A Rant the Easy Way, a big F*** You to the Proud Macro People.

So the Super Bowl has been over for a couple of days now and we are all still talking about bad calls on the one yard line, and the overall greatness of that game. In my opinion the best Super Bowl I have seen since the Giants played the Bills, if not better. That is not why I am here today writing though. The reason for this entry is as some of you saw, and others who know me well know what’s coming. In the middle of this epic game there was a commercial for Budweiser. It was called brewed the hard way, or something to that effect. It’s caused a stir with folks that enjoy good beer and these are my thoughts.  

The first thing I would like to do is congratulate them on being proud to be a Macro Beer. Good for you Budweiser, good for you. I am glad that you are proud that you brew beer in factories, and that you can produce carts with horses and puppies in commercials for 4.5 million a pop that cater to that working man or woman and not us people who don’t work hard. Or have a brain, an opinion, or are remotely close to having an independent thought. Bravo.

Now on to my rant. Fuck you and shut the FUCK up. The people depicted in your 30 second masterpiece that fussed over beer and dissected it were an obvious stereotype of a beer geek. The guy with the handlebar mustache with his nose in the snifter of some sort of stout, and the table of other guys who were dressed similarly. Nice profiling. Guess what, I and MILLIONS of other people do not remotely resemble your high schoolish finger pointing, locker room style bull shit. I listen to Slayer, I drive a 2010 Dodge Challenger, watch football and NASCAR, I work my ASS off every day, and guess what there is no way in HELL I’m drinking a Bud. EVER. I don’t quote Nietzsche, drive a smart car, or listen to Mumford and Sons, which is what your marketing team was going for right? Those are the only people who drink craft beer.WRONG again, we are all different types of people you bunch of dopes. We just like good beer, something you fail to recognize or produce for that matter. So by this system that you have put into play who drinks your shit in a bottle? I am assuming that they are the Bro crowd of spray tanned fauxhawk, tribal tattooed guys and or that crowd that doesn’t drink beer except to get hammered, and hang out with their “Guys” ( see Meat Head Rob Lowe, or Creepy Rob Lowe from his direct TV commercials).

You are also catering to the crowd that also believes that Olive Garden is great Italian Food and P.F. Changs is great Chinese. The zombie like masses who do what marketing tells them. (See the last sentence of my first paragraph).In other words American Idiots.

Let’s go over the hypocrisy of the ad as well. So if you are all about your beech wood aged beer for “drinking” get out the horses show me a puppy happy good time beer, then why may I ask, do they have stakes in craft breweries like Widmer and Goose Island if they are so dead set against craft beer? Why then are there 50 different types of Shock Top? They are losing to us freaks, that’s why. They want their shelf space back so they can put 500 different bottles of bullshit in a case near you. So they turn to the masses, wave the flag, bring their horses and puppies out and essentially call us dweebs. Nice.

In Closing I would like to say that I am a craft beer dork, I do fuss over my beer, I do dissect craft beers, because they have flavor and are WORTH MY TIME, unlike your “drinkable”, “smooth finishing” yellow flavored water in a bottle. I would like to add with 2 middle fingers raised to the sky, Drinking an Arrogant Bastard, and listening to VoiVod, take your horses, beech wood barrels, puppies, frogs, football playing bottles, and whatever your team of Marketing losers come up with next, and cram them straight up your Macro ass.

The Beer Can Chicken Experiment Pt. 2

                Part II

Now on to part 2, since the first part I tried a couple of others. So I added one of them that I felt came out great. Now keep in mind as I have continually said in past posts, just because it cold out is no reason to put the grill away in storage. Use it all year, after all it is fire and last I checked fire beats snow and cold. Plus your neighbors will think you’re crazy, which is also fun. So here we go the next one. For this one I used 6 point Sweet Action which is a nice hearty cream ale that has some orange and honey notes with a mild bitterness. I thought that this would be a good spot to do one with a BBQ seasoning mix. It’s a really simple mix that you can use on just about anything from chicken to pork to beef.

 BBQ Seasoning Mix 

1/4 c. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. dark chili powder

1 Tbsp.  Paprika

1 tsp   smoked paprika

½ tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp   onion powder

1 clove garlic minced

1 tsp tomato paste

1 Tbsp. salt

1 tsp black pepper

Mix everything together in a food processor and rub it all over the chicken. A side note here in regards to the tomato paste. One great tool or short cut is to get one of the tubes of tomato paste (they are similar to a toothpaste tube that you can find generally with your Italian/international aisle in most if not every grocery store) instead of getting a can. It’s a little more expensive but you don’t have leftover tomato paste in your fridge that you end up throwing out anyway. With the tube you can use as much or as little as you need, put the cap back on and it lasts for a good long time. Just don’t mistake it for your toothpaste, because that could be weird and pretty unpleasant.

