Free Time (0)

This post was written by Merideth
Posted 6 September, 2008 in On the homefront

It’s been a while since we posted a ‘On the Homefront’ blog. Mainly it’s because we haven’t had much time to do anything on the homefront. But we’ve been home for four weeks now and we have another week before we leave for Germany and Oktoberfest.

I have to say, the break couldn’t have come at a better time. Our batteries were a little low and we were missing the pups more and more on our trips.

So what have we been doing for these past 4 weeks since our return from England?

Well, shortly after our return from London, we had our English beer tasting. It’s always fun to offer people beer styles they don’t normally drink and introduce them to breweries they have never heard of. Real Ale, of the bottle conditioned variety, was a hit and our friends enjoyed everything from the Stowey Brewery’s In House Real Ale to Hook Norton’s Double Stout.

August also saw our return to Keg Lube, the local home brew club’s tasting event. We aren’t members of the club, since we don’t home brew, but we’ve appointed ourselves “official tasters” and no one seems to mind. This club has some great home brewers and we tried some tasty beers. The highlights for me included a chocolate porter and a chocolate cinnamon stout. One of the members, Dave, brews an excellent pale ale that we are always happy to drink. Plus, he brought more of his chili rauchbier (it’s very good). Needless to say, we had a great time. Thanks to Steve and Tina for hosting again this year.

Last weekend we had our first Cal football game of the year and so started our frequent Fall visits to the Bay Area. Our good friend Chris Devlin was down from Seattle and of course we joined him for a pint or two.

Together with Chris, we made our first trip to Monk’s Kettle in the City’s Mission District. Last year, three beer bars opened in the Bay Area at around the same time: Monk’s Kettle and La Trappe in the City and the Trappist in Oakland. Monk’s Kettle was the only one we had not yet visited. The atmosphere was cozy, so I’m not sure I would want to be there on a busy night. But, they served an excellent beer selection and we all enjoyed a Reality Czech Pils from Moonlight (among other beers).

After Monk’s Kettle, our pregame ritual brought us to Barclay’s for a few pints. After the game (Cal 38 Michigan St. 31), we even managed to meet up with Chris again at La Trappe.

We finished up our Bay Area weekend by recording for Beer School. We have known Motor for over 20 years and we frequently see him at beer events, Cal football games and miscellaneous other places. He was nice enough to invite us to do a show with them. After a lengthy production meeting at 21st Amendment we headed over to the studio to talk about beer, travel, us, and everything else under the sun.

Finally, we did 4 radio interviews last month. Since all our interviews have been morning shows east of here, we had several very early mornings. The radio stations were in Milwaukee, Greensboro, Phoenix and Detroit. You can listen to our latest from the Ben and Matt show in Phoenix, AZ and we have two more radio interviews on our press page.

In between all this, we have been visiting (and re-visiting) various local pubs that serve beer on draught. As research for an article I’m writing for a local weekly, we are on a mission to discover the 5 top draught beers served in Monterey County. Being in the beer backwater, it actually may be more arduous than one might think. We’ll be sure to let you know what we find.

New beergeek.TV Episode - England (0)

This post was written by Chris
Posted 2 September, 2008 in Year in Beer, England, European Travel

“England… Finally…” is the latest Year in Beer episode of One Pint at a Time.

It is somewhat hard to fathom that in the ten years we have been traveling to Europe, we have never managed more than short visits to London. Thus, we had two goals for August’s Year in Beer trip:

1. Attending the Great British Beer Festival
2. Venturing beyond the Capitol.

So, we began our trip in Somerset.  With the help of Real Ale Walks, we were able to go on a couple of great hikes, enjoy real ale in  small village pubs and even learn the traditional English pub game skittles.

Back in London, we not only attended two sessions of the Great British Beer Festival, but also pulled pints as festival volunteers.

We also found time to do some touristy things during our London stay - our kind of tourist things - a river cruise down the Thames to visit some pubs in Greenwich and a historic / architecturally interesting / cool pub tour of London.

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For all the episodes of One Pint at a Time go to beergeekTV.

Year in Beer - Oktoberfest Preview (0)

This post was written by Chris
Posted 27 August, 2008 in Year in Beer, Germany, European Travel

The Year in Beer wouldn’t be the Year in Beer without attending the ultimate of all beer festivals: Oktoberfest.

This will be our second time attending Munich’s annual celebration of Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. We were rookies back in 2005; a little scared… a little reticent… a little intimidated.

But we had a great time and couldn’t wait to go return to the Theresienwiese and its beer filled tents.

But before reaching Munich, we are returning to  Berchtesgaden to get “match fit” and conquer the Eagle’s Nest.

When we visited the Obersalzberg this past December, we learned you could hike up to Hitler’s mountain top retreat. It being December and a bit chilly, we decided to put the ascent off until our Oktoberfest trip. From what we can gather, it is a two to three hour hike from the Obersalzberg. Hopefully, there will be a hut along the way.

After a few days of charging our batteries in the Bavarian Alps, it will be time to go to Munich and face the multitude of other international beer travelers and liters of beer.

Now that we are Oktoberfest veterans, the goal of this year’s trip will be to show you, our faithful viewer, how to negotiate the world’s largest festival. How to find a seat… how to get a beer… how to make friends. Hopefully, we will do all those things so we can show it.

We are at Oktoberfest opening weekend and some of the highlights will include…

• Two parades: the Grand Entry of the Oktoberfest Landlords and Breweries on Saturday and the Oktoberfest Costume and Riflemen’s Parade on Sunday.
• Dragging some German friends, including Ute from floggingmolly.de, to Oktoberfest.
• Merideth repeating her Bergkirchweih performance,  by risking the potentially puke-inducing carnival rides again.
• Many litres of Oktoberfest beer… many pretzels… many new friends.

Unfortunately, I doubt we will get to see the magical “O’zapft is!” moment at the Schottenhamel. This is where the mayor of Munich gets to tap the first keg, officially opening Oktoberfest.

On Monday, we are going to take a break from Oktoberfest and spend a day visiting some hop farms north of Munich.  We will be guided by Willy Buholzer, the General Manager of Busch Farm Huell, the Bavarian hop farm owned by Anheuser-Busch.

If we survive Oktoberfest, we are spending our last day in Germany with Ute and Wolfgang in Mannheim. No better way to finish up the Year in Beer in Germany than with our good friends at the Zentrale.