Happy birthday to….ME :)
Cheers to another year! To celebrate my birthday, Rob and I drove out an hour north of the city to Petaluma to take a tour of the Lagunitas brewery. Since I started brewing, I really wanted to learn more about each of the steps involved in brewing and the ingredients that go into the beer. When we arrived, our very enthused tour guide brought us first to a bar where he treated us very well and got us very drunk. 
I quickly learned that lagunitas beers are way too bitter for me! I also learned the reason they are so bitter is because of the extraordinary amounts of hops that they put into their beers which is what distinguishes lagunitas from other brews.
I did find one beer (Censored) I really enjoyed not just because of the story behind it but also because it was less hoppie (relatively). Tony Magee, founder of Lagunitas, wanted to originally name this beer Kronic but when the label was submitted to the authorities, it got censored…you can still see Kronic under the censor label!
During the drink fest, I learned all about the brewing process. I learned that malt is concentrated grains. Every home brew kit will start with malt extract & you steep extra grains to give each beer a unique flavor. As mentioned before, the hops gives it its bitter flavor and the more hops you add, the bitter it gets. Hops also helps in preserving the beer. There are two types of hops: wet and dry. The dry pellets as pictured above keep for longer and are preferred.
Tipsy and happy off to the brewery we go!
These fermentors are massive!
Lagunits will age their beers in whiskey barrels are shown here…thought this was really cool!
Back home to SF we go…across the Golden Gate Bridge!
