Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
First off, last night, Izzy, Jackie D & myself got to see a special screening of the new comedy “Get Hard” starring Will Ferrell & Kevin Hart. I’m sure you’ve seen the previews… James King (Ferrell) is found guilty of various embezzling & financial indiscretions and is sentenced to hard time in ass-packin’ prison (though having driven by San Quentin, at least the views are breathtaking) but he has 30 days until he needs to report… so during that time he hires a carwasher named Darnell (Hart) to teach him what he knows to be prepared for & survive in prison. The only problem is… Darnell doesn’t really know… as he’s never been to prison, James only assumes that he has because… well, he’s black. Now, the premise sounds pretty ridiculous… and the preview further perpetuates that ridiculousness… however, that being said… yes, it’s incredibly vulgar & I would not bring your children to see it unless they’re a very mature 13-14 years old… and yes, I absolutely judged every single person in that theatre who spent all day waiting in line for a free ticket with their goddamn children to see this movie… you know who you are… but if you can handle the subject matter, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s hilarious in a purely raunchy way… and it’s just completely entertaining. If you like Will Ferrell character-driven movies like “Old School” or “Talladega Nights” then you get all of that in droves… if you like Kevin Hart’s fast-paced standup with his almost constant state of perplexed absurdity at the twisted world going on around him, then you’ve that too… plenty of dick jokes and… well in fact, an abundance of dick jokes… a plethora if you will… but hey, it’s about prison. However, I’ve seen this setup before in a few bad comedies like “Let’s Go to Prison” but… this one is actually a little more heartfelt… and frankly, just done a whole lot better. There’s actually a pretty hilarious scene where Kevin Hart switches between 3-4 characters almost seamlessly that I was pretty astonished at. Not sure if it was part of his standup routine or clever editing… or if he’s just that talented, but whatever way, it works. There’s also some great character roles from Alison Brie, Craig T. Nelson, Paul Ben-Victor, Greg Germann, a John Mayer cameo & even rapper T.I. does a decent job of… well, being T.I. Go check it out! Well, if you’re 14 years or older… otherwise, watch a documentary or something.
Saturday night, Izzy & I went to a most spectacular event… for a good cause… and it was called the Sea Slug Soiree, held at the Randall Museum (he said with pinky in air). Okay, so there were more people wearing Birkenstocks than ties, but still it was pretty awesome. The Randall Museum is a little-known gem of a children’s museum located at the peak of a hill in the Haight-Ashbury part of town (basically just follow Masonic until you see the signs) and it has a lot of great animals, activity areas, and a great host of various teachers there to help kids learn a lot about nature, animals & the environment. I definitely want to take Kairi & Vinny there the next time that they come to visit. Here are some pictures of the exhibits…
As for the Sea Slug Soiree, this event was a little bit of a fundraiser (less than $20 a head) where they included two drink tickets (kegs of Stone IPA & Anchor Saison or wine selection) and a host of special guest speakers about the vastly mysterious nudibranchs (sea slugs) and activities like making your own nudibranch out of clay, printmaking, painting, all sorts of things… and the exhibits were open to take drunken photos… observe…
So yeah, go check out the Randall Museum as soon as possible… because apparently they’re going to close down for a year for renovations fairly soon (they’ve been around for over sixty years) but definitely take the kids with you. It’s great family fun!
Sunday, we brewed a Cactus Milk Stout clone recipe that we found online. Now, apparently this is a clone of a milk stout recipe from some famous brewery in Arizona or something (hence the name, no cactus were used) but I couldn’t find anything about that online so.. there you go. You may be wondering, “What makes a Milk Stout different from a regular Stout?” Shockingly, the main difference… is milk. I know… didn’t see that one coming, right? More specifically though, the difference is the use of maltose a.k.a. milk sugar. How is it different? Well… typically the sugars taken from the malts are what is transformed by the yeast into alcohol, basically taking super sweet barley sugar water & adding alcohol while reducing the sweetness. However, because of its chemical makeup, maltose isn’t broken down by the yeast, so it makes a sweeter, more malt forward stout than normal. With this recipe though, it should come out kind of like a chocolaty milk stout… and that just sounds dangerously delicious. Here are some pictures of the process…
We also kegged our Strawberry Hefeweizen and it went pretty smoothly of course. The strawberry puree gave it some great color & flavors… in fact, Izzy believes that it may be “our best ever” which… in all humility… is a pretty amazing thing to say! We’ll get it all carbed up & let you know but… yeah, the sample was pretty damn good. Pictures…
We also transferred our Scotch Ale & our Cyser to secondary fermentation…
… and repitched the yeast in our Apple Cider from a while back as there wasn’t any real activity… it’s still tastes like apple juice with brown sugar added, no real signs of carbonation at all… but we should get some activity on this gallon small batch…
Now for big announcements concerning beer activities… first off, Izzy & I will be hosting another Learn to Homebrew Day (like we did back in November) and we invite anybody who’s interested in learning & seeing the process of homebrewing firsthand (as opposed through beautiful pictures on this blog) and of course it’ll just be a good time with potluck style food, homebrew, games, all that stuff. Since I think only 3-4 people read this thing, there will also be Facebook invites and postings on the various SF Homebrewers Guild & Meetup pages… but yeah, right now it looks like Saturday, April 18th will be the big day. Stay tuned…
Also coming soon is the 34th anniversary of my glorious birth… and so then comes with it, the glorious event known as STEVE-TOBERFEST!!! Yes, on Saturday, April 25th, there shall be a great feast in my honor at my humble abode… and there shall be great beer throughout the land! Music & merriment, a submarine sandwich taller than even me, and plenty of fine homemade ale… including the release of our long awaited barrel aged imperial stout… also known as $teve’s Birthday Cake! It shall be an amazing occasion! Clear your calendars immediately and make way to the Presidio for this joyous day!
Anyway, that’ll do it for today. My mom’s coming to town tomorrow for the weekend so there should be some awesome stuff going down… but until then, have a great weekend everybody!!!
