Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #96, October 27, 2016, Enjoy by 11.25.16 IPA by Stone Brewing Co.

The last time I was at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido, CA was right after we had just completed a 2,000-mile tandem bicycle odyssey down the Pacific Coast from Vancouver, CA to the Mexican border.  My mother-in-law picked us up at the border, and the next day we went to the San Diego Zoo, and then stopped for a pint at the Bistro.  I thought it would be a great place for the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall art installation, but unfortunately, due to logistics, that wasn’t possible.  All 99 paintings were in Alaska.  I lucked out and had the show at the new Midnight Sun Brewing Loft two years later.  Little to say, I was eager to make a live beer painting at the Bistro now that I was back in the San Diego area seven years later.

I “prepped” for the painting session by visiting Modern Times, and had a few coffee beers to get the blood flowing.  As we arrived on Citracado Avenue, I couldn’t believe how big the buildings are at the Stone complex.  The beer was as tasty as I remembered.  I got to sample the Xocoveza mocha stout, Ruination IPA, Enjoy by 11.25.16 IPA, a Stone Pilot Series IPA, and Who You Callin’ Wussie pilsner.  Every beer I had was tremendous!  The beer I chose to paint was Enjoy by 11.25.16 IPA (Black Friday).  I’ve enjoyed all the beers from this series.  I was impressed with the guest beer list as well, including Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing and Son of Berserker from Midnight Brewing Company, among many others.  Overall, a fabulous place to get beer.

We had to drive for about 35 minutes to arrive at this craft beer destination, which is a problem for the return trip, unless you have a designated driver.  Luckily my wife didn’t indulge too much, and was able to drive us back.  Good thing Stone Brewing has a hotel in the works.  After I finished painting, I had a hankering for a hamburger.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option on the menu, so we ordered the Mac & Cheese side, which was delicious.  Everything else on the menu was a bit fancy for a beer place, and cost more than I was willing to pay.  The food plates we saw coming out of the kitchen looked delicious, especially the ribs.  As we returned to San Diego looking for a place for dinner, we decided to try Pokirrito, since we don’t have one in Anchorage.

I strongly recommend visiting the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens.  It is an impressive place to take your beer-loving date.  Go ahead and order any of the food options, as I am sure they are delish, but don’t forget to either have a designated driver, or just drink one of the session beers like Go To IPA (4.8%).  If you need to sober up a bit, you can stroll through the gardens.

Cheers to Stone Brewing for always pushing the boundaries!

This original oil painting, and 52 limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #96 by Scott Clendaniel. October 27, 2016. Enjoy by 11.25.16 IPA by Stone Brewing Co., 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #95, October 20, 2016, Sunny Side Up Coffee Stout by Pizza Boy Brewing Co.

When we woke up this morning in the cabin in McCarthy, our iPhones didn’t have any service, so our first concern was that I wouldn’t be able to post a Thirsty Thursday beer painting for the first time since I started the project at the start of 2015!  The second thought that crossed our minds was that maybe the world had ended after last night’s Presidential Debate, and we had no way to find out, but then I remembered that I saw a jet fly by earlier.  We didn’t know whether we were the only ones having this problem, so when our neighbor stopped by for coffee, the first thing we asked him was wether his phone worked.  But he said it was low on power, and he hadn’t turned it on all morning, and left it at his cabin.  Luckily, someone, somewhere fixed the problem promptly, and now we’re connected to the outside world again.  

I painted this piece yesterday next to the burning wood stove in our cabin, but I drank the Sunny Side up Coffee Stout by Pizza Boy Brewing Co. a few days ago, and I can tell you that it would be a great way to start the day.  My friend Rich gave me this can when I visited him in Philadelphia last month, and I brought it all the way back to Anchorage in my luggage.  He says he feels sorry for anyone who’s never had this beer, and I agree.  Drinking this beer with your breakfast eggs would be kind of like starting the day with a rock concert.  This batch of Sunny Side Up is brewed with coffee from Little Amps Coffee Roasters in Harrisburg, PA, so that’s why there’s an amp on the beer can, and band instruments on a stage in the painting.  As my wife sipped on her share, she commented that this is a nice coffee beverage with some beer in it.  Well, not just a little bit of beer, considering its 9.5% ABV.  If you drink this beer after 4PM, you better have a concert to go to, because there is so much coffee in this tasty hybrid beverage that you won’t be sleeping until well after midnight.  Pause your morning band practice and raise that coffee cup full of brew in a toast to Pizza Boy and Little Amps, a marriage of flavors from two great companies!

This original oil painting, and 52 limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #95 by Scott Clendaniel. October 20, 2016. Sunny Side Up Coffee Stout by Pizza Boy Brewing Co., 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Free Printable :: Pint Glass Inspired by Kandinsky :: Free Downloadable Beer Art Print

I’ve been painting beer for several years, and am thankful to my patrons, blog readers, social media followers, friends, and family for buying my oil paintings and prints.  So, as a thank you gift, I’m giving a free downloadable beer art print to you.  This painting is from my famous-paintings-with-beer series.  It was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s art.  I released this painting on Thirsty Thursday on March 5, 2015.

