Well, things have been here there and everywhere for the last few months. At last things are settling down a bit! Anyway, I have had some moderate adventures in the last wee while (Ottawa-based adventures, that is. Vancouver and Ukraine adventures aren't included here) :) So, here is a short summary of the events...
So, first, I survived yet another adventure on Polish Airlines. I got in trouble for taking this photo. I'm not sure if this is always the rule or because there was a military plane just beside this one...
either way, I got a gruff talking to :) Hardly seems worth the trouble...
Here is my view out the window. It was a pretty cool descent into Warsaw, skimming on the top of the clouds for quite some time before dipping down.
As it turns out, there is a nice microbrewery, the Kichesippi Microbewery, here in Ottawa.
Tony and I ventured out one fine Saturday to check it out and take a wee tour
(like, really small, the brewery is basically one room).
I enjoyed seeing the process of beer making :)
The brewery is located in a very uninteresting and seemingly random industrial park in Ottawa
They happened to be brewing this particular Saturday, which doesn't always happen, so it seems...
So they take this malt (big white sacks) and dump it into the grinder thingy...
If my memory serves, this is what malt looks like...
Then they dump the crushed up stuff into this shiny container...
Which steeps the malt like tea (yum, yum) and that looks like this, all hot and bubbly in the pot...
Some of it spewels out like this... I can't remember why... maybe the casings or something...
Then they transfer it to this other identically shiny pot to separate stuff...
so there is no stirring in this pot, but otherwise it looks quite similar to the other shiny pot...
Oh, so here is what the big shiny pots look like... all nice and coppery...
And then the not-yet-beer is pumped into these other shiny pots...
Where this plant matter stuff (hops, maybe?) is waiting...
These little pellets smells nice and fresh and was compared to yeast...
as in the living agent that causes the fermentation...
Then they go through a three-tiered purifying process, which I have pictures of but figured there was enough of these shiny pots for the time being... After that, the beer, now actually being beer, complete with alcohol content, comes and sits in these shiny pots, just waiting for a nice keg to come along and take it away.
And after all that learning, they gave us some samples! :)
It wasn't nearly as bad as I anticipated. And so, the beer was tasty and the tour well worth the trip :)
On a different day, we went to what Tony kept calling a "Christmas Market" at Lansdowne Park. I had imagined kitschy crafts and most things relatively useless. However, as it turns out, it was a farmers markets with lots of local food, etc. It is actually called a Christmas market as it only takes place in the weeks before Christmas, but has little to do with knitting or random assortments of fabrics and jewelry. We had a fine time and, had we more cash on hand, would easily have spent more time and money here.
And, most importantly, I would like to introduce Linus, my new guitar :) He is a very lovely Canadian made, solid wood beauty purchased from a local shop, Metro Music. And so, I'm back to guitaring: taking lessons and getting together with a friend to jam (poor Tony has been subjected to both our playing and singing...) :)
Look how pretty he is! :)
And so, with a total of 3 weeks in Ottawa since August, we have managed to find a fair bit of fun and enjoyment. We'll see what the new years holds :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment