Tag Archives: Keep Calm and Chive On

Pantless Prom?

My second morning in San Diego was devoured after an hour scouring Yelp for the best review. By “best” I don’t mean the top rated. I mean the most interesting, awkward review available.Four stars after a Pantless Prom? Okay, Mitch. You’ve hooked me.
An adorable little cottage on the sea transformed into a delicious restaurant. I’m seeing a theme in La Jolla…
With a view to die for. Already this place was a winner in my mind. Now on to the most important part – the food!
When I go for breakfast, I will almost always order either the corned beef hash or the eggs benedict. The Brockton Villa had a beer braised corned beef hash. Immediate yes. Strangely enough, I prefer the hash that comes out of a can, but for housemade, this ale-marinated, shredded deliciousness topped with yet another perfectly poached egg did the job.
COAST TOAST. I have no idea what wizard came up with this recipe, but it is To. Die. For. More like a heavenly souffle/custard spiked with orange zest, this french toast is absolutely out of this world. Unfortunately I’m not talented enough to describe what this is like. If anyone is in La Jolla and wants to invite me here to enjoy this dish, I will sing you a serenade at the table to explain my true feelings about Coast Toast. It’s that awesome.
After your exquisite brunch, you can waddle across the street and gaze at the La Jolla Cave. The cliff is adorned with pelicans, and the smell is quite potent. (Side note: This odor is completely unnoticeable from the Brockton Villa, at least in my experience, contrary to many Yelpers reviews.)
The view more than makes up for the aroma.

After yet another delicious breakfast, we made our way back to the hotel and stumbled across another wedding.
Okey, Jenn and Dan, I’m really happy for you, but where was your elephant??
All of the brunch and elephants got us thirsty, so we wandered over to Iron Fist for the grand opening of their new tasting room. They recently busted through the wall to the unit next door and expanded the size of both the brewery and the brewery-imbing-enjoyment center.
The space was beyond packed. Doe-eyes were given in order to obtain a third stool for our group.
Luckily everyone had plenty of beer and were in wonderfully joyful moods.
The amazing offerings of food may have had something to do with it. Brisket and fries from Mr. Pig’s BBQ. Tender, perfectly seasoned, wonderfully soft bun and perfect for an afternoon with beer.
Sushi Bus was also there. I honestly have no idea what this roll was called. I asked for painfully spicy and the two awesomely tatted guys running the place surprised me with this nose-running, eye-watering roll of perfection. Whatever sauce on top of the spicy tuna is God-given and needs to be used even more liberally for an even more intense and wonderful spicy pain.
And now I’m just showing off with another gift I got in exchange for beer. I give you (minus the brew chief) the Enegren Brewing Company, Keeping Calm and Chiving On.
We keep it real.

And then we ran caustic and phosphoric acid through the entire system after this picture. Totally worth it.

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Filed under brewery, Travel

Visiting the Chive!

I sent John from the Chive an email the other day telling him I had lots of free beer and wondering if the guys at the office wanted any. Shockingly enough, I got an immediate response with an invite to the Chive offices.
I headed to Venice loaded down with six liters of beer.
I brought Captain’s Summer Session, Captain’s Dry-Hopped Summer Session and Valkyrie California Alt from Enegren Brewing as well as Midnight Howl from Wolf Creek Brewery. Valkyrie was the clear favorite of the group – partly because of the heavy-duty awesomeness of the growler, I’m sure.
That thing is a deadly weapon filled with happiness.
Luckily their work day was winding down around the time I arrived, so everyone was able to partake.
I filled up a glass myself and John took me for a tour of the offices.
One of the original/first Banksy street art.
Everyone’s (now abandoned for beer) work stations looking out over Venice beach.
The mediocre, front-seat view of the ocean.
The necessities of life.
A tragically empty beer fridge (they made up for that with a kegerator next door) and the new golf video game they smartly combined with beer to de-stress after the long day.
BFM boards! The office to the left in the picture is where The Berry works out of. I got to yell a quick hello to Emily as we passed.
Cornhole boards handcrafted by John and Leo Resig’s dad.
Patrick was setting up for the KCCO Canadian shirt shoot.
John had to mentally prepare for his time as a model. I think the Midnight Howl helped him relax into his photogenic state.
Yep, that did it.
You guys saw the finished version of the shoot this afternoon, followed by all the shirts selling out in a few minutes per usual.
Another monotonous view from Chive Drive. I have a feeling they’ll be going through that beer rather quickly if they haven’t finished it already. And I recall that the keg in the kegerator was half empty as well… I may need to head back and help remedy that in the near future.
Especially if I get one of these in exchange!

