blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Beer

  • Ya Hala, and Beer Heaven

    Portland enjoyed a week of beautiful weather, starting out cold but ending up at 70 degrees the past two days. It was great; wearing shorts, taking lunchtime walks around the waterfront, warm evenings, etc.

    Tonight Kelly and I joined Miranda, Snooks and L out for dinner at Ya Hala, a Lebanese restaurant in S.E. Portland. The food was fantastic, I had the chicken shawarma, and sampled a few other things all the appetizers that were ordered, such as stuffed grape leaves and falafel. I highly recommend this restaurant if you're looking for Greek / Lebanese food. Oh, I also had an Armenian beer, Kilikia Dark, which was pretty tasty and worth a try. Only downside, it's only sold in a small (11.16 oz) bottle. 🙂 

    After we left Ya Hala, we drove to Beer Heaven (a.k.a. new Belmont Station). Their new 'Bier Cafe' is finally open, so we spent an hour looking through the shop (I picked up a few English ales I hadn't tried before to bring home) Miranda and L both bought a bottle of the Dogfish Head Chicory Stout to have there, Kelly and I shared a bottle of Smithwick's, and we all sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather for a bit before heading home. Very fun evening.

  • Week recap… slacker edition

    What a week! I've been swamped with work, social engagements, and a fascination with a new toy in the house.

    On monday Kelly and I met our friend Miranda at Moon & Sixpence for some dinner, drinks, and some Irish folk music. Had a blast!

    On tuesday, after some deliberation, Kelly picked up her new baby, a black MacBook (which she named Mozart). I rushed home to get to see / play with it for a bit before meeting Snooks at Kennedy School for a couple beers (and to hand off copies of the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica that I burned to DVD… we both needed to see the massive cliffhanger season finale).

    On wednesday, plans to meet some friends fell through, so I was able to get some yard work done, and have a relaxing night at home. After mowing the forest that was my lawn, and doing some other yard work, Kelly and I watched Battlestar. Man, what a cliffhanger, and to think we have to wait until 2008 to see the conclusion. It's just cruel.

    Last night I met several friends at my old haunt, the Goose Hollow Inn, for some dinner and beers after work. Both my brothers met me there, and after we went to another old haunt, the ultimate 'dive bar', the Commodore, to shoot some pool. Fun night, and thanks to all who came out!

    Today I worked from home so I could focus on all the code I need to clean up / rewrite from the first release of SuperSweetCo's new product. A lot of the CSS / HTML has been driving me crazy since I originally wrote it. Also, trying to write in a lot of the new design. After work, I spent some more time with Kelly's MacBook, getting a few applications installed, and moving some music into iTunes for her. Found a great app called Senuti that allowed me to move tracks from my iPod onto her Mac. The more I play with Kelly's Mac, the more I want one for myself. Later, Snooks and I went back to Kennedy School to talk about Battlestar, drink beer, and eat pizza, while the girls were out eating fancy cheese and sipping wine.

    Tomorrow I'm going to spend most of the day migrating data from Kelly's old work laptop to her Mac. To make sure she doesn't lose anything when she hands her work laptop in on monday, her last day at StinkyCorp. While doing such work is usually a big pain, I doubt I'll mind much, since I'll get to play with Kelly's MacBook.

  • Some kind of day

    Woke up late this morning. I'm blaming it on the fondue. Though it's more likely a result of all the beer I drank last night.

    I spent some time this morning sorting through all of my tax documents, only to realize I'm missing a 1099 form from one of my freelance clients. Not sure what to do about it yet, but I did email the company to check if they ever sent the form out, and if so, could they send another. I feel like an ass… I hope I didn't lose the damned thing.

    After that junk, Kelly and I went out looking for new laptops. Since she got viciously shit-canned from her job, she needs a computer (for school), so we went to a few stores so she could play with what's out there. In the end, it seems that she's leaning the same way I am in my own hunt for a new laptop… a MacBook or MacBook Pro. She will probably go play with her two top choices again tomorrow (an HP and the MacBook) after meeting up with her sister for lunch, before deciding. I'm still not sure what I'd to if I were her. I'm struggling with virtually the same chioce. Only I don't need a new laptop, I just want one.

    A friend who was over last night for fondue stopped by again tonight for a bit, and after that I went to Kennedy School to meet Snooks for a couple beers, before heading back home and watching Casino Royale. A great Bond movie, more raw and gritty, and not filled with over-the-top ficticious gadgets as previous films. Anyway, that's my Saturday, I hope it stops raining so I can get out tomorrow and do some much needed yard work. 

  • Melty Cheese

    Had a few friends over tonight for fondue. Yup, that's right, it's the 70's, but c'mon, there really isn't anything better than bite-sized bits of veggies and meat dipped in melted cheese. Mmmmm. We played a card game too, something to do with arranging letters into words for points. I sucked (well, I certainly would have if it weren't for the help I received, I ended up in 2nd place, but not because of my mastery of the dictionary or my ability to look at 10 cards and and assemble high scoring words). I'm better when it comes to card games that deal with numbers than games that rely on your knowledge of obscure dictionary words. Despite the game torture, it was a fun night. Although, I'm pretty sure I gained a few pounds from all the beer and the fondue foods.

  • Detox, and then more BEER

    Yesterday was a detox day. Kelly and I got up around 11am, made cheese & red bell pepper omlettes (I added a bunch of jalapenos and hot sauce to mine, naturally), and sat around a bit before going out to my folks place for my Mum's birthday. Kelly prepared a delicious chicken parmesan dish (despite the fact she's vegetarian and couldn't eat it herself) for dinner, ate some cake, and then came home to watch Stranger Than Fiction, which was really good. I ate way too much, but felt all the better for it.

