Dark Wheat Duck

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Wednesday morning (4 AM) was the start of an early, exciting brewday at Elevation 66 Brewing and despite Izzy being under the weather still, we had a full house with owner Super Dave, lead brewer Big Ben, and four volunteer brewers (me, Li’l Jon, Black Jack & new returner Easy E). With six brewers, the work was fairly easy when spread out… so during the slower times (waiting for water to boil) Big Ben’s wife was also there studying for her BJCP/Cicerone certification… and she conducted an Off-Flavor Tasting. What’s that? Well… it’s basically a taste test where you take a basic beer (in this case, Trumer Pilsner) and you basically add some off-flavors to it… and see if you can identify the off-flavor. Oh… there are some tricks in there too… as there are some placebos… and you’re just drinking the base beer… so it puts your senses to the test… especially if you don’t really have an amazing sense of smell like me. It’s a great way to test your senses… learn what might cause these kinds of off-flavors… and basically I was drinking some beer with my friends at something like 6 AM. Here’s some pictures…

 

 

After the brew day, Super Dave offered to take us out to T-Rex for some barbecue and brews… great restaurant to check out if you’re in the neighborhood.

 

A few hours later, Izzy headed back home and we headed out to the city of Concord to visit the MoreBeer homebrewing shop (warehouse level selection) and then we headed to downtown for some beers & snacks at the Hop Grenade, their neighbor E.J. Phair Brewing, and just down the street is Ale Industries’ Pig & Whistle location. All three have some pretty fantastic offerings. Hop Grenade has a more “connoisseur” level selection of brews… and of course, the elaborate podcasting area for the Brewing Network (which I WAS finally a guest on). E.J. Phair has some great brews including my personal favorite Shorty’s Revenge which is an English style Amber… and they had some great prices for their beers and decent snacks. Pig & Whistle seems like a nice place to check out after watching a movie late night across the street. Just a nice little area… congrats to Concord!

 

Here's a picture of a sunset & our hops growing up now...

Also, Izzy is graduating in less than a week! Yes, the amazing woman who has been joining me on these many, many adventures over the years… is finally graduating with her Illustration degree in mere days… and I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s truly an amazing woman & I’m lucky to have her in my life. Feel free to leave your congratulations below… she checks everything (though I think the last REAL comment that wasn’t her… was probably over two years ago). Congratulations beautiful!

 

Sunday morning, we also started a Dunkelweizen recipe… that we’re affectionately calling Darkwheat Duck (Dunkelweizen means “Dark Wheat”) and it was a pretty standard recipe… but here are some great pictures…

 

We also kegged our Taddy Porter from Learn to Homebrew Day… it’s a little lighter than I expected, more like our English Pale Ale but more of an amber color… but still pretty delicious. More pictures…

 

So yeah… a good week of beer enthusiasm… and there are plenty of movies as well… until then, have a great day everybody!!!

Interstellar Velvet of the Five Armies

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday’s movie extravaganza started with “Interstellar” which starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, John Lithgow, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace & Matt Damon. It’s also directed by Christopher Nolan whose famous for “Memento” & the latest Batman trilogy among others. Basically this movie is set in the near future (like 30-40 years or so I think) when the world’s agriculture is dying at an alarming rate… and it’s up to a corn farmer who was once a NASA pilot (McConaughey) to miraculously stumble upon a message from gravity delivering him coordinates using a dust storm to… NASA’s secret base. What’s that? You think I messed up something by saying that gravity delivered him coordinates AND he noticed it AND followed it? Oh no… that’s one of the many premises that you’ll just have to kinda glance over in order to enjoy this movie. Okay, so he gets to NASA’s secret base… and there’s a legion of scientists who have sent TEN TEAMS of scientists over the last decade through a wormhole to check planetary bodies in other universes for a habitable world… and they may have found some prime candidates… but they basically need this astronaut farmer (wasn’t that another movie with Billy Bob?) and him alone to fly this mission and save humanity… even though he wasn’t involved AT ALL until a few days prior to launch & they didn’t even think to be like “Hey buddy, you wanna help save the planet? You’re the best and all but… you know… we ugh… you have kind of a big mouth.” I assume that’s why he wasn’t involved. Anyway, you can polish that premise up all you want Hollywood… but that’s basically the nuts & bolts of it. From there, the adventure begins into space, through wormholes, and delving into complete random ass horse hucky.

 

That being said… not a horrible movie… the special effects are decent, acting is okay, tension is built well in proper areas… it was “a fast three hours” but I just cannot for the life of me see why people absolutely LOVED this movie. I’m glad that I didn’t see this movie in a theatre because A) I would’ve been out like $40-50 with tickets, parking and optional snacks… B) I would’ve been openly laughing at just about every aspect of the plot & causing quite the scene while other people were… apparently having some sort of religious experience watching this movie. Yes, it has good aspects… but Best Picture nominee? Eh… they did have like ten of them nominated… but yeah, kind of a weird mix of “The Astronaut Farmer” & “2001: A Space Odyssey” but… I did not care for it. Would I recommend it? Sigh… it’s tough… but I’d say pass on it maybe. Unless you’re really hell bent on check it out… it’s visual stimulating & raises interesting questions about this & that but… yeah… pass.

