Today I mostly spent indoors BUT for good reason as I was getting my brew awwwwwwn! 😀
I’m not going to do a write up as it would generally bore the pants off of the handful of readers, essentially it’s my first brew in Oz and first using a Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB) method (which apparently originated in Australia). I’ve done a clone of BrewDog’s Punk IPA so fingers crossed in just under a months time it will be tasty as fook.
Beer Glorious Beer
Received and early phone call this morning lining me up for a Skype interview in just over an hour, the good thing was I could do it from home. Whilst waiting patiently for the call however, my phone went and I was told it was actually for tomorrow. Pffft.
My luck would take another bashing as when I left for a cycle down to Yarraville my rear tyre got a puncture. Not only that after I returned home to repair it and set off again “ppfffsshshshshshshshshsh” it received another. A chunky staple was to blame, this removed and tyre repaired I successfully set off again, third time lucky.
Had a lovely cycle down to the Grain and Grape, a homebrew shop that felt like a beer version of Willy Wonka’s Factory. They even brew their own beer here (for fresh wort kits) and showed me the setup round back, a 500L Braumeister beast (this would cost a pretty penny). Chatted to the guys here, drank some free beer samples, bought my kit and headed back home.
I was well over 30C today and the heat was sapping me like a sack of leeches, arriving back home felt good. I was planning on watching ‘Filth‘ at the Astor down in St. Kilda but I was too zonked and it was too far away. Did manage to move my brew fridge into the kitchen though and set it up with my newly purchased thermostat. Hopefully within the next week I’ll be brewing my first beer in Oz, hallelujah! 😀
I then caught up with Clarkson and Zombies.
Grabbing a tie en-route to the interview I arrived early so walked around the block a bit, ended up destroying my feet in these bloody ghillie brogues, really should be wearing thick kilt socks. Anyway the interview was great BUT when I got home the agency phoned to say I hadn’t got the job. Feedback was that I was over qualified (oh come on!) and that since I was travelling I might be a party animal! FFS. I wasn’t too happy about that but they have set me up for another interview next week which apparently pays more, fingers crossed on that one.
On the plus side I finally got my eBay account unblocked today (you can tell Andy it’s good to go Mum 😉 ) which has been over a month inactive and thanks to some awesome brew club members a free brew fridge arrived. 😀 Because the temperatures can be mental here this is used when fermenting your beer to maintain a constant temperature. I gutted the thing and setup in the garage, all I need now is the tea urn to be replaced and a few more bits and bobs then I’m ready to brew. 🙂
Oh I also need a job… 😉
Today was a delayed celebration of Halloween as, after a late and bing filled lunch, I was off to meet Randy and Suzy to explore a HAAaauunnteed HoouUUussee! 🙂
I met Randy at ‘Wudaoying‘ hutong and the ‘Panda Brew Pub’ was finally open so we shared a pint of their porter which was OK. The pub is tiny, ten people in here would be a squeeze, opened within the week and seems like they are just jumping on the craft beer band wagon. We walked around the hood until Suzy arrived, lots of temples here, Randy tried some green tea ice cream and I resisted the urge to buy a bottle of Punk. “Hold back on the unnecessary spending Dan!” If beer becomes necessary spending that’s bad right?
Looks like I have a gold tooth
Eventually we met up with Suzy, hopped on and off the subway, a short walk and we were at the house(s). I’ll put together what patch, unverified history we have of the place: Appears to have been built in the early 1900’s by/for some French and Swedish railway designers/engineers. There are two buildings, left to rot, boarded up and the style of the era/origin stands out like a sore thumb. The space around the houses seems to be used as a makeshift car park. What makes this place ‘haunted’ is apparently some chick hung herself here, always the way isn’t it?
I didn’t think I was going to be overly impressed, but I was, very much so. These buildings are grand old mansions with high ceilings, huge windows, wooden staircase and some balconies. We checked out every room of the first house (inc. the pitch black basement) with nothing but the glow of our phones for guidance. This place is obviously popular as graffiti was dotted about the walls and four young ghost hunters also appeared armed with torches and a trowel(?). The top floor in the first building was very cool with the wooden roof and joists exposed. Someone had drawn a pentagram on the floor and even more odd was what Randy pointed out, a table laid with engineering materials, some water, bread as if someone was studying here. I liked the ingenuity of the prank.
The second building felt more open and commercial/office-like. We explored most of it but the floors had either lost a layer of wood or had caved through completely. In the basement we found a hole with stairs leading to a tunnel. Ill equipped (not enough balls) we didn’t explore that further, would be cool to see where it goes though. We chatted with the car park attendants when leaving and they told us what they knew of the place (all ready mentioned).
Now it was food and beer time so again on the subway to ‘Ping’Anli’. ‘Snack Street‘ is here so lots of small restaurants, fast food and, well, snack shops are dotted about. We met Henry and his misses Yuki here, grabbed some cheap fast food (pulled beef roll and some cold spicy noodles for me) then entered ‘NBeer Pub’. 😀
Strange Mall
Randy had mentioned this place last week so we had to go. It’s only been open a month and is situated in a new, swish, bare, dead, empty, creepy-sort-of mall and serves loads of craft beers. It has around 20+ taps (‘Slow Boat’ and ‘Great Leap’ in the same place, amongst others), huge fridges with loads of bottles (one fridge dedicated to Brew Dog) and they are attempting their own brews with a small scale setup, open to the bar. Henry and Randy had a flight of beers and I had a pint of Rye (meh) and a DIPA (very nice!).
BEEEEEEEER
I got chatting to the owner and when he realised I was from Aberdeen he couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t believe that he had been there AND visited both Brew Dog breweries and the pub. WTF. No wonder he has such a selection of the stuff. He said we should have a beer sometime and that I’m welcome to use their brewing equipment. Holy fuck. Safe to say I’m getting in touch with this boy, happy days. 😀
After a few jars we headed to the subway (street beers in hand) as it was getting late and I’m skint. My connection to line 10 was closed so I had a short walk home. I think I might visit that pub tomorrow…
ADVENTURE DAN! 