Two fun beer weekends and I got distracted and forgot to blog. I was suppose to go to Boston and volunteer at Extreme Beer Fest to celebrate my half birthday. This little storm called Nemo decided to shut down Boston so instead I went home. Friday I left work early to beat the storm. After a quick stop to pick up more beer to ride out the storm I came home to a crockpot bubbling and homemade bread half done. I finished up the bread and ate the beans.
Then some drinking and Phase 10 happened.
Then we decided to go play in the snow. We pulled on our snow proof clothing. For me this is a pair of boots.
Albert had the full snow gear because he actually snow boards.
We built a nice snowman.. The banana was suppose to be a nose to go with his strawberry eyes. But it ended up somewhere else.
We kept our beer cold as we frolicked in the snow.
And then we went in and dance to warm ourselves back up.
The next day you couldn't even tell that we had run through the yard. There was so much snow and wind.
Our snowman was little the night before and the next day he was even smaller in the corner of the yard.
On Sunday I went on a small Brooklyn beer adventure with Alicia. I needed some homebrew supplies to help with our bottling we needed to do that night. This store was super cute and I wanted to buy like 50 things. I settled for 10.
Then we walked over to Bierkraft also in Brooklyn because I had read about it on like 50 blogs and in like 40 magazines. I was not blown away, my sandwich was the highlight. They do have really good sandwiches. We stopped by Whole Foods Bowery and filled some growlers with good stuff. Then we went home to bottle a tripel and brew a saison ale blend.
First we stared with dinner. Look mom I'm using my ice bucket! What a happy little growler staying chilled during dinner. Then it was bottling time
I cannot wait to drink this tripel that will be ready on 2/24!!! Time to start brewing the next one.
So this is the first time I got my hops at Brooklyn Homebrew so they were a different brand than we normally get. They turned my wort green.
If Alicia hadn't bought a super nice new funnel with built in strainer at the homebrew shop we would have been in trouble. It got most of the green out and I am happy to report that as fermentation has continued the beer is no longer green.
As I look at the photos of us brewing I realize we are both in beer shirts. Maybe we have a problem or more likely we are just awesome. We had a mini adventure on Valentines Day. I was super sick all day and when Albert got home from work we got a zip car to go to Philly for cheesesteaks. Getting out was nice. Albert was tired on the way home.
So now we get to President's Day weekend. We started Saturday off with no plans. We decided to go to an old college bar, Park Tavern, for burgers for lunch. While sitting there I saw that NJ Beer Company was open for tours. We had been trying to go since we got back from VT in July. We were like ok we go do a sampler and go about our day, this did not happen.
We started with the samples.
They were good.
We made friends, ordered a full beer and went on a tour.
We saw the fancy new labeller.
We found a picture of a penguin, which is always a good thing.
Umm so the place was suppose to close at 6. At 8:00 we left, I don't know how or when it happened but we spent all afternoon and the early evening there. Everyone was extremely nice and we had a great time hanging out and supporting local beer. We came home to finish the Devils game. Sunday we got up early to go to WalMart for groceries. Apparently this was decided while I was making friends at the brewery. Walmart was productive and by the time we got home around noon we all were exhausted and went to take naps. Then it was cold out so we had a chill night. On actual President's Day Alicia and I went walking in the city and to Crate and Barrell and Sur la Table getting things we "needed" for the kitchen. I came home and poured myself a yummo beer from my band new NJ growler.
We bought tulips on the way home and Alicia had turned a Pliny the Elder bottle into a vase for one of them.
We roasted up some feta to warm our souls when we got home. And to keep us from starvation while we waited for some homemade bread to rise for dinner (we are currently obsessed with baking our own bread).
Look at the shiny new cookie sheet I needed. And at the bread that rose like a champ.
The bread was for milanesa sandwiches. We fried that meat up so nicely.
And made some amazing sandwiches.
It was a perfect ending to a fun weekend. Two weekends full of adventures. I think I need to lie low this week to prep for NYC craft beer week. I already want to go to about 40 events.
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