 

Now, we watched another Best Picture nominee from last year, which was “Whiplash” starring Miles Teller & J.K. Simmons. What’s the movie about? What do you think based on the title? Lion tamers? Two individuals involved in a minor car crash and the ensuing lawsuit? Close… it’s about a young drummer named Andrew (Teller) who’s going to the nation’s penultimate school for music… and wants nothing more than to be the best jazz drummer in the world… of all time… like Buddy Rich of the new millennium. Money? Fame? Pussy? Jazz Jedi craves not these things… he only wants to be a great jazz musician… so unemployable but well respected in his community. Sorry, diverging a bit. So yes, he wants to be the best… and the man who can help him is the lead jazz band director (Simmons) who is… basically a gruff, berating asshole who basically “tortures” Andrew and manipulates him and pushes him to his limits and beyond. Andrew is stubborn though… and he will do ANYTHING to be the best… and he kinda drives himself mad in doing so… but basically from there… you’ll have to watch the movie. The story, storytelling, pacing, character conflict, all of that, expertly done. Fun fact: The writer-director Damien Chazelle is only 30 years old… and this may be a passion project of his for many years as he seems to have a real love & expertise to it (and really no other movie to his credit yet) but it’s well done. I absolutely suggest that you rent it & check it out. Great acting, great story, mildly disturbing, but not overly disgusting or crass or anything. Great flick! Check it out!

 
 

Next up was the 3^rd movie in the prequel movie trilogy of Middle Earth, “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies” starring… all the same people from the first two movies of the trilogy. You’ve seen them probably… and if you haven’t, you don’t care. This movie is basically the 3^rd act of the eight-hour Hobbit movie… and when we left, Smaug, the dragon who has been built up for the first five hours of this mini-series had finally left the Stone Mountain castle that housed his bazillion tons of gold after chasing around a bunch of thieving dwarves… and to show his anger, he’s on his way to burn a nearby city called Laketown. Why? HE’S A F**KING DRAGON!!! That’s why!!! I’m… gonna make you not want to watch this movie with the next sentence. Smaug is dead in the most ridiculous way before the “Battle of the Five Armies” even shows on the screen. Yes, the dragon… dies… in the first four minutes. The next two-plus hours… is basically the story of all of the other kingdoms of Middle Earth showing up to the Stone Mountain castle now occupied by about a dozen midg… er, dwarves… and saying “Hey, we’ve come to take our share of the gold!” and then evil Orc hordes coming in to just kill everybody… and giant worms being used as mass transit system… and the famous Eagles of the Middle Earth showing up to just… save the day & then go away… and elven armies breaking the rules of physics even more than the aforementioned “Interstellar”… ugh… it’s exactly what you expect it to be. You’ve seen the other movies, you’ve seen this one. This is like “Return of the King” but without the Frodo/Sam/Smeegel subplot… just all fight… but nobody important dies. Well, one guy but… ugh… I didn’t care for it. Maybe I’m just over the hobbit movies… this one was just rough to watch… I didn’t care who won… I was actually kinda rooting for the Orcs at one point just to end it quickly. One benefit that it did have over “The Return of the King”, there was only one ending instead of 7-8 or them that took up 45 minutes of slow-mo hobbit groping. Check it out if you want… I won’t be watching it again though. Can’t wait for the inevitable reboot…

  

Now we switch things up a little bit… and yeah, I think this movie was nominated for some things when it comes out in 1986 but… it’s director David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rosselini, Laura Dern & Dennis Hopper. The story is about a young teenager (MacLachlan… who I think is supposed to be a teenager but… it’s obviously 27-year old Kyle MacLachlan) who randomly finds an ear on the side of a road… and in investigating it, curiosity leads him to basically stalk a lounge singer (Rosselini), and then find out she’s involved in some kind of twisted family kidnapping where an evil man (Hopper) is basically using the fact that he has her family to pop in for some twisted, violent rape sessions… which the teenager witnesses in her closet. So… you know… basically a pretty standard David Lynch movie. Now… the decisions made by the characters in this movie are just… questionable… but you do feel a genuine sense of discomfort, danger & just constantly trying to figure out what the f**k is going on exactly in this movie. You really have to be wary about a movie where “ritualistic rape scene” is the most famous thing about it… or random horrible lines that Anderson from Film Vault quotes all the time like “Do it for Van Gogh” and “Don’t you f**king look at me!” Like Roger Ebert said in his review (special features on DVD), you really feel sorry for Isabella Rosselini… not necessary her character but… just that her job in this movie is basically to be naked & have little to no character… but aside from that, if you’re into David Lynch craziness… and can handle TWIN PEAKS of violence & “forceful entry” of all sorts… then check it out. If not, I completely understand.

