Here’s where to find inspired pints along the San Francisco Peninsula:

Twelvemonth (Burlingame)

Just south of SFO airport, Twelvemonth is an ambitious, plant-based restaurant and bakery complex opened in a previous brewery space by tech executive-turned-chef Bob Trahan. Among its tremendous expanse of taplines, you’ll find the requisite IPAs like Pliny the Elder and other Russian River favorites, easy-drinking lagers from East Brother Beer Co. in Richmond, and non-alcoholic brews from nearby Fort Point Beer Company.

Alpha Acid Brewing Company (Belmont)

In the back of an industrial lot in Belmont’s Harbor Business Center sits Alpha Acid’s brewery. Here, you can test out La Chulita Mexican Lager alongside offerings from the taco trucks that park out front. Since 2014, pints and pinball machines have been bringing drinkers in for May The Haze Be With You, a 7% New England-style IPA with an essence of orange and pine, as well as Murder She Wroatmeal, a rich, dark oatmeal stout with notes of cacao and coconut. If you want to go bigger, there’s also a sought-after barleywine and a selection of barrel-aged beers, including Flying Dutchman, a 10.2% ABV rum barrel aged tropical stout.

Blue Oak Brewing Co. (San Carlos)

Known for its sours, San Carlos’s Blue Oak brewery has a sprawling indoor/outdoor open space where you can try their Cherry Bomb fruited sour with cherry and lime, or the POG is My Copilot, a tropical fusion of passion fruit, orange, and guava. Check out Blue Oak’s food truck calendar beforehand to plot out what you’ll pair with a glass or growler of the super juicy Hello Motueka, an 8+% hazy IPA brewed with a new thiolized yeast that amplifies the fruit flavors.

Ghostwood (Redwood City)

A neighborhood brewpub, Ghostwood wins awards for its lauded light American lager called Extra Crispy, perfect for quaffing while watching sports on the many TVs. The brews pair well with food too; order trays of little smash sliders and share with friends during Wednesday night trivia, or for quick intermittent bites while you play billiards or Mario Kart in the back. If you don’t have time to hang, pick up a 32-ounce crowler of Ghostwood’s crisp Dat Boi Pilsner or its Serial Chiller, a Cold IPA fermented at lower temperatures than traditional IPAs, brewed citrusy and bright thanks to Riwaka, Nelson, and Enigma hops.

Freewheel Brewing (Redwood City)

Park in Marsh Manor Shopping Center for excellent English cask ales at Freewheel Brewing Company, which has been producing exemplary ESBs since 2012. Its flagship Big V Amber, which tastes similar to a brown ale, is made with Maris Otter and hints of roasted barley and wheat for a rich, malty flavor. Nitro pours are part of Freewheel’s British tendencies, winning over many expats looking for smooth, creamy stouts in the States.

BONUS: A few storefronts down is State of Mind Public House and Pizzeria, where Lars Smith not only makes world class pizzas—he’s on the U.S. Pizza Team and has won many international awards—but has a rotating draft list that’s worth a looksee, and probably a pie while you’re at it!

Gourmet Haus Staudt (Redwood City)

A classic Bavarian Bierstube, with a market in front and bottle shop in back, Gourmet Haus Staudt may even be outpacing all of Germany with the amount of Weihenstephaner it serves and sells per capita. Open early and late, it’s no wonder that this is a first and last stop for many seeking the best in both international and domestic craft beers.

The post Beer Beside the Bay: Sipping Along the San Francisco Peninsula appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

“Allman’s love of southwestern flare is probably why there’s cayenne pepper, as well as garlic and other spices, in the recipe to kick it up,” Archer said about the model that has defined beer cheese in the U.S. for over a century. But nowadays, paradigms are shifting, from the tangy, spicy snack to a new category forged by American farmstead cheesemakers, incorporating beer into their cheeses from the start.

Going Rogue

Many have associated Oregon’s Rogue Ales with Rogue Creamery, though they are related by name only, since the brewery was located only four hours away from the creamery (it announced its closure in November). Every five years or so, Rogue Ales produced an anniversary ale for the cheesemaker, meant to be drunk alongside offerings such as their signature Oregon Blue, the first cave-aged cheese west of the Mississippi, established in 1953. Rogue Creamery produces a Chocolate Stout Cheddar with Hopworks Brewery from Portland, Ore., and has for nearly a decade. This was part of Rogue Creamery’s principle: to pair a certified organic brewery with their organic dairy.

Marguerite Merritt, cheese emissary and brand manager of Rogue Creamery and a certified sommelier, describes their savory, sweet approach to the polarizing blue cheese style as “not overpowering, but bitter and strong.” Though this lends itself to cheese boards and salads, as it’s not as intense as a standard Danish blue, it’s Rogue’s innovations, such as their hazelnut shell-and-alderwood cold-smoked version, that inevitably found them experimenting in the beer cheese category.

For the chocolate stout cheddar, the beer is added to the cheesemaking process just as the whey is beginning to separate from the curd, infusing the milk and curd with a nice balance of flavor and subtle maltiness. The cheese doesn’t wind up tasting exactly like the beer, but what it adds is a sweet, malty, and marbled effect. Their chocolate stout cheese turned out to be a jumping off point for crafting Hopyard, a cheddar style made with fresh, local Northwest-grown hops. The hops are mixed with curds while setting, similar to the chocolate stout cheddar process, but this time without any beer. It has a strong following and is only sold direct to consumers. “The floral bitterness of the hops makes it really fun to pair with an IPA in particular,” Merritt said, reinforcing the citrus, pine, and earthy appeal of a West Coast style, but in cheese form.

A Beer Cheese Journey

Another West Coast dairy gleaned inspiration from its surrounding beer scene as well. Fiscalini has been operating as a dairy farm in Modesto, Calif., since 1914. In 2000, they added a line of farmstead cheeses, mostly cheddars, all made by hand. What sets Fiscalini apart, explains fourth-generation owner Laura Genasci, is that they only use milk produced from their own cows.

Committed to traceability, Fiscalini Craft Beer Cheddar is made with Black Blizzard Imperial Stout from Dust Bowl Brewing, headquartered in Turlock, Calif., only 20 minutes down the road. Genasci went to college with one of the owners of the brewery, whose family is in the dairy industry as well. The beer is roasty, with notes of coffee and chocolate, as is the cheese.

Fiscalini’s beer cheese journey started with Hopscotch, a cheddar made with Scotch ale. Beer was mixed in with the curds before forming them into 40 pound blocks. Pressed overnight—which infuses the beer even further—this process gives the cheese its mottled pattern, and “so you get beer flavor in every single bite,” explains Genasci.

“We think about our beer cheddar as a culinary collaboration where the artistic work of brewmasters and cheesemakers collide,” says Alex Borgo, Fiscalini’s cheesemaker. During the beer brewing process, malted barley is mixed with water and heated to activate the enzymes in the grain. Similarly, during the cheesemaking process, Borgo selects a special starter culture for its microbial enzymes that help activate the separation of curds from whey once rennet is added to the milk.

Many stout beers, such as milk stout, are rich and creamy with a smooth texture, and cheddar cheese is commonly sharp and tangy. “The combination of the two results in a cheese that is rich, tangy, and malty, with a complex flavor—we age our beer cheddar three months, but the more age the cheese gets, the stronger the cheddar and beer flavors become,” says Borgo. Similarly, for special occasions, Rogue squirreled away some two-year reserve for a bigger, more robust flavor, as can be found in a stronger beer.

Collaboration

It’s not all about big beers, though. Giant Food Stores, a Pennsylvania grocery chain, propositioned Caputo Brothers Creamery in Spring Grove, Pa., to stock its shelves with local beer cheeses. Caputo, which started its artisan cheese business in 2011, only made Italian-style cheeses at the time.

Giant noted that they’d already been talking with Tröegs Independent Brewing as a potential partner, says Caputo Brothers’ co-founder, Rynn Caputo. “If you drew a line from Tröegs to us to Giant’s HQ, the dairy farms sat right in the middle—three [Pennsylvania] businesses trying to make something that would have a direct impact in our region.” Though they had sworn to never make a cheddar, Caputo was willing to try a gouda.

Troegenator, a double bock and Tröegs most storied beer, already had a cult following and in the cheese, it brought out a noticeable sweetness and golden color. An entire keg is used for a batch of the cheese, which became Tröegs’ largest social media hit in 2019.

“People started immediately asking for other beer (cheeses),” says Caputo. They went on to make cheese with Tröegs Perpetual IPA and then Mad Elf, an 11% Belgian holiday ale with notes of cherry, cinnamon, and chocolate. After marinating the curd in an amber pool of the beer, a concoction of cocoa, cinnamon, espresso, and more beer is rubbed into the rind. “The end result makes for a cheese that looks like a slice of chocolate cake,” says Caputo.

For the Perpetual beer cheese, Caputo had the idea of dry hopping milk with the same Citra hops that go into the beer, producing an intense hop milk. “It tastes like you’re eating a beer,” said Caputo. After Caputo salt-water brines the cheese for a couple weeks to help form a rind and preserve the cheese itself, the rinds are sprayed with even more Perpetual IPA. All told, Caputo Brothers uses a case of beer for every 80 wheels produced.