Cooking instructions are on the first installment of this 2 parter. On to the next one which I used Arcadia Wit Sun but any Belgian Wit or “wheat beer” (look for lighter wheat beer with coriander and/or orange peel in them) will work. I used this one because of its availability to me. Other ones that can work well with this one are Bell’s Oberon, Avery White Rascal, Revolution Bottom up, or one from your local area that you like. For this I did something similar to a Coastal French/Provencal rub. Fresh herbs, garlic-type rub.

Herb Rub

¼ c. olive oil (The type is up to you)

3 cloves garlic minced

1 shallot minced

1/4 c. fresh thyme, chopped

¼ c. fresh Rosemary, chopped

¼ c. fresh oregano, chopped

½ c. fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Juice and zest of ½ lemon

Salt and pepper

The best way to do this one to get everything chopped fine is in a food processor, rub the mix on the outside of the bird and use the same cooking instructions as the others.

This one is a late addition to my experiments and an easy one to boot. Not that the others were hard but for this one I kind of cheated and it came out great. For the final one, in the now 5 types, of beer can chicken I did a Harissa rubbed chicken. Harissa is a Chili paste used mainly in the Mediterranean coastal countries of Africa (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco mainly). You can make this spicy paste on your own or do as I did and purchase a pre-made one (the cheating part). You can find good Harissa at most Mediterranean or Middle Easter markets or in some better grocery stores. The beer I used for this was Oskar Blues Dale’s pale ale. The reason being that I wanted something with a decent hop presence for some nice flavor and aromas but not a high powered APA or IPA that could have over powered it. The procedure is for this is pretty simple, as are the others. Rub the outside with the Harissa and use my standard technique to cook it.

I hope everyone enjoyed this little bit of experimentation and craziness from me, you can expand upon my insanity by coming up with your own combos and such, just remember fails happen it’s not the end of the world, after all it’s just chicken and beer.

Session in the Abyss

 This is not my typical blog, just a warning shot. I am not going to talk about food or pairing it with beer that much in this one. The main reason is that this is more of a ranting than a “normal” post for me, not that I don’t get fired up about something in every post but this is a prolonged one. It’s about everybody’s new hot girl, the session IPA and session beers in general. I am a hop-head, I love hoppy beer, and they make me happy. Not that I don’t love all forms of the magical brewed libation, but these are my sweet spot as most people know by now.

First off we have to define a session beer. More or less it means a beer with lower alcohol (my guess is somewhere between 3% and 4.5% by volume) for the purpose of having more than 1 or 2 in a session of drinking them, hence the name. A good explanation is on Beer Advocate, it gives a history definition of the term. It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of great beers that could be but are not defined as session beers. A good amount of British, American, and Belgian Pale Ales and other categories of beer fall in this range. Some are hoppy and some are not. There are literally thousands of choices that are session-able.

 For years we have been offered IPA’s that are big, bold, and sometimes ridiculous. It seemed like a contest between brewers to see who could come up with the next big hop bomb or the next melding of hop varieties to kick your palate around, not to mention hopping up other styles like black IPAs and Belgian IPAs that are now a sub- genre of sorts to IPA’s in general. So now you are going to tell me that the next thing everyone wants to do is a hoppy, lighter bodied, lower alcohol beer and call it a “session IPA”. The basis of the craft beer movement is and was to not give a flying fuck what advertisers, the general public, and everyone else thinks and make real beer. That idealism seems to be lost on these beers. Think Metallica’s black album.  No more metal up your ass, but an over-produced to fit the general populations taste so we can get more  ”fans”. The sell-out album. Session IPA’s are the sell-out beer. Mass appeal, watered down, still ok but not as good as what they should be. I am not saying they are not well crafted just to get that out there before people start throwing rocks at me. Now I am all for full flavored beers in whatever ABV range they fall in. Good well-crafted beer is good beer, period. This all being said I think that the use and apparent need to define a beer as a “session” beer is absolute bullshit. Also the other notion of the public wants lighter alcohol beers is another bullshit reason. My beef mostly comes with the necessity for a label. I am over all of the buzzwords like session and just slapping IP-fill-in-the-blank to make it a marketable beer. Spare me. So what’s next a Session Imperial Bourbon Barrel India Pale Stout? That would cover all of the buzz words and styles.