On another note, the Chive is helping to raise money for one of those wounded in shooting in Aurora. Click here and here to donate to two of the victims! Spread the love to all the others who suffered as well!

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Filed under Travel

Zoo Brew 2012

On Saturday I went up to Santa Barbara with the Wolf Creek crew to serve at the 3rd annual Santa Barbara Zoo Brew.
We packed up the pickup truck with kegs and the jockeybox and headed north.
I was the designated “foofer” of the day. Foofer is a scientific term. Basically, I tried to make the table look pretty and make the jockeybox look invisible. Designing pretty things is not in my nature, but I gave it a go…
After we’d set up, I wandered around the little park to check it out.
The calm before the storm.
And so it begins! The first hour was for VIP only and was nice and mellow. Then everyone else piled in.
We poured taster after taster with no rest for the entire five hours!
The majority of the crowd was made up of UCSB students and the majority of them knew absolutely nothing about beer. I can’t recall how many times someone tripped up to the table and slurringly asked, “Can I have the light one?” One girl and I had a very serious conversation about how just because a beer is called “pale ale”, it doesn’t mean that it tastes light. I got a high five for my explanation. Hooray.

Luckily, I was able to Keep Calm and Chive On through all of this.
I spotted four Chivers at the event! I was only able to grab a few pics with these two though.
Dang, I really need one of these shirts. That and a BFM…
There was a mad rush for beer when the last half hour was announced. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one guy sprint across the little park, stop to take his flip flops off, leave them perfectly placed and punch some guy in the face for looking at his girlfriend wrong. Lovely.
After everyone stopped pouring beer and the attendees stopped trying to bribe us to pour them “just one last taster”, the park emptied out very quickly.
We packed up our fancy setup and waited for the carts to come and shuttle us back down to the parking lot.
Enjoying the peace after the crazy day.
Definitely not the worst view to be stuck with.
We drove back to Valencia, enjoying the ocean views while we had them, and wrapped up the thirteen hour day with a brew at Dargan’s Irish Pub in Ventura.
We work so very hard…

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Filed under beer, beer festival

Scotch Egg!

I finally got to the British pub I said I was going to go to!
Weihenstephaner on tap? Um, yes please!
Nothing like a perfect example of a weissbier to end the day!
That and good company! My cousin Allie joined me at the Rose and Crown for a lovely farewell to the work week. It was well deserved – Allie’s a nurse who has twelve hour shifts at the hospital and I spent three hours of the ten hours total yesterday on my hands and knees scrubbing the crap out of our mash tun. I have a menagerie of beautiful bruises for proof, but I’ll spare you the gore for now.
Keep Calm and Carry On! Chive On!!
This place was packed with regulars – some of which, I’m thrilled to say, had British accents! If a Brit shows up to a British pub, I think that’s a good sign.
I was tempted to try more than a few things from the menu, but since I’d just inhaled almost an entire slice of cake thanks to Wolf Creek’s anniversary special, I stuck to a small appetizer. I’ve been hearing about these for the longest time and finally decided to give it a go.
SCOTCH EGG. Imagine a complete breakfast deep fried, then served in gravy. A Scotch egg is a hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage, rolled in breadcrumbs, deep fried and smothered with a rich brown gravy. I think this one may have been a little more than “done” and was pretty tough on the outside, but somehow I managed to finish the majority of it. I also managed to finish that Weihenstephaner. Somehow that went down easier.

Tomorrey I’m back to brewery number one – Enegren Brewing Company! All of you waiting to claim your growlers, show up between 11am and 8pm!

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Filed under Restaurant Review