Pink Boots at Brooklyn Brewery

"Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future." ~Charles F. Kettering

September 8-9: Ah yes, he's still the champ: Nobody can do "The Garrett" as good as Brewmaster Garrett Oliver can. Point proven in the photo above.

After my shower and mash-in at Southampton Publick House on Long Island, I was off for Brooklyn. I took the photo at right while just driving into Brooklyn. I liked the pink graffitti heart on the back of the semi-truck!

I arrived at Brooklyn Brewery without incident. Garrett had a parking spot all picked out for me in their warehouse. He rode with me as we circled the block, waiting for a big truck to leave after loading up with Brooklyn's beers. Garrett had me pull straight in, between the rows of kegs.

The photo at left shows where I was parked for two nights. The warehouse got really hot at night, so luckily the warehouse guys were able to hook me up, and I had electricity so I could run my trailer's air conditioning. If not for Garrett, where would a nearly 30-foot Road Brewer rig park in Brooklyn?

Garrett gave me a full tour of the premises. The detail at right is the old carved concrete ceiling in the delivery entryway of the warehouse.

Garrett set me up with a full line-up of all his tap beers, plus his famous (or soon to be famous) "Local One," a medium-bodied Belgian-style beer. Garrett didn't shoot for any particular Belgian style with this beer. In fact, Garrett likes to ride the line between American and British with his straight ales, and he likes to be a little un-style-able with most of his beers.

I had generous pours in front of me, and I'd skipped lunch, so I was feeling pretty good by the time we jumped in Garrett's car to head to Manhattan for dinner.

Garrett only learned to drive about ten years ago. When you grow up in Manhattan, you hardly need to have a car. Garrett must have attended the "Italian Taxi Driver School of New York Driving." He's good in a scary way. Many years ago I attended the "Wisconsin Country-Bumpkin School of Small Town Driving," so I would never attempt the professional driving moves that Garrett was able to pull off. I took the photo at left as we drove across the bridge into Manhattan.

Garrett took me to The Spotted Pig, a highly popular dive foodie bar where Garrett's buddy, Mario Batali is an investor. I think Garrett knows every famous food, beer, and wine person in New York City. Garrett's beer was on cask so we ordered glasses of that and some Local One too. Garrett suggested the Gnudi, which were like Gnocchi, but stuffed with cheese. I said let's go easy on the cheese as I'm allergic to it. We ended up with several cheesy dishes but I didn't make a fuss. Sometimes in the name of gorgeous and delicious food you have to suffer with allergies just a little.

After dinner Garrett suggested we walk to the Blind Tiger, one of his favorite New York beer bars. (Photo at right.) We enjoyed 4-ounce tastes of a very strong English beer that had been aged in a Port wood barrel.

At that point I was hankering after a sour beer, and Garrett surprised me with an oak-aged Belgian-style sour red ale made in Italy. Who'da thunk it?

I took a photo of the bottle's label so I could remember it. I wanted to recommend it to Chip Hardy, the proprietor of Eugene's multi-beer "The Bier Stein." The name of the Italian oak-aged sour Belgian was "Panil Barriquee." The photo turned out as blurry as I felt, so I'm not posting it here.

The next morning I meandered across the street to the brewery and met up with Tom Villa who was about to mash off the single brew of the day. Then I hung out with lab guy Dan Peterson. Christopher Basso was busy with Brooklyn Brewery's current Intern, Kristoph, who was visiting for 5-weeks from Weihenstephan's brewing school in Freising, Germany.

Some of the guys brought sack lunches, but Garrett will often do a lunch run to fetch lunch for himself and the other brewers. His call today? Half-pound hamburgers from the famous Peter Luger Steak House. Wow! Yummy. And filling.

After lunch I took over one of the computers in Brooklyn's offices upstairs to work on my blog and emails.

Popped down just as all the brewers were about to head home. They'd already changed out of their work uniforms. Kristoff took the friendly photo at left and the photo at the top of this page.

Garrett helped me figure out my route to Scarsdale for tomorrow, and also told me about the closest train/subway station.

Soon it was 6:00 pm and time and time for the weekly "Brooklyn Happy Hour." (Photo below.) It was slow at first but heated up quickly. Garrett stuck around for a few hours, a rarity for him, and the other brewers came back to hang out for awhile.

Brooklyn Beer's Happy Hour is a happening Friday night hot spot for this up-and-coming neighborhood. Folks of all stripes and tatoos bring their babies and their thirst for $3.00 pints of Brooklyn's best.

Where else in Brooklyn could you get a pint for $3.00? After the crowd and noise surpassed my tolerance level, I retired to the peace and quiet of my trailer in the warehouse across the street and read a book.

Thank you to Garrett for gifting me a mixed case of Brooklyn Brewery's beers.

A New Yorker Sees the Oregon Coast for the First Time

"History never looks like history when you are living through it." ~John W. Gardner

August 11: The day after conference we met up with Brooklyn Brewery's Brewmaster Garrett Oliver at 8:30 am. Garrett had never seen the Oregon Coast, having only got as close to it as Portland. Our plan was for Garrett to follow us all day in his rental car as we lead him on a "Saturday Highlights Tour." From Corvallis, we headed west.

Jon had called the Rogue Brewery in Newport, Oregon, trying to connect with Brewmaster John Maier and his lovely wife Stacey, but they were out of town with their new curly Labrador retriever puppy. Jon did connect with Rogue owner Jack Joyce, who hooked us up with Marketing guy Jim Cline, who was waiting for us when we arrived.

We walked through Rogue's red-painted former silo entrance, and Garrett was immediately shocked to find that customers of all stripes must traipse through part of Rogue's fermentation cellars to arrive at the merchandise room and restaurant. The potentially slippery-floored entry is either a foolhardy liability waiting to manifest, or a brilliant way to hook lifetime consumers of Rogue's beers. Either way it is a total-immersion experience for a neophyte beer-tourist visiting his or her first brewery.

Jim met us in the bar and took us on a tour of the brewery and museum room, which I hadn't seen before. (Photo above, L to R: Jon, Garrett, Teri and Jim.)

Rogue is famous for owner Jack Joyce, who is famous for never having bought new equipment: Ever. Jim report that Jack's a bit teary-eyed lately as the current dearth of used equipment on the market has forced even Jack to bite the ol' bullet and pony up for some brand new fermenters. Brewmaster John Maier can't be too disappointed about that! The good news is that Rogue is poised to bring even more diverse beers of John Maier's fertile beermagination to Rogue's ever-expanding marketplace.

After a nearly full tasting of the myriad of beers on tap and some yummy appetizers, we intrepid three hit the curvy coastal road at half-throttle, heading south. (This is my 8th blog post today as I'm trying to catch up. Can you tell I'm hitting the "purple prose" stretch?)

Thank you to Jim Cline at Rogue who gifted us two 22-oz. bottles of Rogue's special label beer.

From Newport we drove south to Yachats (pronounced YAH-hots), where we pulled into a beach-access parking lot. Instead of visiting the beach, we grabbed small grocery bags and tramped up the highway to a stretch of undeveloped coastal forest. Jon had experience foraging for wild mushrooms here. Garrett is a complete gourmand and is a big fan of wild mushrooms and we thought it would be fun to give Garrett an Oregon mushroom-hunting experience.

We spent about an hour in the woods, but who's checking time when you're enjoying the snap of twigs and crunch of dry leaves underfoot in a small slice Oregon's primeval wilderness. Altogether we came up with about four Lobster mushrooms, and about five early Golden Chanterelles. Then back to the car to continue southward.

Next stop was my favorite beach, which I call the Hobbit Trail Beach. We ambled down the gently sloped trail about a mile, enjoying dappled sunlight on wild rhododendrons and alder trees. We admired sparse patches of the lichen called Old Man's Beard, and walked through the scary Grimm's fairytale part of the forest. Then the trail forced us down some sandy steps. We bent low under heavily-intertwined shrubbery: The part of the trail that gives it the name Hobbit Trail. The sandy trail dug deep into the surrounding soil structure, the dark intertwined shrubs grew sparser until we arrived, blinking, in bright sunshine, and there around a bank of soil and sand was a small wide beach and the sparkling ocean.

We didn't have a lot of time to explore, so we walked left along the water's edge to the headland, then returned along the base of the cliffs. It really is my favorite beach, and I'm so glad to have visited it today as I haven't been able to visit it in about a year.

After an even steeper, creepier, almost cave-like section of the Hobbit Trail uphill, we returned to our cars and drove south about a mile to Heceta Head Lighthouse State Beach. We didn't have time to hike up to the lighthouse for a free tour, but we showed Garrett the exact section on the beach where we'd had our wedding in 2004. Back to the cars with a quick stop at the next big overlook so Garrett could see the scenic north view of Heceta Head Lighthouse and the Lighthouse Keeper's house.

Notice Garrett's jaunty New York blazer in the photo below. Could this well-dressed guy look any less like he's a local? Of course Garrett will no doubt snap a photo of me looking like a complete hick when I visit him at his brewery in Brooklyn in September!

Onward toward Eugene. Just one quick traditional stop at the Gingerbread Village Restaurant east of Mapleton on Hwy 126. The place is decorated in country kitsch, with somebody's collection of cheesy collector's plates lining all the walls from windows up to ceiling. On the way to our table, we passed two pimply teenagers just as the waitress brought their malted shakes. (I am not making this up!)

Garrett looked around as we seated ourselves and said, "Well, I can honestly say I've never been in a place like this before."

I told him, "It's sort of like a family-owned Denny's. The kind of place that has chicken-fried steak on the menu."

Laughing, Garrett pointed out an apron displayed on the wall. Beneath the picture of a gingerbread man was this saying, "He's the perfect man: He's rich, he's sweet, and if he makes you mad you can bite his head off."

The Gingerbread Village Restaurant is no village. It's a stand-alone restaurant in the middle of the woods along a stretch of a small country highway. I drove past it for years before finally stopping in to see what was there. Now it is our traditional stopping point on our way home from a day at the coast.

We each ordered a small gingerbread. It is served warm with a dollop of softserv ice cream on top. It used to cost 95 cents for a small order. Now it is about $1.50. Garrett said, "I could have had a lot more of that!" But it was time to hit the road.

We got back to Eugene without further ado and Jon set about connecting the Teardrop to his car. Garrett and I left for a quick car tour of downtown Eugene with a stop at the Fisherman's market for fresh Dungenes crab. We did a drive-by sighting of Steelhead and Ninkasi Brewing Companies. No time to stop in to chat or for a beer!

Then a lovely dinner with crab, beer, wine, bread, and grilled potatoes. We were able to get us on the road toward a Perseid meteorite shower campout and get Garrett on the road toward his red-eye flight out of Portland by 7:30 pm. Busy day!