 I have tried a bunch of these beers and there are a couple that are really good. I enjoyed Fat Head’s Sunshine Day Dream and Stone Go To but they are not IPA’s in my opinion, they were aggressively hopped pale ales. Which is good.This my opinion and I am not the only that feels this way I am sure of it. I just want good beer without mass marketing ploys, and buzzwords, and all of that other bullshit that has been popping up. To sum it up from a previous point: What I am saying is I want Ride the Lightning not Load or Re-Load.

Spring, Chili Beers, and the Grill

 I decided to take a little time away from writing the last month or so. First, I was in a funk from my Broncos getting absolutely annihilated in the Super Bowl. That coupled with the never ending winter here in Ohio left me a little bare on the inspiration front. I am now refreshed, over THAT game, and looking forward to posting a bunch more now that spring is more or less here. That means for me, more grilling time, and it’s time to get the garden up and running. I am not as enthralled with the beers of summer as some folks are, and they are just starting to slowly be released so we’ll save that for a post in the next month or so, but I have been paying some attention to the pulse of the beer world, and I have been playing around with food in my away time which should't shock anyone at all.So let's dive in.

Right now, there are some trends with beer that have been taking shape over the last year (or a little longer) that seem to have gained popularity among brewers and those of us who drink beers are taking a liking to. Much like a few years ago when the rage “trend” was the bourbon barrel aged blah-blah fill in the blank beer style; we now have a couple right now that I tend to prefer over that. After all beer was originally barrel aged, not necessarily in a craft whiskey cask or a wine barrel but you get the picture. It still is fairly popular and I do enjoy some, but I think that it’s almost a solely marketing tool and it’s been played out to the fullest. Christ, Miller has a bourbon flavored beer.  The trend that I am most interested in, that has got legs currently is the addition of chilies to beer. Sure it’s been around, we have all seen that shit lager with the chili pepper in it, but we are talking about something that has had a little more thought put into it. Contrary to what some may think I like this one. For the record I am not a don’t-put-things- in-my-beer-jerk-ass. The jerk-asses mentioned often pledge their allegiance to The Reinheitsgebot it is the German beer purity law (which has changed a little over time). Look it up for the full details on it but it basically has only a handful of ingredients that are allowed by law to make beer: water, hops, malted barley. You get the picture. I get some of the sentiment for this, putting corn or rice as the main grain on the bill to cheapen it, but other things can be done to beer that can be experimental and interesting. So up hold the “law” and miss out. Your ignorance and unwillingness to try new stuff means more for the rest of the sane people on the planet. Rant is over, let’s continue.

It seems that Ancho Chilies are the popular choice as far as what chilies are being used, which makes sense. They are ripened and dried poblano chilies that have a smoky, spicy, fruity flavor. They hit 3 distinct flavor notes which add 3 elements to a beer. I am assuming this is why it’s a great addition to a beer. 3 distinctive notes as opposed to one. This brings me to the next part, as a chef what can I do with this? What can I pair it up with? There are quite a few ways to go beyond the obvious Latin cuisines that the chili is used in. That brings us to the grill. These go great with grilled meats and poultry, I wouldn’t go the seafood route as they may be a little heavy for that; unless you want to experiment with some in a ceviche, or you could use it with a heavy oily fish like salmon or mackerel but I don’t think they are the best flavor combos for that but it could be worth a try. I am going to go out on a limb and say that pork would be the best vehicle to use one of these beers for part of a marinade. The other thing to look at will be what the original beer style is, Ommegang’s Fire and Blood is a Belgian style so it’s going to have different flavors than say the Rogue Farms Chipotle which is an amber with Chipotle. Most will work but weird things happen. As I said earlier my gears get turning when I see or try a beer about pairings and cooking, so I will be experimenting in the coming weeks with this and I will post any and all victories or failures on my Facebook page along with a recipe when we get one that is good. There will be a bunch more content upcoming including some  things I have wanted to try, and have been working on for a while that just aren't quite ready, and as always I'll be trying and seeking out beers and letting you know my feelings.  Also I will be doing something that I have wanted to test out for a while and that is a series of beer can chicken experiments, that will be this summer and it should be pretty cool if you like to grill and experiment, we'll do them together and at worst have chicken and beers!

Super Bowl party time!

 As many of you know I am probably one of the biggest pro football fans on the planet. So this week is the week of the 48^th annual Championship Game of the National Football League (I will not call it the “big game”) or The Super Bowl.

