One night in Calgary...

After several previous trips in Calgary that consisted of all work/sleep and no play, I finally had the chance to check out some local establishment for the consumption of beer. I was stuck at the airport hotel for the night, but managed to find the local bus (#57) that got me to the C-train station (Whitehorn) that whisked me into downtown.
On the way into downtown I got to see two homeless dudes beating the crap out of each other in the middle of a street. After seeing that, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect for the evening, but I then quickly found Bottlescrew Bill's, which claims to have a couple of hundred beer options. They appeared to come close to that claim, but lacked many Canadian options. I did try their house beer, Buzzards Breath Ale, which was an okay amber ale without much hop flavor or aroma. Then I found the best beer of the night in a Brown Ale brewed by Wild Rose Brewery located in Calgary (they also brew the house beer). It was very good. Malty, bisquity, and slightly nutty, it really hit the spot and went great with my almost rare Alberta bison steak.
I then wandered for a few blocks until I saw an interesting place called Belgo. It attempted to be a Belgian Brasserie, and had plenty of Belgian beers on tap and in the bottle. It even had some Rogue Ales from the US. They did a good job of pouring and presenting the beers and the decor was nice. I did get a weird vibe from the place - it wasn't very crowded, and the manager/door guy seemded to be turning people away, and even remarked to me that I was 'allowed to stay'.
To wrap up the night I witnessed another fight on the train platform as I was headed back to the hotel. It was three against one and it did not end well for the one. At least the police got involved in this one.
That's all the fun for my one night in Calgary.

No beer excitement - VR fun in Calgary!

If you ever get stuck in the Calgary Airport for awhile, head up to the 2nd level food court. At one end is Spaceport. It's mostly for kids, but they have a few Virtual Reality Simulators. One is a fighter jet. You get strapped in, locked up, and then fly a plane around blowing things up. The even better part is that the 'cockpit' has full range of motion, so if you do a loop in the simulator, you really do turn upside down. It was fun, and a nice break from boring ass airport time.
As an added bonus, the airport also has free wireless, which is allowing me to post this mesage. Too bad no one ever reads this.

First Brew at New House

It took a while, but I finally found the time to brew some beer at the new house last night. The big question was: what to brew? After careful thought, I decided that an IPA would be most fitting. It's just about our favorite style and my last few recipes have been quite good, if I do say some my own self. So with a few hours of brewing last night, batch #47 is now five gallons of bubblin' beer in the garage. Yippee.