The real key to working with beer (and cheese) is pH, a scale that addresses whether something is acid or base; milk’s pH is around 6.4 to 6.8. Too high a pH (past the low 5s), the curds won’t bind together, while too low (below 4), they’ll get rubbery. Caputo has this process down to such a science that she started a side business called Custom Cheesemakers, which makes custom beer cheese for breweries all over the country.

Although Indianapolis cheesemaker Tulip Tree Creamery doesn’t add craft beer to curds, they too customize cheeses by washing the rinds with a combination of bacteria cultures, beer, water, and salt, permeating each wheel with the essence of the chosen brew. Laura Davenport, co-owner and director of education and sales, credits her business partner’s Dutch upbringing for nurturing their washed-rind cheese pursuit.

Every few weeks, in conjunction with the likes of Sun King, Standard Deviant, Big Lug (highlighting their Pirate Cat porter), and Centerpoint (using their black porter), Tulip Tree was making a new hops beer cheese with another local brewery. Two and half gallons of beer was enough for about 20 to 25 wheels of cheese, each weighing approximately four to five pounds for a double cream style, a departure from the harder cheddar styles mentioned above.

“I’m a beer drinker, an IPA fan,” Davenport affirms. “I love 3 Floyds Zombie Dust [from Munster, Ind.] … but for cheese I’m not looking for something super bitter in the 40 to 50 IBU range.” Instead, Davenport suggested 3 Floyds JinxProof Pilsner.

Beer Cheese in the Big City

Just over state lines, Urban Stead, based in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, opened in 2018. Co-founder Andrea Robbins and her husband are both from Dayton, Ohio, the grandchildren of dairy farmers. They noticed there are fewer than five urban creameries in the United States, a list that includes Perrystead Dairy in north Philadelphia and Beecher’s in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and they wanted to honor Cincinnati’s deep German roots.

“Early German settlers saw the Erie Canal and likened it to the Rhine River, and we really wanted to make quark, a fresh Eastern European-style farmer’s cheese,” Robbins said. Although Urban Stead has a following for its Street Ched, an award-winning English-style clothbound cheddar, they decided their first foray into a beer cheese would be a Kentucky style.

Braxton Brewing’s Storm Golden Cream Ale, from across the border in Covington, Ky.—near where Robbins’ family had a vacation home where she first fell in love with beer cheese—adds a subtle corn and spicy hop presence to the pale straw-yellow mixture. “It’s kind of the texture of ricotta meets cream cheese—it spreads like pimento, chefs stuff pasta with it, and it’s wonderful for baking.” Robbins even suggests using it in place of mozzarella for a caprese salad or sandwich.

Because it’s a fresh cheese, there’s no time lost to aging. “We get 9,000 pounds of milk a week, and use 1,500 pounds for a batch,” says Robbins. Two to three days later, customers get their beer cheese quickly and it helps balance the cash flow perspective from cheddars and goudas, some of which age for 20 months.

“We serve it with German Swabian-style soft pretzels at the shop,” states Robbins, who suggests the same golden cream ale it’s made with to wash away any spice left on the tongue, a palate cleanser perhaps. But beer isn’t just meant to wash away flavors; in cheese, it can also be something to savor.

The post Beer Cheese Is Having a Moment appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

By the time we’re ready for indoor drinking again, brewers predictably swing back to  fiery cloves and other warming spices by way of pumpkin-spiced ales and Christmas beers. Spices—whether seed, fruit, root, or bark—have long been a staple of celebratory and solstice sips, but thanks to greater access to a broad spectrum of ingredients from around the world, brewers are expanding their pantries, infusing beer with sour sumac and numbing Sichuan peppercorns.

Spiced beers aren’t just waiting for an occasion anymore—they’re now year-round, tapping an ever-changing cupboard of craft brewing.

The OG of Experimentation

Thirty years ago, Sam Calagione co-founded Dogfish Head, Delaware’s first brewpub, bringing ingredients that were once considered “culinary” to the kettle. “Spices, herbs, and exotic fermentable sugars are at the heart of what makes our brand unique,” says Calagione. Six months before Dogfish Head even opened its doors, its fabled Punkin Ale won a recipe contest at Delaware’s own Punkin Chunkin championship, where pumpkins are competitively launched great distances. This catapulted Calagione’s appetite to include more than just pumpkin spice mix in beers.

From there, Dogfish Head’s Namaste White added black peppercorns to its coriander and clove sachet. The Most Comfortable Logger in the Woods, a Vienna-style golden lager brewed with wild blueberries from Maine, was bolstered by ginger, golden turmeric, and herbaceous sage. Goldenmilk Latte, an oat cream ale that emulates haldi doodh, a turmeric-tinged drink from India affectionately known as golden milk, tinkers with turmeric, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and smoked star anise for a spice-forward finish.

But spices aren’t to be used haphazardly. Mark Safarik, Dogfish Head’s brewmaster, warns that with spices like cardamon that can be quite powerful, a little goes a long way.

“[Too much of a spice] can step all over everything, become one note, and not integrate with other flavors,” says Safarik, adding that it really depends on how much is used when and where.

When spices are introduced on the hot side, the brewing process prior to fermentation, the volatilization of flavor and aroma compounds of the spices causes chemical changes, according to Bryan Selders, Dogfish Head’s brewing manager and head of taprooms. “The cold side [fermentation, conditioning, and packaging] is a more pure expression of raw spice, like fresh cracked pepper on eggs in the morning, rather than seasoning soup while it simmers.”

Thinking Outside the Box

When Dogfish Head premiered its celebrated SeaQuench Ale in 2016—a combination of Kolsch, gose, and Berliner weisse elements—it was the unique combination of black lime and sea salt that stood out most to customers. The beer’s release coincided with the emergence of Burlap & Barrel, a single-origin spice company; it soon began supplying Dogfish Head with whole black limes. [Full transparency: I do some work for Burlap & Barrel.] Sourced from Guatemala, the black limes are cured and sun-dried.

“Typically, [black lime is used] whole in Persian stews,” says Ethan Frisch, Burlap’s co-founder, who notes that they sell their product ground. Dogfish Head wanted to work with whole black limes, so Frisch made a special allowance as Dogfish designed a machine called Busta Limes, meant to crush them into the exact texture they wanted for infusing, without any grainy particulates needing to be strained out of the beer.

“One of the challenges in adapting culinary spices for brewing is that flavors can act differently than when cooking,” reinforces Frisch, whose father was an award-winning homebrewer. He began making beer himself when working for non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan, saving used champagne bottles from fancy embassy parties to reuse later.

“Most commonly you see spices in darker beers,” Frisch observes. “I think the robustness of those flavors—roasty, malty—stands up nicely to spices, but I’ve seen them in sour beers [as well],” pointing to the traditional use of coriander in gose, but also iterations with cumin as well. Burlap & Barrel’s Wild Mountain Cumin was the first spice Frisch started importing.

Time for Tinkering

Sometimes brewers use spices to align the beer to the food it’s served with. At TALEA Beer Co. in Brooklyn, head brewer Eric Brown uses herbs and spices such as dried mint and mustard in a mango sour that tastes like mango pickle, as in the case of a lager he made last summer for a clam shack pop-up. The beer was made with lime and Old Bay seasoning. They rimmed the glasses with purple dulse, a seaweed.

In the summer, when sours are in high demand, TALEA offers a blueberry pomegranate fruited gose; Brown pulls a small batch and infuses some with sumac. “Citric acid comes from the fruit, but then there’s the malic acid in sumac that has a mouth-coating effect that you don’t get in most sours.” Their Weekender Lager series, displaying a duo of fruit and spice such as lemon cardamom, tangerine anise, and lime salt, are steeped similar to tea using muslin bags. Brown has also been tinkering with a universal brew tank, used for dry hopping, for faster flavor infusions. “It’s a recirculating tank with a filter column,” says Brown. “It’s on casters as well, so we can set it next to whatever tank we’re attempting to dose.”

Spices find life even after being added as adjuncts to a tank. Burial Beer Co. in Asheville, North Carolina barrels and bottle conditions its higher ABVs offerings—they brew about 45 imperial stouts each year. The Cursed Path of The Forever Unstill is an imperial stout coalesced with coffee beans, enriched with vanilla beans, and rounded out by cinnamon.

“Over the years we’ve used vanilla from almost every continent and find ourselves partial to the marshmallowy Tahitian and Coca Cola Mexican varieties,” says Doug Reiser, Burial’s cofounder. Regarding cinnamon, Reiser believes it “has a bad reputation of being hot and having one linear note,” but he finally found the right one from Vietnam. He says he’s able to use it in any type of beer, from IPAs to sours and of course, in stouts.

With that same kind of slight spiciness of cinnamon in mind, Resier went on to brew Walk Off Into The Unequivocable, another imperial stout that gets all roasty and toasty with cocoa nibs, is sweet and creamy from vanilla beans, but has a bite of Black Urfa Chili and ginger on the finish.

“Dried aged chiles have long been used to balance sweetness, akin to a mole sauce,” he explained. While the chile has heat, urfa also imparts a unique raisin/pineapple flavor profile. “The chile also balances acidity so nicely and could be the basis of a beautiful barleywine,” suggests Reiser.

