Category: Monterey Bay

After having been on the go nonstop since we hopped on a plane for Germany on May 30th, the next couple of months look to be a time for rest for us… which is probably a good thing.

Besides our treks up to Berkeley for football games and a short visit to Sacramento to visit a friend and hang out with Rick from Pacific Brew News, we don’t have any “trips” planned until we head back to Europe in December.

The highlight of the Fall might be our beer travel talk before the local rotary club on October 18th. The topic will be Okoberfest.

Speaking of Oktoberfest… we were hoping to be in Munich this year but we will be heading up to Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz mountains on October 20th for the Oktoberfest celebration at the Tyrolean Inn. If you have never been, it is a lot of fun.

Our European trip is still in the formulation stages but it looks like Dublin, London, Germany and maybe Switzerland. The Christmas season in Europe is always a blast plus we are looking to film Dublin and London episodes of beergeekTV. On top of that, there is the Pogues show in Dublin and hopefully we can see another one of our favorite bands Neck.

→For all you hopheads out there… Tom’s of Maine deodorants now have hops. According to their website, “The antimicrobial action of hops inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria while reducing the possibility of skin irritation.”

Wow… the beer world just lost its guiding light… Michael Jackson died yesterday at the age of 65.

Michael Jackson’s accomplishments, besides being the greatest beer writer ever, included re-introducing the world to little know beer styles, most notably the “strange” and diverse brews that came from Belgium. His passion and knowledge was an inspiration to many of us.

I remember as a teenager being captivated by his “Beer Hunter” series on PBS. I think that is where my love of beer, travel and the travel TV show genre began.

Later, as we started traveling, Michael Jackson’s books, especially his “Pocket Guide to Beer” became a primary source for planning our trips. His insights were invaluable to making our travels a beer filled journey.

One of my beer dreams was to meet Michael Jackson… maybe if there is an afterlife, I will meet him at some awesome pub in the sky.

Read the Associated Press Story

I have always had views on beer (some would say “strong” views) but I guess I never thought my thoughts would be quote-worthy. But it has happened. My blog quote on the Ol’ Factory Cafe (“The Ol’ Factory Cafe is the best beer bar on the Monterey Peninsula…”) has appeared in one of their adverts (Monterey County Weekly, August 30, 2007)… and I am flattered and proud.

I guess this is just part of my continuing education that began with the Chief Beer Officer experience. What I have to say about beer actually matters to people.

So how do we follow up a Saturday evening of tasting big beers at Ol’ Factory Cafe? On Sunday, we went to the local homebrew club’s annual tasting party at the house of our friend Steve.

As we know, the homebrewer has been the backbone of the craft beer movement in the United States and continues to provide the industry with great brewers who move up to the professional ranks. So it was with great pleasure and anticipation that we attended Keg Lube 2007.

And we were not disappointed. We had a great afternoon talking beer, travel and sampling some pretty good beers. And it was actually sunny and warm in Marina!

Kudos to Dave for his pale ale, Steve for his dark lager and Nate for his Belgian tripel… they were certainly the highlights of a beer filled afternoon.

We look forward to our next Keg Lube…

→ Next weekend kicks off Cal football season so before and after every home game you will find us at Barclays in Rockridge. Look for us at the bar. The first couple of games, we will be filming for a upcoming “One Pint at a Time” episode called “Our Fall Passion”.

→ The Berg episode is not up yet but I couldn’t resist posting More from the “Berg Band”.

So we had another awesome night at the Ol’ Factory Cafe! Morgan was nice enough to invite us for an informal beer tasting and boy, was it big! There were 8 beers all between 8.5-10.5% plus Chris brought our Porterhouse (Dublin, Ireland) 10th Anniversary Celebration Stout which came in at 10%.

Little did we know, but there were also 2 bands playing tonight so the place got way jumpin’! My hats off to the bartender and resident beer guy Adam who did his best to serve us up, try to enjoy and savor the beer, and attend to his customers all at the same time! He appreciates good beer and knows his stuff and it would be great to really sit down with him when he isn’t working, so we can shoot the breeze about esoteric beers. I must say, he has quite the palate for exotic tasting beer! It was also fun sitting at the bar listening to Adam gently steer people in the right direction with beer. The best example was a couple of guys who came up and asked for Corona. Adam gave them 4 bottles of Augustiner bier and apparently they loved it. Now that is up selling!

Back to the tasting. . .the beers were big and I don’t think I finished any of my tastes (I was also the driver for tonight), which is unusual for us. At any kind of tasting, the beer generally gets finished, unless it is totally gross and then it gets poured out. But these beers were just a bit big for me. The line up included triples, doppels, and a double pale ale from Flying Dog. Some beers are able to manage the high alcohol content, but others taste much too alcoholic for my liking. To be honest, I’m not sure how anyone could actually finish a whole pint of any of the beers we tried. But hey,someone must be able to do it, right?

We were lucky enough to be joined by our long time friend Kerry (a wine guy, by the way) in the tasting. Then I saw a few people from work and a group of people I know from high school. What could be better than over the top beer, a bartender who knows his stuff, old friends, and good music? Here’s to big beers and good times at the Ol’ Factory Cafe!