Beer Making & My Passion For Retro Anything

For almost as long as I can remember (no wise cracks please), Lea has wanted to make beer. Several years ago she bought some good books to learn the art but we really didn't have the space for that particular "hobby" so she waited until recently when she was finally able to buy the equipment and get started.

Here's Lea siphoning out her first batch from one container to another after a long fermentation process (well it really wasn't long for me but for Lea it was) ....


Then she bottled .....


She bottled them at the dishwasher just after being sterilized .... or is it sanitized? All I know is the whole process has to be really really clean. So the bottling was the day after Christmas and she gets to pop one open this coming Sunday. Will let you know how it turned out. Good or bad she needs to start another batch.

So I have another 2 favorite stores in my life. One is called "Flashback" and it's in Mountain Home. A pretty big place that's like everything 60's and 70's .... from clothes to records to household stuff to smoking apparatus to posters to bumper stickers to everything you can remember of the 60's and 70's. Next time I go I'll shoot more photos but here's one .... that's Lea checking out the record albums ....


So .... the first time we went there it reminded me of how much I missed the sound of vinyl .... so I bought a Crosley Mini Suitcase record player .... remember those? .... well Crosley makes the old players ... but new. Now Jean Twidwell would drop on the floor and froth at the mouth at the thought of putting good vinyl on one of these but I really love it and Jean ... I promise not to put good vinyl on it :) I'm buying back all my Moody Blues, Blood Sweat & Tears, Crosby Stills & Nash, Led Zeppelin, Stones, Beatles .... etc. the list is really long. So the really amazing thing is .... plugged into my rather expensive powered desktop computer speakers the sound is really really really good .... far better then what comes out of my iTunes library. There's just a totally different warmth and sound quality from vinyl that digital just can't do. So here's a photo of my little mini record player .....

Currently playing Leo Kottke but that was Blood Sweat & Tears playing when the photo was taken.

Ok ... so my other new favorite place is "For Mother Earth" and it's in Norfork ... only a little over an hours drive as is Mountain Home but you can get from Norfork to Mountain home (or visa versa) in about 15 minutes so the whole process is an awesome loop. I don't have any photos of the inside of the store but next time I go I'll shoot some for you. It's a lot like "Flashback" but it's smaller, more personal and more into musical instruments, books, wiccan stuff and drums ... drums! We had met the owner of For Mother Earth at Flashback who sells some of her stuff at that store ... I love that the 2 stores work together instead of trying to compete with each other. Anyway ... here's the outside of the store in beautiful downtown Norfork (which is a beautiful mountain town) ....

It's the one with all the wood and I love it!

So would someone poke Bobbie because I'd love to post the rest of the "Viva Rock Vegas" post but I was really kinda doing it for her and I hate to finish the post without giving her the chance to try and figure out what it's about and I know she would have commented if she saw it .... Thanks!