Happy Birthday, Dog!

TJ celebrated his 9th birthday on October 20 with a brand new pumpkin. Not quite as tasty as pumpkin treats, and definitely a lot more work. 

Love you, bear! You are the best thing!

Where the Wild Beers Are

This past Saturday, I joined 100 other fans of wild and sour beers for a memorable event. It was the 4th annual "Where the Wild Beers Are" wild and sour beer tasting. Everyone was required to bring two qualifying bottles of beer and $10. The total ounces you brought, allowed you to taste the same number of ounces. Thankfully, that quickly became an unnecessary restriction.

Eric Johnson was kind enough to alert Jeremy and I about this intimate affair. Compared to the two of us, he is an expert on these beers. As you can see from the photo below, Eric always had his eye on the special bottles being opened around us.

With high ABV and super-hopped IPAs finally hitting the big time, sours and wilds could be the next major trend in American craft brewing and consumption. For the time being it still feels like an underground movement, but with the quality of beers I tasted, it is ripe and ready to explode. 

This was my shining star of the event. It was a 1992 bottle of Liefmans Kriekbier. It smelled like creme brulee and tasted like sour cherry sherbet and cream. Absolutely amazing. The only way we were able to determine the age, was because it was printed on the inside of the cork. 

There was also a homebrew section. 

My favorite homebrew was this sour scotch ale. It was a reject from a scotch ale that someone decided to age. Thanks to the sour revolution, bad beer can become good beer in 8 short months. 

New Glarus is such an awesome brewery. They make my favorite beer of all-time, Enigma. Below is one of the other crazy wild yeast beers that they only sell at the brewery.

 Halfway through the event, we were all ushered inside of Republic for a special seminar on beer blending. Several sour beers are actually blends of different aged batches. A brewery will combine 25% of a year old beer with 75% of a 3 year old beer to craft a specific flavor profile. Most of these amazing techniques are practiced in Belgium. We were able to taste how the Bockor Brewery creates their Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge at 6 different stages of their process. It was fascinating and very tasty.

 Back outside, Dave of Dave's Brewfarm was pouring three of his special saisons. This guy is all for bending the conventions of beer.

 It was a very intimate affair, the organizers could have added more people, but I am glad they didn't. There was enough variety and it never took long to get a new sample.

 Here is the "seconds" table. These were beers that had already been at a tasting station, but were opened for a while. There were no taste restrictions at this table and we could drink as much as we wanted. The quality of the beers here were so amazing and diverse that this could only happen at an event like this.

By the end of the event, organizers still had two coolers of unopened beer left over. Until next year....

This picture represents about half of the cashed bottles.

Such an amazing experience. I will have to drag Ryan Bean along next year. His schedule be damned!

The Great River Road

Adam and I took a little vacation recently in honor of our five years of wedded bliss. The fact that this coincided with another wedding and that I had PTO days to burn only added to the merriment.

OK, now, here's the deal: the southeastern corner of Minnesota is that rare little gem that very few souls have actually discovered. I would absolutely rank it among the top five most scenic and delicious routes I have ever traveled. And I have to apologize in advance, but it was autumn in Minnesota and I could not put the camera down. Also, I discovered two - TWO! - little editing presets on the Google+ page and I really could not stop myself. That is two more presets than I ever had before.

We begin in full color at the Great River Road Visitor and Learning Center in Prescott, Wisconsin, overlooking the confluence of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.

In our excitement to see the Wabasha eagles, Adam took (several) photos of the (fake) eaglets at Prescott. 

The first highlight of our trip occurred when an older couple offered to take our photo because they "just love young couples in love." 

I guess we fooled them! (Because we're not that young.)

Our next stop was the Maiden Rock Winery and Cidery, which combines my two favorite fermented fruits. Adam, being a beer guy, was not as impressed as I was, even though he did find the largest apple I had ever seen.

 

On to delightful little Stockholm, Wisconsin, home to a large assortment of metal chickens (although, unfortunately, not the giant variety) and our first encounter with amazing pies.

 

Adam couldn't decide between the sugary-sweet pecan pie and the savory bacon/pear/blue cheese pie, so he ordered both and laughed at my sad little turkey sandwich. And then he shared a bit of the pecan pie with me, because - after all - it was our anniversary (belated, of course).

Next stop...EAGLES!!! I had been looking forward to this detour for awhile, and not just because it placed us firmly back into Minnesota territory. The National Eagle Center in Wabasha is a sight to see, and I believe it only gets better on the coldest, stormiest days of winter when hundreds of bald eagles gather on the open waters of the Mississippi.

 

 

Here's another travel tip: plan your tourist activities for weekdays during the school year and just stay home on the weekends. I guarantee you will be the youngest traveler by at least 3 or 4 decades.

Since we scheduled our activities with the older crowd, the children's learning center was widely available for our personal use.

 

 

I really didn't like the way that Columbia was looking at me, and no one seemed to care.

The five rescue eagles on display have all had injuries that could not be rehabilitated and now travel extensively around the state and nation for education and outreach. A worthy second act.

Wabasha's riverfront. Another beautiful river town.

 

   

We continued our travels down to Winona, stopping first at a random "scenic overlook", scenic being the operative word. Winona is a crazy/beautiful town; it looks like an island surrounded by imposing limestone bluffs and everywhere you look you just think nature. So many birds, trees, flowers, rivers, wildlife, fields, sunsets...  I could hardly handle all the beauty and briefly encouraged Adam to start job-hunting.

 

 

 

 

There would by many, many more photos like these except that Adam caught me at work and encouraged me to hasten. The winery closes at 6:00, after all.

We swung into Garvin Heights Vineyards for a quick tasting of local wines and then drove the backroads to Lanesboro for the night.

Lanesboro prides itself on being the Bed and Breakfast Capital of Minnesota, which was a major motivation for our visit. Unfortunately, we were ultra-busy at home right up until our vacation and did not secure a B and B reservation. Fortunately for us, Brewster's Red Hotel right on the main street was an amazing and more affordable alternative.

This was our view upon arrival.

We grabbed a very late dinner across the street and settled in for the end of day one. I promise that days two, three, and four will not be so long. Day one could not be topped.