Roots of Running Routes

Moving to a new place is more than simply unpacking boxes and filling out change of address forms. It's also about exploring the new place, and that means finding new running routes. Sometimes when plotting a new route, I simply go out a general direction in hopes of creating one. This can lead to getting hopelessly lost or running around in circles, but eventually leads to a new place to run. It's often trial and error process, guided by experience, and a lot like learning, where frustration and confusion coupled with persistence eventually yields to discovery. Finding new places to run helps me put down new roots, which strengthen I periodically visit these spaces again and again.

Setting up running routes in Belmont is made a lot easier by the great set of running trails they have in the open space areas around Water Dog Lake Park. It's something I've taken for granted living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where secluded trails are often just minutes away from highly urban areas. Having lived many placed both outside and within Bay Area, I can see myself putting down some good roots here in Belmont for a while.

Movin' up the Peninsula to Belmont

A number of big changes have happened over the past few weeks, and one of them is that I've moved up the San Francisco Peninsula to Belmont, CA, about 30 miles north of my old San Jose home. Since my kids live a majority of the time with their mom in nearby San Mateo, I realized I was missing too much of their lives down in San Jose. You can always go back and run races you've missed, or try beers you haven't gotten around to drinking, but there is a short of window of time you can be there for your kids as they grow up, and then it's gone for good.

With all these big changes, I haven't gotten a lot of running in lately. But rest assured, I have maintained my usual beer intake. And yes, posts here have come fewer and further between lately, but that will be temporary. Next month, Linda and I will be taking the kids on a Southern California road trip, where we'll take the kids to some fun spots in Southern California, as well as some of the excellent brewpubs on the way. I think these will be some fun postings, and I've always said craft beer drinking and family peacefully mix and will take the chance to show it, rather than just talk about it. And this coming August, I'm hosting the Beer Blogging Session. The topic is "A Special Place, A Special Beer" and I'll be asking participants to explore the geographical connection to beer and places by writing about a special place in their lives and how the beer connects them to that place.

Anyway, I'll start getting back into shape, and hope you'll stay tuned to the "new" Bay Area Beer Runner.

The Session #39 Collaborations: To Brew Good Beer Requires Some Heat

For this month's Session, Mario Rubio of Hop Press asks us to write about beer collaborations.

High school and college sports teach a lot about collaborations at an early age, where success or failure has few consequences compared to things like family or careers experienced later in life. In my senior year of high school, my cross-country team bickered and argued constantly. Virtually every team decision you can think of divided the team into angry factions. At the end of the season, when it was time to shut up and run the big races, we ran out of our heads and qualified for the high school state championships, despite not being one of the favorites to advance. And a week and several clashes later, we finished significantly higher at the state championships than we were ranked. Twenty-five years later, being part of this bickering, overachieving team remains one of my most successful collaborations.

Four years later as a senior in college, our cross-country team was so chummy and got along so well no matter what, you'd think we were the College Glee Club instead of a bunch of fired up runners. And when it came time to qualify for the national championships, we ran such a flat and uninspired performance that the Glee Club probably would have beaten us.

Passionate, strong willed people with distinctive talents create tension whenever they join forces. Shaped by my cross-country experiences, when I notice a distinct lack of tension in a group working together for a common goal, I start to get a little suspicious. Of course, conflict can lead to bad things, so how this tension is dealt with and resolved is often key to the success of any collaboration.

And so when I started homebrewing with Eric, a long time friend of mine, I wasn't that concerned when I found we had rather different approaches of how to brew beer. Eric takes very meticulous notes and is very traditional in his methods and preferences, where I tend to rely more on intuition and experimentation. Eric is the far more experienced homebrewer, and his beers having won awards, but it had been eight years since he brewed his last beer, and he was looking to get back into homebrewing. Having made only four batches myself, I was a little intimidated working with someone with far more experience.

Coming up with a recipe with Eric involved a few awkward moments. I was in the mood to make a light, clear, aromatic Amber Ale with honey. My first homebrew was an Amber Ale, and I enjoyed how the Galena and Wilamette hops produced an aromatic quality to the beer. I figured adding honey to that would add a fresh, clear character on top of that, while adding additional complimentary aromatics. A rich, organic buckwheat honey at a local farmer's market I found seemed ideal. Eric was very cautious to the idea of adding honey, concerned that wild yeasts and commercial additives found in honey could ruin the beer.

