Holiday Beer Party Part 2

The food is out of the way now on to the beer! The way this party was orchestrated was to try as many holiday beers as possible and have some interaction between the guests and make it fun. The first thing that  we did to make this fun and interactive was to put the beers on the table (in a cooler, tub, or something to keep them chilled); we also put out some clear plastic cocktail glasses so we could open multiple beers similar to a beer tasting event. I came up with a simple ballot for the event as well so we could see what the general consensus was for the best and worst of the bunch. I didn’t think it was necessary to go full on beer nerd with these, we just wanted to find out which was the crowd’s favorite without all of the minutia that goes into windbag reviews like I do on Facebook. We wanted best worst and that was it, maybe a comment or two on why. So everything is all set up, now the tasting begins! My wife and I brought a growler of Buckeye Brewing Ho! Ho! Ho! Magic Dubbel and a couple of bottles of Brooklyn Double Chocolate Stout. Two of my favorites, as I previewed them the week before the party.

I loved the atmosphere that a party like this created, it was fun hearing what people were trying, what they were going for next, and going around the rooms and talking about beer. The crowd was mixed from beer novices to people that drink craft beer regularly. The mix of people made it fun for me. Mostly because I usually don’t shut up anyway; add beer, plus people who want to learn about it, people who already enjoy it, end result - I had a blast. There were a lot of agreements on good and bad, likes and dislikes, one beer was even described as tasting “fishy”. I conveyed my major annoyance with the “spiced” beers tasting like a bowl of holiday potpourri, some agreed and some felt it made the beers more Christmassy like gingerbread. When all was said and done the beers that got the top votes from the vast array of beers that we had were:

1.       Revolution- Fistmas

2.       Buckeye Brewing- Ho! Ho! Ho! Magic Dubbel

3.       Delirium Noel

4.       Julie's-  homebrewed Holiday ale(side note it was really good

and was better than the vast majority of any of the beers we had from “professionals”, I loved it)

5.       Troegs- Mad Elf

 

That is the top 5. I think it's a real good list. The one noticeablefact with this list is that the "spiced" beers that dominate the holiday beer landscape were not in the top 5. In fact the most discussed "bad" ones were. One was Southern Tier's 2XMAS, which I didn't like, but it was better than others such as Lagerheads' Winter Mischief which was often described as bad and "all I taste is spice". This makes my point somewhat valid on these holiday beers. A good well-crafted English Winter warmer like Fistmas or a Belgian style Christmas Ale like Delirium Noel are more palatable than the kitschy, insipid, waste of my fucking time emptying the spice rack beers. Here's my top 5 from The party not overall. I'll have my top 5 overall up on my Facebook page in the near future.

1.  Revolution- Fistmas

2.  Julie's-  homebrewed Holiday ale

3. North Peak- Blitzen

4. Delirium Noel

5. Buckeye Brewing- Ho! Ho! Ho! Magic Dubbel

 

The masses have spoken, people. Men, women, experienced beer people and novices alike. So stop the madness will you please. Stick to making well-crafted beers like the ones on the lists above and the 3 ghosts may not pay you a visit this year.

I just want to wrap this one up by saying thanks to Lou and Dale for hosting and creating this party, and everyone who came making this party a fun and festive evening! I hope that everyone reading this who was not there decides to give this idea a try. It doesn't necessarily have to be a Holiday beer party it could be summer beers, stouts, god forbid a pumpkin beer party, however you want to do it!

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL !!!

Spreading the Holiday Cheer Part 1

Holiday Beer Party

One of my favorite parts of the holidays (other than the beer of course) is getting together with folks eating, drinking, and spreading some holiday cheer. As I promised in my last post I helped two great friends of mine with their annual holiday beer party. I always get all geeked up when: (A) it’s a beer themed affair, (B) there’s friends and family involved , and (C) We are pairing up food and beer.