The Sky’s the Limit

While single spices are certainly a focus, Lamplighter Brewing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, collaborates with nearby Curio Spice Co. to source spice blends for its beer. In 2023, its Belgian-style witbier called Deja Vu had the requisite coriander seeds and dried orange peel, but was fortified by French lavender and pink pepper berries.

In 2024, David S. Pumpkins, a nod to a Tom Hanks Saturday Night Live character, showcased fenugreek alongside the familiar allspice and cinnamon in a pumpkin spice mix. Rise Up, a wheat ale tinged crimson with hibiscus flowers, was seasoned with a spice blend called Fleur Spice (cardamon, pink pepper berries, hibiscus, rose petals, lavender, coriander, spearmint, and ylang ylang).

In the same spirit, Steve Parker, head brewer at Fidens Brewing in Albany, New York, has only just begun playing with spice—sumac and Wild Timur peppers, which are akin to Sichuan peppercorns, end up in red ale named Internal Energy. “I was very surprised about the amount of citrusy grapefruit flavor that carried over in the whirlpool, but the tingle doesn’t carry over,” he said. Parker hopped the beer with a little Chinook too, which plays well with red ales but also complements the citrus and pine of the pepper.

“I’m really just dipping my toes into the spice world,” Parker admits, leaning toward his larder for new inspiration, reaching past the proverbial salt and pepper for seasoning.

The post It’s Always Spiced Beer Season appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Doug Goettsch needed no such convincing. Having worked at the Culinary Institute of America in the Napa Valley as director of corporate relations for nearly two years (he spent almost two decades at Hawkeye Foodservice Distribution prior), he was ready to bid adieu to the culinary elite and return to Iowa’s familiar expanse of rolling plains, endless golden cornfields, and enormous clusters of wind turbines. I came to visit his Iowa home to study the anatomy of his business, celebrate a big beer release, and truthfully, share a beer with a friend—but what I didn’t expect was to fully see so much of a man’s soul poured into a pint. A place formerly known as Joensy’s Restaurant, “home of the biggest and best pork tenderloin in Iowa,” was the epicenter of Goettsch’s big plans.

Goettsch drives a big red pickup, a TRD 4×4 off road, with Big Grove on the license plate frame sporting the brewery’s logo: a mythical hybridized hop corn, combining his two real life takes of Iowa. When he picks me up in front of the airport, his size 15 sneakers tread the ground lightly and we pack the car.

Our first stop was Solon, a little town of a few thousand people. Solon has been home to Big Grove Brewery’s flagship brewpub since the business launched in August 2013. With seats for 150 (with 50 more on the patio during the summer), it’s been a nonstop small-town success story since the beginning. A host welcomes us in, as Goettsch stops to say hello and shake hands with every patron and employee in his path, slowly making his way to the Lilliputian 200-square-foot brewhouse in the back. Goettsch, who towers at 6′ 9″, offered to give me a tour of the original brewery. “Can you spin in a circle?” he joked. This was where it all began.

Goettsch is a hometown Hawkeye. He grew up here as the youngest of six with five older sisters, a quiet giant with well-coiffed white hair and a goatee. His vision was to create a literal big grove with his brewery by investing in Iowa—and so far, it’s worked. Big Grove has toppled Toppling Goliath as Iowa’s #1 craft beer brand (on sales)—led by its tropical fruit-forward Hazy IPA, Easy Eddy; became the official craft beer of the Iowa Hawkeyes (former NCAA superstar Caitlin Clark’s alma mater); and has now started to expand beyond state lines, set to open Big Grove’s fifth taproom in Omaha, Nebraska.

Whereas the Solon taproom is 5,000 square feet, the one in Iowa City is the largest food and beverage venue in the state with 26,000 square feet inside and another 25,000 outside—well over an acre. It holds 1,200 people at capacity.

“I don’t know a thing about beer,” Goettsch quipped. His partners actually sought him out and were already engrained here in Iowa. Son-mother duo Matt and Faye Swift came with a deep background in bars. Goettsch had known them from the industry, and certainly from drinking in their establishments. Faye opened Sluggers Neighborhood Bar & Grill, an instant classic in Coralville in 1988. Before the bar went under water, literally, during the Iowa flood of 2008, patrons imbibed pints on the reg. To carry on the family legacy, Matt took over Rookies in North Liberty in 2009, reborn as Reds, introducing craft beer to thirsty Hawkeyes. When the city denied their request to add on to the back of Reds, the seeds of Big Grove were planted.

Next up was Nate Kaeding. Named Mr. Iowa as a football player before a career in the NFL with the San Diego Chargers, he was also Matt’s friend from elementary school. When hometown hero Kaeding invested in a series of Iowa City restaurants through his business Gold Cap Hospitality, in which Goettsch has partnered on some ventures (see: ​​Pullman Bar & Diner, St. Burch Tavern, and and the revival of Hamburg Inn No. 2—a relic since 1930, where Reagan once sidled up for pie in ‘82 and now famous for its coffee bean caucuses since the early aughts), they ostensibly rooted themselves on familiar, fertile ground, raising the bar for what became a thriving culinary scene, but also added the necessary traplines to support local craft beer. Big Grove poured themselves into becoming that beer.

The Beer

Bill Heinrich was the first brewer at Solon. It was used as a pilot brewhouse, developing sours and lagers. Citrus Surfer, a citrus wheat now in lemon berry, lime, and watermelon iterations, is barely two years old and booming. Even before that were the Eddys: West Eddy, Easy Eddy’s West Coast variant; Royal Eddy, a 9% ABV imperial hazy IPA with an over-the-top amount of Citra and Talus dry hops; Big Ed, a double-hazy IPA with Sabro, Mosaic, and Simcoe; Freezy Eddy, a Cold IPA; and even Aussie Eddy, featuring peachy Australian-grown Galaxy and Enigma hops. For the locals, there’s a Boomtown golden ale brewed with Midwestern barley, and an Iowa City Lager, a Pilsner with German heritage. While Andy Joynt, Big Grove’s head brewer, isn’t in an arms race with other breweries (though BG’s Arms Race, an American strong pale ale, pokes fun at that phrase), he does make three to four new beers a week and has likely brewed over a few hundred in his time there. “We know where the line is, and we walk right on it,” Goettsch jests, once again summing it up.

Quickly, Big Grove hit capacity, again and again, and Matt Swift knew it was time for (big) business. They expanded brewery operations from Solon to 30,000 barrels in Iowa City in 2017, recently tripling production at their Liberty Drive facility a couple years back, adding another 65,000 barrels to their volume, nearing the 100,000 max capacity as a whole. With 42,000 square feet to work with, including 30-foot high ceilings, 23-foot high tanks, and multiple massive silos that hold over 50,000 pounds of grain each, this place is one of the few things that dwarfs Goettsch. Big Grove bought most of the equipment from a Green Flash sale (eight fermenters, two brite tanks, a five-vessel brewhouse, and a centrifuge), which arrived in 18 semi-trucks, the sales and shipping costing nearly half a million dollars.

Aside from a dozen of their own tap lines, Big Grove pours through a thousand more, plus 100 handles in the Illinois market as they inch their beers closer to Chicago. Kansas City is next on tap. Hy-Vee, a grocery chain in the Midwest, proudly displays Eddy 12-packs and has been a big supporter, selling nearly 40,000 cases this year. “Within the state of Iowa, we’re probably going to finish around 365,000 cases, of which I would say our mix is 55% pack (cans), 45% draft, and 15% in-house,” commented Mike Wehr, Big Grove’s COO. “We are not selling more than Toppling Goliath in the nation, but we’re the #1 craft beer in Iowa.”

Richard The Whale

“Brewers do not brew, they are shepherds of yeast,” Ophelia Olson, a cellarwoman at Big Grove, told me. Olson’s former career was at a Montessori school, a job that was uniquely equipped to help her coax character out of cultures in the brewhouse. Olson is of Latin descent, bringing in flavors such as Mexican hot chocolate and churro banana stand to the mix. “Tembleque,” she explained, “is a [creamy] Puerto Rican eggnog.” All these adjuncts have found their way into Big Grove’s Richard The Whale, an 11-month-bourbon-barrel-aged Russian imperial stout. Its release is celebrated the first weekend of December every year in an entirely over-the-top way—from all-you-can-eat brunches to the much-coveted multi-course dinner created by Big Grove’s exceptional culinary team.

For the annual release, patrons usually start setting up tents shortly after midnight to get a first taste of Richard. At 6 a.m., in-line bottle trades usually begin, which Jared Walsh, a friend of the brewery and an ear, nose & throat doctor, loves participating in. Last year I found him sidled up to the bar in Iowa City, casually reciting the contents of his 150- to 200-bottle cellar to the staff. He even brought a vertical of past Richard The Whales, from 2018-22, to share with other enthusiasts, including me.

I noticed a few patrons down the bar lifting their shirts up to show off their tattoos. One guy named Cody had an orange whale on his arm, and another named Cody, a green one on his back alongside a couple dozen other brewery logos.

