#⋮ ❛ sierra & jameson › featuring.

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                                   SHE DOESN’T know why she said anything to him, if she’s being honest. perhaps the alcohol has loosened the princess’ tongue. “it doesn’t matter what i want,” she said finally. “we... we’re not good for each other, were we?”

[lies]

valentinaonthemoon replied to your photo “Sometimes when I’m birdwatching”

This is beautiful!!

anonsally replied to your photo “Sometimes when I’m birdwatching”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy cow, lies, this is an AMAZING photo. So gorgeous. What a view!!!

It really was incredible. I’ve put some more detail after a cut, if anyone is interested.

Even though we lived in Mammoth Lakes for several years in the 90s, I’d never visited this particular spot before. But on our visit this time I chased the Grace’s Warbler that local ebirders had reported on Bald Mountain Road, and when I went there on Monday evening after work I not only got to see the warbler (yay!), I also realized what a neat area it was. So I took today off and set my alarm for 4 a.m. to go explore.

I’d wondered on Monday where the road the Grace’s Warbler was on led to. The maps showed an area labeled “Indiana Summit Research Natural Area”; some googling led me to the web page of the US Forest Service’s Research Natural Areas program.

The Research Natural Area (RNA) program is a nationwide system created to protect a network of federally administered public lands for the primary purposes of maintaining biological diversity, providing baseline ecological information, and encouraging research and university natural-history education. Areas selected exemplify minimally disturbed ecosystems representative of the range of widespread and unique natural vegetation types on federal lands.

The Indiana Summit RNA, it turns out, is the oldest RNA in California, having been established in 1932. The Eastern Sierra Jeffrey Pine forest is one of my favorite natural environments, and the Indiana Summit RNA preserves “a rare pristine example” of that forest. Most of the Eastern Sierra has been logged extensively over the years; mature Jeffrey Pines are scattered here and there, but in a lot of places you’re basically in a tree farm where all the trees are similarly aged “teenagers”.

But for whatever reason the land in the area just east of Indiana Summit (a low hill west of Bald Mountain) had never been logged, and after the RNA was established in 1932 no logging was allowed. You can actually see the boundary of the RNA in the Google Earth imagery below; the RNA is the area that’s darker, reflecting the presence of so many mature Jeffrey Pines:

The view here is looking north, with the eastern edge of Mono Lake in the background. I drove in via Bald Mountain Road, a well-graded dirt road that leads in from US 395. There are no roads in the RNA; I parked at the end of a dirt road near the southwest corner. The sun was just coming up, and the view was amazing.

If you look closely you can see in that Google Earth image how the southwest edge of the RNA ends at a steep cliff; I was standing on the edge of that cliff when I took the photo Sally commented on; here’s another shot from there:

The sun was just hitting the Eastern Sierra in the distance, though it hadn’t yet risen where I was.

I walked into the RNA and counted birds from four different locations: the southwest corner, a point along the western boundary, the northwest corner, and the middle of the northern boundary.

When I walked in from the north, crossing that ruler-straight boundary line you can see in the Google Earth image, it was breathtaking to suddenly be surrounded by so many mature Jeffrey Pines:

The Indiana Summit RNA burned in August 2016, after a lightning strike ignited the Clark Fire. In some areas along the western edge where I explored earlier in the day most of the trees had been killed, but in the interior of the RNA it was mostly the understory and the bottoms of the trunks that had burned, while the upper parts of the mature trees appeared to be okay:

As I saw when I birded the area around Jameson Lake for the Carpinteria Christmas Count after the Thomas Fire, woodpeckers were abundant in the burn area. My woodpecker total for the morning was:

1 Lewis’s Woodpecker

1 Williamson’s Sapsucker

18 Hairy Woodpecker

3 White-headed Woodpecker

4 Black-backed Woodpecker

4 Northern Flicker

I may have counted a few birds more than once as they moved around, but even so, there were a lot of woodpeckers. :-)

Besides the mature Jeffrey Pine forest, another feature the Indiana Summit RNA seeks to preserve is the archaeological record:

The Paiute Indians harvested larvae of piagi (Pandora moth [Coloradia pandora]), which cyclically attack Jeffrey pine, by digging trenches encircling the trunks of mature trees. These piagi trenches may still be seen surrounding some of the larger Jeffrey pines, although their evidence has been largely obliterated by logging and other disturbance in adjacent areas.

I found a number of those trenches in the RNA; here are two of them:

I’d told Linda I’d be back by noon; I ended up being only 20 minutes late, which is pretty good for me when I’m birdwatching. I’d like to go back again, though. I want to check out the eastern side of the RNA, where there are some more mesic White Fir stands on the north slope of Bald Mountain.