 

This party presented a wild card. We didn’t pick all of the beer. That is where the fun begins. If you plan on doing this for the holidays (it can even be on New Year’s Eve or anytime from Thanksgiving to post New Years for that matter) tell your guests to bring a Winter/Holiday seasonal beer or beers. That is the guideline, a six pack, a growler, a couple of big bottles, however they want to bring it. Don’t get into ”I want you to bring this or that beer”. Stop being a control freak and just let it fly. You get a good cross section of what is offered especially now that most wine and beverage stores have some sort of single bottle section. So pairing food with no earthly idea of what people are bringing is a challenge, but there is a general feel for the holiday beers that make easier than one would think.  They fall into a couple of categories minus a few different ones: The Spiced up American Holiday Ales, English style Winter Warmers, and Belgian Christmas ales. The majority are going to be spiced up ones. Ones that have cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, cloves, etc. or any other variation of dumping a spice rack or bag of Holiday potpourri into a brew kettle (you can see that I am not a big fan of these in general). One of my co-workers turned me on to this pairing that I totally didn’t think of. Indian food. They have a common thread, the spices used minus a couple here and there, but they complimentary to each other. That was one of the best eye openers I have had in a while. The other 2 types are very versatile for food in general. English Winter Warmers are good balanced ales that have a sweetness, some fruitiness, and a little of a hoppy bitterness at the end. They work extremely well with pork, game meats, and cheeses, and Indian food as well. The 3^rd category is the Belgian Christmas ales; these are fruity, sweeter, and slightly bready, with no real bitterness to them. Now these are overall generalizations of these types of beer styles, all of them come with a uniqueness in flavor, color, body, but this is just to get an overall picture of what the hell we are dealing with. I posted the menu on my last entry and we stuck with it minus 2 mad science experiments that I did in my Laboratory (it’s not really a lab but my kitchen. If this thing takes off maybe at some point I will have one).  I made a beer and bacon jam that killer, but my wife took it to another level by making it part of a cheese spread. It went from good to orgasmicaly good. I felt we needed something sweet so I came up with beer marshmallows. I posted them on my Facebook page which you can find here. Here are the links to the other recipes that we used; Lou, one of the hosts, sought them out and here they are:

Curried Chicken Salad
 Roasted Eggplant Caponata
Butternut Squash and Tahini Yogurt Dip

The Sausage balls were one of his mom’s recipes which were awesome. He used sausage from one of our favorite stands at the Westside Market, The Pork Chop Shop. The girls there do an AMAZING job with pork of all kinds so if you are in Cleveland go there, get what they offer, you will not be disappointed. They currently have a Christmas Ale bacon that is beyond awesome, I can eat it all day. Back to the sausage balls, here is the recipe:

1. Mix together 2# ground pork sausage, 28 oz. shredded cheese, and 4 cups Bisquick until a "dough" is formed. You may need to adjust the quantities of cheese and Bisquick depending on the fat content of the sausage you use with the goal of achieving a consistency to form little balls out of the dough mixture. You can use spicy or mild sausage and sharp or mild cheese depending on your tastes. (I used 1# spicy & 1# mild and half sharp, half mild cheese).

2. Form golf ball sized balls and place on cookie sheets lined with waxed paper or treated with cooking spray.
3. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until tops of balls are slightly browned for immediate eating, or bake for only 25-30 minutes if you plan on heating them up at a later date.
So the menu is set, you can mix it up however you want to this is just what we did, it was awesome and I highly recommend it but if you want to throw some other foods go for it, it is a party and people will love it. In the next post I will give the results of the beer poll and my top 5, along with some other fun stuff.

Thanksgiving is now a thing of the past, and I hope that my little guide was helpful to everyone, and that you all had a great time feasting. It’s now time to get out all of the lights, Christmas trees, and holiday decorations and get all festive! It’s also time to think about parties, entertaining guests, so why not inject the festivities with beer? I have a couple, if not more, blogs on this subject in the coming weeks mostly because I love Christmas, it’s truly the most fun holiday for me. You get to give gifts, spend time with family and friends, eat, drink, be merry- all that good stuff. Since I have already purchased our tree, put up the lights (while most of you were in line at some big box hell hole last weekend), it’s time to talk about PARTY TIME!! Since this is part one, I am going to give some previews of what is coming up.

