, bread, at least 5 different types of chips, salsas, peanut butter, juice. Then you go to the beer and cheese side, no samples of beer but at least 6-8 cheeses, summer sausage, olives. For the sampler folks, glorious.
They have a decent wine selection, a so so liquor selection and a decent beer selection. They tend to have some not to famous west and mid west breweries and tend to stay to the middle of the road in beer styles but i did see a barleywine there. Not a bad selection if you are staying in a hotel and want a couple of beers to drink during your stay. Our last day in Milwaukee they even had there very own, expensive ice cream to sample, sweeeet.

Kopps

Chocolate Thunder - a custard named for Darryl Dawkens??

Sprechers Root Beer- the first of many

Kopps Butter Burger

Milwaukee is about the butter burger. Kopps puts a pat of butter on the bun before they put the patty on it so by the time you get your burger, it is all melted. Supposedly there is a rivalry, per say, between Kopps and Culvers, I will speak on that later. Kopps is a large diameter patty, McDonald's thinness, with free onions, fried onions, pickles, and condiments. They charge you for let/tomatoes, bacon and a few other items and of course they have Sprechers Root Beer on tap. Sprechers is a brewery in Glendale outside of Milwaukee that makes a bunch of style of beers, a large portion German styles and they also make 7 types of sodas, with the root beer the best and most famous.

I did not think that the Kopps burger was really that good, to salty, more bun to meat ratio, so-so.

Kopps does have really good frozen custard tho which i think that they are more famous for than the burgers