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.