The Food

There are three parts to Big Grove’s blueprint, or as Goettsch refers to it, the Golden Triangle. Included in that Venn diagram are beer, food, and atmosphere, which essentially equates to hospitality.

Clearly beer is the primary concern, but the food served at Big Grove’s brewpubs has never been an afterthought. Culinary director and Iowa native Ben Smart, who cooked at Michelin-starred The Herbfarm in Woodinville, Washington, came home for an interview at Kirkwood Community College to work in its culinary program, but instead, Goettsch hired him first (Goettsch had worked with Smart’s dad at Hawkeye Foodservice Distribution decades before). Big Grove’s executive chef Sean Towley, a Kirkwood grad himself; Chris Crissinger-Vurciaga, chef de cuisine at Cedar Rapids who’s been with the company since day one; and TJ Lytle, chef de cuisine in Solon, the only person on staff even close to Goettsch in stature, are among the key culinary personnel who complete Big Grove’s mission.

Pictures of British chef Marco Pierre White and French chef Auguste Escoffier hang on the kitchen wall at Iowa City. Flash-fried brussels sprouts, slicked with a honey sriracha vinaigrette and topped with toasted almonds and cilantro, are a best seller across all of Big Grove’s menus, as are the behemoth Bavarian pretzels served with Sherman Hill Champagne (a light lager) beer cheese; breaded and fried crispy cauliflower done in the style of Buffalo wings (they have those too!), dunked in ranch or blue cheese; and Goettsch’s stovetop mac & cheese, which he’s been making since he was 11 years old for “second supper” as he calls it. On the menu in Solon appears “the Dougie,” a combination of mac & cheese with tater tot casserole. This is all part of the ethos: “middle of the menu approachable, everything around the edges changes people’s perspectives,” Goettsch explains. That’s why you see tuna poke bowls and paneer curry pop up on tables.

“The bar here was so low,” Goettsch grumbles, “but no one’s going to buy an expensive entrée unless there’s trust; the middle menu has to be identifiable.” But that’s not to say Big Grove doesn’t flex its culinary prowess too. Once a year, during the Richard The Whale release, Smart and the team of chefs devise dishes for a special dinner that goes beyond brewpub fare. Last year’s dinner included a scallop crudo with grapefruit, sage brown butter, and 25-year-aged balsamic vinegar, a 45-day dry-aged prime ribeye with cherry kosho, smoked soy sauce and shiso, and a cool Tropical Fool, with coconut and banana diplomat cream, guava granite, and Hemingway daiquiri fruit salad. “Don’t tell people how to eat; let them discover,” Goettsch says.

The Hospitality

There’s a mantra I’d heard from multiple Big Grove employees across my three days with them: the goal isn’t to make money today, but to make people come back tomorrow. Wehr told me their new 10-year goal is set at $100 million in revenue. They’re a third of the way there.

“Growth is not just for the brand, it’s for the team—our goal is to expand and matter.” Goettsch chimed in on the growth strategy: “A mile deep, an inch wide.” In the brewpubs, bartenders are encouraged to find a reason to buy a guest a beer and make a connection.

This generous philosophy is knit into the philanthropy arm of the business as well. Big Grove For Good, which was formalized five years ago, partners with local nonprofits to help grow and strengthen their communities by reinvesting in the brewery’s roots. Drinking locally is also giving back.

I met a bunch of Big Grove employees at George’s Buffet, an Iowa City staple since 1939 with a huge Hamms mural on the parking lot wall. It’s a Saturday night football game. We have hamburgers in waxed paper sleeves. A sales rep stands for the team toast of Fireball shots. The next morning I find myself at church with Goettsch.

As organs echo, we read the bold type in the prayer book in unison and say amen together. Goettsch handed me a Dunn Brothers coffee cup and waved to friends from the mezzanine where we sat separate from the congregation. His wife, Sarah, the pastor, gave her sermon from the pulpit. She spoke of the Japanese art of kintsugi, a method of repairing cracked or broken ceramics with melted gold. She emphasized imperfections: “Cracks make us beautiful—our brokenness makes us unique.” As Sarah explained, “weak vessels break, strong vessels can also break but can be mended.”

Goettsch is the glue that holds Big Grove together. Is beer the gold that fills our fractures and makes us whole again? Or are we just trying to find the glimmering gold in people? Doug sips his coffee, turns to me and says, “And also with you.”

The post Big Grove’s Big Plans: Give Iowa a Try appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Green staked his claim to the drink at an exhibition in 1874—150 years ago—using an array of flavored sodas. Since then, cola, root beer, birch beer, and even cream soda, which was created based on the flavor profile of vanilla ice cream, have predominantly served as the base of this fizzy, sweet sensation. At some point, beer, likely a dark ale imitating the color and carbonation of soft drinks, paved the way for an adult version of this foamy, fanciful mash-up.

Made for Each Other

Nick Contess, managing partner of Creamline, a burger, fries, and shake joint in New York City’s Chelsea Market, believes dark beers are made for ice cream. “In my head it’s the same way milk brightens coffee,” describes Contess. “Rich on rich, but it’s two distinctly different things—the richness of a stout’s strong, full flavor and the sweetness of dairy.”

The restaurant is best known for its indulgent milkshakes, but this past summer Contess brought back what he calls “a lighter option”: boozy beer floats. “A lot of people don’t drink stout in the summer,” he says, but the addition of ice cream makes them more suited to the season.

Creamline has a beer list entirely focused on New York State brews, including Montauk Wave Chaser IPA, Five Boroughs Hoppy Lager, and Torch & Crown’s Pils. Contess says that choosing a beer for a float isn’t really about the booze, it’s about the mouthfeel. Both beer and ice cream should complement each other’s creaminess. For Creamline’s floats, Contess typically uses Brooklyn’s Ebbs Stout No. 1, which pours inky black with a tawny head, and smacks of dark chocolate and light coffee roasts. Hudson Valley Brewery’s English-style milds, such as Erstwhile, make good options, too. Because these ice cream and beer pairings were working so well, Contess tried to make a stout milkshake, although it didn’t homogenize in the way he’d hoped. He instead steers people to a float as “a great introduction into heavy beers” for those who would otherwise never try one.

“We like to incorporate local craft beers [into our menus] to rep where we came from—it’s in our DNA,” says Stephen Parker, corporate executive chef of Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, who notes that half of the taps at the chain’s location in NYC’s SoHo are craft beers. In Vegas, 14 of the 16 lines are craft. But Parker bears in mind that not all beers are meant for dessert. “New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger IPA is great for summer heat, and strong at 6.7 percent ABV.” Some IPAs are too high in alcohol, and bittering agents, that ruin your palate, even for ice cream.

With that in mind, Black Tap made a special aged beer with Threes Brewing in Brooklyn, fermented with cherries and reminiscent of cherry cobbler, which can be served à la mode in a shake.

“We’re not just pouring lager into a milkshake and calling it a boozy milkshake,” says Parker, and although any beer is an option for addition, their Brooklyn Blackout CRAZYSHAKE® brims with a chocolate frosted rim and mini chocolate chips topped with two chocolate brownies, whipped cream, and chocolate drizzle. A stout is the practical pour.

Thinking in reverse, milkshake IPAs seem like an obvious choice for experimentation, as they’re brewed with the same lactose (milk sugar) that ice cream is full of—adjuncts in the beer commonly include dessert-forward flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, and tropical fruits. “[A little] lactose takes down hoppiness, making the beers easier to drink,” says Parker. “In beer floats, ice cream acts the same way.” To prove a point, he conjures up a new CRAZYSHAKE idea on the spot; a milkshake IPA with orange juice, orange peel, and vanilla ice cream. “It would taste like a creamsicle!”

The Upside Down

Rather than adding ice cream to beer, Tyler Malek, co-founder and head of innovation at Salt & Straw, Portland, Oregon’s homegrown ice cream company, is adding beer to ice cream. For Salt & Straw’s June 2024 Pints of the Month Pack, part of Salt & Straw’s Brewers Series, Malek worked with five U.S. breweries, including Portland’s Breakside, Seattle’s Métier Brewing Company, NorCal’s Russian River, SoCal’s Monkish, and Miami’s La Tropical.

“This has been one of my passion projects for almost 14 years, since I started Salt & Straw,” says Malek, who thinks beer and ice cream have had parallel paths in craft. “Malt, hops, and water; cream, sugar, and vanilla—millions of different flavors come out of those [few] ingredients.”

Brewer Ben Edmunds started Breakside six months before Salt & Straw. “We’re three blocks away from each other; we kind of grew up together,” says Malek. They’ve brewed a Salted Caramel Stout together, based off of one of Salt & Straw most popular flavors, but for the ice cream collaboration, the two devised a custom barrel-aged chocolate stout named Shasta Taffy.

“The beer is steeped with cocoa nibs for four days, which are then dried out and folded into chocolate to create a chocolate bark,” reveals Malek. That same beer is added to the base for Breakside’s Barrel-Aged Chocolate Stout ice cream, before being swirled with chocolate bark and combined with a housemade tres leches cake.

