Yesterday started out with clear, sunny skies. While still relatively cool, temperatures rose to the lower 60s. After I posted to the blog, I went out for a bike ride. I rode the usual loop past Sea World, over the West Mission Bay bridge to Mission Beach. I set a new personal best climbing up the bridge – I maintained 16+mph all the way up. On the way down the other side, I shifted into a big gear and was hitting 26 mph when a big truck/trailer blew by. His draft quickly pulled me along and I was going over 30 mph. From there I rode up the boardwalk to Pacific Beach and followed the Bay Walk back to De Anza Cove.

When I returned, I had work to do. The drawer below our bedroom closet, which I use for t-shirts, was broken again. The rear support for the track on the right side broke. This happened before, a few weeks into our travels. I made a temporary fix at that time. It seemed to be fine, so I didn’t get back to replacing the support. That wasn’t good. This time, when the right support broke, it twisted the left track.

I went to Ace Hardware on Grand Avenue in Pacific Beach. This is a good, old-fashioned hardware store in an old two-story building. I love stores like this. I found a new guide support for a few bucks, but they didn’t have the track in the size I needed.

I removed the left track and straightened it as best as I could. It wasn’t perfect, but I thought it would work. I installed the new support for the right side. This time, I mounted it with three screws instead of two. Hopefully, this will make it a little more solid and prevent it from breaking again. I reassembled everything and the drawer is working fine.

While I was out and about, I stopped at Vons grocery store. We needed bottled water. While I was there, I picked up a 3-liter box of Cabernet Sauvignon for Donna. She likes the Black Box brand. While I was in the wine and liquor aisle, I spotted Makers Mark bourbon on sale for $17.99. This is stupid cheap, so I bought a bottle.

At 4pm, our new friends, Bob and Sini picked us up in their vintage GMC Jimmy. We drove down to a place on Hancock near Washington Street. We went to Fifty Seven Degrees/Brew Project. This is a wine and beer bar that is co-owned by Bob and Sini’s son, Beau. It’s not your usual pub. They offer a huge wine selection and also personal wine storage lockers for customers (thus, the name Fifty Seven Degrees). They also have craft beer on tap from 31 San Diego County breweries. They hold special events with gourmet food. They also cater and host corporate events in their large building. Last night, a couple of private parties were going on.

I started with a sampler flight of IPAs. We watched the sun set over Point Loma. High clouds appeared in the late afternoon and made a spectacular sunset. We sat at the bar and talked while we enjoyed the beer and food. We had pulled pork sliders, chicken sliders, bruschetta  and a cheese plate. The food was outstanding, all of it made fresh in house.

Some of the beers on tap at Fifty Seven Degrees/Brew Project

Bob is a retired fireman from Edmonds, Washington. Like me, he was able to retire at the age of 56. He and Sini are on their second extended road trip. The first time was a couple of years ago. They hit the road for nine months, circumnavigating the country. They put 13,000 miles on their coach on that trip and another 8,000 miles taking side trips on their Harley. They still own their home in Edmonds, but now they’ve leased it out to tenants for 18 months. At the end of the lease, they may return home or they might sell the home to the tenants and stay on the road.

Sini is from Holland. Donna and Sini were engaged in conversation while Bob and I got to know each other. We talked for a few hours. Bob told me tales of travel in Europe, Dubai and South Africa. In all of these places, he was able to find fellow Harley riders and rent or borrow a bike to tour around. Our conversation turned and Bob told me about how he came to San Diego and helped Beau build the Brew Project bar.

Bob, Sini, Donna and our bartender, Sara

Having more than thirty taps at the bar is a real feat. The kegs are in an insulated storage container behind the building. The lines bringing the beer to the bar are long and need to  be kept cold all the way. If the lines weren’t refrigerated, the beer coming from the tap would be room temperature. Beau took us to the source in the container outside. It had about 50 kegs in it and a complicated manifold system that allows the kegs to be completely emptied. Most systems waste the last six or eight glasses of beer. I don’t fully understand this sophisticated system. I took a few pictures. Maybe you can make sense of it.

The manifold system routing beer to the taps

Kegs from local breweries in the refrigerated, insulated storage container

This afternoon, I’ll take Donna to her sister, Sheila’s house. Donna will stay there overnight to watch her nephew, Connor, while Sheila is away. I’ll come back home and watch the Chargers play the Broncos on TV.

