Category Archives: Drinks

Rabbit’s Foot Meadery

On Friday, I headed up north to Sunnyvale in the San Jose area for another show. We arrived around 4pm, with plenty of daylight left to go explore the area. Since I am a food/brew research-aholic, I’d already found the place to explore, just minutes from the hotel.
Rabbit’s Foot Meadery. Ora and I arrived at this unassuming building, wedged in the middle of a business district, and parked our gigantic van on the street (the parking lot is quite dainty). I didn’t get a picture of the building or entrance, so let me paint you a picture with words: Once we found the tinted glass door, we walked into a cozy, inviting space. The tasting room consists of a long bar, one slightly tattered fabric chair in the corner and a dartboard hanging unnoticed on the wall. Seeing that it was Friday night, the place was relatively full, and had the slightly stale smell of sweat and sugar. Not the most appealing, but that’s what you get for visiting an extremely popular local brewery on a Friday night.

We stepped up to the bar, hung our purses on the handy hooks that were hiding underneath, and were greeted by Mark, the friendly and knowledgeable Australian wearing a Utilikilt. He is my hero.
Although he was incredibly busy, Mark immediately started us off with a tasting, free of charge. All of their products, except for the port, is made onsite.
First was the original Sweet Mead. Mead is a honey wine made from water, fresh honey and yeast. It’s possibly the easiest “brew” that you can make: Heat some water, add honey and stir, then reduce it to 70-75 degrees, pitch the yeast and wait. I’m tempted to get a mini carboy just to give it a try!
After we tasted the sweet mead and the raspberry mead, Mark moved on to the Melia – an ice wine. This and the sweet mead were my personal favorites. They taste light and flowery, not syrupy sweet like I expected. The raspberry mead was a little too acidic for my taste. Apparently, I’m a purist.
We moved on to the ciders next. Pear and raspberry were the ciders on tap, and while I absolutely LOVE their black cherry cider that I’ve tried from BevMo (the one place they distribute to in my area), the pear and raspberry tasted very light and almost bland.
BEER! We tried four of their beers on tap.
First was their Biere De Miele. This is a VERY  light golden ale that has honey added to the boil in addition to the malts. A good beer, but as I said before, VERY light.
The Honey Red came next. I wouldn’t quite call this a RED persay, but it had quite a bit more malty flavor and a hint of more hops. My personal favorite was their Diabhal (not pictured thanks to blur) – a Belgian-style ale made with rock candy. We liked it so much that we ordered a full glass post-tasting. After that came their stout (also not pictured)- a rich, full-bodied stout that tasted very toasty and full of coffee.
Finally – the Chocolate Raspberry Love. This port is POTENT. I could actually smell and taste the chocolate coming through the alcohol. I don’t have much experience with ports, but this one was very tasty. More than this taster would have been too sweet and overpowering to handle.

I came home with a bottle of their original Sweet Mead to share. Well, MAYBE I’ll share it… It’s pretty freakin’ good…

A BIG thank you to Mark for being so willing to answer all of my questions about the process, history and brewery!

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Grimm Brothers Brewhouse

Back to the Colorado recap!
We visited Grimm Brothers Brewhouse in Loveland, Colorado.
This quaint little brewhouse opened in July 2010. They’re located in a small business park that you would pass by if you didn’t know it was there. That is the best part – you have to really love beer to know it’s there, so it’s not a place where people go to get trashed. This is for the true beer enthusiasts.
We got two flights to sample all of the brews. Unfortunately, the hops only increased my coughing, so I couldn’t fully appreciate the deliciousness of this true German-style beer.
All their beers are named after, you guessed it, Grimm Brothers fairy tales (which are a lot more ominous than the happy Disney versions). They were hand-labeling bottles (which had the most amazing artwork) for distribution when we got there.
It was a toss-up between Little Red Cap and Master Thief for my favorite… You know me though, I always fall hard for a good amber!
We got to check out the brewery in back where they were brewing up another batch. Nothing smells better than a working brewery!

I’m excited to go back HEALTHY and be able to fully appreciate these beers! For now, I sit back and wait for them to start distributing to California. Or ask someone to FedEx me a few bottles…

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Odell’s Small Batch Revival!

AKA Colorado: Part IV!

