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Merry Crimbo from PDX! ⛄

6 pack newsletter Dec 23, 2021

 

I've arrived in Portland! It took two days of driving from San Francisco, including a stop over in Ashland, OR for an overnighter. I had my first beer as an Oregonian there at a little English/Irish pub called The Black Sheep. I had a Caldera Brewing amber (and several pints of Guinness). Soon after we arrived in rainy Portland, I went to a food truck that looked promising. Lo and behold, next to it was a homebrew shop with a little licensed 1BBL brewery called the Homebrew Exchange! Next to that was a vegan bakery. Portland is immediately living up to its reputation. I've had a couple pints from locals Baerlic and Ex Novo, all excellent.

At this point, I've got my studio rig largely set up and working, though the space is a mess and not ready for recording. Also, we're still waiting for Comcast to get it together and deliver our router. Boxes are still being opened, we need loads of furniture, and so on. Gonna be a long month! 
 

I released my new Online Course for the Certified Beer Server exam about a month ago. The feedback so far has been super positive. Students completed 103 lectures this past week alone!

 

TV to Check Out

  • The new season (and rewatching the old seasons) of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David is still amazing and ridiculous and you have to give the guy credit for coming out with a new season of CYE after all this time -- the first season was in 2000! It's all the same old actors and characters. Great stuff. 
 

Reading

  • WHOA!!!! New 2021 BJCP Guidelines are COMING SOON!!!! Here are some of the most exciting bits from the linked post:
    • New England IPA to be renamed Hazy IPA and joins the IPA Category.
    • Sour Beers received major attention (much of which was influenced by the rad Milk The Funk community of microbe wranglers).
    • All beer history sections have been updated based on the latest references and have been reviewed by the one and only epically excellent beer historian Ron Pattinson.
    • The Trappist Ale category is now named Monastic Ale...
As soon as the new Guidelines are available, I'll be making YouTube vids and adding updates to all my course content!
 

Recipes

I love a good Belgian quad this time of the year and I've been all over them lately. I also really love mulled anything and I have been making coquito during the holidays for many years now.

Coquito originated in Puerto Rico and is often described as a coconut-y nog (but I don't make it with eggs). I found a few recipes online that look similar to how I make these things...I usually just kind of wing it. You don't need to follow these recipes exactly to get good results, have some fun!

  1. Mulled White Wine
  2. Mulled Red Wine/Gluhwein 
  3. Coquito (you can use coconut milk instead of cream, no eggs necessary)
Cheers & Happy Festivus, y'all!

Chris 
 

 

6 pack newsletter