Tomorrow I have to be up early for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. I’m having problems with my right hand. It’s a condition called trigger finger. When I close my right hand, the ring finger locks in a bent position. I have to pull it, then it pops and straightens with some pain. I’m hoping a corticosteroid injection will relieve it. I had this happen before on the middle finger of my left hand. Injections didn’t help at that time and surgery was required.

I might not post tomorrow, depending on how things go at the doctor’s office.

Ocean Beach (OB) is a San Diego community on the coast, about seven miles northwest of downtown. The community occupies approximately one square mile north of Point Loma. It’s bordered on the north by the San Diego River estuary, separating it from Mission Beach. The Pacific Ocean borders the west. Interstate 8 starts (or ends) near the coast at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in Ocean Beach and runs to Casa Grande, Arizona where it joins Interstate 10.

The history of OB goes back to the 1880s. Plans for development were made, but they stalled due to the difficult travel from downtown San Diego. When the Point Loma Railroad was built in 1909, development of OB became viable. By 1910, there were about 100 houses there.

In 1966, OB hosted the World Surfing Championship. It’s still a favorite beach for surfers. Also in 1966, the Ocean Beach Municipal Pier was built. It’s the longest concrete pier on the west coast at 1,971 feet. The pier is open to the public 24 hours a day. There’s a bait shop and restaurant on the pier. We like the restaurant. It’s a fun place to eat with a great view. I posted photos I took from the pier here.

By the early 70s, when I first started going to OB, it was known as a hippie counter-culture hangout. The main drag was Newport Avenue which was home to many small businesses and restaurants. One of the shops there was called The Black. It was one of the first “head shops.” The Strand Theater was located there. In the late 70s, the Strand had midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Fridays and Saturdays. To this day, the community supports local small business and opposes chain stores and restaurants.

OB still hangs on to its counter-culture reputation. There are a number of festivals held there, including a jazz festival at the foot of Newport Avenue in September and a kite festival in March. On Wednesday afternoons, two blocks of Newport Avenue are closed to traffic for a farmer’s market. The north end of the OB waterfront is known as Dog Beach. It is open 24 hours a day for dogs free of leashes.

On Mondays, I scooter Donna to her piano lessons in Ocean Beach. After I drop her off, I walk along Newport Avenue and check out the shops. Last Monday, I bought a book for two dollars at a shop that sells used books, CDs, DVDs and clothing. I also stopped at Chase Bank to make a deposit.

The bank was busy and I had to wait in line for a teller. The customers in the bank were quite diverse – from the young hippie looking girl with ripped jeans at the front of the line to the businessman in a suit to the older man directly in front of me.

The guy in front of me had that hippie burn-out look. This may not be a fair characterization, but he reminded me of Tommy Chong as Leo in That 70s Show. When his turn came at the teller, he was standing about three feet in front of me. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing him.

He asked the teller to give him his account balances. She printed a ticket for him. He looked at it and said, “This only shows one account.” She told him that  she wrote the other balance at the bottom. He looked at the ticket and said, “What is this? It says one-one-nine, is that a dollar nineteen?’ She told him it was one hundred nineteen. Then he asked, “What is this six oh four in front of it?” She told him it was 604 thousand. He said, “Oh…so the balance is $604,119 then.”  She said, “Yes.” He said, “Okay…good…thank you.”

It was the most improbable exchange. First of all, the guy didn’t look like he had any money. Then, he seemed completely unaware of how much money he had in the bank. He shifted from a dollar nineteen to $604,119 without any reaction. He turned and walked out of the bank.

It proves the adage “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Judging someone by their appearance can be very misleading.

Later this afternoon, we’ll be going to the San Diego Brew Project at Mission Brewery with our neighbors, Bob and Sini. They’re from Edmonds, Washington and are full-time RVers. Their son, Beau, is co-owner of the Brew Project which is a pub with over 30 local brews on tap. The Mission Brewery building overlooks the airport and San Diego Bay. We plan to be there in time to view the sunset, sample a couple of beers and have dinner.

Yesterday while I was waiting for Donna to return from her exercise class, our neighbor, Bud, stopped by. He said he would be running errands a little later in the morning and asked if I wanted to go along. He wanted company and it also would give me an opportunity to pick up a few things.

I called the insurance adjuster at Progressive. I told her about the police recovering my abandoned trailer. She told me to not do anything at this time. She would contact the impound yard and would inform me of next steps.