There I said the taboo name for the game, we can now move on. Being a hardcore fan, to me, this is the Christmas, New Year’s Eve, (name your favorite holiday) of my year. 90% of it is the game, but I love the party portion of it as well. Seeing that my Denver Broncos are in it this year it’s even more special to me (I like the Broncos to win 27-20 so if you read this after the game you can laugh or be impressed).  Food and beer take the center stage at almost every party, so why would you even contemplate drinking the official shit beer of the Super Bowl and serve the officially sponsored premade crap food for it? It’s a holiday, and it’s a party would you give people crappy pizza and reheated wings from a chain for a dinner party? Hell No. So why do it for the Super Bowl? So where do we go with the food you may ask?? Make it yourself. Homemade is the way to go, and if you are inept in the kitchen go to LOCAL restaurants, delis, or BBQ joints, to get your eats. I am going to help you out with a couple of Ideas here for the party as a whole.

First thing I do is figure out the beer, big shocker I know. All of the party type food for this event goes great with beer, and all types of it. Since I am a big cheese ball, I like to get beers from the cities or states of the teams in the game. So this current version is Denver and Seattle. Great year to give this a try. There are a ton of breweries from these 2 cities.  Here are a few that are readily available in most areas. Denver/Colorado (Coors and Blue Moon are not craft beers so don’t go there) has Oskar Blues, New Belgium, Great Divide to name a couple, Seattle/Washington you have Pyramid, Elysian, Red Hook there are a ton more in these cities and states. When your guests choose a beer they also are making a choice for the game as well. Like I said cheesy but fun. If that’s too cheesy get some local brews for the game or a couple growlers just none of that crap they are advertising during the game. Now for the food.

 Menu wise minus the chips and dips and whatever snack foods that you pick there are a lot of choices. In the cold weather nothing beats some good chili in my book. I am not going to throw a recipe out there mostly  because everyone has one, whether it’s a traditional beef, or a turkey, or a vegetarian, they always work just have some stuff to throw on it like cheese or sour cream and other fun stuff. Let’s focus on another big part of this game’s food the sandwich. Time to go big or go home! I like to do it different as well. There are about a thousand different ways to go here. Like Peyton Manning I am calling an audible at the line. Instead of a standard big cold cut sandwich try something like a Banh Mi or a giant Cuban sandwich. If you don’t cook or don’t want to, get some pulled pork or BBQ beef from a local BBQ joint, a loaf of good French bread some cheddar and make a giant BBQ sandwich. As for the other two I mentioned let’s go over construction.

The Banh Mi is a tasty and not so well known sandwich from Vietnam. For this you will need to do a little prep. I like doing a grilled chicken one but you can do it with pork or even with tofu or tempeh if you don’t eat meat. Since I am carnivorous let’s do the chicken one. Once again we are making this a big sandwich, so get a loaf of good French bread to start. You are going to need a pound of boneless chicken thighs that need to be marinated for a couple of hours or overnight. Recipe will be below. Now traditionally there are pickled carrots and Daikon radish, but I construct a simple slaw of sorts with carrots, red bell peppers, and some Napa cabbage. So the chicken is ready to go, guess what we are firing up the grill. Outside. In February. Why fear the cold and snow? Just because it’s not sunny and 75 doesn’t mean you need to stop grilling. So to the construction of this masterpiece. This is all about the layers. Cut the French bread so it’s opened up. This calls for a mayo but put it on the side, some people hate it, some bathe in it, so leave it up to them. First cut up the thighs and lay them down. Next a layer of sliced cucumbers, then your slaw, then some fresh cilantro and some sliced Jalapeños for some heat. Fold the bread up and cut it into chunks, however big or small you want to.

Banh Mi Marinade                                                                          Carrot slaw

¼ cup soy sauce                                                                                1 carrot julienned

½ of a lime juiced                                                             1 red pepper julienned

¼ cup cider vinegar                                                         1 green onion

2 cloves of garlic                                                               1 Cup of shredded cabbage

1 tablespoon of 5 spice blend                                     1 tablespoon of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste                                                               ¼ cup rice wine vinegar

                                                                                                Salt and pepper to taste

 Next we do the classic Cuban with a craft beer twist. We need the oven for this one. Set it to 375. French bread is your base again. Cut the bread in half like we did before so you can open it up. You will need roughly about a pound to a pound and a half of a good ham sliced thin. Lay it out on the bread on BOTH sides then we are going to put a layer of sliced pickles. Kosher deli style ones work best. Then a good layer of Swiss cheese. Put the whole thing in the oven and bake it until the cheese is melty. Normally this sandwich is pressed but since it’s a big sandwich we’ll skip that part. Take it out and fold it together. Wait, you are saying you forgot the mustard? Nope. Here’s the twist we are doing a whole grain IPA mustard for it. You can put this in the sandwich after the toasting or put it on the side if there are mustard haters around.  Recipe is as follows:

 IPA MUSTARD

1 jar of Whole grain mustard

3 garlic cloves roasted and chopped

¼ cup of Stone Ruination or other Imperial/double IPA

So there are a few ideas for your Super Bowl party, have a good time enjoy the game, the food, the commercials, and most importantly GO BRONCOS!!!!!!

