I got an email from the folks over at Frugaldad.com with a link to this stellar infographic they put together about beer. It has some general information on beer pairing, temperature ranges, and the health benefits of drinking (whaaaaaaaatttt????), all wrapped up in some snazzy graphics. So take a look and if you like it, go check out their site at www.frugaldad.com.
Source: FrugalDad.com
One thing that I noticed on my West Coast excursion this weekend was that these West Coast breweries (or at least San Diego breweries) take their barrel aging programs really seriously. I’m not sure if it’s a result of the culture of West Coast beer drinkers and their love for sour beers, or if it’s just to keep up with what everyone else is doing. But either way, I saw more barrels here than I’ve seen anywhere on the East Coast. And I liked it.
The other thing that is readily apparent when you visit SD is the beauty of better liquor laws. All of these breweries have tasting rooms on site, some with food and some without. You can buy a pint, a taster, or some beers to go and it’s really a wonderful thing. Maybe Anne Arundel County and the State of Maryland can get smart and take more of our tax dollars by reforming some antiquated brewery laws.
Here are some pics from Green Flash and Lost Abbey. I tried to take more, but I was distracted by the delicious beers along the way.
There are a few definitive places that you should be getting your information from (aside from here). I’ll include the obvious ones, like reading the NY Times restaurant reviews (this week’s review was a one-star gem about Shake Shack, btw) alongside the *slightly* more obscure places you can read about beer and cocktails. Without further ado, here are my top four in each category…
Cocktails
Jeffrey Morgenthaler - http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/
Jacob Grier – http://www.jacobgrier.com
Rum Dood - http://rumdood.com/
Gojee - http://www.gojee.com/
Beer
Beer News - http://beernews.org/
Brookston Beer Bulletin - http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/
Lew Bryson Seen Through a Glass - http://lewbryson.blogspot.com/
A Good Beer Blog - http://beerblog.genx40.com/
Newspaper Food Sections
NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html
Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food
LA Times - http://www.latimes.com/features/food/
Chicago Tribune -http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/#&lid=Food & Dining&lpos=Sub
You have other suggestions? What are your favorite beer, cocktail, and food blogs?
Ok, so I’m as much of a fan of the “extreme” beers as the next guy, but things are getting a little bit out of hand. When I’m picking drafts these days, one of my primary concerns is ABV. At this point, you have to factor that in. The average craft beer seems to have risen to over 6% with your everyday IPA topping out over 7%. Want a stout? You’re probably looking at 8% or 9%. Christmas beer? 10% or more.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good session beers out there these days, but the specialty beers and the seasonals are getting a little out of hand. Want proof? Just look at some of the new seasonals available in Maryland right now. Mad Elf is 11%. Bruery 4 Calling Birds is 11%. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is 10%. Uinta Dubhe Black IPA is 9.6%. Dogfish 120 Minute just came out at a whopping 18%! Victory Yakima Glory is 8.7%. Evolution Menagerie #3 is an even 10%. All delicious beers, all high abv.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself “there are great beers out there that are lower abv. This guy is nuts”. That’s true, I know. You can snag a Sierra Nevada Celebration at a meager 6.7%. Or a Sam Smith Winter Warmer at 6.1%. A Sixpoint Diesel at 6.8%. But the reality is that this becoming the exception rather than the rule. I beg you to find a winter beer that sits under 6%. Or a coveted seasonal that isn’t 8% or higher. When I choose beers for the restaurant, everyone wants the rare and unique. But when that’s the only thing I choose, we end up with more than half of our drafts at 8% or higher. And for a lot of people, or a lot of dayparts, or a lot of situations, that’s kind of limiting. So let’s keep making some high abv beers, but can someone please make me a drinkable, delicious, 5% Christmas beer?!?
So we decided to build a hop filter for Punk’s. It was inspired by the fact that I love aroma and flavor hops in beers, sometimes more than bitterness. It depends on my mood, as I like good bitterness as much as the next guy or gal. But this time of year, when it’s 900 degrees out and humid, I love that hoppy aroma and flavor.
Since it takes somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes to extract bitterness from hops, you’re not going to get a lot of that bitterness if you use a filter like this. Even the highest alpha acid hops aren’t going to add bitterness if the beer is run through them. What that means is that you can use any hops you like. Want some piney flavors? Done. Citrus? Done. Spicy? Done. The combinations are endless and awesome.
To make a long story short(er), this is what I created:
To construct this machine, I took a water filter housing, added some plumbing fixtures on the “in” and “out” valves to make it a 1/4″ instead of 3/4″, and got the appropriate attachments to hook it up to our draft system. To make sure that the beer filtered through the hops and didn’t just move straight through without hitting the hops, I took a mesh plumbing pipe and ran it from the “out” valve to the bottom of the canister. That helps to make sure there is some circulation in the canister.
