Saturday, April 7, 2007

Basic Brewing and Boracay

Basic Brewing Radio
Wow, we got back from the beautiful island of Boracay after a few days R&R and I found that James from Basic Brewing has mentioned me in his podcast! Hey thanks James. Here are some of the links to the malting topic pages.

Sometime this week I am going to brew a small batch from the malt that I have made and check the quality. I am a little concerned about the protein levels. I read somewhere on the net that feed barley is higher in protein that malting barley. They also described the feed kernels as plump and round. The barley that I have malted is certainly not plump.

Boracay
Boracay (pronounced bore-ra--k-eye) is a very small island just off the northern tip of Panay, here in the Philippines. We are fortunate to live fairly close and can take a bus and short ferry trip to get there. If there is one place in the Philippines where tourists flock to it's Boracay. The beaches on Boracay are beautiful, white sand, palm trees; basically the stuff of postcards and the sunsets are world famous. There are many resorts, shops, restaurants and night clubs. I guess if you have ever been to Hawaii you know the feeling.

Boracay Beaches

The big attractions are the beaches and the scuba diving. The reefs and colorful sealife around Boracay are well known in the diving scene. If you are brave you can try parasailing; the less brave can wander the markets and malls, but I am happy to have a beer on the beach while sitting under a palm tree.

Boracay Markets

Beer in Boracay is San Miguel brands all the way, but I did see some Heineken, Colt 45, Carlsberg and Lone Star in a grocery store there. I can forgive the locals for overcharging for beer as they are making a living off the tourism business. On White Beach a bottle of San Mig Light can fetch 60 pesos. The bottlecap has clearly stamped on it 18 pesos. To give you an idea the supermarket price is $0.38 US and the beach price is $1.27 US. Of course there is ususally some kind of entertainment or happy hour specials, 2 for 1 etc. and most tourists don't care as long as it's cold.

Boracay Sunset
All in all, Boracay is wonderful place to visit. It's safe, has all the services, lots of things to do and tons of entertainment. We're going to go back again, for sure, but now we need a few days to recover from our vacation!

Cheers!

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