Next time! :-)

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Sept at Kiwi’s Pub & Grill

Beer of the Month: Sierra Nevada’s Oktoberfest $4 pint

Liquor of the Month : Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey $4 - 2 ounce pour!

FREE POOL weekdays from open until 6pm - Monday through Friday

Mondays:

$3.50 Import Pint: Stella, Guinness or XX Ambar

$5 Tito’s vodka or $6 Hendrick’s gin 2oz pour

$6 “Burger & Beer” special 7pm - 10pm

Tuesdays:

$3 Import Bottles

$5 Jameson Irish whiskey or $4 Captain Morgan rum 2oz pour

AYCE Boneless Wings $12 per person from 6pm - 12am (not available “to go”)

***ORLANDO HOLD'EM 8pm every Tuesday*** $100 cash prize weekly - no Jackpot nights for the summer

Wednesdays:

$1 off all Craft Beers: can, draft & bottles

$5 Crown Vanilla & Crown Apple 2oz pour

LIVE TRIVIA 8pm! FREE to play. Three rounds, 1st, 2nd & 3rd place winners each round win Kiwi’s Gift Cards!

MEAT DAY every Weds! See calendar for featured item of the day - while supplies last.

Thursdays:

Last Thurs of the month Stand-Up Comedy night! The show starts at 8:30pm – minimum of 2 nationally touring comedians will perform, hosted by the 104.1 Real Laughs crew. Doors at 6pm for dinner & drinks beforehand. SEPTEMBER ONLY: “Silly Goose Night” with Brian from Goose Island Beer Co.

$2 BEEF TACOS 4-7pm

$2 Domestic Pint

$4 Three-Olives vodka flavors 2oz pour

Jackpot Trivia game on the Buzztime tablets available anytime!

Fridays:

Phirst Phriday every month is the Parrothead Club Phlocking with LIVE MUSIC in Silver Fern Lounge 7-10pm

Last Friday of the month is “Free Yourself Fridays” with LIVE MUSIC 7-10pm featuring WAS, a local 2-man band

$14 Import Buckets

$5 Jack Fire & Jack Honey 2oz pour

Saturdays:

$7.50 Domestic Pitcher

$5.50 Ketel One botanical vodkas 2oz pour

$3 Mimosas available from open to close

Sundays:

Soft Tip Blind Draw Dart Tournament to run every Sunday at 6pm, sign up starts at 5pm. $5 entry, house matches pot with 10 or more players. 20-30 players adds an extra $50 to the pot & 30+ means we will have a $500 pot!

$12 Domestic Bucket

$6.50 Domestic Pitcher

$5  Avion tequila or $6 Absolut Elyx vodka 2oz pour

$12 Buckets of boneless wings (available “to go!”)

$3 MIMOSAS ALL DAY LONG!

Nightly Hospitality Happy Hour starts at 11pm and goes to closing time. FREE pool starts at midnight Sun-Thurs.

[miamibeerscene]

Brewers Find Bold Beer Flavors in Barrels Beyond Bourbon

January 18, 2017

The number of craft breweries with some level of barrel aging program has risen dramatically over the past decade, with most gravitating toward used whiskey casks, particularly bourbon, to add new oaky, vanilla and boozy flavor elements to select batches. But whiskey certainly is far from being the only game in town, especially as brewers experiment with oak containers that previously held everything from brandy to Italian-style amari.

Placentia, California’s, The Bruery has been among the leading innovators in that space. In addition to bourbon, Scotch and rye whiskey barrels, the company has used rum, brandy and tequila barrels, as well as casks that were once home to fortified wines like port and Madeira.

(MORE: Coolship Fever in American Craft Brewing)

A few years back, The Bruery released Sucré, its sixth-anniversary ale, in various barrel-aged iterations, including rum and Madeira. The now-retired 16.9 percent ABV English-style Old Ale was blended using the solera method, a traditional practice in blending sherry where fractions of liquid from younger barrels are merged with small portions from older ones.

Strong, bold brews like Sucré — French for “sugar,” as “sugar” is the traditional sixth-anniversary gift — are the ones that hold up best in rum barrels.

The Bruery founder Patrick Rue experiments with aging beer in barrels like rum and Madeira. (Credit: The Bruery)

“You get some of the richness from a dark aged rum, some of that sugar cane flavor,” says The Bruery founder Patrick Rue. “Sometimes it can come off a little like airplane modeling glue, it can be super hot — it’s really dependent on the distillery. I’ve had some rum barrel beers that were really nice and some that were not really nice. A really assertive beer generates the best results.”

Rum barrels also worked quite well with The Bruery’s 19.7 percent ABV Black Tuesday imperial stout. Madeira casks were also a good match for those hefty beers, imparting a bit of a burnt raisin flavor, an unusual note for a barrel to deliver.

Port barrels, meanwhile, add hints of dried plum and other dark fruits. One year in the wood tends to be the standard for The Bruery, though its Chronology series features beer that’s been racked at six, 18 and 24 months, in addition to 12 months. “Some are best at six months, some at 12 months and some at 24 months.”

(MORE: Mind-Blowing Beers Made with Barrel-Aged Coffee Beans)

Even more out of left field was Fort Collins, Colorado, based Odell Brewing Co.’s Fernet Aged Porter, a limited release that spent some time in wood that once held Leopold Bros. Distillery’s riff on the dark, opaque herbal Italian amaro. Known for its minty, licorice-like flavor profile (in addition to hints of other botanicals like lavender, honeysuckle and ginger root), fernet brought a kind of Good ‘n’ Plenty-crossed-with-Andes-Candies dimension to the 9.8 percent ABV roasty, chocolaty porter.

While fernet, Madeira, port and rum all typically spend varying lengths of time in wood, one doesn’t traditionally think “oak-aged” when talking about gin. Most gin is unaged, but an increasing number of barrel-matured gins are on the market, combining the woody elements with the juniper-forward spirit’s mix of botanicals — which, in turn, leave their imprint on the oak. And, once those barrels are empty, many brewers have been quick to get their hands on them.

Green Flash barrelmaster Pat Korn found gin paired well with their Belgian-style tripel. (Credit: Green Flash)

San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing was among them, using those erstwhile gin vessels to flavor Divine Enebro, the third in its limited-edition Cellar 3 Barrelmaster’s Reserve series. Green Flash found that the fruity esters and gum drop flavors of its Belgian-style tripel would pair well with the gin botanicals.

Barrelmaster Pat Korn found further inspiration in fellow San Diegan Old Harbor Distilling Co.’s San Miguel Southwestern Gin, which marries Southwestern flavors like cilantro and cucumber with the more traditional botanicals.

“I wanted to incorporate those flavors into the beer,” Korn says. “To do this, we added cucumber, juniper berries and coriander in a large hop sack, racked the beer onto this and kegged it off when we felt the botanicals had reached their peak in integration and flavor.”

Distillers Get a Flavor Boost from Beer Barrels

Distiller-brewer collaborations are now proving to be anything but one-way transactions. Just as craft breweries are reaching flavorful new heights aging in spirits barrel, distillers are realizing they can enhance their own products in vessels that once held beer. Across the pond, Jameson last year unveiled its Caskmates series, whose blends incorporated some of the iconic Irish whiskey matured in barrels that previously held beers brewed by some of Ireland’s craft brewers.

Closer to home, Louisville, Kentucky, based craft brandy distiller Copper & Kings recently kicked off its Cr&ftwerk project — the ampersand is a core element of the company’s branding — a series of brandies aged for a year in beer barrels.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Big Glossary of Beer Words)

Copper & Kings already had been partnering with brewers that were aging beer in its brandy barrels before the distillery launched the project to do the reverse.

Chico, California’s, Sierra Nevada, Munster, Indiana’s, 3 Floyds, Longmont, Colorado’s, Oskar Blues and Louisville’s Against the Grain Brewery are among the breweries that have supplied barrels for the Cr&ftwerk line.

The distillery released a brandy aged in wood that previously held 3 Floyds’s Dark Lord Russian imperial stout, which infused the spirit with malty, dark chocolate and coffee notes.

“The easiest to use are the imperial stouts,” notes Copper & Kings founder Joe Heron. “There’s a lot of dark chocolate and it’s very viscous, which retains really well in the barrel.”

Copper & Kings’s partnership with Sierra Nevada has so far resulted in two distinct products. One used Sierra’s Imperial Smoked Porter barrels, imparting strong vanilla and malt flavors, with hints of smoke. There’s even some noticeable hop character. Sierra’s Cherry Chocolate Stout served as the basis for another, producing a brandy with flavors of baked cherries, chocolate toffee and a nose of dried cherry and cacao nibs.

“We’ve always been inspired by craft brewers — that authenticity, that creativity, that imagination and just that ability to think differently.” Joe Heron, Cooper & Kings

Oskar Blues’s G’Knight and Deviant Dale’s brought, as you would expect, plenty of citrusy, grapefruity hop character to the brandy. Against the Grain’s Mac FannyBaw, a rauchbier that attempted to replicate the flavors of a peaty Islay Scotch whisky, brought some of that smoke to the brandy, as well as a touch of salinity.

