And this is the second segment:

I debated posting this video, a Food Network video of an Alton Brown show on making beer at home. He makes a couple of errors and in the comments section on the Food Network site, homebrewers let him have it big time.

First error I caught, he calls adding hops late in the boil “dry hopping.” Ain’t so. Dry hopping is an old English method of producing a hop-infused beer by adding fresh hops while the beer is fermenting.
But I’m posting this for non-home brewers, who may have thought about brewing their own. Alton Brown shows us how simple it is to make decent beer. Check out the video, then ‘hie thee to the closest homebrew shop and get brewing.

The way it was posted on YouTube is in segments. This is the first segment:

And this is the next segment:

Two beer events are coming up in the next two days:

Tonight: Shmalz Brewing, maker of He’brew, unveils Rejewvenator, a fig-infused, dark beer tonight at 6 p.m. at the Toronado in San Francisco.

He’brew founder Jeremy Cohen will also have several other He’brew beers on tap including Jewbelation, Origin, Lenny’s IPA and Coney Island Lager. No admission charge. Pay by the drink.

Thursday night: Beer dinner, featuring the beers of New Belgium, Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, 1919 4th St., Berkeley, $50; for info, call 510-845-7771. Hope to see you there.

Got a couple of e-mails from people wondering what the stars meant in my Hopmonk post this morning. Here’s the skinny:
Ratings

FIVE STARS: World classic.

FOUR STARS: Don’t miss it.

THREE STARS: Very good.

TWO STARS: Good beer; no defects.

ONE STAR: Demand a refund.

I’ve used this method for several years. Before that, I tried to assign a score on 1 – 100 scale, but it got too complex, so I went back to a simpler system? Opinions anyone? Post them here.

Stubbs Vineyard, makers of fine organic Marin County Pinot Noir, is hosting an event for a great cause. I doubt you’d want to miss it.

At 5:30 p.m. on June 14, the winery is hosting a fundraising dinner for Schools for Kabul, a student-run project aimed at building a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Their goal is to build a girls’ school in the village of Istalif through the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. They’ve raised $5,000 and need $5,000 more.

Petaluma’s The Sofa Kings will be performing and food will be in the form of luscious spit-roasted pig.

Any reason not to go?

RSVP in advance to DJ Colbert at 707-293-6977. Tickets are $60 and they recommend warm clothes since the fog will most likely roll in (this is West Marin) and comfortable shoes.

Hopmonk, the new Sebastopol (CA.) pub rocks!

Our daughter Meredith passed her oral thesis exam last week and is cleared to receive her master’s in education from California State University, Sonoma next month. We got to sit in on the examination by three of her profs, then we took her and her husband and kids out for a celebratory dinner.

Where? They live in Sebastopol and wanted us to go to Hopmonk, the new pub-beer garden opened last month by Dean Biersch, the co-founder, with Dan Gordon, of Gordon-Biersch, the posh brewpub chain and brewery. Read the rest of this entry »

Check out this report from Bay Cities News Service on DUI arrests during the Memorial Day weekend. Aren’t you glad you didn’t try to drive drunk? Read the rest of this entry »

The beer can chicken saga begins…

Here’s a report from the grilling wars.

I followed the beer can chicken recipe I posted Sunday, put the rubbed chicken in the fridge overnight. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, Memorial Day is tomorrow, that nasty little late spring cold front has passed. It’s time to throw some burgers on the old barbie..

What follows is the top of an excellent story on grilling the best burgers by Aleta Watson from the San Jose Mercury News with a link to the entire story.

Next is my Merc column from last Wednesday, with interviews with author Lucy Saunders and Beer Chef Bruce Paton, famous for his beer dinners at the Cathendral Hill Hotel…

The last post is a response from a reader who was outraged at my statement that Budweiser is boring. My suggestion to hin: Use the Bud for Beer Can Chicken. That recipe from a column I wrote in 2002 about trying to stuff a chicken in a beer can follows.

Because blogs are linear..you have to scroll down to read each post or click on the links above.

Some of the suggested fixings for story on grilling burgers with international flavors for Memorial Day, photographed in Boulder Creek Thursday May 9, 2008. (Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

Summer begins when the first patty hits the grill

By Aleta Watson
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/21/2008 01:32:39 AM PDT

Even though Californians enjoy the luxury of being able to cook outside much of the year, Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of the dedicated grilling season for many of us. The long, lazy holiday weekend gives us the first taste of a summer filled with informal family meals and casual outdoor entertaining centered around the grill.
It’s the ideal time to reconsider the burger. We’re talking the real thing here – freshly ground meat, loosely packed into a well-seasoned patty and grilled to perfection before being slipped between the halves of a soft bun.

A properly cooked homemade burger, hot off the flames, is a delight, worlds removed from the paper-wrapped fast food picked up at drive-through windows across the nation. It’s juicy and flavorful, the smoky savor of the meat brought into focus by lively condiments and a mellow bun. To top things off, it’s easy to prepare and the ingredients won’t break the bank.

The typical ground beef patty is just the beginning of a burger’s possibilities, though. Ground lamb, turkey and even buffalo are now available at many butchers, opening the door to an array of global flavors. Portobello mushrooms make a satisfying stand-in for diners trying to limit their consumption of meat. READ MORE…