Club bourbon barrel projects

Sometimes, members of the local homebrew club aggregate in the basement of the local homebrew shop to play. In this case, we're fiddling with club brews, where the wort was made as a group in the OSU fermentation sciences department, individual members took wort home to brew, and then brought it to the club for aging in a bourbon barrel.

The empty carboys are being filled with the barley wine that's ready to go. The full carboys have a big porter that's going straight into the empty barrel.

That's a lot of beer.

Crater lake

Way back in October, Mort's parents visited us. During their trip, we headed down to Crater lake with Mort's Dad and another random Kiwi vet who had been staying with us. We hit phenomenally good weather, and the area was gorgeous.

We walked down to the water to eat lunch, while being watched closely by a resident chipmunk and another small mammal, likely a vole.

And no, that's not a long-drop in the above pic... That would be wrong.

Glorious airports

Ahh, airports. It there nothing they won't do for a cheap laugh? We've spent a fair amount of time in various airports over the last few weeks, and there were a few signs that really piqued our curiosity - were these intentional jokes, or bonafide errors?

Auckland airport, multiple locations:

Carrion essentials - where only the best-dressed buzzards, crows and hyenas go to shop. Or perhaps these bags are all extra-lined for tidy transport of carrion?

Fiji, departure lounge:

I'm willing to give anything a try, but Glandfiddich sounds fairly repulsive, even by my standards. I imagine a liver smoothie with a lymph node garnish...

Fiji, departure lounge:

Is chicken wanton a fowl of loose morals?

Fiji, departure lounge:

I have to admit, the chic peas have to be the most stylish legumes around.

Needless to say, when you're exhausted having been on the "road" for way too long - not to mention braving the TSA - these things become way too funny.

A whirlwind trip

We're in Corvallis, catching our breath from a bit of a whirlwind trip around New Zealand. 20 days is not enough time to catch up with all of our friends and family, but we gave it a shot. Thanks so much to everyone for tolerating our hurried visits.

In Northland we caught up with a lot of family, and met some more. The Kiwis had a great time educating the northern hemisphere rellies on the finer points of NZ Christmas etiquette - lunch was outside, as it should be. Snow was a very dirty word.

We managed to get over to Mahia and spend a couple of days performing extensive chair and beer testing activities, catching up with many friends. When we were leaving, the sun came out:

Then we went haring down to Palmerston North (stopping off briefly in Haumoana), slept, then on to Wellington (more friends to see). It was with great pleasure we learned that the NZ craft beer situation has been significantly improving. Even Manfred appreciated Hashigo Zake cult beer bar in Wellington.

The last couple of days were spent in Palmerston North with family and friends. We spent some time with Spyro, and the whole trip finished up with an awesome pot-luck BBQ.