Overrated Leaning Buildings and Adaptation.

The trip had been flawless so far. I woke up early, checked out of my hotel and headed to the train station to get my ticket to Pisa where I would meet Natalie and her family. Everything went great, hopped on one of the long distance trains from Bologna to Florence. We had planned to meet in Pisa around 10:30am or so and they caught the train from Florence to Pisa at 8:31am. I arrived in Florence at 8:30, as their train for Pisa was leaving (which was fine because I had scheduled to be on a different train anyways).

I checked the board to see which platform I was supposed leave from. There was no information next to my train, so I went to the information desk to find out that I had made it to Florence just in time for the scheduled train strike which started at 9:00am and went until 9:00pm. Florence was the first place where I started to feel the tourist nature of Italy. Stranded Americans littered the train station and no one seemed to understand the way which Italian train strikes function. It is the choice of the conductor as to whether or not he wants to strike and no one at the information knows what each conductor's decision is going to be. Luckily I was able to find a train to Pisa that left within 30 minutes. Crisis avoided!


Met up with Natalie and her family and took the bus to the leaning tower. This was the first time on my travels I had been in such a massive tourist zone. Thousands of people littered the area and hundreds of pictures were taken "holding up" or "pushing over" the tower. I can regretfully say that we partook at the encouragement of the ridiculousness of our surroundings. I guess you could call it "touristy peer pressure".


We didn't have very much trouble getting a train to La Spezia which is the major train station before getting to Cinque Terre but it turns out that all of the conductors of the trains going to Cinque Terre were on strike. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the only way to get to there would be by Ferry.


We took a bus over to Portovenere which is a significant port for the region. This is where the update will be more about pictures than content. As with Neuschwanstein, these pictures hardly do the area justice.


The large castle like structure guarding the port.


This is a view of the five towns in Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. Note the steepness of the mountains surrounding the cities.


A picture of the third of the five towns, Corniglia. It is the only one of the towns that is without beach front real estate. It is also known for it's stairs, which we will experience to the fullest.


This is another picture of Riomaggiore, the water was brilliantly clear. As we found out later that day, it was quite refreshing and is perfectly suited for cooling off after a day of hiking or sunbathing.


After a stunning boat ride, we arrived to Vernazza where we would be staying. After visiting all the towns, I think that I prefer Vernazza most of all. It has a great little beach area and at night, when all the crowds are gone, it is really quaint and has a strong local feel.


This is the view of the landscape from one of the highest points in the city. This is a place I could spend months just lounging around.


We had dinner that night on a rooftop restaurant which over-looked the Mediterranean and had a decent view of Monterosso which is the busiest of the five towns.


Took this picture from the dinner table. One of the greatest parts about the trip was that everything in the towns was affordable. The dinners were actually less expensive than I had anticipated and really make for a great vacation destination. Also, the markets in town would provide quality produce and fresh seafood for the extended stay, cooking contingency (which hopefully I will be able to take advantage of one day).

I got a healthy dose of the need to be a flexible traveler. I think that the travel confidence I have built up over the years of trips to Europe with Asheville High, my dad, and my college buddies helped me to turn setbacks into new adventures. A lesson which can only be learned by experience.

Location:Pisa and Cinque Terre, Italy

Italy and Great Friends

After relaxing and recovering from the busy travel and last 12 weeks, I prepared for my next journey. Earlier in my trip I had organized with some of my friends to meet them during their travels in Europe. Melissa and Sed were doing a tour of Italy so it worked out well for me to meet them in Bologna then hop over to Pisa to meet Natalie and her parents. I ended up flying Ryanair from Brussels to Bologna and the trip couldn't have been easier. Free for all seating, an on time flight and easy transportation to and from the airports made it an experience I will certainly repeat.

I got to Bologna pretty early in the morning, the flight was actually 20 minutes ahead of time. I was awake for most of and got to check out the snow covered swiss alps and some of the amazing little towns that littered the mountains. It was an amazing sight! After landing in Bologna I made it to my little hotel, dropped some stuff off and headed out exploring. The porticoes which line virtually every street in the city center were amazing. It was a very active, yet relaxed atmosphere. The weather was extremely good (20-25C the whole time) and the people were very nice.


