Last week was the 4th of July and I celebrated with some good friends down in San Clemente, CA. We were fortunate to hit basically no traffic on the way there (shocking) and it was a lovely drive down south to visit with friends and celebrate the holiday. My friends rent apartments that comes with this wonderful grass area that is perfect for entertaining. It has been so hot, luckily the day was muggy and overcast making it cooler than expected. 

We brought some of our spicy beer pickles we had just made and were excited to get everyone’s opinion on them. Everyone really liked them, especially the lemon cucumber pickles which were more spicy than the other pickles. They were gone in minutes. We also brought some of our watermelon wheat homebrew that we put a habanero in for 1 day during fermenting which was also very well received. Sean dubbed it “Aqualung 2:Epic Flute Solo,” because it was our second attempt at a watermelon beer and the first one was named “Aqualung.” I have to say, the first version of the watermelon beer wasn’t my favorite. The watermelon dropped-off a few weeks after it was bottled and ready to drink and you were left with this green chili taste. It was most likely due to the fact we added a fresno and sweet banana pepper the last time instead of a habanero. Also, the watermelon taste has lasted longer this time. It’s really refreshing and everyone seems to really like it.

At dusk, we walked down the hill to the boardwalk to view the fireworks. It was a wonderful evening filled with s’mores, laughs and good beers. I almost didn’t mind the terrible traffic back up to Orange. Almost…