Grumpy Beer Geek

Jenny and I took a trip to Yosemite in January. As is usual in winter in central California, it was absolutely beautiful one day and raining / snowing the next.

Our homebrewing club, the Bay Area Brew Crew had a Barleywine brew-off in January. Interesting, but not as much fun as it will be to taste the results in a few months.

We’ve tried to start to explore more of San Francisco. It’s one of those things, you ignore what’s close sometimes. SFMOMA is a beautiful building. There’s always time to go to another museum. Magnolia Pub and Brewery continues to make some of the best beer in the bay area.

Our February trip was to good old Monterey. The Monterey Bay / Santa Cruz is a great place to spend time. And of course the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great place to spend some time.

Our local park in San Mateo has a great park, Central Park with a fabulous Tea Garden.

The new home of the San Francisco Giants, Pacific Bell Park opened in March.

In April, we took a long weekend and went to Cambria, a coastal city about half way between San Francisco and LA. The area is best known as the home to the amazingly exhorbinant Hearst Castle.

I went to the annual Craft Brewer’s Conference in Milwaukee recently. It was, as always a good time, but a lot of work. Real Beer had another successful Stogie and Stout party at the Rock Bottom.

Nae, Darren and Gus Benjamin Gourley visited us in May. We went all around the city. We took a short boat trip on the bay around the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Then we stopped at Fort Point for a look around. Next stop was the Lands End area for a stop ay my favorite area, Cliff House, home to the Camera Obscura and Musee Mecanique.