Emphasis On Family Still Includes Beer

By scot in Lounge on Sunday, August 8th, 2010

This past week has been an interesting one when it comes to my ability to taste and review American craft beers. My cousin from California and his family were in for the week. In order to help them afford the trip, we put them up in our house. My cousin is a craft beer noob and I have been working slowly to convert him to real beer.

He had one simple mission in order to “pay” for his stay at my house: bring some Russian River Pliny the Elder. Unfortunately, the two week search in southern California turned up empty. Oh, well, I will hopefully be making a trip out there and visiting all the great breweries of southern California in next year or two. He even mentioned taking a side trip up to the San Francisco area. How beautiful would that be?

Now down to the goods. After picking him up at the airport we headed over to Revolution Brewery. The wife and I stopped there in early January this year, before they had opened, and she said how much she would like to stop by. The later afternoon found it mildy filled up, gaining easy seating for the eight of us. Service, food, and the beer were all really good. Each of the adults had a different beer. I had Anit-hero IPA; a solid representation of an IPA that I would recommend to anyone who stops in.

The rest of the week found us each night having beer from my cellar, mostly light beers, and some really good New Glarus unplugged series beers. Nothing out of the ordinary and I tried to keep anything that I hadn’t tried out of his reach. 🙂

Friday night was the big hurrah: family was invited over to have an informal get together and say hi to my cousin; he hadn’t been in town for 12 years. My family isn’t close, but they do like beer (Lite and Bud Light), and we have a great time the few times we get together. Luckily, but unfortunately, only a few of the relatives made it out. They finished off my macro beer, which I only keep for those occasions, and the just about finished off all my home brew. Some took a few of the extra bottles to enjoy at home on another day.

I am glad they liked my beer so much. I busy running around filling glasses all evening with a big smile on my face. I have been waiting for such an evening for a long time. The only bad news: the 20 gallons of beer I brewed in April for the summer, is all gone and I have a good month of summer left.

What to do? What to do? Start brewing again! Enjoy!