For Malek, there are so many cool ways that beer and ice cream can interact, starting with temperature. “There are three edible antifreezes: salt, sugar, and alcohol,”says Malek, noting that they have to be at the right ratio to keep ice cream scoopable. “From a food science perspective, they all help flavors melt into your tastebuds.”

Monkish’s Space Cookies & Cream Hazy IPA was a happy accident, says Malek. “[The beer has] a creamy mouthfeel so we’re making ice cream out of it.” To amp up the hop flavors they dry hopped with Citra a few times, but the kicker was adding a little bit of grape zest to punch that last flavor note through, sandwiched between Nilla Wafer cookie butter bits.

Malek also worked with Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River, using Supplication, a sour brown ale aged in Pinot Noir barrels with sour cherries, and didn’t try to recreate a thing. “It takes 14 months to make,” stated Malek of the coveted beer, musing, “How does this beer never touch heat?” He tried to create a frame for the beer instead, deciding to melt chocolate, pour the beer over it for a fudge-like texture, and then make a manchego beer base ice cream with vanilla, which held up to the natural lacto-fermentation of Supplication itself. Malek then took the steeped cherries from the barrel and made a marmalade, the totality acting as a beer and cheese pairing—because isn’t that what beer and ice cream inevitably is?

The post A Dreamy Pairing: Beer & Ice Cream appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

With grilling season underway and Americans consuming an estimated 50 billion hamburgers annually, we talked with beverage directors at top burger restaurants to see what they’re excited about drinking this summer.

Since opening five years ago, Brooklyn’s Red Hook Tavern (RHT) has become a go-to for its seemingly simple, yet singular burger. Owner Billy Durney had mastered all sorts of meat at his Hometown Bar-B-Que down the street, but not a burger. He perfected that one at Red Hook Tavern, taking cues from the prime beef program at the 137-year-old Peter Luger Steak House in Williamsburg. The dry-aged funk of the RHT burger, a blend of 45-day aged strip and chuck from Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, needs something “clean and crisp, yet hefty enough that it refreshes with each sip,” advises Rafa García Febles, Red Hook Tavern’s general manager/beverage director. The burger, which took eight months of R&D, is deliberately minimalist: two slices of American cheese and a raw onion placed strategically beneath the patty to sop up some of the juice. “We don’t want anything heavy that will make people feel heavier,” explains Febles.

And while wine steals a lot of the attention (they have more than 500 bottles on their list), the beer program is well thought out, revolving mostly around breweries in the five boroughs. “We operate in a great beer city, and similar to the ethos of our wine list, which is thoughtful small producers who are very involved in the process, we highlight that [in beer] where we can,” says Febles.

Part of the beer list is an ode to another NYC landmark, McSorley’s Old Ale House, the quintessential 170-year-old saloon in the East Village that famously pours a “light” and a “dark” beer, indistinctly referenced to by their color rather than category. Red Hook Tavern found a porter brewed on Long Island [the dark] and a British ESB [the light], referred to as “A Tribute to McSorley’s Ale House” on the menu without mentioning specific breweries. But those aren’t necessarily the beers Febles would propose for the burger.

His approach to beer pairing is similar to wine. “Sometimes it’s about contrasting, and since our food tends to be richer, I tend to gravitate to lighter beer,” such as Interboro’s hoppy Bushburg Pilsner from Brooklyn. Febles also recommends a few other borough-based brews, such as KCBC’s Iceberg Zombie, a fruited sour, and Sumac Gose from Back Home Beer, an Iranian-inspired beer soured with tart Persian cherries: “high acid, a little salt, perfect with the food on our menu.” Febles does have a couple more assertive beers on hand, such as Other Half’s Green City IPA, which is reminiscent of a lighter, juicier New England-style rather than a piney West Coast version.

On the other side of the country, at any one of Coastline Burgers’ three Seattle locations (Kirkland, Redmond, West Seattle), owner Aaron Shepherd sticks to a similar philosophy— keeping things local. A quarter pound of pasture-raised NW beef comes with a choice of toppings, including American cheese, crisp iceberg lettuce, red onions, and pickles. Or, you can pick from a menu of bestselling burgers such as The Super Bacon (pepper bacon, buttermilk fried onions) or The Spicy BBQ (fresh jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, fried onion, NW BBQ sauce). All of the burgers are dressed with Coastline’s secret sauce, which Shepherd confesses is his take on Crab Louie dressing that evolved into a “Big Mac” sauce of sorts. All of this sits between a homemade bun that’s something between a chewy ciabatta and sweet brioche that’s “light and fluffy, but has the strength not to fall apart with a juicy burger and all the sauce,” says Shepherd.

Coastline’s beer list is built on familiar provincial and paternal bonds. “My dad loved Rainier, calling it Vitamin R, but it’s no longer a local brew,” so Shepherd looked for other easy-drinking alternatives. Georgetown Brewing’s Manny’s Pale Ale and Roger’s Pilsner are nearby, superlative slightly malty substitutes. The list errs on the lighter side, with pFriem Family Brewers’ Pilsner and GoodLife Brewing Company’s Sweet As! Pacific Ale, but also introduces hoppier beers such as Fremont’s Interurban IPA and Hop Valley Brewing Co.’s Kraken Stash IPA into the mix, with the perfect pairing dependent on how you build your burger. No matter what your order is, Shepherd suggests that on “a hot day you just want to go with something nice and light and refreshing. For cold, crummy Seattle days, something a little heartier. Or Manny’s. It’s for all seasons!”

In Chicago, RPM Steak’s burger and beer pairing is less seasonal than it is tied to its evergreen toppings, or lack thereof. RPM Steak offers up nearly two dozen different cuts of the finest beef sourced from around the globe and also has two vastly different burgers: a Dry-Aged Steakburger and a Wagyu Smash Burger.

Richard Hanauer, partner and wine director of the RPM restaurants, has a two-pronged approach to beer pairing when it comes to burgers. “Initially, it is easy to think the richness [of a dry-aged steakburger] would be elevated by a brown ale—[but] you can’t beat a crisp and cold Pilsner,” professes Hanauer. The subtle saltiness of the burger contrasts the sweetness of the beer, with the carbonation acting “like a steak knife through the meat itself,” he says. “Let the carbonation do the chewing and the bitterness balance the richness of the meat.”

Hanauer pours Outlaw Beer’s Mile Hi Light Lager (brewed by Tivoli Brewing Company in Denver) for its “delicate yet complex layers for such an approachable beer. Especially for a beer categorized as light, it drinks with great intensity,” Hanauer says, marveling at its noticeable yeastiness for such a model lager. The Wagyu Smash Burger is best with Chicago’s own Pipeworks Brewing Co’s Lizard King American Pale Ale, which pairs with specific flavors in the garnishes rather than the meat. The burger is finished with a yuzu kosho (a spicy Japanese citrus/pepper paste) aioli that Haunauer says “screams for Citra hops,” honing in on the tropical touch. Hanauer also attests that the beer is a “textural pleasure with a great body and pronounced crispness,” priming the palate for more by cutting through the fat without washing away the inherent flavor of the burger itself.

Regardless of customs, environs, or condiments, beer is there to make a burger better.

The post Meat & Malt: Beer Makes Burgers Better appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

At Shy Bird in Boston, an all-day rotisserie, bar, and cafe, all-natural, pasture-raised birds are transformed into full-flavored spinning showpieces that can be matched with one of six beers on tap, or a dozen by the can. Air-dried for two days to draw some of the moisture out of the skin, the chicken achieves a crispy exterior while the inside stays succulent. “Cooked low and slow renders golden brown deliciousness,” says chef Trevor Kunk, who roasts each whole bird for about an hour in an impressive French Rotisol Rotisserie.

The list of beers to accompany these bronze beauties highlights local craft brews, from traditional Kölsch to regional New England IPAs. “Younger folks come here very unfamiliar with beer, and ask for a Modelo or Pacifico, a very light cold lager for the right now,” says owner Andrew Holden; instead they suggest a domestic Kölsch from Notch Brewing in Salem, a style that is only slightly assertive (less than a Pilsner), with a straw yellow color, medium body, and softness on the palate to whet the appetite. In a similar vein, session beers have seen a resurgence for their easy-drinking characteristics. “Sometimes you want a 4 percent beer that tastes great. Castle Island American Lager, started in Southie (Norwood), is [our local] classic,” Holden says. It’s light, crisp, and described as “liquid bliss.”

Shy Bird’s traditional rotisserie chicken is rubbed with salt, black pepper, ground coriander, and paprika, but Kunk also developed a version that’s lacquered with homemade peri-peri, a concoction of jalapeños, roasted blistered lemons, butter, cilantro, and parsley. “The chicken absorbs a lot of that sauce; a little spicy, herbaceous, bright, and balanced by a touch of butter.” With this, Kunk suggests an ice-cold Kölsch, as its light hoppiness will balance out the bird’s complex combination of citrus and spice. “It’s kind of the opposite of what happens with wine,” Holden chimes in. “I’m such a Beaujolais geek, but if you eat the peri-peri with it, [the heat is] too overpowering; you almost need a Rhone Syrah, Zinfandel, or American Syrah to meet muscle with muscle.”