Best. Day. EVER! Odell Brewing in Fort Collins held their 3rd annual Small Batch Revival (formerly known as Small Batch Beer Festival), where they brew small batches of DOZENS of types of beer. Once that stuff is gone, it’s gone, which I sadly found out as I got to the front of the line just in time to watch them erase their only honey amber from the board. Sniff.
Luckily, they had plenty more to choose from. This is one of three boards – all the same length. Heaven.
The festival was PACKED! They gave out over 5,000 wristbands this year! It was beautifully overcast and cool, and the rain kept mostly at bay despite a few drops that fell into my beer.
It’s okay, though. My beer(s) still tasted awesome! I first got the Magnum Hopus (delicious!), and then the Full Blown IPA (also delicious!). In between I got to sip the Coconut Milk Porter, which I am currently OBSESSED with! I don’t generally go for porters when there is an IPA or amber around, but this one may have converted me. I’m thinking maybe a winter brew may be in the works?
As I said before, the Revival was PACKED! Tons of people – elderly folks, TONS of babies, TONS of dudes with beards (I think almost every single homebrewer I’ve come across has/had a beard at some point) and exactly two girls who were wearing heels. Everyone else was in comfortable shoes.

Reason 1,295,032 I love Colorado – I’m allergic to heels.
The merchandise table! I wanted one of everything! My mom and dad generously bought me an IPA sweatshirt that I am wearing at this moment with pride!
I was too busy repping my favorite Ladyface Ale sweatshirt to put it on at that moment, but it kept my arm nice and warm. As did my awesome arm warmers. The picture above is my bro and sister-in-law (The Vegans) highlighting some of the brewing processes of the ale I was sipping. At least I think that’s what we were talking about. I was a little fuzzy at that point…
The press in their high and mighty spot! Normally, I’d be jealous, but I was in the midst of beer and many, many beer enthusiasts – right where I wanted to be!
They asked that everyone bike to the event, but as you can see, quite a few decided that the weather wasn’t quite right for that…
As soon as I got back home to Cali, I pulled my bike out, tuned it up, and I’m ready to jump back on! Or I will be, just as soon as this pesky virus goes away.

I’m getting rid of it with spicy Tom Kha Gai and beer. I’m pretty sure that’s the cure…

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Colorado: Part III

I’ve been ridiculously sick and therefore passing out after taking coughing meds every single night before I had time to blog. Now, however, I’m home, slowly getting better, and ready to wedge myself in the couch and type away!
Our lovely friends invited us over to their house for dinner. I was too busy shoveling the delicious pork roast, rice salad and buttery carrots into my face to get a picture, but I DID remember to take one of Louise’s AMAZING biscotti! She used to make this for my bestie Michelle and me when we were wee tykes rollerblading around the neighborhood and packing picnics to eat on the golf course. To this day, I can’t even look at any other biscotti with any respect at all.
Since we were in Colorado, I had to pick up a local brew. This is Friek, a kriek beer that Odell Brewing made a single batch of. Once this is gone, it’s gone for good (at least until the next Small Batch Revival which we attended – more on that in the upcoming blog). This was not as sweet as I was expecting from a kriek. It was more of a sour ale that you’d enjoy sipping slowly over the course of an evening.
Which I did. This is a delicious beer, made to be enjoyed in a single glass. Personally, I think more than that would be overwhelming and ruin the palate.
The next day we drove around to check out neighborhoods in the area. I love this about Colorado – elk wander freely through the lawns, chowing down on young saplings. I love this because I don’t own saplings that are being chewed on by elk.
For lunch we went to Mad Greens. ANOTHER thing I love about Colorado – this Chipotle-style restaurant with salad. You choose your lettuce and walk down the assembly line picking other vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and proteins to be added, which are all married together with one of their HUGE selections of dressings.

I ate here twice in one day. I want to go back already!
After our healthy lunch, Michelle and I went up to Boulder to walk around Pearl Street and visit the Walnut Brewery – a place I used to go after playing billiards at the Foundry next door. The Foundry is now Absinthe Club. I weep for the loss of innocent pool tables.
Walnut Brewery is a big local brewpub that serves chicken-fried chicken (my favorite when I was eleven), nachos, potato skins and a huge variety of other artery-clogging deliciousness. They also brew their own beer on site in these big mash tuns and fermenters.
We split a taster of their five beers and then ordered a pint each. After 3/4 of that pint, we were both incredibly tipsy (read: a little bit drunk), and had no idea why until we realized that we’d both come from sea level up to altitude. Cheap dates!

