Beer Diary...

A little brewery tour back-tracking here. Because our flight back to the states this year was out of Guadalajara, Mexico. we decided to spend a few days checking out this colossal city and part of that exploration for me was a tour of one of the brewing facilities of the second largest brewery in Mexico, Cerveceria Cuautemoc Moctezuma . The makers of such popular light lagers as Dos Equis, Sol, Indio, Bohemia (my personal favorite), Tecate and many others, Moctezuma takes second place behind Modelo in beer sales and popularity (Moctezuma and Modelo are kind of like the Coors and Budweizer of Mexico). Moctezuma is the result of a old merger between Cuautemoc and Moctezuma, and combined, operate six large scale breweries in several states in the country including Guadalajara, where they primarily pump out Dos Equis (light and dark). I understand that they were recently bought out by Heineken. Traveling by taxi through the run down and heavily graffiti'd urban streets of Guadalajara, ...

A quick note for those interested, I will be brewing at the American Homebrewers Association's Big Brew day on May 1st. at Seabright Brewery with fellow Zymurgeeks from 10am until we're done (6 hours?). Come out and watch the process of brewing on a small scale. There will probably be examples of extract brewing and all-grain brewing going on, not to mention examples of strange behavior after I've hoisted a few. For those in the area that have been wanting to attend my brewing classes at Cabrillo College , here are the dates for the summer brew class scedule: Beer tasting and evaluation - Sunday June 27th 5 week brewing intensive - Sunday July 11th, 18th, 25th, and Aug. 1st, and the 8th. Go to my website for details about the classes at the college or at my home. Remember that I am also available for brewing classes at my home upon request.

Back in California and feeling a little dissoriented from the culture shock and the transition to an unknown future. Holed up for a week in the Rio Sands hotel in Aptos while Susan is in So. Ca. visiting with family. We will be house sitting these next six weeks and searching for a permanent home while we're at it. When we left California last year we gave up on the 'sure thing' house to return to, for various reason and so the challenge of finding a new place in the over crowded and over priced rental market of Santa Cruz county is upon us. Let us pray. In the mean time, I've spent the last week and hundreds of dollars having repairs made to my car. Fixing mechanical failures because of the abuse it suffered exposed to the winter weather for the five months while I was in Mexico. Lesson learned - cover vehicle with a big blue tarp while away for any extended period of time. On the up side, I'm really enjoying all the beers that now seem to be everywhere, enjoying b...

We don't have a lot of time to spend in Guadalajara before returning to Santa Cruz. So before we left San Miguel, I got on line and looked around for breweries and brewpubs to visit in the vast city. Naturally the list was short and highly suspect. I crossed a few off after using Google Earth to discover their address as a heavily grafittied business district or suspicious store front. I did come up with a couple legitimate places, one of those being the Cuautemoc Moctezuma brewery the makers of such classics as Sol, XX, and Bohemia, which I will review later. The other was the Der Krug Brauhaus in Colonial Americana, about a fifteen minute taxi ride from our hotel. I have to admit I had high hopes for this place and was very excited by the prospects of sampling a variety of German beers and at the same time cautiously familiar with the deceptions that occurs around beer in Mexico. For example, there is a place in San Miguel named 'The Limerick' that gives the im pression...