Hooray for Brewbies!

On Saturday February 11th the Epic Hijinks crew* went to the Pizza Port Brewbies festival in Carlsbad. Overall it was a positive experience, but I am learning that I have some sort of mild agoraphobia and can't stand being in overly crowded places which made the festival an uncomfortable place for me to be.

+++

Good things: it was a fundraiser for Keep A Breast,  an organization I prefer to support over Susan G. Komen for the Cure as the Komen folks are too white bread middle America for me with their whole anti-Planned Parenthood crap.

We rode the Coaster up from Old Town to Carlsbad instead of driving which was great as we could just relax and talk instead of being stuck in the car. We got to check out some great scenery and had a nice short walk over to Pizza Port from the station.

There were a lot of friendly people at the event, we ended up talking with a couple who were at the same table as us and passed around our glasses to share samples of the different beers. It was great to get beer recommendations and discuss tasting notes with them.

Great beer selection with quite a few special beers, including Pliny the Younger which I probably wouldn't have gotten to taste if it wasn't for this festival.

I was lucky enough to win a "goodie bag" in the raffle and got some cool swag from the Blair bars (Hamilton's, Eleven, Small Bar) along with other assorted stuff.

Inside the bottle shop there were free chocolates that were quite delicious, and Alecakes that were frosted to look like boobs.

Bad: as the festival got crowded I started feeling ill, but when I left and walked around the block I felt OK. Guess I just couldn't deal with the crowds - at times it felt like being in a polite mosh pit.

Since it was so hard to move around we missed out on the food which made me extra sad when I realized it was Nate from Toronado doing the cooking.

Motorboat was the ugliest beer I have ever drank, my pour was cloudy brownish-pink and looked like stomach bile. It tasted just fine, but I had to wrap my hand around the glass to avoid looking at the beer.

I had gone to the NCTD site to get Coaster times but there was no mention of the fact that they were having a special "Love Train" promotion for folks to ride 2 for 1 so we ended up all buying tickets for the train when we could've just bought two.

Coaster times sort of suck on Saturday, we had to leave Old Town before 10am to make sure we were at Pizza Port before noon. We ended up there about 11, so we had an hour wait to get into the festival - but then we turned it into a good thing by having pizza for lunch. We also didn't have a lot of choices for return times, we just lucked out that about the time we were ready to leave there was a train coming soon.

Pizza Port's bottle shop wasn't selling beer so we couldn't grab something to drink on our train ride back to San Diego - because being able to drink on the train is just too cool!

+++

All in all I am glad I went, but may rethink going to some of Pizza Port's other festivals as they have just gotten so damn crowded. Maybe my memory has just gotten hazy but I don't recall the festivals being as packed back in 1999 when I went to the Real Ale festival.


*Epic Hijinks is the name of our drinking "guild" that currently has 3 members - me, Greg and Warren. We are actively recruiting more members as we could always use more fun people to go on drinking runs with us. We run DrinkAbout every third Wednesday of the month and generally start at Ritual Tavern and end at Toronado. We also regularly attend Friday Afternoon Club at Hess Brewing, and any Beer for Breakfast events at Small Bar. Oh, and keep the glass events - your cabinets will end up full of glassware if you raid with us.

Know your job

I have been out a couple of times this week and was stunned and amazed by working people who, to my way of thinking, did not know their jobs very well.

Thursday night we go out for a special beer promotion at Toronado. Brasserie d'Achouffe has a representative there to promote their beers. She looks really cute in her gnome hat and is great at handing out keychains to everyone... but she can't tell me a damn thing about the different beers they are promoting. The most descriptive she gets is saying that the Mc Chouffe is a "dark beer" and that she likes dark beers. She can't tell me that it's a Scotch ale (which I was able to surmise from the name) or anything else about it. Greg overhears someone asking her about the beers later and all she tells them is that they are listed up on the board. Now if I worked for a brewery, I would KNOW what the beers were that we were selling in case someone asked me about them. Hell, even if I just had a cheat sheet with name, style, ABV and IBU on it... I would damn well have some info about the beer in case someone asks me! Now, I know that this girl might have just been hired from a temp agency or something, so this may be the brewery's blow it for not getting her more informed on the beers, but it is bad form either way.