 

Now for a good off-beat movie… it’s a horror anthology from 1990 called “Tales from the Darkside: The Movie” and stars the likes of… Deborah Harry (Blondie), David Johannsen (Buster Poindexter/NY Dolls), James Remar, Christian Slater, Julianne Moore (before she was winning awards), Steve Buscemi (before Reservoir Dogs), and a few other character actors that you’ll recognize from other things… but yeah, I had never heard of this movie… but Izzy told me she used to have it on laserdisc & it was on Netflix so… had to watch it. Basically the story starts out with a witch (Harry) whose about to roast up a child for a dinner party (Matthew Lawrence, boy from “Mrs Doubtfire”) and to stall for time, the boy reads from a book of horror stories that he happens to have… you know, plot device. So then there are three tales of horror about mummies & preppies, artists & gargoyles, and of course… the Cat from Hell vs. Buster “Hitman” Poindexter!!! Now, the movie sounds ridiculous… but it’s really pretty damn entertaining… the special effects are decent for the era & genre… there’s obviously a host of legitimate actors, horror directors (John Harrison, George A. Romero, etc) and writers… it’s going to be a little hammy as most horror flicks of the late 80’s & early 90’s were… but it’s great in the ilk of Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, Twilight Zone, that kind of movie/show. I say definitely go check it out… and be impressed with the level of actor they got before they blew up & won Academy Awards & Golden Globes.

 

Anyway, that’s probably good for this entry… five quick movie reviews… and more fun stuff coming up later this week… so until then, have a great day everybody!!!

Crabstravaganza

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday morning, Izzy & I went to the Farallones Museum on Crissy Field for their Crab Extravaganza… which honestly is intended for children ages 4 to 8 years… but we got to learn about crabs, including their anatomy… play with some real live shore crabs and sand crabs… and also do some crab trapping off the pier. What’s not to love? Here are some pictures…

 

The rest of Saturday, Izzy had been feeling under the weather, so we spent the rest of the day watching award winning movies… but that’ll be another entry.

 

Sunday was Mother’s Day, so we started it off with calls to our mothers letting them know how much we loved them & missed them… and yeah, what else can I say? I miss my mama… and I love her. You all know this. Moving on…

 

After waking up & eating breakfast, we started brewing our Beet Pale Ale. Yes, we tried something similar on short notice a few months ago… and that turned out pretty well & went quickly… but you really couldn’t tell that beets were involved really in taste or color… mostly because I think it was basically the juice from two pounds worth of beets… but this time, we’re upping the ante. In the boil, we basically chopped up about two pounds of beets… and just threw them into the boil to get as much of the color & sugars as possible. We’re also going to put about FIVE pounds in the secondary when the time comes… but more on that on about two weeks. In the meantime, here are pretty beer wort pictures to hold you over…

 

Also, check out our greens...

Another thing that I’ve been really getting into is podcasts. It started about two years ago now when Izzy got me hooked on Adam Carolla’s podcast… and then eventually going out to a bunch of others in his network as well as Channel Awesome, NPR, Podcast One and a few others that Izzy recommended as she’s been in the podcast game for a few years. It’s really taken off the past few weeks when she also convinced me to have an iPod shuffle so that I can listen to more while I work, ride the bus, all that other stuff. They’re a lot of fun to listen to when done correctly… and usually run the gamut from insanely entertaining to at least pretty interesting… and it seems pretty easy to find out what’s genuinely intriguing to a listener… and what might not be working for most.

 

So… we’re thinking about doing a Podcast ourselves… and we’re trying to come up with a good format that we can keep up pretty regularly. My guess is that, like this blog, it’ll be along the lines of a weekly update… possibly twice a week as we get things going & get the technology working right… but we have a few ideas for formats… and I think we can actually switch it up as things go along… but curious what you all find interesting. There’s always the Interview Format where we basically just have conversations with our friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, local dignitaries, successful entrepreneurs, unsuccessful entrepreneurs, business personalities, and interesting people in general. Always interesting to see how people get to where they are now. We also have skits that we can occasionally do… but not sure how readily we can do that with both working full-time and all that stuff… but that’s VERY intriguing.

 

Basically this blog may be coming into an audio format to save you time reading… and translate the format into your earholes at your convenience. Movie reviews, beer adventures, interviews, random weird ass dreams, eccentric breakdowns of random cultural turning points, news updates on pandas, Megan Fox, the Apocalypse and more… and I’m kind of excited about it… I’ll keep you posted obviously because… as much as I like talking to myself, it’s usually a little better to get some feedback from somebody other than the voices in my head. Also, you’ll never know what you can do unless you just f**king DO IT!!!

 

Anyway, it was a great weekend… but I’ll do a separate entry for the movies that we watched… so until then, have a great day everybody!!!