Just download this file by clicking on the “Download” link below, and print it at home.  The prints I sell have my original signature at the bottom, and are numbered (they are all limited-edition), so this one won’t be worth as much in the long run, but it will spruce up your bar, kitchen, or man cave, and can even make a nice gift.  The full size is 6″x12″.

CHEERS! 🍻

DOWNLOAD

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #94, October 13, 2016, Louisville Sour by Denali Brewing Co.

This week’s featured Thirsty Thursday beer painting is of Denali Brewing Company’s Louisville Sour, which is a Sour Barrel Ale.  You may ask, what a Sour Barrel beer actually is.  There is not really a guideline for this style, but I’ll do my best to describe this particular beer.  This tart and zangy beer is fermented in oak barrels, which introduce a boatload of critters (micro-organisms) into the fermentation process.  Namely, Pediococcus, Lactobacillus, and Brettanomyces; each bringing a particular flavor.  The strongest flavor in this beer is the sour Lactobacillus.  Denali’s stub-bottled beer is as refreshing as a tart lemonade on a warm summer day.

If you love baseball, nothing is sweeter than going to an Alaska Baseball League game on a sunny day.  Alaska may not grow lemons, but we home-grow some great college, minor-league, wood bat baseball.  Catching the last few innings of a double-header under the midnight sun at one of the five stadiums in Alaska is an experience.  The mountain views can be distracting.  Keep your eye on the ball, because some of these kids can hit!  There is nothing worse than getting a foul ball right in your beer cup.  This year the Mat-Su Miners are the league champions, which is very fitting as Louisville Sour is brewed an hour and a half down the road in Talkeetna.  You won’t find this beer at the ballpark, and may have to be at the right place, at the right time to find it anywhere else, for that matter.  Once it hits the shelves, it sells out fast!  Sour beer fans will tell you, Denali Brewing hit Louisville Sour right out of the park!

This original oil painting, and 52 limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #94 by Scott Clendaniel. October 13, 2016. Louisville Sour by Denali Brewing Co., 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #93, October 6, 2016, Panty Peeler Belgian Tripel by Midnight Sun Brewing Co.

I painted this week’s Thirsty Thursday beer painting in response to the recent heat that Midnight Sun Brewing Company has received over the name and label design of Belgian Tripel called the Panty Peeler.  I remember first tasting the Panty Peeler at the original facility on Arctic Blvd in 2003 when the beer was called Épluche-Cullote, French for Panty Peeler.  In 2008 the name changed to Panty Peeler, because Americans were confused by the French name.  This beer is now available on draft at the Loft at Midnight Sun Brewing, in 22-oz bottles, and in cans. Midnight Sun has won awards for this beer, the latest being a silver medal in the Can Can Awards in the Belgian style ale category.

So, the beer is sexy, the design on the can is sexy.  Everyone knows sex sells.  But is it sexist, and does it promote “rape culture”, as some critics have recently claimed?  I think not.  The term “Panty Peeler” is a bit ambiguous.  The Urban Dictionary defines it as, “something said, or done that is almost sure to get a chick to sleep with you.  A candlelit dinner with rose petals could be a huge panty-peeler.”  This does not have anything to do with rape.  Promiscuous?  Yes…  Criminal?  Absolutely not!  Courtship is part of sex and is completely natural.  People who are looking for sexism and rape in anything and anywhere are in denial that women can choose to have sex.  Consensual sex does not mean rape.  Women enjoy sex too.  Everyone knows that alcohol is an aphrodisiac.  In my mind a delicious Belgian Tripel is aptly named Panty Peeler.  Shame on you, prudish party poopers, for taking an innocent, whimsical product and linking it to a heinous crime.  I stand behind one of my favorite breweries, and the wonderful people who run it.  It would be sexist not to.

This original oil painting, and 52 limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #93 by Scott Clendaniel. October 6, 2016. Panty Peeler Belgian Tripel by Midnight Sun Brewing Co., 14″x11″, oil on panel.

Dog Portraits

There are cat people, and there are dog people.  From my experience as an artist, dog owners must love their pets more than cat owners, because I’ve painted way more commissioned portraits of dogs than of cats.  Maybe this is not an accurate way to measure a person’s love for their furry companion, in fact, I’m completely joking.  In all seriousness, after beer, dogs are the second most popular subject matter for commissioned oil paintings among my customer base.

I don’t have a dog, mainly because our condo association doesn’t allow pets, and also because we travel too much, but my family has always had multiple dogs and cats, so I grew up with them.  Whenever possible, I prefer to meet the dog, before I paint a portrait of it.  That way, I can incorporate its personality into the painting.  Here are a few examples of my dog portraits, and one of a cat.