The spirit typically enters the wood at 130 proof (65 percent ABV) to ensure maximum beer flavor extraction. It’s not chill-filtered, as that process would strip out some of the desired flavor. It’s then bottled at 111 proof (55.5 percent ABV).

“Brandy is quite a promiscuous spirit,” notes Heron. “It takes on flavor very quickly and maturation has to be managed quite carefully. If you leave it in new American oak too long, it gets very oaky.”

As the number of craft distilleries in the U.S. grows and the players within the segment diversify beyond bourbon and other whiskeys, expect to see more of these alternative barrel collaborations between small brewers and spirits makers. There’s plenty of innovation on both sides, so it would be a shame for each not to mine the talent of the other from time to time.

“We’ve always been inspired by craft brewers — that authenticity, that creativity, that imagination and just that ability to think differently and inspire people to drink differently,” says Heron. “That’s why we started the Cr&ftwerk project and started working with brewers in that way. It was more than, ‘It’ll be cool to age in craft beer barrels.’ We were much more reverential and deferential to the philosophy of great craft brewers.”

Jeff CiolettiAuthor Website

Jeff Cioletti’s tenure in liquid literacy has exposed him to some of the best libations the world has to offer and given him access to the producers and purveyors of such fine refreshments. He combines his love of drink with a passion for travel and one usually involves the other. He served for 14 years as an editor at Beverage World magazine, including eight years as editor in chief of the B2B publication. He’s also the author of the books “The Year of Drinking Adventurously,” “Beer FAQ” and the upcoming “The Drinkable Globe.” He is the founder of beverage travel video site, DrinkableGlobe.com and a frequent contributor to publications including Draft Magazine, All About Beer Magazine, FSR and Beverage Media. Additionally, he’s the winner of two North American Guild of Beer Writers awards. Read more by this author

from Brewers Find Bold Beer Flavors in Barrels Beyond Bourbon

[imonalicious123]

Beer of the Month: Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA

Featured cocktail of the month: Agave Moon with Avion tequila & Blue Moon Belgian White

FREE POOL weekdays from open until 6pm - Monday through Friday

Mondays:

***NEW*** Brunch Mondays in our Silver Fern Lounge with a Bloody Mary & Mimosa Bar from 1-3pm

$3.50 Import Pint

$3 Southern Comfort’s new recipe 80 proof black label whiskey 2oz pour

$6 “Burger & Beer” special 7pm - 10pm

Tuesdays:

$3 Import Bottles

$5 Jameson or $6.50 Jameson Caskmates IPA Edition

AYCE Boneless Wings $12 per person from 6pm - 12am (not available “to go”)

***ORLANDO HOLD'EM 8pm*** $250 Jackpot on the last Tuesday of the month - this month on the 28th

Wednesdays:

$1 off all Craft Beers: can, draft & bottles

$5 Crown Royal, Crown Vanilla & Crown Apple 2oz pour

LIVE TRIVIA 8pm! FREE to play. Three rounds, 1st, 2nd & 3rd place winners each round win Kiwi’s Gift Cards!

MEAT DAY every Weds! See calendar for featured item of the day. This month we will have Pork, Shepherds Pie, Chicken dinner, & more!

Thursdays:

$2 BEEF TACOS 4-7pm

$2 Domestic Pint

$4 Three-Olives vodka flavors

9th: Avion Tequila Promotion at 6:30

23rd: Taste with 3 Daughters Brewing out of Tampa at 6pm

30th: Stand-Up Comedy night – show starts at 8:30 – 2 nationally touring comedians will perform

Jackpot Trivia game on the Buzztime tablets available anytime! 

Fridays:

24th: “Friday Night Fiasco” with Pat Lynch & Taco Bob 7-9pm sponsored by Wayne Densch, Inc.

$14 Import Buckets

$5 Jack Fire & Jack Honey

”Gone Fishing” features a seafood dish all day - while supplies last - every Friday in June!

Saturdays: $7.50 Domestic Pitcher

$4 Washington apple shooters

$3 MIMOSAS ALL DAY LONG!

25th: Chili Cook-off 5pm – details to follow

Sundays: 

$12 Domestic Bucket

$6.50 Domestic Pitcher

$4 Cinnamon Toast Crunch made with Rum Chata & Fireball

$3 Lemon Vodka by 360 – have chilled with a sugar rim for an awesome LemonDrop!

$12 Buckets of boneless wings (available “to go!”)

$3 MIMOSAS ALL DAY LONG!

Soft Tip Blind Draw Dart Tournament to run every Sunday. Sign up starts at 2pm, darts fly at 3pm. $5 entry, house matches pot.

Nightly Hospitality Happy Hour starts at 11pm and goes to closing time. FREE pool starts at midnight Sun-Thurs.