Eric researched brewing with honey, and found several good sources recommending heating the honey for 2 hours at 170 degrees Fahrenheit to kill off all the wild yeasts. I was concerned that this prolonged heating would drive off too many of the aromatics I was hoping to inject into the beer, and showed Eric the book Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, which claims heating the honey for 20-30 minutes at 170 degrees Fahrenheit is enough to kill off all the wild yeast. We comprised by heating the pound of buckwheat honey for at one hour at 170 F and added it to the carboy four days after the initial pitching of the yeast, after the initial fermentation had largely died down.

Eric also suggested we go little different direction than an light amber ale. I was planning to use only a pound of crystal malt in the brew, but Eric wanted a more layered malt character to the beer, suggesting we add 6 ounces of biscuit and carapils malts, and a single ounce of chocolate malt in addition to the crystal malt into the recipe. Biscuit malt sounded pretty good to me, and biscuits and honey is a great combination, so I suggested we go for a pound of it in our five gallon batch rather than the 6 ounces he originally suggested, which he enthusiastically agreed to.

The final recipe was not what either of us had in mind at the start, and was largely a product of a compromises. And since a bunch of compromises often satisfies no one, we could have easily ended up creating a muddled, directionless tasting beer. But we think we've knocked this one out of the park! It's still bottle conditioning so we haven't tasted the final result, but sampling the beer as it went in bottles, the layering of malt components gives it a nice malty complexity and we can taste the buckwheat honey giving it a nice background note. There's a smooth, yet strong hop bitterness that is perhaps too assertive, but it should continue to mellow a bit over time. The ale has a lively, complex yet drinkable character that should carry through after the bottle conditioning is complete.

But the quality of the beer is really secondary. From our collaboration, Eric found a way to return to homebrewing, and gave me a top flight homebrew education in the process. Two friends who kept telling each other they should see each other more often finally did that.

Once Eric and I racked and bottled our share of our efforts, we split a bottle of Sierra Nevada and Anchor Brewing collaborative Imperial Stout . I couldn't help wondering what happened as this beer was created. It's hard to image Ken Grossman and Fritz Maytag arguing in front of the brew kettle, but it's a little hard to believe two passionate, independent, and strong willed individuals didn't have a few differences to work out when they brewed this. It's a great, creamy complex Imperial Stout with a strong bitter chocolate character with a little smokey and nutty undertones. Was this a result of Grossman's and Maytag's combined brewing vision, or simply a product of compromises?

At that point, Eric and I really didn't care about that. We just enjoyed their final result.

The Great Race, and Recovering from It

Perhaps the best gauge of success of The Great Race is that nobody notices how highly immodest its name is. The race organization is great, the race has a long, great history, and everyone is so chatty at the start and finish line you know everyone is having a great time. And if you like running through old money neighborhoods, this race is for you, as it starts in downtown Saratogo, runs through Monte Sereno, before finishing in downtown Los Gatos.

But the greatest thing about The Great Race course is that it's only four miles, and most of that is down hill.

Of course, running is a lot about taking on challenges, putting in the hard work day by day, building up for race day you've circled on the calender for weeks. But fighting through the valley of death doesn't work for me most mornings, and you gotta love a race where you can show up, run around for a bit, finish, and then get on with the rest of your life without limping around for the next day or two.

So it seemed fitting that Linda and I spent part of our "recovery" at the curiously named Sonoma Chicken Coop in nearby Campbell, CA. Most craft beer drinkers will not be challenged by their beer, but many will find it enjoyable. Since I favor the maltier styles, I went for the Scottish Ale, while Linda, true to her hop-head nature, started out with their IPA. ( The Sonoma Chicken Coop evidently has no interest in giving their beers the typical clever or goofy names you find at most brewpubs.) The Scottish Ale was a solid example of the style, being a little smokey, a little caramelly, with a decent amount of complexity to the malt and a nice, easy sipping character. It won't blow you away, but went quite well with my barbecue chicken pizza, thank you very much. And their IPA was a nice blast of straightforward, piney hops with just a smidgen of malt to hold it back, which worked for us. And perhaps my favorite Sonoma Chicken Coop brew is their ESB, a simple combination of nutty and well roasted malts with a slight earthy hop finish.

Nothing I've had at the Sonoma Chicken Coop ever challenged me, or changed my perception of beer, but was all something easily enjoyed. Sometimes, that's a great thing.

Goose Island's Matilda: A Little Bit of Chicago Heads West

I spent my high school years in the Chicago area, and returned many times since. I miss everything about the city, except the weather. For many, the city of Chicago is largely known for its colorful mafia history, bare knuckle politics, and those big guys on Saturday Night Live clinking their beer mugs in fanatical devotion to Da' Bears over a deep dish pizza. And yes, these things are definitely a part of Chicago's culture. But Chicago also has broad performing arts tradition spanning the spectrum from the world renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra to countless jazz, blues and gospel greats. The University of Chicago is affiliated with no fewer than 85 Nobel Laureates, and many examples of ground breaking architecture is found all over the city. This is a side of Chicago many people outside the city do not appreciate.

