Monday, January 26, 2015

TWISTED TASTING 2015!!!

Well, right after my final post for Twisted Tasting 2015, I jumped right in and started on this project...




The Cremer House was officially opened on December 3!  All of the details, planning, dreaming and hard work are finally in motion.  What a year!  

But Twisted is only a couple of weeks away and we are really excited about it.. so I better get out of my head and let you all know what is coming your way.  

My brewery friends - Adair Paterno (Sante Adairius) and Fran Fitzharris (Brewery 25) figured that by mid January I would need a little break from life - so they booked us a short trip to Palm Springs.  




Being a multi-tasker at heart, I co-opted the trip and asked them if they would drive home with me, collecting beers for Twisted Tasting.  What could be better than a beer/road trip?  Palm Springs was amazing (especially the cocktails by the pool at the Ace Hotel) and just what we needed to get the Twisted dreams flowing... 

We left Palm Springs and headed straight for Los Angeles.  We spent the morning with this guy... 


Henry and Brian from Monkish Brewing gave us a tour and tasting.  Amazing beers with an amazing story.  We loaded up our car with Shaolin's Fist, Semme  de la Vita, Saison de Lilah, Feminist and Sunset --- I don't want to ruin the surprises but think Sichuan Peppercorns, Pistachio/Vanilla, Lotus flowers... getting the picture?

We jumped back in the car and headed North.  We had made contact with Barrelworks and they had cases for us but we had to make it in time.  We mistakenly stopped at the facility in Buellton and popped in the back.  Sometimes mistakes are meant to happen.  It wasn't the correct facility for acquiring beer, but we did run into these guys...



Jeffers and Jim showed us around and gave us a tasting.  Adair and Jeffers talked foudres and wild yeast, fruit and pitch counts until we realized that we had to hurry to pick up our beer in Paso before the other facility closed.  Without speeding too much (and even with stopping for Chile Verde tacos in Santa Maria) we made it in the nick of time... and loaded up with Lil Opal and Agrestic. 

All of our stopping and tasting and talking really put us behind to meet this guy... 


But thankfully he waited for us!  The brilliant mastermind behind Libertine showed us around the very twisted brewery in Morro Bay.  Imagine three levels of a defunct old embarcadero restaurant, packed to the gils with brewing equipment, barrels and every imaginable solution for making it work.  Brewing with hot lava rocks instead of boiling wort, moving barrels to various levels of the building without a fork lift, bottling in the middle of a restaurant, and barrel full of every imaginable creative concoction you can imagine.  Grapes stomped by his daughter's toes, wild yeast, a dank basement full of barrels, fermented pomegranate juice, it was impressive.  Tyler showed us a great time and set us up with Framboise and Coffeeteine for Twisted. Twisted Tasting 2015 might just be the first time anyone in Santa Cruz has ever tasted Libertine beers... 

After the long day of driving and the success of acquiring Twisted beers while meeting some amazing people, we were beat!  


There are so many things to tell you still... more trips ahead, more beer teasers and more details about the new space... stay tuned!  

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