It’s not all whole rotisserie chickens at Shy Bird; their so-called “dunks” are a rendition of nuggets made from boneless, skinless breasts that are buttermilk-brined and herb-crusted, each order delivered with a choice of pecorino ranch, chipotle bbq, honey mustard, or sweet & sour sauce. With these, Holden opts for a fowl-friendly 6.8 percent ABV IPA called Birds of a Feather from Lamplighter Brewing in nearby Cambridge, Mass. The beer is somewhere between an East Coast and West Coast IPA, “dry on the palate, acid and bitterness from the citrus up front, not tropical juicy Orange Julius that hazy [IPAs] have become,” which Holden affirms works with the full scope of sauces. Another adaptable IPA is Fresh Pick, a 7 percent NE IPA from Fort Hill Brewery in East Hampton. “It’s bright and doesn’t leave your mouth feeling cloying or sticky. The sauces do have some bolder flavors, so it’s good to have a beer to hang with you while dunking,” Holden points out.

In San Francisco’s Mission District, chef Shawn Naputi’s Prubechu’ is an ode to his native Guam and Mariana Islands where chicken is prepared in a variety of ways, from the classic, cold kelaguen to barbecue and wings. All of the beer at Prubechu’ is local, with the farthest-flung from Ghost Town in Oakland. “They’ve got this old-school German Roggenbier [called Closed Casket Bourbon Rye],” Naputi said, describing it as an ale made with a good amount of rye rather than barley or wheat, which drinks more like chicken and whiskey than chicken and beer. For his kelaguen, a laborious and lovely dish, Naputi prefers an IPA from the Bay Area’s own Barebottle Brewing Co.. “Their Galaxy Dust is hazy and really complements all the [culinary] components of this chicken.” For the kelaguen, Naputi debones half a chicken and briefly chars it until it’s about 80 to 85 percent done. “The chicken cooks on a really hot grill, five minutes each side, but not cooked through,” notes Naputi. This method gives it a nice smokiness, and then it’s finished in the oven for another 10 minutes. After that, it’s chopped and doused in lemon juice, which cooks the chicken even further like a ceviche, before fresh peppers and green onions are added and the whole thing sits for an hour. Fresh coconut is added before serving. Naputi serves his kelaguen this way or wrapped in titiyas (Chamorro-style-flatbreads-meet-flour tortillas) like a taco, a presentation that begs for a beer.

For Naputi, Prubechu’s dishes such as BBQ chicken thigh skewers, marinated in soy sauce, vinegar, lemon, garlic, and sesame oil, and his dry-spiced (cumin, coriander, fennel, garlic powder, and numbing Szechuan peppercorn with a little bit of sugar) Ko’ko wings with lemon finadene sauce, are all deserving of the perfect pairing. In both dishes, the savory notes come through, with the acid (lemon) lifting up all the textures and flavors. From the restaurant’s perch in San Francisco, a Pilsner from Barrel Brothers in Sonoma County hits home. Naputi also recommends “a really bad ass Kölsch from Standard Deviant Brewing, which is six blocks away.”

But not all beers can stand up to such spice, and there’s no bigger flavor bomb than Hattie B’s hot chicken. It’s a Nashville landmark, where chiles collide with craft brews. Brian Morris, Hattie B’s executive chef, describes Nashville hot chicken as “perfect Southern fried chicken, perfect little coating, then the moment of inception when you take and dunk, bathe and baptize it in hot melted spices.” Available bone-in, tenders, or as a sandwich, their spice-heavy chicken ranges from Southern (no heat) to “Shut the Cluck Up,” the fieriest. “How spicy you go changes the ratio—lower in heat, cayenne gets the job done. It drives the bus through mild, medium, and hot,” although Morris warns habanero precedes ghost peppers for unbridled spice. “Our perceived spiciness doubles at each step, up to half a million Scoville—the only pairing then is a fire hydrant.”

In 2023, Hattie B’s collaborated with Jackalope Brewing Company for a golden ale years in the making. Jackalope CEO/founder Bailey Spaulding and Nick Bishop Jr., co-founder/owner of Hattie B’s, have been friends since before they opened their respective businesses, and had been discussing said beer, aka Drinking Buddy, for a decade. It’s now a year-round offering, described as slightly malty with hints of citrus, dry and crisp. “Drinking Buddy has enough body and sweetness to stand up to the heat,” Bishop believes. “You need a little sweetness to complement the spices.”

Hattie B’s Memphis location carries WISEACRE Brewing Co.’s Tiny Bomb, an American Pilsner spiked with wildflower honey, which Morris says has “just enough residual sugar” to tame the chicken’s heat. Another local brew that Morris recommends is Little Harpeth’s Chicken Scratch, which has a hint of sweet corn. Even the IPAs at Bearded Iris Brewing in Nashville help counterbalance the heat, but sometimes Deep Ellum’s super sessionable Dallas Blonde crosses state lines to become Nashville hot chicken’s latest drinking buddy, which Morris quips, “go together like a hug and high five.”

The post Bird + Brew: A Culinary Coupling appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Chefs such as Josh Niernberg at Bin 707 Foodbar in Colorado are finding ways to marry their local flavors and tap lines. Bin 707 is in Grand Junction, just 25 miles east of the Utah border, in the fertile region known as the state’s wine country. It’s also historically renowned for beet farming. Niernberg sources his from nearby Palisade, where sugar beets were once a big industry.

“We’ll use them fresh, salt-roasted, smoked, and pickled—that’s how we manipulate acid, salt, and savory [in a dish].” It’s a vegetarian riff on his elk tartare, which upon first glance looks identical, but the beets are either salt-roasted or smoked, tossed with citrus, dressed with a vinaigrette, topped with honey yogurt, then adorned with puffed beet-dyed tapioca crisps and a crest of frisée. “I’m big on sour [beers], not super heavy on barrel, with a little bit of salinity,” says Niernberg, suggesting Verboten Brewing’s Roll in Ze Watermelon Gose as a perfect foil for the beet dish. “The beer has green rind, not bright red watermelon flavor,” which adds a splash of necessary acid to beets’ inherent earthiness.

Preserving Local Flavors

When Niernberg and his wife opened the restaurant in 2008, access to local seasonal produce highly informed their menu. There was no shortage of opportunities, but in trying to capture the rich and vibrant farming community, so much of the menu conception was preserving those flavors for future use. Fermentation is a main component of Bin 707’s larder. “Wild beers are hand-in-hand with preservation,” from the many pickles to conservas that are highlighted on the menu, pairing well with Crooked Stave’s lacto–fermented sours and farmhouse beers like Jester King’s Le Petit Prince, with notes of citrus and straw. “I want to sit down and session [these beers] with dinner,” notes Niernberg.

Another facet that Niernberg considers is cellulose, the fibrous cell structure of many fruits and vegetables. “It’s more the [water] weight of the dish than anything,” Niernberg states, explaining the dehydration process he uses for most vegetables. “First we dehydrate, then use a 3 to 4 percent saline brine, do some lacto-fermentation, then slice and dehydrate again.” Not all of his bumper crop fare becomes condiments or crispy chips, though—a transformation that is less about taste than texture.

In a similar form, radishes are ubiquitous as crisp accents and garnishes, tiled atop a trout rillette as if scales, or found throughout the menu at Tacoparty, Niernberg’s taco shop down the street from Bin 707. When it comes to the array of radishes, Niernberg believes “their sweet spot is a cold fresh lager,” offering up Rhode Island’s own Narragansett Lager, which is new to Colorado. Even though radishes aren’t the star of a mussels and lemon verbena curry dish, Niernberg uses large slices of daikon in place of bread, adding a clean, fresh bite to the dish.

For smaller snacks, Niernberg self-admittedly overutilizes a common brassica: cauliflower, which he deems “the champion of any appetizer.” Crispy fried cauliflower is strewn over sunflower and mayacoba hummus and drizzled with spicy and sweet honey-inflected chili oil, giving the dish a kick. The same impact is found in Tacoparty’s crispy cauliflower taco, with green chile mole verde, queso fresco, sage honey, chives, and salsa macha, all on a house-nixtamalized blue corn tortilla. Here, pale ales and IPA reign, cleansing the palate of heat and sweetness.

Another often overlooked vegetable is the humble potato, which Niernberg highlights in a yellow banana potato bisque—paying homage to the San Luis Valley, which prospered from the potato economy for the past 150 years—bolstered by a kick of ‘nduja (soft Calabrian sausage) and dotted with trout roe and herb oil. Niernberg loves pairing this with Crooked Stave’s Sour Rosé Ale to amplify the spice while contrasting the starch. La Cumbre’s Vivid Wild Hazy IPA and Bottle Logic’s Hanamachi Black Rice Lager also grace the menu, adding a bitter backbone and a nutty dry complement, respectively, to many dishes that call out Colorado’s famous Olathe sweet corn, Fremont beans, and more.

A Supporting Role

Ji Hye Kim, of Miss Kim in Ann Arbor, Mich., tends to cast vegetables in supporting roles as opposed to the lead on a plate, such as pea shoots tossed with garlic and jalapeño, miso butter-glossed asparagus, and sauteed corn round, which are largely inspired by Korean banchan. These side dishes, kimchi and beyond, are traditionally placed on the table before the main dish arrives. “When we first opened [Miss Kim], we had entrees with three or four banchan, which included kimchi.”