A couple of close friends of mine who enjoy the holidays and craft beer much like I do, have an annual holiday beer party. This is an outstanding idea for a get together. The premise of the party, other than having a lot of fun is for everyone to bring different holiday beers for everyone to try. It doesn’t have to be a straight up six pack of one type, it can be a bunch of different singles put together as well. Most areas of the country have someplace to purchase single beers and throw a bunch together, weather it’s a wine shop, beverage warehouse, Packie (if you live in the northeast), Whole Foods Markets and some regional grocery chains generally have a some as well.  This year I asked them if we could do a little interaction with the guests and get their feelings/ratings of all of the beers, and pair some foods up with the beers. So we are going to give this angle a shot it will be fun and we are going to do some video of it so you can get a feel for it. The food is going to be of the snacking/appetizer variety so we have a few things to pair up with the range of beers which run the gamut of flavors and styles. If you are interested in my ratings for these beers and others I have put up a Facebook page that has ratings brewery info and will have some other things that won’t be on here, so give me a like at (insert link) and you can get all of my input. So here is our menu, in the follow up post I will throw the recipes up for them.

Sausage Balls (yeah I know, you are a 3^rd grader stop laughing)

Curried Chicken Salad

Goat Cheese and Tomato Jam Spread

Eggplant Caponata

Butternut Squash and Tahini dip

Assorted salty snacks

So there’s the menu. I’ll give you a rundown on the reasons we chose these killer snacks in the next post on the party. Stay tuned for more. I am, as we speak constructing a brunch for your Christmas morning that is powered by craft beer, and fueled by local businesses here in wonderful Cleveland Ohio, it can be (recreated elsewhere to an extent) and well is going to be awesome if I can tout my skills for a moment. If you are interested in my ratings for holiday beers and others I have put up a Facebook page that has ratings, brewery info, and will have some other things that won’t be on here, so give me a like at Unfiltered on Facebook and you can get all of my input.

The Thanksgiving Beer guide...of sorts

Thanksgiving. Personally speaking this is my favorite holiday. It incorporates things that I love all into one day. It’s a bunch of F words but not my usual one of choice. Family, friends, food, football, fun. If you notice on that list, nowhere do I say sleeping in front of a Best Buy for days or shopping at any number of big box stores for shit I don’t need, or is 6 months out of date tech wise. Back on track that is a rant for another day and another blog.

  Ok to the beer and food part. I love cooking planning, and the overall vibe of Thanksgiving food. I am a traditionalist with the bird and the dressing. Pretty much the standard sage dressing, butter and herb rubbed turkey. Have I deep fried a turkey? Sure have, hell for a Stone Brewing beer pairing dinner for the holidays in Vegas, I even deep fried a turducken (don’t try this at home unless you have a restaurant grade pressure fryer).  For the record I don’t stuff the turkey it’s a 3 fold problem in my eyes. It dries out the turkey, it’s for all intents and purposes not a good food safety practice, and it takes way too fucking long to cook. I want to eat it but not have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to put it in the oven in hopes that it will be done by dinner time. This may seem like me rehashing things from the past, but just hang on while I give an overview. Sides are all over the board on this day, and to many folks out there the best part. Mashed Potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, all kinds of weird casseroles that you just see on Thanksgiving. The general theme and feel of all if not most is that they are earthy in flavor. There are a lot of root vegetables, starches, mushrooms, herbs like sage and rosemary. What I am saying in a nutshell is that the food mainly hits one note so it’s more than easy to pair it up if you know your beers.      So where does that leave us for beer pairing? I made a style guide that can help you out or just confuse the crap out of you because there are so many directions you can go. I hope it’s the former not the later but here it is.

 

This is a good look at where I go as far as the pairings. One type that I didn’t get into is the winter seasonals. As far as this post I am not going to break them all down just because there are hundreds of them and they all have different vibes from white IPAs to flavored stouts. The vast majority are spiced up winter warmer type ales, with lots of nutmeg and cinnamon. Save most, if not all for desert or for an after dinner drink. One thing to remember is that these beers that I have recommended do have a higher alcohol content than some of you may be used to. Don’t start throwing them back like a cheap can of Natty Light or you will be “that guy (or girl)” at Dinner, you never want to be that guy or girl. My PSA is done, so I am going to throw all of you a curveball.

