Highway Cleanup & Hop Farm Tour

I went along with the Snake River Brewers on the annual Fall highway cleanup and tour of Mike Gooding's Hop Farm in Wilder, ID.  The brew club sponsors a 2 mile section of Hwy 95 that not so coincidentally runs through a sea of hop trellises.  Very good planning for our civic duties if you ask me.

Picked up about 10 garbage bags full of assorted trash from the roadway including everything from beer cans to strange  DVDs titled "Private Collection."  I'm still waiting to hear what was on those disks...

After the cleanup, we headed over to Mike Gooding's hop farm, where fall harvest is in full swing.  Mike is a great guy, and is very generous in offering tours of his facilities and letting us hang out and have a cookout.
I took a bunch of photos of the process since I was impressed at how efficient it all was.  Plus seeing it all on this scale was amazing.

 A standard hop field.  The bines grow up on hop twine that's tied to the overhead wires.  The bines grow to about 16' tall.  They harvest by cutting bines and twine together and loading them on trucks.

Here the trucks back in and attach the bines to a conveyor that takes them into the processing plant.  The hop cones are sheared or shaken from the bines and collected on more conveyors for drying.

 Here's what a standard drying bed looks like.  About 100' long and 3' deep OF HOPS! They run ~140 degree air through the beds to remove moisture prior to bailing.  I learned on this tour that some varieties (CTZ especially) are so oily that they can actually spontaneously combust if they get too hot.  I had no idea hop farming could be so dangerous.

This is a view of the drying bed from the other side.  The lady is working to fill the second bed with a new batch of hops.  This view shows just how thick the bed actually is.  Her job is to remove stems, leaves, and other debris from the beds so the finished hops are as clean as possible before baling.

 After drying, the hops are brought to a warehouse where they are staged before going to the baling station.  That pile is ~38,000 lbs of CTZ!  We "borrowed" about 5 pounds from this pile and split them up.  can't wait to use them!

And finally, here is the baling station.   The hops are compressed into 200 lb bales and sewn up manually with a reinforced fabric prior to shipping. 

We finished our day by drinking some homebrew and collecting hop samples that Mike and his daughter Diane set aside for us.  This is a huge plus for us homebrewers.  I ended up with about two pounds total of Centennial, Chinook, Calypso, and CTZ .  A great take for making IPAs and Imperial IPAs.  I can't wait to make another Pliny clone with all of these fresh hops!

Trip to the New Brickskeller

I got so lucky today and discovered that RFD, the bar that essentially took Brickskeller's place as best beer bar in Washington, DC, was within walking distance of my hotel.  Luck?  Good fortune?  Kharma?  I would vote yes to all 3.  Needless to say, this discovery put the finishing touch on a great day in the DC area.  Here's what I had at this fine establishment:

1.  Flying Dog Raging Bitch - both keg and on cask.  The latter was dry hopped with simcoe so naturally it was my favorite.
2.  Heavy Seas Loose Cannon on cask.  Smooth, hoppy and delicious.
3.  New Glarus Vintage Belgian Red - last taste of this beauty from their last bottle.  It was flat, but still tasted like a slightly tart slice of awesome cherry pie.  Well worth the effort to get a taste of what this highly touted brewery puts out.
4.  Finished up with a Bells Two Hearted Ale.  Not much needs to be said about this beer.  It is consistently voted #2 or #3 best beer in the country in Zymurgy's annual poll.  Perfectly balanced and absolutely delicious. 

What more can I can say than I am a blessed man.  If only all of my road trips can be this satisfying... Cheers everyone.

Travellin' Blues

Let me just start by saying my travel day wasn't all that bad.  I just stuck on a plane in Minneapolis for 2 hours due to bad weather in Washington DC.  That's not exactly pleasant, but compared to some other experiences I've had and one particular John Hughes Movie, my day was rather pleasant.

I took this photo from the window of my hotel room.  Kinda sums up DC pretty well if you ask me.  A lot of chaos in the foreground with nice scenery if you look for it ;)

NY is finally behind us

This week marks the official end to our relocation adventure to Boise. The sale of the house in Montgomery, NY finally closed on Thursday after a year of being on the market and 1 deal that fell through in the process. It also felt good that the lady buying it fell in love with the old bitch just like we had done 10 years ago. When selling an old house, you need someone who sees charm, history, and potential; not one who sees issues or problems. We were luck enough to find someone who saw the house just as we did.

It's strange since I'd actually gotten used to the feeling of the house not selling. When everything you hear from friends and the media is how crappy the housing market is and how nothing is selling, you tend to believe that your house may end being bound to you forever like the proverbial ball & chain. Now that that part is over, I kinda feel like there must be something else to do... I know this feeling will fade and we'll finally get to begin our Idaho adventure without fear of disaster or imminent doom.

I think I'll celebrate by having a brew day :-) Plus how can I be anything but happy when I see this view from my backyard?

Start of the weekend in Portland

Just arrived in Portland after a 7.5hr drive from Boise. Settled into our room at the Marriott and about to have our first of many microbrews for the weekend. First stop, Deschutes Pub downtown. The photo is the view from the hotel room with the Columbia River and Mount Hood in the background. Very nice!

A Good Weekend Is On The Way

Tomorrow I'm hosting a group brew for my local homebrew club, the Snake River Brewers. About 15 of us will pack my garage and backyard to make 70 gallons of a British ESB, eat some good food, and drink even better beer (mostly homebrew). Should be a great time for all. Getting together tonight too for setup and prep activities, including milling ~150 lbs of grain! Prost!

What Would Michael Moore Do?

A buddy forwarded me this analysis of how we can "eat the rich" to help pay for the current budget shortfalls we're experiencing. Doesn't quite achieve what some would like it to, but it's still entertaining. Enjoy.