Donna went shopping with her sister, Linda, on Thursday afternoon. While they were out, I rode my mountain bike up the Rose Creek Trail to Santa Fe Street. I planned on riding San Clemente Canyon. The wind was gusty and made the ride north on Santa Fe tough going.
I deviated from my plan at one point and crossed the railroad track and entered the flood control channel. This channel is a wide, concrete bed with concrete walls angling up on each side. The channel is about 60 feet wide and the side walls are about 15 feet high. Its purpose is to channel storm water runoff from canyons in the area to Rose Creek, then into Mission Bay.
Above the channel on the east side is Morena Boulevard. On the west side is Santa Fe Street. There is an access road from Morena Boulevard on the north end of the channel. The access road is closed to traffic with a locked gate.
I rode around in the channel and reminisced about the days when we would drive into this channel to party. Back in my high school days, someone had cut the lock on the gate. We would drive our cars down into the channel.
Flood control channel access road – in poor repair today
High above on the east side, Morena Boulevard had very little traffic in those days. The only business I remember on that stretch of road was the Price Club. I posted about the Price Club here. On the west side, across the railroad track, Santa Fe Street was strictly a commercial district with no traffic at night.
Flood control channel – a little overgrown today
Down in the channel we could play loud music and drink beer without being discovered. The sound was contained by the walls of the channel – and there wasn’t anyone around there to complain about the noise anyway.
I rode back to Santa Fe Street and stopped at the Karl Strauss Brewery and Tasting Room. This is the last business on Santa Fe Street before the road ends and the paved Rose Canyon bike path begins.
Karl Strauss Brewery and Tasting Room
Karl Strauss Brewery is the cornerstone of craft brewing in San Diego. They opened their brewery in downtown San Diego on February 2, 1989. This was the start of the craft brew scene in San Diego. Chris Kramer and Matt Rattner were young entrepreneurs with a dream of bringing local, high-quality beer to San Diego. Chris’s cousin happened to be Karl Strauss – a master brewer trained at Weihenstephen in Munich, Germany. With Karl’s help, they were able to start brewing.
When we lived in Arizona, I was a member of the Arizona Society of Homebrewers. This is a beer club dedicated to crafting beer at home. I learned by reading books and talking to other members of the club and began brewing my own beer. It takes attention to detail and patience to brew good beer.
I bought the necessary implements, such as a large propane burner to boil the wort, copper chilling coils, five-gallon glass carboys for fermentation and so on. I kept vacuum-sealed hops in our freezer. I bought yeast at a local homebrew store. I would prepare a yeast starter in a one-liter Erhlenmeyer flask the night before I would start a brew. The yeast starter gave the yeast a jump start and allowed fermentation to begin more quickly once it was added to the chilled wort versus just adding a small packet of yeast to the wort. I believe getting a quick and vigorous start to the fermentation process improves the quality of the beer. One of the challenges of brewing in Arizona was temperature control. I would carry out the fermentation process in a glass carboy placed in the bathtub of our guest bathroom. A small amount of water in the tub and wet towels wrapped around the carboy provided evaporative cooling.
Once I learned how to properly brew and started coming up with tasty brews, I expanded my capabilities by brewing different styles of beer. I brewed pale ale, India pale ale, red ale, Belgian-style wheat beer, stout and so on. Donna bought a three-tap kegerator for me for my birthday. I could have three styles of beer on tap in five-gallon Pepsi kegs (the correct term is Cornelius keg) while another batch was fermenting. I kept a rotation going so I would never be out of beer. My friends would come over on Sunday afternoons to watch motorcycle races on TV and we would enjoy fresh, home-brewed beer.
When we moved to Michigan and I began working 50+ hours per week, I never got back into homebrewing. Eventually I sold my brew equipment. It was great hobby for a few years though and I learned a lot about beers and different styles of beer.
Today, the craft beer scene has exploded. According to the Brewers Association, there are more than 3,000 craft breweries in the country. Craft beer sales continue to climb while light lager sales fall. People have fallen for quality beers brewed in various styles.
The craft brew business continues to evolve. I read an article this morning about a small brewery in Bend, Oregon – 10 Barrel Brewing – selling out to Anheuser Busch In-Bev Corporation. This has stirred a lot of emotion among brewers and the fans of 10 Barrel beers. They aren’t the first craft brewery to be bought out by a corporate beer giant. It makes me wonder what the definition of craft brewery will be in the future as these breweries become parts of huge corporations and integrate corporate policies and mass production techniques.
Last evening, Donna and I walked to the west end of the park to view the sunset. I had a glass of Ninkasi oatmeal stout in hand. Our neighbors, John and Sharon, came to the same spot. We talked and watched the sunset, then we came back and sat together outside our coach. I found out that John and Sharon are craft beer drinkers. Sharon loves the stouts and John likes IPA. I had Stone IPA in the cooler and we enjoyed a couple of beers together before dinner.
Sunset on the bay – Friday night
I have something brewing, but I’m not ready to reveal it yet.