2010 Pacific Gravity Summer Party

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Party like a 15 year old!

By Ian Fraser

This year’s summer party will celebrate Pacific Gravity’s 15 years in existence!  To that end we are going old school!  The retro theme is a throwback to our earliest summer parties of old but updated to celebrate our anniversary!

But first the business, the summer party will be held August 14, 2010 at Dean Sussman’s party pad located at 1310 Amalfi Dr. Pacific Palisades CA 90272.  The party starts at 2 PM and continues on into the evening.  Admission is free for you and 1 guest if you are a club member and $15 for each additional guest.  Kids are free.  Dean has a swimming pool and welcomes his guests to use it but all children must be supervised by an adult while in the pool.

This is our largest event of the year and we need your help to pull it off!  As always this event is run by you volunteers and those of you who have helped in years past know how critical that is!  Set up this year will take place on Friday Aug. 13 starting at 6 PM, the after party clean up will take place Sunday morning about 10 AM.  Those of you who have done this before know how much fun we have at the set up, and last year everyone on the Sunday clean up crew wound up taking food home.  We will be sending out additional information regarding what to bring, equipment needs and volunteer information.

The food theme will be a throwback to PG’s early days and feature carne asada.  However I gotta be me and blow it up, so we will have carne asada, pollo asado, and smoked turkey in mole sauce, fresh grilled fish, smoked tongue and even carnitas as our proteins featured in the largest taco bar I have ever attempted.  For you volunteer cooks out there any and all side dishes are welcome!  We will need lots of sides, salads, and desserts to round out our menu.  But given the main dish theme what I would really like to do is encourage everybody to make a salsa or guacamole and we will feature all of them on a table and even try to label yours so that everybody will know who brought what!  I am trying to arrange a judging and we will acknowledge the crowds favorite salsa!  So I herby throw down the challenge, bring your salsa or guacamole and try to beat me out as our very first salsa/guac. winner!

Our drink competition this year features lime, any drink alcohol, non-alcoholic, beer or soda that features lime is eligible for our drink competition, so get your creative juices flowing and create something!  As always we will have a best beer competition as well as the drink competition plus the salsa competition, so there are many ways to win this year.

If you plan on bringing a soda or beer please let us know so that we can have a label made for you by contacting Mike at [email protected], if you plan on bring any food items or a salsa guacamole please contact me at [email protected].  Stay tuned for more information as we get the details ironed out we will be forwarding them to you.

The Stuffed Sandwich road trip Sat 7/24

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Hey everyone! The OC road trip is being rescheduled but instead on Saturday July 24 we will be heading to The Stuffed Sandwich in San Gabriel. For those who are not familiar with The Stuffed Sandwich it is run by 2 fellow beer lovers, Sam and Marlene, who pride themselves on fantastic food and a selection of 100’s of beer from 40 different countries! The bus will leave from the Culver city homebrew supply at 12 pm and will return at 5 pm. The cost will be $15 per person and you are welcome to bring some beer loving friends to join in on the fun. If you are interested please email [email protected] by Sunday July 11th so we can get a head count. For more information on The Stuffed Sandwich check out their website.
http://www.stuffedsandwich.com/

Competition Corner – July 2010

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The summer months are here and if you’ve planned ahead, you have your cool weather ales in the cellar and your lagers in the fridge.  Perhaps you even have a wheat beer or a Belgian style in the fermenter. Well, get them ready, because a couple of competitions are upon us. Read more →

PG Jocky Box Build

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First Friday July 2

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July 1st Friday we once again have the pleasure of being entertained at The Carriage House, AKA the home of Dan and Anne Hakes.

Dan has the best home “tavern” in the club, and welcomes all PG members to partake of his hospitality.

As usual, the event officially begins at 7:00pm, ends when Dan and Anne kick the last one of us out (around 11).

Since this is not a Public House, any and all beer and snack donations will be more than welcome.
Bring homebrew, commercial beer, and anything else you like.

Address: 2379 W. 21st St.
L.A 90051

Directions:
Take the 10 freeway to Arlington Exit.
North to Washington (from the West, make a Left at the exit – about 4 short blocks).
Right 1 long block on Washington to Cimmaron.
Right on Cimmaron to 21st St.

Park anywhere in the neighborhood, and walk to Dan’s.

Michael Steinberg
PG Activities Director

Belated Southern California Homebrew Fest Report

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On the first weekend in May, Pacific Graviteers gathered at their Fortress of Solitude (Lake Casitas’ Owl Creek Campground) for the 2010 Southern California Homebrew Festival.

Our beer heroes (beeros, much more powerful than winos) led as always by Josh “Beer Viking” Jensen, brought along 22 examples of superbrewing, which included a Maibock (Carl), an Imperial Stout (Bob K.), an English Mild (Bakofskys); a Tangerine Wit (Bob H.) and many others (see photo).  Ian “Safetyman” Fraser kept us extra-safely sustained with a fabulous menu: Friday night we feasted on pulled pork, sausage explosion or Portobello mushroom sandwiches served with coleslaw and broccoli slaw (prepared by Mimi “The Smiler” Bardet); Saturday morning we indulged in two kinds of fried rice (meat and a veggie/fish version) and eggs; Saturday evening we over-indulged on two types of steak, two types of salmon, fresh grilled bluefin and yellowtail tuna (courtesy of Bob “Zenbrewer” Kaisaki), roasted garlic potatoes, salad with blue cheese or green goddess dressing, and enough desserts to choke a legion of superbeeros; Sunday morning we breakfasted on bagels with smoked salmon plus leftover salmon and tuna from the night before, scrambled eggs and an array of fruit.