Soooooo you want to do a near historic account of Thanksgiving dinner. Not the one where the dog cooks toast, popcorn, and serves jelly beans for the lesbian couple, the bird, and that weird kid with the blanket and his sister. The Pilgrims and Indians one. Scrap the food first off. It sucked. Venison jerky, squash and some sort of shot bird while tasty, is not going to cut it today. That leaves us with one thing, Let’s drink like the Pilgrims! First, throw out that Washington Pinot you bought, and then all the beer I recommended. At that moment in History they had one thing in the Plymouth colony, hard cider. What, you say the hop head is talking about cider? Yup. I am not going into nuances of cider here, but I am going to give you some craft ciders to try, and yes they exists, so throw out the shit with the rodent on it, and the Red fruit “ale” as well. My favorite for a Thanksgiving feast is the Crispin Honey Crisp Artisanal Reserve. It has a great apple flavor, a nice bit of honey in there. They don’t use the honey crisp apple, but it’s more of a play on words, in any respect it’s great. Another great one is the Cidre Bouche by Domanie DuPont from Normandy in France. It’s pretty much and orchard in a bottle, very tasty. There are many, many more that are great. Here is a site to find them if you want to dive into them go to http://unitedstatesofcider.com, there’s a good deal of info on theme there. This can be fun and a different experience for you to try.

I just want to say to everyone reading: Just have fun with Thanksgiving. Don’t stress about the food, the menu is more or less the same as it has been for over a century minus certain family twists, which may or may not be good. Get some different good beers, get together with family and friends and celebrate. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Why am I doing this?

 The big question, why am I restarting and reinventing my old blog? It needed to be done for one thing, also I went through a long period of being uninspired, lazy, and to be honest not knowing what the hell I was doing with it anyway. The one big thing was that it was good in my opinion, but for all intents and purposes it wasn’t totally who or what I am or what I REALLY think. The main issue was that my passion for beer and food was not conveyed in a way that reflects me. I pulled back on the reigns and just did what I thought people wanted to hear, good or bad. NOT what I wanted to say, which if you know me, is a lot. In my previous blog incarnation I refrained from going hardcore one way or another, trying to play the middle not offending or giving too much praise. Not this time. You will get my thoughts opinions with passion, and a visceral, honest, and different take on Beer and Food than you have heard in the past.

Here we go. I have a Bio page but here’s my Crash Davis version of who I am so you can get an idea of where this may go.

I am a craft beer freak. The main reason I am doing this whole thing. Much like a lot of folks in the world of beer blogging I am a hop-head. American IPA’s are my go to, my favorite, my Linus’ blanket in the beer world.

I love cooking, eating and playing with my food. I also will never be vegetarian or vegan. I can cook some great vegan food but I love meat and seafood way too much to give it up.

I do local. Beer, food, farms, music (when I can), art. If you buy into big box get the fuck out of here. You’ll be happier and less confused. This is what made America great not a store that enslaves thousands and sells sweatpants and ground beef two aisles away from each other.

I am a fucking nerd, by that I mean I love Star Wars, Comics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, all of that stuff. I love history, as well as movies and music. Which is the next point.

I am an unapologetic die-hard metal head. I like other forms of music but metal is what makes me alive. It has got me through the good times and the rough patches in life. It’s been my life’s soundtrack and I don’t think it’s going to change any time soon.

I have no time for ANYTHING Bud/Inbev, Miller, or Coors offer. They pollute the shelves with crap and force it on the public like a Miley Cyrus album. The fact that they have “bought into” the craft beer “trend” by buying up struggling breweries like a deranged version of Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life disturbs me to no end. They are much a kin to the Applebee’s, Chiles, and Olive Gardens of the restaurant world. Throwing shit at the American public who seem to think its great stuff.

Most importantly I find that you have to have fun in life, whatever that may be. Being too serious or negative just isn’t for me. I am going to make this a crazy, fun, twisted, and different ride. So strap yourself in and get ready for something that may not be revolutionary, but you will be entertained and get something out of this whole thing.  I will be posting a Thanksgiving beer and food pairing guide but if you want something now here’s my old guide from a few years back. Thanksgiving-feast-pt-1