When hooked up to the draft system, it looks something like this.
Pretty awesome, right? We add a tap handle to the front (Draft Punk this time) and start pouring! The beer runs from the keg, through the filter and into the glass. I’ve found the magic number to be 4 oz of fresh hops, but I fully intend to fill that canister with other stuff as well. Citrus fruit, stone fruit, fresh herbs, etc. You name it, I’ll fill that damn canister with it.
Thank you Dave Chapelle for that title…
Well it’s time to celebrate. Today is the day that I become a dad! All other excitement aside my question for you, fellow readers, is what is your go to celebration beverage? I have a few ideas.
1. The classic champagne cocktail: sugar cube, bitters, and champagne. Classic and delicious.
2. Westmalle Tripel: the lucious texture and high abv of this Belgian Trappist ale makes it a perfect celebration beer.
3. The French 75: Gin, lemon, simple syrup and champagne. A nice sparkling cocktail with a kick.
4. Brewdog Sink the Bismark: this super high abv beer drinks like a cordial making it a nice celebratory sipper.
5. Rodenbach Grand Cru: this west Belgium sour beer is elegant, unique and delicious. Aged in oak and rich in body this won’t feel like your everyday beer.
Those are my top five. What are yours??
Well, I finally got my hands on some Hopslam. It seems as though every time I go somewhere that has Hopslam I get there five minutes after the last keg, cask or bottle is gone. It’s been elusive in the years past. But this year I snagged myself a six-pack. It wasn’t cheap, that’s for certain. I paid $27 for a six-pack at Whole Foods on P St., but I had to grab it, at least to give it a shot.
For those of you who don’t know, Hopslam is a seasonal release from Bell’s Brewery in Michigan. It’s a 10% ABV hop monster that is brewed with honey. When it comes out, it’s a mad rush to get it. Whole Foods has a single six-pack limit per customer and when the bars grab kegs, the lines are around the block.
Hopslam has a huge citrus and grapefruit hop aroma right off the bat. It smells fresh and piney and wonderful. It pours a golden straw color in the glass and looks deceptively light. I don’t find it to be overly bitter, but it doesn’t lose that hop flavor or aroma. There seem to be a lot of finishing hops in this beer and probably a lot of dry hopping going on. It finishes with a bit of sweetness, probably due in part to the honey, and a really rich mouthfeel (also probably due in part to the honey). Any bitterness that exists comes out in the end, but only briefly.
I have to say, it’s pretty delicious and Hopslam is certainly worth seeking out. But the next time I have $30, I might save myself the trouble and buy two six packs of Nugget Nectar from Troegs.
I know its not about cocktails, but I suppose anything that involves crafting an alcoholic beverage can fall under the “Noble Experiment” spectrum. So let’s talk about homebrewing!
First off, let me say that I am NOT an expert. This was my first home brewing experience. But the process is not that difficult to understand and I think a short and sweet primer on it would be useful to any aspiring homebrewers out there. I’m not saying that brewing beer is easy. There are nuances and recipes beyond my wildest imagination. But the base line process isn’t too hard and that’s what I’ll share with you.
Anyways, I’ve been thinking and dreaming about home brewing for a long time. And a few weeks back I decided it was time to pull the trigger. Not knowing where to start, I wandered over to my friends at Annapolis Homebrew and begged for some advice. What they told me was that I should start with a kit and follow a recipe. There will be time for adventurous recipe creation down the road, but if your first homebrew sucks, you’re not going to want to continue. Follow the recipe, they told me. So I did. And I’m glad i did. Because it turns out I knew very little about how to brew beer. But that’s another story for another day.
So I got all of the required equipment, picked up my recipe, hops, malt, extracts and sugars, and got to work. If you’ve never brewed your own beer, here is the basic rundown:
That brings us to the end of phase one. The liquid has been turned into wort, hops have been added for flavoring and the base of your beer has been created. We’ve then added yeast to start converting the sugars to alcohol and we’ve left it to ferment.
Now the adventure begins. Stay tuned for the next post on fermentation, bottling, and drinking!
I don’t usually just toss around links on the blog, but if you’re a beer drinker, this one is worth a look. The New York Times spirit writer Eric Asimov has an article in this week’s Food section about American style pale ales. It not only runs through their top ten, but it gives a nice overview of the use (and perhaps, depending on your position, misuse) of hops in American pale ales. It also helps define what exactly and American pale ale is.
It’s a short and worthwhile read. And even better, the top American pale ale, in their humble opinion, comes from MD’s very own Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick!! Check it out via the link below.
