Lazy Weekend, Busy Weekend

Last weekend was a lazy weekend. On Saturday we got a late start then went out for lunch and shopping. Sunday we planned to do a challenging hike at Pinnacles National Park, but as early Sunday morning rolled around we decided we both weren't feeling it. So we lazed around the house most of the day.

If it was a weekend wasted, it was a weekend well wasted. We needed the downtime to rest up from the previous weekend's hiking near Las Vegas and the Texas Panhandle. And Saturday's shopping included me finally buying a new iPhone after 5 years, so I did spend a few hours getting things moved over. Plus, we wanted to save our strength for next weekend's out-of-town hiking trip.

Next weekend? Yes! We've got plans laid in to visit some of the California deserts, particularly to see the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and California's Red Rocks State Park. We'll leave Friday after work, drive 'til around midnight, hike all day Saturday and Sunday, and drag home Sunday night. Some weekends are lazy, some weekends are busy!

Beer Tasting, Round 2: Negra Modelo and Laguna Baja

In Round 2 of my project to reassess what beers I like best by conducting new taste tests I picked two beers that turned out to be very similar, Negra Modelo and Laguna Baja. It's not my intention to run this taste test like a knockout bracket; but once I picked North Coast Brewing's Laguna Baja as "Beer A" I felt I had to select its closest competitor, Negra Modelo, as "Beer B". Plus, both were on sale. 🍻



I grabbed Laguna Baja when I saw it on the shelf a few weeks ago because it's uncommon. I first encountered it on a visit to the North Coast Brewing Company's beer-pub in Fort Bragg, California, 18 months ago. (They hadn't yet created it when I stopped in for my infamous 14-beer lunch in 2016.) I liked when I had a glass with dinner but didn't buy any bottles to take home because my local store sold it (I checked online). I didn't have any more room in the trunk anyway with all the other beer I bought. 😅 Well, the local stores soon sold out and didn't restock it regularly, so I didn't see it again until our next road trip through Fort Bragg. Thus when my local Total Wine store had it recently I grabbed a six-pack.

Laguna Baja is "a Vienna Lager in the Mexican style". That means it's an amber lager, aka dark lager. "It's a lot like Negra Modelo," the beertender in Fort Bragg told me when I first saw it. That's why when I grabbed a six-pack of it for my taste test recently I knew I pretty much had to grab some Negra Model to taste alongside it.

Negra Modelo— or Modelo Negra as the Mexican brewer seems to call it now— describes itself as a Munich Dunkel-style Lager, "medium-bodied, with a smooth, caramel taste." It's been a go-to pick of mine in Mexican restaurants for years. It's a good all-around beer with a taste that's just strong enough to stand up to spicy food while also light enough to be enjoyed on its own.

How did the two beers compare? Surprisingly similar.

If North Coast's objective was to copy Negra Modelo, they succeeded. I tasted the beers one then the other, then in the other order, and both with and without food. I could not tell them apart by their flavor or color.

If there's a winner for this round it's Negra Modelo. That's because while I like to support microbreweries for their innovation, North Coast has merely copied a macrobrew. Copied it to the point that the two beers are indistinguishable once poured in a glass. And that macrobrew, Negra Modelo, is a lot cheaper. It's $10 for a six-pack of Laguna Baja but only $14 for a 12-pack of Negra Modelo. ¡Viva México!