“Bitter greens, like watercress or spicy mustard greens, go surprisingly well with slight bitter notes,” Kim comments, noting dishes like classic Bibimbap, a rice bowl with greens, pickled vegetables, and topped with a fried egg, or Tteokbokki, sauteed rice cake rounds often served with seasonal vegetables and mushrooms, a dish inspired by 19th-century vegan cuisine served in palaces. For lighter salads, she’ll tend to choose lighter beers, like Upland Brewing Co.’s ​​Champagne Velvet and Brew Detroit’s Citrus Blonde, allowing guests to really taste the vegetable instead of overpowering it.

“Beer with Korean cuisine functions a bit differently than other foods,” explains Kim, describing the philosophy of chimaek (chicken and beer) and pimaek (pizza and beer)—words that define certain food and drink combinations in Korea. Kim believes vegetables and beer should be held in the same regard. “Ya, which means vegetable, is also a prefix for something sexy, so why not make vegetables and beer sexy and call it yamaek?” 

When Miss Kim opened in fall of 2017, “Drinkers just wanted IPAs, but not all IPAs are the same,” Kim concedes, “whereas with these [aforementioned] pairings, beer is meant to refresh the palate.” She serves many saisons, Pilsners, and light lagers, like Stillwater Artisanal Ale’s Extra Dry sake-style saison, and will occasionally offer a porter or stout. She also likes Brew Detroit’s Cerveza Delray Oscura, a dark Mexican lager. Kim connects these darker flavors to Korean BBQ, in which most meat is marinated in deeper, dark flavors like soy sauce, garlic, sesame, and scallions, without any acidic element—pickles and kimchi provide that balance, but so does beer.

Recipes

Yellow Banana/Jelly Potato Bisque

By Josh Niernberg, Bin 707, Tacoparty

Yield: Approximately eight 10-ounce servings

This recipe uses small fingerling-style Colorado-grown yellow potatoes from the San Luis Valley. We’ve seen them called Yellow Banana and Yellow Jelly potatoes. The key is a very low starch/high sugar content potato.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds diced yellow potatoes (skin on, stored in water to prevent oxidation until needed)
• ¼ pound diced yellow onion
• ¼ pound diced celery
• ¼ pound diced fennel bulb
• 4 ounces nduja sausage (we use Elevation brand)
• 1 ounce minced garlic
• 1 ounce diced shallot
• 2 ½ cups white wine (we use High Desert Wine Lab White Light Riesling)
• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1 quart milk
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup honey
• salt & pepper (of choice: white, cayenne, guajillo, or black)
• High quality first press olive oil or infused oil such as chive or parsley
• Multicolor potato chips
• Creme fraiche/sour cream
• Fennel fronds
• Trout roe (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large oven-safe stockpot sweat the fennel, onion, and celery until translucent. Do not brown.
3. Add nduja to vegetable mixture and slowly render completely over medium-low heat, stirring constantly.
4. Deglaze with white wine.
5. Add potatoes and cover with parchment.
6. Place pan in oven and roast for approximately 45 to 55 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
7. Remove from oven and add milk, cream, honey, and vinegar. Stir and let cool slightly.
8. Working in small batches, blend equal amounts of solids to liquids. You could use a stick blender here; we really like a high-speed blender like a Vitamix to smooth out the bisque as much as possible.
9. Return the finished bisque to the stock pot and heat to barely a simmer, stirring often over low heat.
10. Season with salt and pepper and adjust balance with apple cider vinegar/honey as needed.

Note: If bisque is too thick, adjust with either milk or water. Make sure to readjust seasoning after diluting as needed.

To serve:

Garnish the bisque with a dollop of both crema and parsley oil. Make a crescent shape around the crema and oil with lightly crushed multi color potato chips. Gently add trout roe (if using) to the chips. Garnish the chips and roe with fennel fronds.

Tteokbokki, Royale Style

By Ji Hye Kim, Miss Kim

This is a quick and easy vegan version of the sauteed Tteokbokki we serve at Miss Kim. It was inspired by the old palace version of Tteokbokki from the 19th century. The original palace version is very luxurious, full of various vegetables and mushrooms, pine nuts, and beef. We make ours simpler with seasonal vegetables and mushrooms, quickly sauteed in a hot pan to order. We decided to skip the beef because the vegan version was so tasty and we didn’t think it needed meat.

For the sauce:

• 100g Korean soy sauce
• 40g mirin
• 25g Gochujang sauce
• 5g Perilla oil
• 10g chopped scallions
• 5g minced garlic
• 15g brown sugar

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Keep the finished sauce refrigerated. It will last a few weeks.

For the rice cakes (aka tteokbokki):

• 2 cups rice cakes shaped specifically for Tteokbokki
• 4 tablespoons Royale Tteokbokki sauce (above)
• ½ cup mushrooms (we like shiitake, shimeji, and maitake; cremini or button mushrooms are good too!), sliced into ¼ inch pieces
• ½ cup vegetable that you have on hand (we love winter squash or carrots), cut into ½-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons scallions
• Pinch granulated sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons neutral oil like canola (for sauté)
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil like canola (for roasting)
• Garnish: Chopped scallions and sesame seeds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a mixing bowl, toss the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil, a pinch of salt, and pepper. Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes until brown around the edges.
3. In a mixing bowl, toss the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil, a pinch of salt, and pepper.
4. Place the vegetables on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until soft but not falling apart. Let cool.
5. Place a heavy steel pan wok on the stove over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add 1.5 tablespoons of oil and roll it around to cover the pan. Sprinkle the pan with a pinch of sugar evenly.
6. Add the rice cakes to the hot pan and toss. Leave them for a minute or two until the bottom is golden brown. Toss in the pan and let them cook for another minute or two until most of the rice cakes are toasted golden brown, crispy on the outside but tender when poked.
7. Add mushrooms and vegetables and toss to mix well with the rice cakes.
8. Add the sauce to the pan and toss well so everything is well coated with the sauce. Cook for another minute until the rice cakes are nicely toasted brown. Make sure the rice cakes are not burnt and there is no pool of sauce on the bottom of the pan.
9. Place the cooked rice cakes and the vegetables into a pasta bowl. Garnish with sesame seeds and chopped scallions to serve.

The post A Great Beer for Greens appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Since the 8th century, hops and beer have been as intertwined as grapes and wine. Benedictine monks at a Bavarian Abbey were first to form this happy union when they realized that hops presented a singular way to replace the bouquet of herbs and spices, as well as the bitterness they’d been seeking in their gruit ales.

In 1516, hops became a codified part of what defined beer, through the advent of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law. And ever since, that’s where they’ve remained, rarely used outside of the brewing world, until very recently. A more diverse drinks marketplace, and movement toward mindful consumption of alcohol hasn’t led people to abandon hoppy flavor. Instead, it’s furthered the threshold of green flavors. With a global oversupply, many brewers (and drinkers) are rethinking hops’ rightful place in our liquid refreshments.

Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century German Benedictine abbess, was one of the first to write about hops. She noted both their potency and potential as a preservative, foreshadowing the rise of present-day beers (Imperial IPAs, etc.) with International Bitterness Units (IBUs) that top 100, exceeding the bitterness level that a human palate can detect.

Mixing It Up

Hops started finding their way into cocktails a decade ago with tinctures (e.g. Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters), swapping out citrus, herbal, or earthy ingredients for similarly scented aromatics found in certain strains of hops. For those who don’t drink alcohol, or are trying to limit their intake, a marked change to “hopping” has has bubbled up the sparkling waters space. Just as brewers have long been exploring the full flavor spectrum of hops, these new seltzers do the same, with Mosaic and Sabro varieties giving the juiciness of a spritzer and Cascades providing an earthy piney-ness. Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refresher, a line of non-alcohol products, is a dry-hopped seltzer that uses a pinch of brewer’s yeast to pull out the terpenes (aroma compounds). Hoplark Sparkling HopTea, which launched in 2018, first used citrusy Citra hops, now taps into 20-30 different hop varietals. These hops are used as more than a bittering agent; they intend to be the drink’s primary flavors.

Research and Development

Dr. Alicia Muñoz is technical director at UK-based Barth Haas, one of the largest suppliers of hops in the world. At Drinktec 2022 in Munich, Muñoz was part of a team that used their own products to introduce four new hopped-innovations, including a hop sparkling water, a hop tonic water, a hoppy kombucha, and a non-alcoholic beverage called Energize Beer. These four drinks were the beginning of an ideation process that looked towards the over 200 varieties of hops that Barth Haas sells, as starting points for hop product placement, accentuating three distinct hops varieties: Citra and PHA Topnotes (a combination of Cascade and Willamette).

“Citra has notes of mango, blackberry, and grapefruit. Cascade is citrus fruit, sweet fruits, berries, limes and creme caramel. Willamette has a strong wood aromatics, cream, lemon, myrrh, and curry,” Muñoz explains. “Hops not only add bitterness and flavor, [but they] also have antimicrobial properties, and affect stability.” Munoz notes that they can also alter mouthfeel in the same way that hop varieties can differentiate beer styles.