A few memorable moments: The Hill-Lindsays—Linda “The Gadfly,” Audrey “The Listener,” and Carmen “The Wanderer”—fortifying us Friday night with Powerful Spirits and Rum Balls ; Mike “The Talker”  Steinberg reciting from memory the opening prologue to TVs “Superman”; Vic “Rasputin” Macias sharing with us each morning the home-roasted coffee that makes him, as his superbeero name suggests, unkillable; PG co-president Peigi “X-Mormon” Robinson leading us like the Donner party into the brewfest; Dean “Summerpartyman” Sussman pretending (for about ten minutes) that he’d rather lounge about camp than go to the fest; Bob “The Electrician” Henderson once again generously tattooing young women; Carl “The Chemist” Townsend fooling us all for a moment by pretending not to know the exact recipe of something he was tasting; Terry “El Leprechaun Grande” exhausted after a day pouring too many pots of gold, Tim “Soccerboy” Bardet and Bob “Silentman” Partridge actually talking—a lot!, and Neil “the Durnk” Saund communicating with invisible spirits through a language only he and they understand.

If you have yet to attend the homebrew fest, despair not!  Be assured that next year the beeroic Graviteers will once again stumble forward in their never-ending battle for Malt, Hops, and the Homebrewers Way!

June 26 Big Brew and Jockey Box Project

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In addition to the Jockey Box Construction Project, being held at my house on June 26, we will be having a Club Big Brew on the same day.

The Jockey Box portion of the event is being organized by Tom Rierson and Carl Townsend. See Carl’s separate article for details.

This event will be a multi brewer Big Brew, as opposed to a single “Club Brew”. People bring their equipment and brew outdoors on my driveway. There is room for 6-8 brewers, and reservations are a must.

Word has it that many PG  members have expressed interest in learning how to brew all grain beer. In response, there will be one member brewing an all grain batch and giving instructions. It’s always possible that there will be other all grain brewers, in addition to partial mash and extract brewers.

The event begins at 10am, and ends when the last brewer and Jockey Box maker is finished. The time should be around 5 or 6pm. As usual, anyone who wants to show up earlier is welcome do do so, since I’ll be up and brewing by 7am.

FOOD: Will be served. Snacks and lunch will be available. Any attendee bringing food and beer will be given a special commendation, and will be able to drink beer at the event 🙂

BEER: As with any PG event the beer will be supplied by whoever shows up. Bring kegs, bottles, or growlers. Maybe we’ll be able to test some of the Jockey Boxes at the event.

Address: 10754 Barman Ave. Culver City. That’s across the street from Vet’s Park, between Overland and Coombs. Look for the RV in the street.

SIGN UP: Please send an E-mail to me at [email protected]

Hope you can make it.

Michael Steinberg, PG Activities Director

First Friday, June 4-Brewster’s

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It’s 1st Friday again boys and girls!

Join me and the gang at Brewster’s, in the 4 Points by Sheraton LAX, located at 9750 Airport Blvd,

 Los Angeles 90045.

In the past Brewster’s was a regular watering hole for the PG crowd, and we always had a great time on Friday.
The management would like us to return to the newly remodeled bar, one of LA’s preeminent hotel based beer bars.

Brewster’s has 7  taps as well as a great list of American Craft beers,  Belgians, and German brews in bottle.. 
A  light food menu is available., including appetizers, sandwiches, burgers, etc.

As usual, the event begins at 7PM, although no one will complain if you show up early.

See you there.

How do I build a Jockey Box?

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This Month’s Question:  How do I build a Jockey Box?

 

Answer: The simple answer to this is to join us on Jockey Box Day, Saturday, June 26th at Mike Steinberg’s house.   You bring a cooler, and we’ll bring a bunch of supplies, so at the end of the day you can head home with a new portable beer serving system.  Let us know ahead of time how many taps you want, so we can plan accordingly.  We’ll have a sign-up sheet at the May Club meeting on Thursday, May 20thBuild your own on Jockey Box Day June 26th. Read more →

April 2010 PG Meeting Recap

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The Pacific Gravity’s April meeting was another great night. Beer made with extracts was the style, so it was pretty wide open.  There was an IPA from Michael Lambert and one from Ed Lee, Michael Steinburg brought a mild, Kurt, Dave and Noel teamed up on a Vanilla Porter and Dave Lasdon brought an Oatmeal Stout.  Thanks to all for bringing beer to the meeting.

Michael Steinberg set out a spread of snacks.  We had a selection of cheeses and crackers, with popcorn on the side.  Thanks Michael.

The business part of the meeting involved all the upcoming events and contests on the schedule.  The big event is the Southern California Homebrewers Festival, and it will be a not to be missed event.  If you have never been, you don’t know what you’re missing, it’s an epic weekend of homebrew, friends, homebrew, food, homebrew, music and homebrew!

The Style of the Month Commercial Tasting was presented by Nathalie Baldaran.  The style was Smoke, Wood Aged and Specialty beer and we sampled a nice selection.  We started with the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier and then moved on to the Alaskan Smoked Porter.  The Aged Pale Ale by Petrus was next, followed by Deschutes Brewery’s Jubel 2010.  Up next was Schneider Weiss Hopfen Weiss and last but not least was Bootleggers Black Phoenix, a chipotle coffee stout.

After the commercial tasting, we sample more beer, lots of club members were breaking out bottles of homebrew.  This led up to the raffle and we gave out plenty of prizes, including a carboy and a wort chiller.

Then there was a vote for the best  in-style kegged beer of the meeting and the winner was Kurt, Dave and Noel with their Vanilla Porter. Put the $25.00 gift certificate to good use.

See you at the next meeting!