These are some of the porticoes which are the heart and soul of the walking culture in Bologna. I finally felt relaxed and was on vacation! As I was walking around I noticed a small "home brew/wine making" store which was unfortunately closed but great to see that it is part of the culture in Italy.


As I was touring the main square in the city, I ran into some kind of Police demonstration which I stopped and watched for a bit. It was kinda bizarre but I did get a good chuckle from the Police segways and this old lady who walked through the middle of the ceremony without a care in the world. Classic Italian!

I met Sed and Melissa outside their hotel after some pretty interesting attempts at getting in contact with them. It all worked out in the end! We sat around drinking some Hellerbock for hours.

The next day we decided to explore the Emelio Reggianno region. Off to Parma we went, using the amazingly easy intercity train system. Instead of having a strict plan on sites to see, we took the "walk around and figure it out" approach, an approach which I am growing more fond of every time I travel.


Mel and Sed in Parma! We walked around a bit and found a local hole in the wall to stop and eat at. We went with some Lambrusco, hams, and cheese. A delicious mid day snack!


The cheese was melted and peppered and served with the most delicious orange slices I have ever had.


It didn't take us long to find a small little bar with some Italian craft beer and it was delicious! The Sally Brown was a traditional brown ale with some coffee in it.

After wandering around the city some more we headed back to catch the train to Modena. We weren't there long until I spotted another car closely tied to my family history.


The Toyota Land Cruiser. Soak that up dad! The strategy for Modena was the same as Parma and we found ourselves walking around a magnificent little Italian city.


We hung out in this little park for a few minutes, just enjoying a relaxed afternoon. Perfect weather!


We stopped in an incredibly busy gelateria, full of what seemed to be Italian high schoolers who had just graduated. The streets were littered with people hanging out for this "graduation".


We stopped in this open air market and got some cheese and fruit for a little snack. The produce and cheese at this market was mouth watering. I would love to be able to walk down to this kind of market and get my produce every week.


After searching for a restaurant Melissa had read about and had since closed, we ended up sitting outside another "hole in the wall" place and drinking lambrusco and chatting till late at night. Theme of the day, relaxing.

We caught the later train back to Bologna, had a few more drinks and said our goodbyes. I was heading to Pisa the next day to meet Natalie and her parents and they were headed to Florence. I am really thankful for having such great friends and can't wait to see them again when I return to the states!

Location:Bologna, Cinque Terre, and Venice

Castles, Beer, Bad weather

After graduation, I had a handful of days to spend in Munich. We had one last grand hurrah with the boys on Friday night then saw them off on Saturday morning. The next few days were full of exactly what I needed, some rest. I also had to wait for my Eurail pass to get to the hostel so I had some time to kill.

Most of my time I spent reading Brewing Up a Business, the story of how Dogfish Head started and grew into one of America's best craft breweries. A lot of what I learned from Mel at Wachovia comes up in this book. It made me even more thankful for having the opportunity to learn from her.

On May 3rd I hopped on the ICE and made the 7 hour trip to Brussels to meet up with Alexandra. If I could transplant one cultural aspect from Europe, it would be their public transportation. The ICE left at exactly the time it said it was going to, was extremely smooth and enjoyable, and arrived EXACTLY when it was scheduled to. The ease of transportation was incredible. This is obviously, not a new concept. Whenever people visit Europe, most of them come back with stories of train rides. Why we do not have this in the United States is just disappointing.

The first weekend in Brussels, I attended my very first "Castle Party". We attended the Spring Promenade at Schloss Merode which is in Northern Germany near the border with Belgium. Castles, cars, wine, and some Kolsch from nearby Cologne were all activities of the weekend.


The car pictured above is a Bug Eyed Sprite, which is the "automatic win" car in the "car game" which we used to play on road trips with the family. The only one we ever saw in the U.S. was on the way to Lake Lure and dad misidentified it at first as a Miata (granted he does wear glasses and was driving at the time). Well dad, I found a sexy green one outside a castle. Looks like I win that round.


Andres and I standing in front of the castle.


The bridge to the main building. It wasn't the biggest castle in the world but it has a pretty awesome mote around it which people would take boat rides in.


We got a private tour of the lower part of the spiral which they are going to turn into a little party room. I think you could convince me to go to a party inside the spire of a castle. It was remarkably cool and well vented. They have a disco ball, colored lights, and a pretty nice sound system.