Afterwards, we slowly made our way around the different shops of Pearl Street until we sobered up, then I headed to my hotel before the long trek up to Fort Collins. Best friends and beer – not a bad way to spend the day.

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Gelato and Liquor!

AKA Colorado: Part II!

Now seriously, gelato is amazing. You know how much I adore Paciugo. I used to visit every day whilst working at my crappy retail job. However… I have found something that tops even Paciugo!!
This is a Mudslide Gelatini. Double chocolate chip gelato, vodka, Irish cream and coffee liquer.
OH. YES.
GELAZZI! This little lounge in Littleton, Colorado is the perfect spot for kids after school (there were way too many of those), and adults (or people who pretend that they are) for any time of the day.  My best friend Michelle, who I’ve known since I was eight, and I stumbled upon this beautiful little place while driving around town.
Nothing like a liquor-infused gelato to celebrate 2pm on a Tuesday!

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Paciugo, but if a Gelazzi moves to town… watch out!

I just had to dedicate an entire post to this. It’s THAT awesome!

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Ladies at Ladyface!

Last night, we had the first meeting of the Ladies at Ladyface: The Fermentables & Comestibles Education and Tippling Society. It was a WONDERFUL way to celebrate the start of the American Craft Beer Week.
Our group consisted of thirteen ladies total, including Cyrena, the owner of Ladyface, as well as Nancy, the president of the Maltose Falcons.
We had 8 pitchers at the table, full of Ladyface goodness, and spent over an hour tasting and learning about the Ladyface brews, the specific differences between the malts and hops that they use, and then just hung out chatting for another two hours!
Our first taste was the Ladyface La Blonde. This is the lightest beer that they make. It’s very popular with the people who come in looking for a Budweiser or Corona. The only difference? It actually TASTES good! Good tasting beer – What a conundrum, right?
Up next was the La Blanche Wit. This wheat beer has a lovely banana/clove smell from the amarillo hops, and a permanent chill haze thanks to the extra proteins from the wheat that precipitate. Ladyface’s Wit is a really smooth sip for those new to beer.
Blind Ambition used to be my favorite before I learned some respect for IPAs. Ladyface’s equipment doesn’t have temperature regulation down to a tee yet, so everytime I try Blind Ambition, I’m getting something a little different. I’m okay with this. This latest batch is slightly sweet, with a thick mouthfeel and lots of toffee/caramel notes. This is also where I started to feel a little soft around the edges.
The Trois Filles Tripel. A triple is a golden ale with a higher alcohol content. This one is pretty sweet (my mom loved it, being a wine drinker), and 8.4% ABV. I think this one was quite popular amongst our group – but I was waiting on the edge of my seat for what was next: the IPAs!
Ladyface IPA. They have two IPAs here. Ladyface IPA clocks in at 6.9% ABV and IBU 70. This one is for the intermediate IPA appreciators. You’ll learn a lot about quality  IPAs here!
CHESEBRO IPA!!! I’m not excited about this one at all, as you can tell. Chesebro is honestly my FAVORITE craft IPA of all time! 9.5% ABV and IBU 100. This brew is for the real IPA lovers! I love amber beers most of all (hence why Blind Ambition was my previous fave), but I LOVE a hoppy beer as well. Chesebro is the best combination of the two. Ladyface brews this with ELEVEN different hop additions!

Okay, I’ll stop ranting and raving about that and move on to the next one…
Ever since I had Picture City Porter, I’ve felt the need to sprinkle coffee grounds on all of my porters and stouts in order to fully appreciate them.
This porter is 2% coffee. They put five gallons into each barrel, add chocolate malts and push it with nitrogen (creating a finer carbonation so it’s smoother). The result is, as my mom described it, the perfect breakfast beer. No, not because I drink beer with breakfast (unless it’s Shop Brew day!), but because the coffee flavor is so in-your-face, yet the beer is so smooth that you could honestly imagine sitting down to a hearty sundried tomato, goat cheese and spinach omelette, and sip a room temperature glass of porter instead of coffee.

