The California Winners of the 2012 World Cup

Every two years the best brewers are invited to come together and compete in the worlds most prestigious beer competition known as the World Beer Cup. With 54 countries entering almost a thousand more beers than 2010, this year's competition was bigger and badder than anything that we've seen before, and truly reflected the last two years' craft beer boom.

The Craft Brewers Conference

Next week is the Craft Brewers Conference here in San Diego. With over 2,600 brewing professionals in attendance, CBC12 is the ultimate in professional conferences. There will be lectures, demonstrations and roundtable mentoring sessions to chose from and I have had quite the difficult time trying to figure out which ones were of greater importance to me.

My thoughts on the Farm-To-Table craze

Fearful of the TGIF crowd or trying to make a quick buck? What's the sentiment behind buzz words like "locally owned" and "farm fresh"

Part one on Lite Beer

Part One of my take on the battle between lite beer and beer snobbery

Check out BeerMixology.com

We've been very busy here on the home front at FugglyBrew.com, the latest project being BeerMixology.com! My dear friend the Beer Wench has been busting her rump to organize some of the top beer experts and mixology gurus nation wide to come together and share recipes and mixing tips with all of our awesome readers and beer fans!

Adventures in distilling

A video of my first time trying to distill Two-Buck Chuck!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Drinkwel: Saucy Science

My friend Arianna from Grapesmart and I were at an event a few months ago when she introduced me to Drinkwel. The concept alone tickled my funny bone and I of course wanted to know more. The wonderful people over at DrinkWel provided me with a sample of their goods to test out and I have been testing them out for about a month and a half. I am the type of person that wants to run a car into the ground during my test drive --I want to know if a product can handle my awesomely majestic existence. So I decided to start feeding these multivitamins, for people who drink, to my husband and wait to try them at the last moment to see if I could use them as an emergency contra-hangover. Halloween night was the perfect night to test the power of these beauties against my rock star lifestyle. I went at the bar with reckless abandon (I do NOT condone irresponsible consumption. This experiment was heavily regulated and done in the name of science by a professional.) The instructions were: eat 3 pills before I start drinking with a glass of water and then eat 3 pills after my last drink. I did the first group and then started my scientific research. I researched several kinds of San Diego County craft beers. I experimented with some whiskey sours that were amazing. I tested out my shot glasses with some Jรคger, they held up quite well.  I topped the night off with a couple glasses of sangria and then washed my last 3 down with a white Russian and a cookie. I also passed out 3 pills to each of my over night guests. I slept roughly 7 hours and while at first puzzled at the color of my urine I was pleasantly surprised to be very minimally pained by my previous nights consumption. I went out to the living room to survey the damage and everyone else mentioned the same effect-- hangovers were lower than expected if at all. My husband did not take 3 before and 3 after but he felt no hangover what so ever. In my professional opinion, I would say they work both as a long term and an emergency feed good multivitamin, and would most definitely recommend them to anyone who likes to feel good in the morning.
Apparently Absinthe was also involved in the scientific method

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Adventures in Distilling

I was just up at my parents ranch in Northern California and on my way back down my father and I spent the night at a little house they just bought about three blocks away from Russian River Brewing Company. Since we were there and there's honestly nothing there but a table and a bunch of construction equipment we decided to bring the little Al-Alembic pot still my dad got me for Christmas and test the little bugger out!

Possessed Nun Cocktail

This cocktail is done with a traditional louche but without the sugar.
Take your glass and muddle mint, ice and honey (in this instance I used Lemon Honey made by trappist nuns from Northern California... roll your eyes all you want but it was awesome!).
Pour 1oz absinthe (or as desired) and louche under ice cold water. Stir and serve.

Possessed Monk Cocktail



1/2 oz Absinthe
1 oz Frangelico
1 oz simple syrup
Shake with ice and serve in rocks glass.
Top with cream soda and an anise star for garnish.

The Dead Frenchman Cocktail

1oz absinthe
Squeeze of whole key lime
1/2oz rumplemintz
Several sprigs of mint.

Muddle the mint in your shaker add lime juice, absinthe and rumplemintz

Shake well then strain over crushed ice in a martini glass.
Get a bit of the muddled mint in the mix for presentation
Top with soda or lime soda.
Garnish with lime