Went out to Yosemite for my first time for my birthday this year. It was very convenient as I went as part of a company retreat. The company hosting the retreat was not my own, and I was therefore free to do fun things, like go climbing. And so climbing happened.

Last weekend Lachlan and I took off for Lover's Leap. It's up in Strawberry, CA, near South Lake Tahoe. We did four trad climbs, and a little bouldering. We climbed from dawn until dusk. Other than that there was a bottle of bourbon, a camp fire, and macaroni and cheese. A wonderful weekend. Hopefully next time we'll get to climb Bear's Reach.

Here are even more photos from our Maui trip. Laura made it out for the second week, and the fun rolled on. Much more beaching, snorkeling, and adventuring. Most of the pictures are from two adventures: Road to Hana, and Haleakala for sunrise.

Matt, Chelsea, and I took off for Hawaii on the 10th of August. I managed to find a place to nap on the plane, far away from the crying baby. Matt and Chelsea were not so lucky. The baby was positioned directly behind them. After that, we promptly went to the grocery store and got all set up for a long bout of relaxation. We've been in the ocean every day thus far. Here are some photos of our trip.

This is the biggest beer we've ever made. Nearly 50 pounds of grain, just over half a pound of potent hops, and a 14 hour brew day. We started at 10 AM and didn't finish until just past midnight.

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I've been wanting to start a yeast library for some time now. At first there were grand visions of dozens of different yeast strains, all available in the freezer at a moment's notice. After spending a couple of weeks researching propagation and quality control techniques, I think I scared myself out of it.  A few months passed, and I finally picked up where I left off. I realized I could step into this slowly, just like I did with homebrewing. I don't need a 400x oil immersion lens, a hemocytometer, or a -80˚C lab grade freezer yet-- just some vials, a pressure cooker, and fresh yeast (OK, and a few other things). (more...)

What if people just gave things to one another because they could. What if one day you were walking down the sidewalk, and a person approached you, just to hand you a flower. How about a person standing on the sidewalk playing a 12 string touch guitar, just giving their music to the world around them, with no expectation of receiving anything in return. It happens, and it's truly beautiful when it does. These are the events where a real connection happens. Sure it's nice to meet people working at your favorite music store, or pizza place, but it's an entirely different interaction.

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Matt is preparing a sushi feast today, and as such, we went shopping. These are some of the that I found on our morning expedition just blocks from our house.

We just bottled our first beer for a new donation based, CSA-style San Francisco organization called Brewlab. It's a "double saison" we brewed a few months ago. Below are a few shots of the bottling process, something we haven't enjoyed for a while now since switching to kegs. Thanks to Kern, Jeremiah and Chelsea for their help! (more...)

We were planning on making a double IPA, but changed our minds at the last minute and made a porter instead. It's been a while since we made a nice roasty brew. It's still pretty young, but I think this will turn out to be the best porter we've made yet.

We also splurged this week on some yeast lab equipment and four pounds of bulk hops (Cascade, Nugget, Pacific Gem, and Styrian Golding). Stay tuned for our upcoming adventures in yeast slanting and propagation.

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I got lucky tonight. Someone mentioned that Bliss was in town. She was out on treasure island, and I went to go see her. It was really fun bringing a few friends that hadn't seen her before, she's really a serious piece of work. Here's someone's flickr photo of her at burning man.

We took a stab at one of our favorite tripels, using some brewer's notes found in "Brew Like a Monk" by Stan Hieronymus. The wort tasted incredible-- we've got high hopes for this one... (more...)

My very good friend Caius, took me to visit a goat farm an hours drive North of San Francisco. It was a really wonderful day, with super friendly goats, warm sun, ocean breeze, and a brilliant quesadilla.  I love the sound of the kids munching the grass. Laying there in a hammock, between a couple of pine trees, close enough to the ocean to hear it, surrounded by edible flowers, I really couldn't help but wonder what I was doing with my life. Why don't I live on a goat farm?

A couple of friends got together to paint a wall. I just thought it was coming together really well, and would share the photos. Yep, that's Bukowski.

A bastardized British/American IPA in honor of the new royal couple. We over boiled this and ended up with a much stronger brew than we had anticipated... I suppose we could have worse problems. We also did a little experiment with our yeast pitching rates. (more...)

Jesse and I took a plane down to Long Beach, where Lachlan picked us up and took us to his house for the evening. We then packed up the Westfalia camper and hit the road before dawn. I managed to get a little sleep on the ride, but didn't truly wake up until we hit the park. Finding a site in hidden valley didn't even look good on a Wednesday morning around 9. We happened to see some folks that were packing up and snagged their site. The next four days were filled with our first legitimate trad climbs. We did some very easy routes that allowed us to get the hang of placing some trad protection without feeling like we were too much in danger. I have to say that even an easy climb starts to feel like something formidable when you've got ten pounds of trad gear hanging off of you and no rope hanging down from above. We also got in a number of top ropes, and a bunch of bouldering. We actually got the chance to meet and climb with Todd Gordon. That was really cool, he's a really nice guy, with loads of good stories.

A huge thanks to Christy, Joel, and Lachlan for really pulling this trip together!

Well, here are. Some photos. Over the past weekend, it finally happened. We drilled the last two holes, and we now have four taps on our kegerator, and of course four different home brews.