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.

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