Many many years ago, we met a young brewer and I fell in love with his beers. OK, one beer in particular - his Wee Heavy. The brewer, Bill Madden, moved around a few times to other breweries and Beer Geek and I followed him wherever he went. I don't know if he knew he had a fan girl, but I was totally that girl. And then about 10 years ago, we had the chance to be involved when he opened his own brewpub. Over the last 9 years, I have spent many many hours at Mad Fox and with the amazing friends that we have made through there. I got to brew Wee Heavy once... I celebrated my 40th birthday there... We celebrated our 20th anniversary there... We spent more weekend days than I can count at festivals … [Read more...]
Beer and Running: a match made in heaven
You all know I love craft beer about as much as I love running. OK, maybe even more than I love running. When I get the chance to combine the two, I'm a happy camper. And lately the opportunities to run and drink beer in t he DC area are growing and growing. The number of breweries and brewpubs has exploded in recent years. Conveniently, many of them are near local running trails and many of them are hosting run clubs, which is basically code for run and drink beer. Since today's Friday Five 2.0 topic with Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness is beverages, I'm going to give you five reasons to run for beer (aka run with a beer related run club). Running with friends is always better. OK, maybe a beer run won't be your best … [Read more...]
Busy with a side of crazy busy
It's Monday already? How did that happen? I feel like just a few minutes ago, I was happy that it was Friday. Not that Friday was an awesome day. Friday was "organize the tax stuff" day. We use an accountant, but I still had to find all the pieces of paper and figure out all my blog income and expenses. I slacked off on keeping my spreadsheets up to date in September and boy was I regretting that as I searched for items that needed including. Thankfully, I did find everything so now I just need to scan a few documents and then send it all to the accountant. In addition to the fun tax stuff, I also worked a few hours on Friday. Between the two, it was not what you'd call a fun day or evening. Work is usually pretty flexible, but we … [Read more...]
5 Photos Friday – Highs and Lows
The last seven days have been filled with some major highs and lows. It was hot, it was cold. I ran fast for 13.1, I barely made it through 10 miles. I worked, I ran, I shopped, I ran some more, I shoveled snow, I ran again. The one thing I didn't do was sleep. Funny how running for hours every day means it's virtually impossible to get everything else done. In all, I ran 57 miles over 6 days. (And if you follow me on instagram, you've seen several of these pictures.) 1. My week started with a jaunt through DC - the RNR USA Half Marathon. While it wasn't my fastest, or even my favorite half marathon, it was solidly in the top 10. Well organized, great course, and I felt strong the whole time. And I got the best finish line picture … [Read more...]
Running and beer
That pretty much sums up my weekend... Saturday was the 4th annual Barleywine Festival at Mad Fox Brewing. Beer Geek and I shuffled the kids off to friends for the day/night and arrived as they were opening at 11:00am. Yes, I started drinking at 11am. The event offers 4oz pours for $3 each and there were 20+ beers to choose from in the first session. I'm just going to say that we tasted most of the beers in the first session and a decent number from the second session. Sunday, I had an event at the Endurance Athletic Center with Moms Run This Town. I also had a 6ish mile run on tap. (No pun intended.) The original plan was to run from our house to my car ('cause you KNOW I didn't drive home on Saturday), since my car and the EAC … [Read more...]
Go big or go home (+ a winner)
Beer Geek has a few days of leave he has to use by the end of the year. Because this year he's covering the office during Christmas week, he's decided to take a few random days off between now and then. Monday was the first of those days. Being the good wife that I am, (stop laughing), I asked him what he'd like to do on his day off. His response? Let's bike to Mad Fox Brewery and back. Although my immediate reaction was "hell.no.", what came out of my mouth was "Sure, I can do that." What??? Let me tell you a little bit about the planned ride. It's hilly. It's 5.5 miles each way. Some biking in traffic is required. It was windy yesterday. And, oh yeah, it's HILLY! And the farthest I'd ever ridden before was 3 … [Read more...]
Brewing with Mad Fox
When Beer Geek and I first started dating, he was a home brewer. He made some really good brews back in the day. As life got busier, home brewing fell by the wayside and eventually we sold all of his equipment to make room for all the kid related stuff that came into our lives. Lately, though, *I've* been thinking that I want to start brewing. And I figured where better to learn than from one of the best? So, I called up Bill Madden and Charlie Buettner at Mad Fox Brewing Company and asked if I could help them brew a batch. Not only did they say yes, Charlie let me know when they were brewing their next batch of Wee Heavy (my favorite beer). I had to miss the very beginning of the brew process because I had to get my kids to … [Read more...]
