A new piece of beer memorabilia

I just got this piece in the mail today. It is an advert for Peru's Cerveza Cristal.  It will serve as an addition and a counterpoint to the one for Cerveza Pilsen Callao that I have affixed to the side of the house.

Cristal and Pilsen were for many years Peru's two main rival brands. They are, respectively, the best- and second best-selling labels in Peru today, and are still viewed as competing brands, although they are now, in fact, both controlled by the Union de Cervecerias Peruanas Backus y Johnston company.

Chapel Hill, NC: Carolina Brewery

 At the beginning of the month I had the chance to travel to North Carolina and to visit several beer spots in the "Triangle" while there.  The first of these was the Carolina Brewery in downtown Chapel Hill.

I had spotted the brewery on Franklin Street, Chape Hill's main street, on my way out of town, and so headed straight there when I was done that afternoon. I had spent the morning touring an old plantation's historic buildings, and the weather was warm and sunny.  Thus, I was in need of some lunch and a good beer while I waited to meet up with my daughter.

The Carolina Brewery has two locations, this one in Chapel Hill, and a second one in Pittsboro, NC. The Chapel Hill brewpub, which opened in 1995 and currently has about a seventy barrel capacity, is the original and remains the flagship, even though the Pittsboro facility is able to produce a bit more beer.

One nice aspect of the Chapel Hill brewpub is that the kettles and fermenters are right there, in front of the customers, just on the other side of the bar, and not separated by glass as in so many other places.  This means that one can drink a pint while admiring the beautiful Czech-made copper and brass kettles, and  listening to the CO2 bubbling from the fermenters' blow-off tubes.

The beers are good, too. I particularly enjoyed the Baltic Anomaly porter (7.7% ABV), which is brewed with Saaz and Fuggle hops (33 IBU), and the Flagship IPA, made with Chinook and Cascade hops (5.9% ABV, 66 IBU).

When I was there, I was able to taste their Triple S lager straight from the fermenter, as it was being filtered and transferred into the serving tanks in the basement for lagering until its release in May.  Of course it was flat, and a bit warm, but I could tell that it was going to be a danged tasty beer when it was done.

Carolina Brewery and Grill

460 W. Franklin Street

Chapel Hill, NC 27516

carolinabrewery.com

MoreBeer! expansion

MoreBeer! held the "Grand Re-Opening" of its Concord showroom this weekend.  They have expanded the store to perhaps triple its previous size.

The new showroom is ample, airy, and well-lit.  The ailes are wide and one can move about without fear of bumping into anything or anyone.   There is also an expanded and improved grain room, with an enclosed milling area.

To be honest, it was a much-needed move.  The showroom, as it was previously, was nice and friendly, and all, but as their inventory grew it was becoming crowded and outgrowing what would have been a somewhat dark, but cute and cozy little shop when in was opened way back when.

The MoreBeer! crew are clearly loving the expansion, as when I visited Saturday morning -although they were quite busy and rushing about helping customers- they were all-smiles!

MoreBeer!
995 Detroit ave. Unit G
Concord, CA 94518
www.morebeer.com

Tidying up

Yesterday I undertook the long-postponed, and long-overdue, task of cleaning and reorganizing my "brewhouse", or as we call it around here, the beer closet.

The first step, of course, was to empty it out, and clean up the space with anti-septic wipes.

Then, I sorted through the stuff, identifying items that needed to simply be tossed out, and putting those that were to be retained together with similar items.

Two boxes of empty bottles were set aside for storage elsewhere, thus providing a lot more room in the closet.

Another useful addition was the purchase of a small, 16-drawer organizer, that'll keep me from having to dig around in the deep drawer for small parts, such as fermentation locks, rubber bungs, hose clamps, bottle caps, and so on.

It took a while, but it will make things much, much easier.

"Closed for Maintenance"

I have emptied and cleaned all three kegs, and run sanitizer through the lines and taps on the kegerator.  Soon I will install the new Perlick faucets, and the homebrewery will be ready to be put back into action.

Caporales & potos

On my recent trip to Peru I picked up two traditional beer vessels:

First up, a pair of caporales.   These large -aprox. 1 L capacity- glasses are the descendants of Inca keros. I would guess they came into use in the 19th C. and are still often used as the preferred serving vessel for chicha in the Peruvian Andes.   They are, unfortunately, getting harder to find as drinking preferences have moved to beer, and for chicha, the glass is replaced by cheaper plastic tumblers.  Nevertheless, at my request and moved by his own desire for some, Diego kept his eyes open for them, finally locating a bunch for sale in Lima's Mercado Central.  He bought several, and I brought home a matched pair.

Another type of chicha cup, this one use primarily on Peru's north coast, is the poto.   Made from a dried gourd, the poto is somewhat disposable.  They are used until even setting them out to dry in the sun won't fix them up, at which point they are tossed away.

When the song says "...chicha servidita en mi rico poto..."  this is what it's talking about.  

I bought this one in the market in the Lima neighborhood of Surquillo.