Donna returned later than usual. She stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home from her class and bought some groceries. Around 11am, Bud and I headed out. We stopped at Home Depot where I bought a cordless drill/driver. From there we went to Walmart where Bud bought a new sewer hose for his RV.

After we returned and had lunch, Bud wanted to know where Trader Joe’s was. Donna told us how to find the Trader Joe’s on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach. I went there with Bud and bought a few beers. I bought a one-quart jug of black and tan called Mississippi Mud. This is a blend of porter and lager. I also bought a couple of India Pale Ales (IPAs). The Trader Joe’s house brand is called Boatswain (say bo’sun). One of the IPAs I bought is Boatswain American IPA. It’s typical of the style with 6.7% alcohol by volume (ABV). The other one is called Boatswain Twin Screw Steamer which is a double IPA with 8.4% ABV.

I mentioned drinking IPA in yesterday’s post. When I lived in Mesa, Arizona I brewed my own beer in five-gallon batches. Pale ale and IPA were styles I brewed frequently. I belonged to a homebrew beer club there – the Arizona Society of Homebrewers (ASH). I like IPA and I’d like to share a little background on this beer.

In the 18th and 19th century, beer played an important role in the British Empire. The British navy supplied beer to sailors aboard ships. The vitamin B in beer was conducive to good health. British Admiralty ships stationed in the English Channel issued one gallon of beer per day to each sailor.

As the British Empire grew, beer storage aboard ships became problematic. In cooler climates, they didn’t have problems. However, in warmer climates the beer often soured or spoiled. The British occupation of India and the commercial success of the East India Company meant many Brits were in India. They wanted beer. In the days before refrigeration and climate control, brewing in hot climates didn’t produce a desirable beer.

Ships sailing from London to India made the trip primarily to return with silks and spices. This was lucrative business. They also wanted to carry goods to India to earn money both ways. Beer was an obvious export product for two reasons – market demand and inexpensive shipping.

The problem with shipping beer to India was the rigorous journey. The beer casks were shaken in the hold. The trip took weeks. The surface temperature of the oceans would vary greatly, from the low 50s near England to more than 80 degrees near the equator. This temperature variation would continue as temperatures dropped around the Cape of Good Hope and then rose again in the Indian Ocean. Constantly agitating the beer and subjecting it to temperature swings often ruined the beer; i.e., it would arrive in India flat and sour.

An English brewer named Hodgson came up with a solution. He brewed a beer with higher sugar content (a higher original gravity) which resulted in higher alcohol content once fermented. The higher original gravity meant the beer was sweet and somewhat heavy. He offset the sweetness with additional hops, raising the bitterness of the beer. He also added more hops to the cask before shipping.

Without refrigeration, the alcohol content would prevent microbial action on the beer. The isohumulone content of the hops inhibited Lactobacillus growth. Hodgson also casked the beer before it was fully aged. Some fermentation occurred as the beer cask was sloshed around in the hold of the ship. The result was a lively, carbonated, high-alcohol and bitter beer arriving in India.

This style caught on. In Great Britain, the beers of the day were dark porters and stouts, or sweet brown ales. In the tropics, these beers couldn’t survive. The IPA style was suited for the tropics and people’s taste seemed to swing to the pale ales there.

There’s a legend regarding the introduction of IPA in the home market. In 1827, a ship carrying cargo to India wrecked in the Irish Sea. The contents recovered from the hold were auctioned off. The IPA in the hold was bottled and sold locally. With this introduction and demand from sailors and ex-pats returning from India, the local market for IPA was born.

There’s a Wikipedia article that poo-poos most of what I’ve written. They claim records showing porter shipped to India in the early 1800s proves that high alcohol and high hop content weren’t necessary. These shipping records only prove that some brewers took the chance of shipping their brew. It doesn’t document whether the brew was drinkable once it made the voyage. There are plenty of references supporting the story of the development of IPA. If you’re interested, you can read more here.

Today IPA has evolved into a few distinct styles. There’s the British IPA which tends to be somewhat malty. There’s American east coast IPA, which has higher alcohol content than the British IPAs and  more hoppy bitterness. Then there’s American west coast IPA, which is even hoppier and presents hints of citrus or floral flavorings depending on which finishing hops are used.

I think I’ll go for a bike ride now and enjoy the weather before it gets too warm. Later, in the heat of the day, I might enjoy an IPA.