    Tonight I met Snooks at Kennedy School after work for some beers and some manly/nerdy conversation about Battlestar Galactica, life, the universe, and everything. Kelly met us later as she headed home from a happy hour hang-out with her soon-to-be ex-coworkers. Fun evening. And yes Aaron, this is for you, since you made such a big deal about me not blogging over the weekend 🙂

  • Happy St. Patrick’s Day

    Tonight myself and several friends spent the afternoon / evening at Rose & Thistle to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

    I woke up early after dozing off early last night and spent the morning tinkering around the house, and at 2pm got cleaned up and started walking the three miles to the pub. I met Snooks and L there, joined a bit later by Mrs. Ghost Dog (GD was up finishing his ski patrol training, congrats again on that), and later my brother Travis, and even later Kelly (after a hard day at class).

    Had a great night, and ended up with a bunch of Guinness swag, including a big foam pint-shaped hat, a bottle-opener key chain, t-shirt, and best of all a big metal "Size Matters" sign (referring to the standard 20oz Guinness pint). Great night, and thanks to all for coming out.

  • Pouring the perfect pint of Guinness

    Since Guinness now flows at my office, I thought it would be nice to make up a nice 'how to' sheet for folks who have never poured it and are only used to domestic microbrews. What you see to the left is my enhanced illustration of an old metal sign image I found online (here's the original). The photo was too small and blurry for printing, so I made a new one in Illustrator. I even illustrated thousands of tiny bubbles to make the settling look right! Finding a vector version of the Guinness Draft logo online made the whole thing pretty easy.

    I finished the sheet up by adding a right panel with an Esquire.com interview with Guinness brewmaster Fergal Murray, where he describes the six steps in more detail.

    Here is my 'how to' sheet (PDF)

    Enjoy! 

  • Guinness at the office

    As of today, my office has Guinness on tap! The keg arrived on Monday, but due to the multitude of bits that the company needed to track down to go from the common CO2 keg to the Nitro-driven, European-fitted Guinness keg, the assembly was delayed. However, today it was all assembled and shortly after 5pm I was pouring myself a pint of Guinness at the office. Sweet!

    I did a bit of pouring training for a few coworkers (pour 3/4's the way full, let settle for a minute, then press the tap handle back to top off slowly). Though I realized later that the training wasn't quite right… I'm used to seeing the 'sloppy' method which is to set the glass down on the tray and pour straight down to the 3/4 point… where you're supposed to hold the glass at a 45 degree angle… only the 'top off' of the last 1/4 is poured straight down. Damn!

    Fearing I may have lost some beer nerd cred, I'm going to (time-permitting) assemble a nice, easy to read 'how-to' sheet to put next to the tap tomorrow. We're throwing a company happy hour on Friday, and I thought it'd be a nice touch for those who are used to just pouring the glass full in one go.

  • Ant killing, and a quiet night at home

    Slept late today (because I could, dang it!), then spent day on a cleaning rampage, primarily in the kitchen, trying to eradicate the sugar ants we've been seeing over the past couple months. I still haven't exactly figured out where they're coming from (probably under the house somewhere) but the kitchen has become something of a game… spot the ant, kill the ant, wipe area clean, repeat. It's never been a massive infestation, just a few here and there, always around the counter tops and cupboards. We'd clean, and for days, nothing, and then all of a sudden, we'd spot 10 here, 4 there, etc. We've sealed all our foodstuffs, and had been fairly good about keeping things clean, but the persistent little shits still keep popping up. The other day, Kelly picked up some eco-friendly (orange peel based) insecticide spray, so today I cleaned. Big time. Under the sink, around and under the oven top, floors, etc. The kitchen still (hours later) reeks of orange peel, but it seems to have had some effect. I've only spotted a couple since.

    Tonight Kelly got together with Miranda and another friend to play games, drink wine, and relax. I dropped her off at around 7:30pm, and since Miranda lives fairly close to Belmont Station, I stopped in to check out the new digs (moved, no longer on Belmont) and pick up some beers. Got a few interesting things, a couple English ales from Morland Brewery ("Hen's Tooth" and "Tanner's Jack"), and a couple old favorites, Adnams "Suffolk Special Bitter" and Coniston Brewery's "Bluebird Bitter". Having a nice quiet night at home relaxing, sipping on beers, reading through emails, and writing in my blog. 😉 Hopefully tomorrow, two things will happen… 1) more relaxing, and 2) I won't see any sugar ants. Stupid bugs. 

  • Night at Rose & Thistle

    Tonight Kelly and I met up with our good friends Ty & Aymie at Rose & Thistle. It had been far too long since we'd seen them, so it was great to catch up, have a meal, and a few pints. It was also a great way to end the crazy week. Had the delicious pasty for dinner, and many pints of Guinness of course. After our bus ride homeward we stopped at Binks for another pint (had the Amnesia Brewing ESB) before walking home. Great night, though I think both Kelly and I were suffering from last night's outing (to 'celebrate' her layoff) … starting at Kells at around 3pm, then to Thirsty Lion for a meal and a few more pints, a quick stop home to drop some things off, and then hopping the bus to Moon & Sixpence to meet up with my brother Travis. Basically, we've hit just about every pub in the Portland area over the past 2 days. 🙂