So the "Spring Promenade" is a fundraising event held to help raise money for the restoration of the castle. A portion of the castle burned and the proceeds go to helping restore it to its original beauty. The hosts of the party were amazingly nice people and one of the guys used to be involved with the European Brewing Convention and we sat around, drank Orval and talked beer for awhile. Great afternoon!


Back in Brussels, I finally get my hands on some of the world's most delicious beers. Orval is one of my favorites.


From left to right is Westvleteren 12, L'achouffe Double Hopfen Triple, Cantillion Grand Cru, Cantillon St. Lamnivus, and a special triple hopped Duvel which I am taking back to Munich for my brewing buddies. Westvleteren 12 is regarded as one of the world's best beers. I think that it lives up to the hype. It is a quadruple and tastes of strong dark fruit. It is also one of the most sought after beers in the world as production is limited and distribution is even more limited. You are allowed to order 1 case per month per car. You have to go pick it up yourself, and there is some limited distribution throughout Brussels and even some of it makes it to the states but the markup has to be insane. I paid 10 euro for that bottle and it was probably worth it though I don't see myself getting one for every pizza night.

Spending time in Brussels was really enjoyable as it allowed me time to relax, sleep in, do some cooking and catching up with friends and family. I also spent a significant portion of time refining the resume and starting the job search. I also spent time planning out my trip to Italy via Ryanair. More on that with the next update!

Location:Brussels, Belgium

Graduation #1 (of 2)

So it all started roughly 12 weeks ago in snow covered Chicago. While a some of the guys (and gal) knew each other before hand, it is safe to say that we all made lasting friendships during our journey. The culmination of 7 weeks of intense classwork in Chicago, paired with the practical segments and also intense classwork at Doemens, and the European Brewing Tour we had finally arrived at, for some, the halfway point and for others, the end. It is for certain that many of us will be in touch for the rest of our lives as we share setbacks and successes (hopefully more successes than setbacks).


We had a nice lunch at a small restaurant near Doemens and Lyn Kruger made the trek to Germany to deliver our certificates. Our fearless WBA president, Michael Eder, had some beer from his brewery on hand for the celebrations.


Nice little setting right by the small river that runs through Grafelfing.


It wasn't really a place for pictures as it was a time to gather and celebrate what we had accomplished.


Lucky that this man won't be going anywhere and we will be spending the next two months together for the Master Brewer Program. All in all, there are eight of us remaining for the Master's program and we will be joined by twelve new faces. I am sure there are some amazing times to be had.

Thanks to social networking we have been able to keep in touch and many of our peers have already gotten jobs with some great breweries! It is going to be interesting to see where these talented individuals go in life. Thankfully the students are pretty evenly distributed all over the U.S. so road trips and great beer await!

Location:Grafelfing, Germany

European Brewing Tour - Week 2 Thursday

The last day of our brewing tour included a stop at the Schlagl brewery in the same town which we had the beer dinner. This was nice because we were able to sleep in a bit. I ended up not having a hangover at all the next day which was nice. Some of my friends were not so lucky.


We were able to see some traditional techniques that I have never seen before at this brewery.


This is actually a picture of the boil kettle which is a kind of bizarre setup. The heating surface is the slanted side of the vessel which causes some interesting convection. In the end, there is a pretty good reason this is the only one which we saw but it goes to show you that there is certainly more than one way to skin a cat.


They also had really cool CO2 recovery system which we had never seen before.


This is actually a non-operating portion of the brewery which they hope to recondition and use for small batches, as a pilot brewery of sorts. That sounded like a pretty awesome idea to all of us and if they needed a brewer to come work in the "pilot" brewery that many of us would jump at the idea.


They had a van outside, as we were heading down to the bier hall to try their beers, and were moving loads of papers from the van to a storage room.


In their restaurant/bier hall, they had some really cool tables set up inside some giant wooden barrels. The picture is a bit dark but the idea is really cool.

Our last stop was at the Flottweg company which is known for making centrifuges. It was another place where we weren't allowed to take pictures but it was pretty amazing to see the process. We had one last snack of Leberkase and soft pretzels before making the trek back to Munich. This raps up the European Brewing Tour.