A Little Ranting to Start Off the Year

Since we are in the New Year, I guess it’s time to do a synopsis of the year in beer, or a resolution. For one I am not one to make a resolution for the New Year. Not a freaking chance in hell of that of that. I am not going to a gym, eat kale and eat some horken fiber grain mix to make my diet healthy, just to throw it out the first chance I get to have a beer and some bar food with my friends. We are adults, you should be able to figure that kind of thing out without pledging something dopey. I wake up daily trying to be better at who I am and what I do, I don’t need to create a device to do this. I am not going to go over last year either. It’s the past, there were some great beers made and we loved them, I am personally more excited about the year ahead. One thing I will leave you with is a quote from Greg Koch the brilliant, arrogant in a good way, leader of Stone Brewery said.

 It is something that I personally back 100% and will start implementing daily in my conversations and writings about beer.Sorry if I disappointed everyone by not contributing to the normal year-end/new year bullshit. It’s not my thing.

 As I am writing this we are having the Polar Vortex pay a visit here in the Great Lakes (or as I like to call it winter), I am just hanging around the estate in lovely, frozen Lakewood, Ohio. I was thinking that this time of year, the post-holiday pre-spring release time of year is the most underrated time of year for beers. I love the fact that most if not every brewery/brewer goes out on a limb more and more, and create crazy one-off brews during the year. This time of year is great for that. I am a fan of the beers that get right up in your face with flavors and styles that are not the norm and out of your comfort zone.
 If you want to get me out of my beer comfort zone, one way is to give me a barley wine, You know the beers that start appearing this time of year that are usually named “Old” something or other. I am not a huge fan of this style. To me it’s just a way to brew a huge beer for the sake of it being big. They are for the most part cloyingly sweet and very boozy. Most hit around 10% ABV(Alcohol By Volume) on the bottom end and I have seen some that are upwards of 14-15% if not more (although not in my current state of Ohio which has ancient, absurd ABV laws for beer set at 12% - this is a rant for another day). A great deal of them do have a hoppy finish and I do like that. I am leery of the sweet-not-stout/Baltic porter which work for me, I am not saying that barley wines are bad beers at all. They just don’t hit the right notes for me. The high ABV% isn’t a bad thing but higher alcohol beers for the most part tend to have that burn on the back end. Which can make a beer great, or ruin it for me. Contrary to what some folks believe higher ABV doesn’t equal better beer. This is where I take a little side trip.

Let’s talk ABV, or more importantly, the “I only drink beer that has 9% alcohol or higher” guy. I know some of you are reading this, too. Well I am about to piss you off. I find this attitude to be one of, if not the most annoying, stupid, and outright fucked up ones out there. Don’t give me it’s your preference, that’s all BS. If it was just a preference you wouldn’t be hammering anyone for drinking, or brewing good beer with lower alcohol levels. You are not an Elitist; but more or less a drunk. All this says to me is that you want something to get you fucking hammered quickly rather than revel in and enjoy great beer. You are no different than the hobo drinking a Lazer malt liquor out of a paper bag to get trashed. No I am not putting high ABV beers in the level of Lazer so back up, I am putting the dopes I mentioned above there. If you have a problem with that fire away, not going to change my mind on this. Anyway that red-faced rant is now over, so back to barley wines. I do have a couple that I have had in the past. I am a big fan of Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot. It is big, bold, has a dried fruit-like sweetness that is evened out by a good resiny, piney hop finish. I also like Victory Old Horizontal; it’s not as hoppy as Bigfoot but it carries a lot of similar flavors. This is just one of many types of different beers you see this time of year.
 I encourage everyone to follow your favorite breweries on the various social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, for example) we have right now. They will for the most part give information on releases and other info so you can see what weirdness they are planning. I can go on and on about what else is available right now but hit social media and there’s a good amount of info to be had. Now go out there and get out of your comfort zone find some different beers and have some fun!

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.

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