Had a good weekend camping and brewery hopping. I think I need to invest in a beer fridge now. Between what I brought back from California and what I picked up last weekend I have taken over two shelves in our fridge in the kitchen. It should last me a couple months. Had to repair our washing machine last night. The lid switch broke (again). This time I got a replacement instead of trying to jerry-rig it to make it work. Today I have easily 10 loads of laundry to do to get ready for our vacation next week. It is nice working from home so that I can run down every 40-45 minutes and switch the laundry. Even better since we got a dryer a couple years ago. I miss the fresh smell from line drying outside but I don't miss the effort of hanging the laundry and having to shake bugs out before folding it. Our puppy got a hold of my wife's wallet and chewed up a couple of credit cards (no loss in my eyes) and her vaccination card (thought she was going to blow a gasket). Only reason I noticed was because I heard her chomping on a quarter and was trying to figure out where she got it from. We were spoiled by our first two dogs that were never anywhere near as energetic as this puppy. It's the simple things in life that make it good. I'm going to just keep rolling with it.
The beer shelf is a beautiful thing. What'd you get out there? I love Pliny the Elder from Russian River and it's impossible to get outside a very small area in California. I have a neighbor who also enjoys beer and his company is headquartered in Cali. He has a business trip next month and shipped two coolers out to the office to fill up and ship back while he's out there.
I picked up a some IPA's from San Diego: - Modern Times - Belching Beaver - AleSmith - Duck Foot - Pure Project - stopped at a few others but didn't bring anything home Last weekend in Rhode Island I grabbed some from: - Long Live - Buttonwoods - Moniker Long Live is by far my favorite right now. I haven't had a bad IPA from them in four trips in the past two years. They have a good variety with very different flavors, but everyone is good. If you are into IPAs and live near RI, I would highly recommend a visit there. We had a friend ship some Pliny the Elder and Younger to us last year. I wasn't as impressed as I had expected based on the reviews everyone gives it. I found it too malty.
RI has great beers! Have a friend up there who I visit on occasion. He introduced me to Whalers Brewing and their Rise APA. That's a thing of beauty. I'll try to get a hold of Long Live at some point.