Location:Austria

European Brewing Tour - Week 2 Wednesday

Wednesday could be described by many a brewer as one of the best days life could gift a man/woman. First stop was at the Schloss Eggenberg Brewery home of the acclaimed Samichlaus (more on that later). With a rich history for producing for producing some amazing beers, this was a stop everyone in our class had been looking forward to.


For the most part, the tour ran like many other of our tours. The brewery had its own hop garden which was relatively small and clearly not their main source for their beer but really cool nonetheless. The coolest part of this brewery will be explained later on in the day. I'll leave with you with a sample for right now:


The next stop on our tour was this amazing craft brewery in the middle of beautiful Austrian farmland called Brauerei Hofstetten. This was one of the places which we visited that was truly in tune with many American craft brewer's desire to experiment. Among the traditional techniques which were employed by this brewery was a very traditional mill which, when turned on, kind of sounded like it was going to bring the house down.


That is one classy mill. The classic copper brewing vessels fit the ambience of this rustic craft brewery.


One of the most amazing things that the brewers at Hofstetten were doing was they were fermenting in medium sized granite fermenters. After the wort was cooled and transferred to the open fermenters, they added glowing hot rocks, which had been warming over a grill, to the fermenters to caramelize some of the sugars which would give the beer its characteristic taste. The process has been used by some big breweries like Dogfish Head in their Sah'tea.


That shot captures the process even better than I though (look at the pictures on the wall). Some other awesome stuff that they are doing is creating an icebock (freeze distillation) and some barrel aging. The brewery doesn't have a restaurant or anything attached to it, just a beer garden and a great little bar. This one place inspired many different ideas which I hope to utilize in my own brewery one day.


We did get a chance to try nearly all of their beers and played a little soccer outside. One thing that we did get a chance to try was the "bucket beer" which will be explained in pictures below.


"Filling the bucket" - straight out of the aging vessel.


Getting ready to "experience" the bucket beer. I can't say enough about how nice the guys were at this place. The brewers were very open with their processes and excited to talk to us. We did get a little taste of their beer schnapps as well which was awesome.

After the juggling circle ended and we were full on beer, we thanked the brewers and owners for the amazing tour and samples and left for our final stop of the day, and one of the most anticipated. The Bierkulinarium awaited.


We were greeted by the famed World Champion Beer Sommelier, Karl Schiffner. The Biergasthaus is a hotel and a restaurant which we would stay in and have an amazing beer dinner. The five course meal had a beer and food pairing with each course and then to finish it all off we would have a special "digestif".


The view from the window of our hotel. The amazing rolling hills in the Austrian countryside. It reminded me very much of spring in Virginia.


The menu.


The beer pairings.


The table is set. Lets get to it!


Course 1: Asparagus with Aper-Ale. The asparagus was prepared cold and was absolutely delicious.


Course 2: Garlic Soup with Uerige Alt. I could have had ten servings of this soup. It was absolutely delicious and the pairing with the alt was delicious.


Course 3: Fried Salmon-Trout with Saffron-Risotto paired with Hofstettner Honigbier. One thing I can definitely say about all of the dishes and pairings. They were amazing.


Course 4: Roasted Beef with paprika sauce and fried potatoes paired with Champion Bitter. This was my favorite pairing and overall dish.


Course 5: Dessert - Sherbert from Dandelion-Honey paired with a heated bock. In the picture the bock has yet to be heated.


The bock is being heated. Karl is dipping a red hot poker into the beer which causes the remaining sugars to caramelize and makes the beer taste like a marshmallow. The theory is that it is an age old practice that was used by the iron workers to heat up the beer.


Course 6: Samichlaus!


Karl addressing our special guest who turned out to be one of the owners of the Eggenberg brewery which we visited earlier that day. It turned out to be a real treat because by this point things had loosened and we had all started to congregate around the massive bottle of Samichlaus. I think this bottle was the 3.5 Liter bottle.


The three legends. Karl is on the right, the owner of Eggenberg in the middle, and Michael Eder on the left. All three very good friends and all three stayed up far later than I drinking amazing beers well into the early hours of the morning. We did get a treat from the owner of Eggenberg which I was very interested to try.


He brought in a bottle of his distilled Samichlaus. The bottle came in full and left empty. It tasted like beer whiskey. A couple more vintages of Samichlaus came out and by that time, it was time for bed.

Location:More Austria