Ooooh, yeaaah!
This baby is the special release: Amazon Imperial Red! Nancy worked with Brewmaster Dave to develop this amazing Imperial Red. (Nancy, I still want to know how you got that head retention!!!)
This. Is. Perfection. In a glass. You guys know I like ambers by now. You know I like hops. This beer is BIG and BOLD! ABV 9.2%, IBU 100, with a rosy red amber hue. I may have cried quiet tears of joy. I definitely thanked Nancy excessively for brewing this masterpiece… with more silent tears of joy…
And yet, Nancy had one more surprise up her sleeve!
Brut du Faucon – a 11% ABV champagne beer, brewed by the Maltose Falcons. This sweet, bubbly beer was my mother’s favorite. This one is very delicious, and very dangerous. It’s an easy-drinker, and tasty to boot. If you’re not keeping track, watch out! I had a few sips, then ordered a full size glass of the Amazon Imperial Red.
Dispersed between the tastings were lessons on different roasted malts…
and a giant pitcher of whole leaf hops was passed around for education purposes. I may have monopolized this pitcher, and taken two hop flowers for photographic purposes… Said hop flowers may or may not have fallen to pieces in my new Ladyface sweatshirts and coated the left pocket with hop resins…

It was an AMAZING night.

The Ladies at Ladyface: Fermentables & Comestibles Education & Tippling Society is open to all women with good taste in beer, and meets every third Monday of the month! If you can say it twice after two beers, you’re out of the club!

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Pretty Boys and Beer!

My life is pretty tough. I go on tons of road trips for my job, eat delicious food, stay in beautiful hotels, and drink craft beer. Oh, and after all that, I have to come home and play billiards with pretty people.
Woe is me.

I actually had a pretty busy Friday night -> Saturday morning. I went out and saw Win Win at the independent film theatre – which was wonderful! I love Amy Ryan and Paul Giamotti! It took me a while to decide how I felt about the kid who played the lead – Alex Shaffer. He played a sixteen year-old incredibly well. He was flat and uncaring, and totally believable, but I couldn’t tell if that was because he actually IS a teenager, or if he’s a good actor. Then came the emotional scenes…

Yeah, he’s just a teenager. Major props to him though! Considering it was his first role, I was impressed!

After wandering out of the theatre, surrounded by dozens of elderly couples on double dates, I met my friend from retail-days at Ladyface. Victor and I both escaped the clutches of the congolomerate, and finally caught each other up on how much happier our lives are now.
I swear he’s happy here… and not at all annoyed by me taking crazy amounts of blurry pictures throughout the night for my blog.
Barron showed up a few minutes later and we got down to the important task of ordering beer. I tried Ladyface’s latest cask, “Love Child”, which is their La Blonde that’s been dry hopped. I love tasting their latest, but will always go for the Chesebro IPA if it’s on tap – which it FINALLY was again!

We hung out at Ladyface for a bit, then decided to explore other venues. Our next stop was a bar.
Oh, joy. Lots of underdressed women, dudes with side-turned hats and random vomit on the floor (seriously). Oh, joy.
Loud music, pounding bass, sticky tables. Whee. The TWO good things – they had pool tables…
And craft beer! I got a Firestone DBA (courtesy of Barron and Victor – grazi, boys!) and we played pool until they turned on the lights.

That was at 2am. I’m a wild child!
On the way home, I took creepy pictures of the moon with my headlights shining on the side of the road. I call it art. Don’t question me.

On Saturday morning, I made pancakes.
Sour Cream Pancakes a la Ina Garten specifically. And I fried them up in a stick or three of butter.
Cuz that’s what you do when you get home at 3am Saturday morning and only sleep for five hours.

The end.

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Things I Love: Part II

We’ve already covered this in Part I: I love bread. So very, very much. I love it even more when there’s cheese in that bread. I love it when there’s chocolate in that bread! I love it so!

I also love: BEVERAGES.
Coffee = Life!
Coffee + Ice + Sugar = LIIIIIIFE!!!!!!
Green Monstas!
Green Jasmine Pearl Tea. Zen.
Mango Lassi. A necessity for any Indian buffet!
Watermelon Rosemary lemonade from Lemonade.
Soy chai in GIGANTIC mugs!
Thai tea with boba!
Beer tastings!
MORE beer tastings!
Cheap, paper-wrapped red wine.
Expensive red wine.
Margaritas with real lime juice – none of that sweet and sour crap.
Dragon Eye Mojitos with strawberry puree!
Magners Cider on the back patio on a warm summer’s eve.
Ice cold Anchor Steam in the Santa Barbara Harbor.
Old classics from New Belgium in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Pumpkin beer in October!
I repeat: pumpkin beer in October!
Organic beer!
ANY beer from Ladyface!
Dos Beckis!

I just realized that most of my favorite beverages are beers. Who would thunk???

I love Beverages.
The end.

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