Sacramento Brewers Bring Home the Gold

I spent the last week in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival sampling waaaaaaaaay too much beer, but have returned with my liver swollen and my palate enlightened.

Hats off to Rubicon Brewing and Sacramento Brewing for collecting more awards for their already bulging trophy cases. Rubicon Brewing pulled a major upset by winning gold in the Belgian-Style Sour Ale category, beating out an incredible field from some of the highest regarded brewers in the US. Unfortunately for local beer enthusiasts, their High Mountain Cherry Ale is not one of their regular creations, and I’m not sure if it will be available locally for tasting. But, believe me, it is goooooooooooooood.

Sacramento Brewing took a bronze medal in the Foreign (Export) Style Stout category for their Russian Imperial Stout. In total, California won 43 medals and two brewery of the year awards.

Edit: Rubicon’s plan is to bottle the High Mountain in champagne bottles for public sale at some point in the future. You can bet that I will be first in line to bring home one of these fantastic beers.

Das Haus

As I run, bike, and drive around the greater 95864-95825-95821 ‘hoods, I see countless houses that have no resemblance at all to the original neighborhood homes. While a number of remodels have been completed beautifully that complement the vibe of the neighborhood, there are some which I’m sure make the collective neighbors’ skin crawl.

I’m talking mostly about “architectural fusion” elements that combine too many features that flagrantly do not go together.  Construction on some of these homes has been shoddy — I honestly saw a drooping balcony on one house in Arden Oaks.

Now I’m not saying every neighborhood should dictate exactly how a homeowner remodels his or her house, or telling people what color they can and can’t paint their house, but there seems to be a lack of common sense, eye for design, and courtesy to others who have to live next door to some of these abodes.

Please feel free to be specific about what you’ve seen recently — anyone in the Arden Park neighborhood can probably share their sentiments about one particular recent remodel.

Album Review: Be Brave Bold Robot

Be Brave Bold Robot understands you and your twentythirtysomthing heartaches, your existential angst, your weekend drunks and all that whatnot. Shelling out a few bucks for their self-titled album, you’ll see how much as they throw their hearts down on the bare wooden bar top to point out all its scars. The problem is that they really don’t make me care. Instead they throw about songs that vary from maudlin and melodramatic to so saccharine that it’ll make your teeth hurt.

Within the album we have “Gamma Rays” in which lies the revelation of eating pancakes with Grandma, “Shun-shine” a tiny footnote of a song that illustrates how much songwriter Dean Haakenson can drag out a simile and then slap you in the face with it, and “Secrets,” Haakenson’s four and a half minute spoken word track carries the prize for the most odious of lines, with meaningless quotes like “he had the practiced stubble of a civil engineer” and the irritating paradox “silent din of the darkness.” The last is as unnecessary as it is irritating because it’s a prologue, set to explain the premise of “The $1000 Grape Drive-By.”

But BBBR can play and “Those Things” boasts a plunky banjo climax sweeping you into the story of a night out to meet girls. If Haakenson reins it in a little bit, their second album will probably be worth the money you didn’t pay for the first.

Watcha Doin’ This Weekend?

We're gonna party like it's 1949For the love of all that is holy!  There are so many things going on this weekend.  Where to start?  There’s the Lincoln Rib Festival, the American River Salmon Festival, the Armenian Food Festival, the Spookomotive, the Auburn Wine Festival, The Northern California Experimental Music Festival, the usual Second Saturday shenanigans, the Sacramento International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and about 13,000 other things.  But what will we be doing this weekend?

FRIDAY & SATURDAY– Sacramento Comedy Fest: Featuring sketch, improv and stand-up from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.  Shows start at 8pm, $10.  All shows after 10pm, FREE.  1716 Broadway.  I’ll be there, you should too. Continue reading “Watcha Doin’ This Weekend?”

No, this doesn’t bode well…

Yeah I know that headline won’t make any sense after a few days from now. But News10 brings us the news that the rate of sexually transmitted diseases is out of control in Sac county.

Researchers estimated that 40 percent of Sacramento’s teens and young adults have an STD such as chlamydia, HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, genital herpes, hepatitis B and HPV.

If you’ll permit me to switch to French for a moment…holy shit!! 40 percent??

p.s. Typo on Glenna Trochet.

Hello Heyamoto

If you’ve missed the Herb Caen-like musings of “Aloha Bob” Graswich in the Bee, you can now rejoice.  The folks over at 21st and Q have given the job over to Lisa Heyamoto, Sacramento’s most laid-back columnist.   Heyamoto has casually catalogued the eccentricities of the city for a week now, and seems to already have the feel for the ironic, charming, and trivial content necessary for a successful three-dot column.  When you think about it, the three-dotter is really the true precursor to the blog.  Sure, some people say that the diary format truly fathered the modern blog, but unless you’re Samuel Pepys, odds are you didn’t intend your daily musings to be public content.  The three-dot column is just a blog…on paper.

I, for one, am happy that Heyamoto got the job.  She’s been on my “someone-to-root-for” list ever since she wrote an odd piece last year about “Google doppelgangers” for which she was lambasted by Bee online commenters.  They poo-poo’d the piece’s triviality and newsworthiness, going on to personally insult Heyamoto in a most unprofessional manner.  I sometimes wonder what types of pieces these people want to see in the “Scene” section–severed heads, Afghan poppy fields, racial injustice–lighten the eff up here people, it’s the “Scene” section for chrissakes.  After that, Heyamoto went on an extended bender, but, in her defense, that was her job as the Bee’s “Nightlife” writer.

Anyway, bully to the Bee for giving Heyamoto the job.  I wish her luck as the region’s most prominent non-online blogger and hope that she doesn’t need to hit the “Nightlife” beat too hard anymore. 

Sacramento’s Urban Winery

I was pleased to find a winery two blocks from my house, and hope that I continue to find new wineries throughout Midtown, but that seems unlikely. Too bad, as I can imagine an urban wine country running through Downtown and Midtown, up to the North Sacramento Wineries in Del Paso Heights. Call them microwineries. Sacramento can become California’s Urban Microwinery Country. Say it aloud, and feel it just roll off the tongue!

But, enough of my dreams. Revolution Wines is tucked behind a hair salon on P and 21st. You may have already enjoyed the 2004 vintages that were poured at various Sacramento area charity events during the past year. With a tasting room that opened in July, Revolution is pouring three of Winemaker Jason Fernandez’s 2005 vintages: The Pinot Grigio, that is grown in Clarksburg, an Amador Zinfandel, and Renzo, a red blend. All three are excellent, and I look forward to the December release of a Clarksburg Syrah. Four more vintages will be introduced over the next year.

Revolution Wines
2114 P Street
Thursday 4 PM – 7 PM
Friday & Saturday 11 AM – 9 PM
Sunday 11 AM – 5 PM

Oktoberfest!

This weekend, we’ve got two local Oktoberfest celebrations for your pleasure.

Turn Verein’s Oktoberfest is a long standing Sacramento tradition, with the dancing, the oom-pah-pah, food, beer and wine. If you have never attended, you are definitely missing out.

Brew It Up is also hosting a strong Oktoberfest for a second year, with fifteen hand crafted German-style beers, food, dancing under a Munich-style tent and more of the oom-pah-pah. Reservations are recommended for dining. If you want to try the beers, they are on tap right now. O’zapft is!

Prost!