Riverside Oranges // Cocktail Recipe

Hello. I visited a local orange farm about a week ago and totally fell in love with the fresh citrus.

One of the coolest products they have are a variety of Navel oranges named Cara Cara.

Not to be mistaken for a blood orange, these are colored with pinker shade of red, similar to a ruby red grapefruit.

Anyways, I used these as a fresh ingredient in making a refreshing citrus cocktail as the days begin to get hotter.

Beautiful pink hue.

Ingredients used for the cocktail included Cara Cara Navel Orange juice as well as Absolut Ruby Red, a grapefruit infused vodka.

Yum! Mix these two to your preference, I used 6oz of juice to 2oz of vodka, shaken and strained into glasses with crushed ice for these two servings.

If you ever get the opportunity to try some of these special oranges you definitely should not pass it up!

credit to Liz at postcardsfromliz for taking the pictures!

Winter 2014 Collection Part II

I wanted to go in a bit more in depth with some of my more interesting selections as well as show off even more stuff I was able to pick up!

 

First up is a box collection of three beers from Samuel Adams Barrel Room series. Usually these are a little pricey when bought on their own, but a local Costco had them boxed for a great price!

The beers included are Tetravis a Belgian quadruple ale, The Thirteenth Hour a coffee stout/Belgian hybrid, and New World a fruit  Belgian triple

Words on words.

I'm not super familiar with Belgian triples or quadruples so I'm looking forward to sharing these with some friends. The Thirteen Hour stout sounds like it will be awesome as well!

But wait there is more! I stopped by the store yesterday and I noticed something that caught my eye. It was Samuel Adams Stony Brook Red an ale inspired by Flemish reds, aka my favorite style.

My collection of Samuel Adams Barrel Room is almost done!

Next up is Modern Times Black House coffee stout. Modern Times is a craft brewery from San Diego, they are pretty cool because they have open source brewing. Basically, they publish all of their recipes online and allow people to modify, and even take suggestions from their customers in this way!

I have noticed an increase in canned craft beers which come in these cool four packs.

I've been taking a liking to darker porters and stouts, I'm pretty confident this beer won't disappoint!

Wooh! Something I'm super excited about. This is Hangar 24's Barrel Rool No. 05, Chandelle. Chandelle is a sour made from a base beer, Polycot. This is the first non-red sour I've ever encountered, so I was pretty interested to try it.

The last time this beer was made was 2012, so I'm very fortunate it was released during the time I've been really into Hangar 24 beers.

The Barrel Roll series beers from Hangar 24 are usually named after airplane maneuvers, In this case Chandelle appears to be some sort of U-turn.

The only way to pick up one of these beers was from the brewery, so I made a quick stop to pick it up! Limited release, I got bottle 1129/3060.

Along Chandelle I also picked up a seasonal Local Fields Warmer. This beer is made with PINE TREES. They literally go up to the San Bernardino mountains to pick their ingredients for the beer.

A dark beer for a nice winter day, this is what Warmer is all about.

So I've been able to amass a pretty good collection of Hangar 24's stuff, I'm going to try the Chandelle soon, if it is awesome I might go and pick another up before they run out; who knows when they will made more again.

Lastly, is my group of sour beers. They range from red to brown-red styles as well as in levels of funk. Petrus Aged Red, Rodenbach, and Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale.

Hmmmm, nice.

I have never tried Petrus Aged Red, but I've read pretty good reviews about it online.

Flemish sour, my favorite!

I've also red some stuff about this beer, notably its extreme sourness. Yes!

I've tried Rodenbach Grand Cru before, it's the same beer, just different blend styles. Grand Cru has more mature ale while the normal Rodenbach has more young.

I really like the Grand Cru version of this beer, I'm guessing I'll like this one as well. I'm most looking forward to seeing the differences between young/mature styles between the two.

So that's my time, see you all soon!

Winter 2014 Collection

So ummm I just realized the other day... I kind of have been on a shopping spree. I may have a problem.

Sorry for the potato quality but this is a preview of most of the different beers I've been collecting recently to try. I'll do my best to give my thoughts on as many as I can, sometimes I just open them up and forget.

Something interesting I found the other day as well, a couple of boxes of Fox Barrel pear cider. They were bought by Crispin a couple of months ago, so these must be a bit old. Would have been cool for collection, but I chose to pass.

On the subject of Crispin, I finally found some Crispin Brown's Lane. This apple cider is imported from England, made from English bittersweet apples, tending to be a lot more dry compared to other ciders. While it isn't my favorite Crispin has to offer, it is unique enough to hold its own.

So I think that Hangar 24 Polycot is on my top 10 list for favorite beers. It is really clean tasting, bubbly, and fruity, almost like a cidery beer. If you ever come across it (pretty hard to find), definitely give it a try. Its a wheat ale brewed with apricots using white wine yeast!

I have not really ventured much into the world of porters and stouts, so I decided to try my luck with Buffalo Bill's Brewery Blueberry Oatmeal Stout (a mouthful I know). I actually really enjoyed the flavor of the beer, my only complaint would be that the blueberry was very subtle.

It poured a really nice dark color and definitely had a great smell. If you are into stouts you should give it a try, it might not be the best, but its far from the worst.

Visiting the Hangar 24 Brewery

Boy oh boy. I have not been this excited in a while. I got to visit the Hangar 24 Brewery in Redlands. YES! This place is literally located across the street from the Redlands airport as well as next to a bunch of orange groves. First impressions walking in, this place totally looks like a hangar, exposed sheet metal and tons of wood everywhere.

Their beer selection on draught is mighty impressive, a bunch of hard to find beers are common, some I had not heard about before.

People just kind of pick a spot and drink their beer.

To start off, of course I wanted to try everything, so I got the tasting flight. This included the Helles Lager, Orange Wheat, Alt-Bier Amber Ale, Oktoberfest Fall Lager, Amarillo Pale Ale, Gourdgeous, Betty IPA, Chocolate Porter, and Double IPA. Apart from these I added a last taster in the middle named Polycot, an apricot beer. We signed up for a tour of the brewery and after finishing up the beers it started.

If you are a fan of the Orange Wheat beer, here are the oranges used for it!

Fancy brewing machines everywhere.

Each of the labels and boxes has a price! Packaging does add up.

Tour guide cameo! Here is the bottling machine that bottles EVERY SINGLE Hangar 24 beer.

Fancy machine!

Each beer is hand inspected here and thrown away if it is not perfect.

Next up we checked out the canning and packing station. Actually canning beers is better than bottling, a can is basically a mini keg!

That is an impressive stack of the Helles Lager.

Very impressive...

Once packaged it can be shipped! I was really excited to see this beer available here. I have not been able to find it in any stores around the area.

Hangar 24 has been able to distribute their beers now to a couple of states, not just California. That made me so happy to hear.

After the tour we went back for round two. I got a pint of the Polycot beer, did I mention it was my favorite?! I also got tasters of the Essence (a citrus IPA), their winter Hullabaloo beer, and the Ball Park Pilnser to try a good portion of stuff on the menu.

After hanging out at the brewery for a bit we decided to go home. Across the street some people were fiddling around with a helicopter, so cool!

I definatly did not leave empty handed. I bought a 12 pack of Helles Lager, two Polycots, a Chocolate Porter, and an Essence Bomber. I would say the whole experience was a success. Plus its not that far away either! If you have never been to a brewery, DO IT. You will support local business as well as be exposed to real good quality products. 'Till next time!