This more sophisticated side of Chicago is what Goose Island's Matilda Belgian Ale seems to be speaking to. The brew has a nice aromatic, cinnamon and clove spiciness to it, with some nice banana-like fruity esters becoming more apparent as it warms. And despite all these flavors going on, it's crisp and uncluttered. Goose Island's is now distributing this beer starting in April to the West Coast, and tells us that brewmaster Greg Hall "developed Matilda for seasoned craft beer and wine drinkers to enjoy at the dining table or for casual socializing at the bar".

At 7% abv, it's not quite a session beer, but it definitely stands up on it's own. I can also see this pairing with a lot of foods, mostly lighter foods like salads, cheese, fish or poultry. It might even go well with a deep dish pizza while cheering on the Bears.

(Goose Island provided a sample Matilda for this reveiw.)

Pliny the Elder Comes to the South Bay

I suppose if you wanted to make a case that the South Bay is a beer wasteland, Exhibit A would be that arguably, the best South Bay Beer Bar is called Wine Affairs. But Wine Affairs is the first bar to find a way to bring the Russian River's rare and highly coveted Pliny the Elder on tap to the South Bay. And trust me, it took a lot of tenacity and effort by Wine Affairs to make this happen.

So the first night they had Pliny on tap, I rewarded Wine Affairs's investment of their hard earned money by spending some of my hard earned money by ordering a couple. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. And the good news is that the Pliny was pouring fast and furious the first night. Maybe the South Bay isn't such a craft beer wasteland after all.

A Blustery Day in Santa Cruz

The Santa Cruz Half-Marathon must be a picturesque course on good days. It starts by the Beach Boardwalk, heads out along the Pacific Coastline, traversing along roads and trails on high cliffs above the ocean. But these great vantage points also leave you exposed when a storm rolls in from the ocean. So when a late spring storm crept across the Santa Cruz coastline the same morning as the race, gusty winds and rain was thrown into the half-marathon mix.

It's one of the things I love about running. The very complexion of the course changes dramatically by uncontrollable whims of weather. You have to be prepared on race day for whatever is thrown at you, and you never quite know what will happen. While I don't like running in the wind and rain, there's a heightened sense of accomplishment at the end when you've overcome these additional barriers. When you think about it, life's personal and professional struggles are rarely carried out in pristine, clinical conditions. Many times, the things we deal with come are messy, complicated, and sometimes down right chaotic. Running isn't any different.

And so after Linda and I finished the race with two T-shirts, two finisher's medals, and a nice, plump and purple blood blister on my right index toe to show for it, we headed over to Seabright Brewing for some post-race recovery. It's located in a blocky, two-story, white retail building a short drive from the Beach Boardwalk. Plenty of other finishers had the same idea, and the place was pretty full of people in a celebratory mood, but at the same time too tired to get very boisterous. Linda and I were not eager to go back outside in the rain, or even get up once we sat down, so took our time checking out what Seabright had to offer.

Stouts are one of my favorite styles, so decided to start off with their Oatmeal Stout, while Linda, ever the hop-head, went for their Blur IPA. As stouts go, the Oatmeal Stout was rather smooth and light for the style, with a light milk chocolately-ness to the roasted malt. A stout is not the sort of beer one would usually call refreshing, but after a day at the beach, this might be something I'd reach for. Their Blur IPA was the classic West Coast IPA, with a whisper of light malt and lots of citrussy, grapefruity hop flavor, and give them credit for easing off the hop throttle a bit and delivering something flavorful, not assaulting.

The Salmon Fish and Chips I ordered was a nice Asian riff on the classic pub dish, complete with a couple spicy dipping sauces, and enjoyed a Loose Lucy Scotch Ale with it. If memory serves me right, no less than nine malts were used in this one, which gave it really easy sipping, bourbon and toffee character to it. Good that one of those malts was a peat malt, which added a nice little woodsy note to the whole thing. Linda had an enormous tuna melt with Uncommon Brewer's Serendipity Sour Ale, which has a great sour, lemony tang to go with a tingly carbonation. Come to think of it, a tuna melt with Belgian Sour Ale, or salmon and Scotch Ale are hardly ideal beer and food pairings, but when you're just tired and want to get out of the rain, good beer with anything is perfect.