Next we went for Beer for Breakfast this morning at Small Bar for another glass giveaway, this time for Brewery Ommegang. First we have one bartender tell us it's keep the glass - one glass per Ommegang beer purchased, then another bartender takes Greg's empty glass from him. The bartender that took the glass asks Warren and I if we want another round and she tries to take away our glasses. I ask her "isn't it keep the glass on these?" and so she verifies it with the first bartender. She comes back and takes our glasses, fills them WITHOUT RINSING THEM, spills a beer while setting it down and does not top it off, and gives Warren my glass and vice versa. None of these things are real big mistakes, but it is not the usual level of service that we receive at Small Bar. I am used to having the bartenders give me a fresh glass for each pour, or at least rinsing the glass before refilling it. Things did get all sorted out at the end and we each got 2 glasses to keep (since we had each ordered 2 Ommegang beers) but I am still a bit peeved. Even if Greg, Warren and I always taste each other's beers it still doesn't make it OK to bring my beer back in Warren's glass. You are probably thinking, "why didn't you guys just swap the glasses when she gave you the wrong one?" and the reason is that I didn't notice until we started drinking that Warren's glass had my lip prints all over it. I know this may all sound like we made a big deal over nothing - but if I am paying for something I expect to get what I paid for, and I expect that my beer will not be polluted by the flavor of the last beer that was in the glass.

Bottom line: know your job. Try to be ready for the questions people might ask you, and know before coming on shift what is happening in your establishment. Commitment to quality is what will keep customers coming back. ( And glass giveaways. I'm a sucker for "keep the glass" events.)

Bad Dog!

First, my disclaimer: I'm a cat person. For years I thought all that dog person/cat person stuff was a crock of shit... but now I get it. I used to own a dog, but I am no longer a dog fan.

What is it with all the bars/restaurants that allow you to bring your dog? And WHY do people bring their dogs to them? Seems every place I go in South Park people bring their dogs. Really? Does your dog need to come to the Stone store with you while you taste beer? Does your dog need to go to Station Tavern with you while you are munching on tater tots? Does your dog really need a night out at Hamilton's just so I can trip over him on my way to the bar?

I want to start bringing my cats with me to bars. I will teach them to drink beer and sing along with Cherry Bomb on the jukebox over at Toronado. I want to see business start advertising themselves as "cat friendly" and give out free tuna and saucers of milk for my feline friends. Viva le chat!

Recipe: Jolie's Mexi-Can Chili

This is a super easy chili recipe that I came up with one day when I wanted to use up some chorizo and other stuff in my pantry. The best thing about it is you don't need to add any seasonings, just cook the chorizo and open a few cans. This is what I used when I made chili yesterday, feel free to make subtitutions to taste.

Makes about 6 bowls of chili.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 5-8 hours

1 lb Beef Chorizo
16 oz can Old El Paso Fat Free Refried Beans
15 oz can Bush's Seasoned Black Beans
14.5 oz can Hunt's Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes
10 oz can Old El Paso Medium Enchilada Sauce
8 oz can Ro*Tel Zesty Tomato & Green Chili Sauce
1 cup Trader Joe's Frozen Cut White Corn

Brown the chorizo over medium heat for about 10 minutes. While chorizo is cooking, drain and rinse black beans. Open other cans and throw everything in a crock pot (mine is 3.5 qt, that size or larger will do). Add frozen corn and cooked chorizo, stir and let cook on low for about 5-8 hours. Serve with your favorite chili fixings: shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips.


Notes: This chili could easily be made vegetarian by using Soyrizo in place of the chorizo.

It is thick because of the refried beans, if you want a thinner chili use whole pintos instead of refried.

I adjust the heat of the chili using the enchilada sauce, so go with hot or mild to your family's taste.

This dish is also light on tomatoes compared to other chili recipes - my family isn't big on tomatoes so if yours is you might want to add an extra can of tomatoes.

Brand names are just the particular ones I used this time around and they worked out so well I wanted to keep a record of the specific brands used in this batch of chili, feel free to use you own favorite brands.

It's a beer, not Detective Comics #27

While posting to a friend on Facebook I was reminded of yet another thing that has been pissing me off in the beer world lately - ultra rare limited editions of beers. Dude, it's a beer... it's meant to be consumed, not put in a hermetically sealed package like a mint-in-box Luke Skywalker action figure! Why do you have to sell raffle tickets online to "win" a chance to pay $25 per bottle for your beer? And then there's the super limited release stuff that goes out on tap with people waiting in huge lines just to get a chance at having a pint or two of whatever beer it is that is topping the charts on RateBeer and BeerAdvocate... argh! I will refrain from saying "it's just a beer" because I can't talk about beer like that, and it would piss me off if someone tried to tell me PB Brewhouse's Chocolate Mint Stout was "just a beer" because, well, it was so much more (and I would give my right arn to travel back in time and have a pint right now)... but I digress. I know there are a lot of us into craft brews that also grew up in the collecting scene - whether it was records, comics, toys or whatever - but I just can't wrap my head around collectible beers. I am not cooler than you because I have some Stone Green Tea IPA in my fridge, and you are not cooler than me just beacuse you have had a pint of Pliny the Younger.

Now, go drink that beer!