“Tonic was my favorite to be honest, but we couldn’t call it tonic water because it didn’t have quinine,” says Munoz. Instead, Baarth Haas swapped hops for the expected Cinchona tree bark. “It is easy to drink, and wasn’t as sweet as tonic waters in the market, with only half of the sugar. And it wasn’t as bitter (at 25 IBUs) — tonic is usually three times as bitter.”

For this, Munoz used PHA Cascade to bring a zesty grapefruit aroma, and then RediHop, a modified hop product that imparts only bitter notes via isoalpha acids, to balance it out.

Marius Hartmann, a brewmaster at Barth Haas, did his master thesis on kombucha, and looked at how hops interact with scobys (bacteria and yeast starters). For a hopped-kombucha, he decided to use LupoMax, a concentrated lupulin pellet designed to deliver optimized hop flavor, with Callista, a newer hop variety released by the Hop Research Center in Hüll, Germany, which adds citrus (orange, ruby red grapefruit), stone fruits like peach, strawberry, and passionfruit flavors. Combining both approaches allowed these lighter, more nuanced hop flavors to carry through the brewing process, and permeate the kombucha, rather than dissipate over time.

For sparkling water, Munoz notes that “since you don’t have fermentation, you don’t have substances that mask aroma.” Water carries little character, so it’s really a study of how bubbles and bittering agents coalesce. When you add hops to a malt build, Munoz points out, “The matrix of a beer versus an NA-beer is more complex. Polyphenols, sugars, and alcohol change how you dose your hop products.” Energize Beer, aside from having ginseng extract and taurine (to put it in the realm of Red Bull), uses a combination of various hop products, such as Lupomax Mosaic and Incognito as a whirlpool addition, Spectrum Citra & Mosaic in combination with Lupomax Ariana at the start of fermentation. Grapefruit and orange essences add to the overall impression.

The Market Responds

It’s not all theoretical. The market for hoppy beverages is bounding to new heights. Chad Pieper, the general manager of Upslope Brewing’s taprooms in Boulder, Colo., has seen a spike in sales for their Spiked Snowmelt series of craft hard seltzers.

“Hops were a natural fit for us, they brighten the tangerine flavor. We weren’t doing boysenberry and hops — we were focusing on citrus to compliment the citrus hops, the Citra hops specifically,” says Pieper, mentioning their pale ales and IPAs in the same breath.

Their Tangerine & Hops and Grapefruit & Hops flavored seltzers are top sellers, made with an undisclosed variety of hops, accentuated by fruit juice. Today the brewery makes a dozen seltzers, including non-hopped flavors like Peach Lemonade, Ginger Yuzu, and Cucumber & Basil. A seven-month long R&D project, spurred on by the incredible success and omnipresence of White Claw, has become a 20,000 barrels per year business within Upslope’s production. 

When Upslope first started going down the exploratory process, the assumption was that Snowmelt would serve a younger audience that wasn’t all that into craft beer—the spritzer and craft cocktail crowd. But it’s proved to have a much wider reach.

“We had guys pulling off Harleys and up to the bar and ordering Tangerine,” says Pieper, surprised.

But no more surprised than Benedictine monks were in the first place when hops came around.

The post New Hope For Hops appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

At the start of the 20th century, there were more than 70 brewers of lambic ale in the city of Brussels, but by the1960s, only five or six remained. Bottle Conditioned, which contemporaneously premiered at the Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) in California and DOCVILLE International Documentary Film Festival in Belgium in March, and played at the American Documentary Film Festival in April, is an aggregation of four years of footage, analogous to the brewing and blending culture of lambics.

The process of making a lambic-style beer is time-consuming. First, the beer is spontaneously fermented with wild (as opposed to added) yeasts in an open-top fermenter. It’s then barrel-aged, and after a year (or two or three), blended into several distinct styles of beers derived from the lambic base. For example, gueuze is a blend of one-year-old, aka young, and two- to three-year-old lambics, whereas kriek (sour cherry) and framboise (raspberry) are lambics with added fruit and/or juice. Lambic is only made during the coolest months of the year, and these base beers are transported to a coolship (a large, open-topped rectangular tank) that acts as the initial fermentation vessel. There, wild yeasts, time, temperature, and the laws of nature take over, creating a uniquely “sour” beer.

Franck and his crew followed a few notable lambic breweries (Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, and Bokke) and their brewmasters in an effort to not only elevate the art, but to help sustain what many see as an anachronistic approach to beer making. When Franck first investigated this project, he frankly thought that most Belgians didn’t really care about lambics anymore—it was the foreigners, or beer tourists, who rediscovered it. In fact, Franck first learned about the lore of lambic while drinking craft beer in the U.S. after moving there in his 20s.

Franck confesses that the film was “such a hard medium to carve a story—from inception to finish it took roughly four years to make.” Unlike narrative-driven features, where you write a script and shoot exactly what you need, Franck relied on the editing process to dictate the flow of the film. Or as Jean-Pierre Van Roy from the iconic Cantillon Brewery says in the film, “It’s the lambic that tells the brewer what to do—all other breweries lead the beer.”

Van Roy, the fourth-generation brewer at Cantillon, describes lambic production as a victim of industrialization. After World War II, everything changed—Coca Cola came to Europe and there were new “standardizations of taste,” says Franck. In response, many lambic brewers added saccharin or artificial sweeteners as customers complained that the beers were too sour. Van Roy quips in the film that “different generations wrestle with tradition and the increased demand for their rare beers,” but we’re now starting to see lambic-style experiments farther afield. Raf Souvereyns, brewmaster at the bohemian Bokke, boasts an outlandish barrel-aging program using a multitude of different woods, but even with his oversized character and the renegade additions of non-native Brazilian passion fruit, his beers stay true to the core of what Belgian lambic really is.

The film reveals scores of large format glass bottles in vignettes: champagne corks being popped and aged gueuze ceremoniously poured out of wicker caddies to avoid any sediment in the glass. There’s a scene with Souvereyns at Ebenezer’s Pub in Lovell, Maine, in which he delivers a soliloquy about the importance of drinking the past to inform the future. Franck was struck by the moment, one that “merges the world of beer and wine visually.” Once the Shelton Brothers began importing lambics to the States, people started caring about authenticity and provenance, parallel to that of the wine world. An online market emerged for vintage lambic beers—bottles that were two, three, or five euros at the brewery when “fresh” were now going for hundreds of dollars on the open market.

As the demand for Belgian lambics increased among beer aficionados, a few breweries in the United States began paying homage to this style, including Russian River, The Lost Abbey, de Garde Brewing, Side Project Brewing, and Casey Brewing. Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine was an early adopter of using indigenous yeast for its Belgian-style beers. “Rob Todd founded this brewery with Allagash White as the flagship,” says Jason Perkins, brewmaster & VP of brewing operations who has worked at the brewery since 1999. “Second came the Dubbel, third was the Tripel. We have a wide range now, but to some degree, all inspiration is from Belgian brewing traditions.”

In 2007, Perkins says the brewers at Allagash asked themselves, “Can we mimic the process, with similar ingredients, in a very different part of the world, with (our own) natural microflora, to make lambic?” Despite the geographic gap, Perkins argues that there are more similarities than differences when it comes to Belgian and domestic lambics. It’s more about respect to process than it is location.

Resurgam, Allagash’s only year-round Coolship beer (the rest are seasonal), is built on Pilsner malt, raw wheat, and hops. Aged in French oak, it’s a blend of one-, two- and three-year-old spontaneously fermented beer, bottled and corked in a 375ml champagne split. With aromas of apricot, lemon zest, and candied fruit, its tropical notes and finessed funk lead to a clean, tart, and dry finish. Allagash’s Cerise is similar to a kriek, and its Red resembles a framboise. These domestic lambics fetch a pretty high dollar, predominantly sold at specialty beer stores. Says Perkins, “If you think about the average beer taking 14 days to three weeks [to make], it’s an astronomical difference of time, storage, and effort,” not to mention expense. Volume-wise, these beers make up less than 1 percent of  Allagash’s overall production—more of a curiosity than a focus. But the brewery is satisfied with slow and steady sales; these beers are meant as an opportunity to educate, as well as a nod to tradition.

Lambics make up an equally miniscule portion of the production at Firestone Walker in central California, but for brewmaster Matt Brynildson, it’s a passion project. Whereas the brewery’s Barrelworks series doesn’t fully fit its reputation as a West Coast-style IPA magnate, it aligns with Brynildson’s personal interests. When the Belgian beer company Duvel bought majority share ownership of Firestone Walker in 2015, Brynildson took this as a sign that he should be spending more time in Belgium. And in 2019, after taking a sabbatical there, he bought a place in Antwerp so that he’d be able to split his time between the States and the Belgian brewing scene.

Firestone’s lambic production begins in a barn nestled in one of its 40-acre vineyards. Receiving only 10 barrels of wort per brew, the project plays off the romantic notion that lambic is made in nature, when in truth, Brynildson reminds us that, “Cantillon’s right in the middle of Brussels, and it still works.” Over time, Brynildson developed a Barrelworks house culture that became its signature flavor profile. “We were trying to carve out our own little niche; we wanted there to be some indigenous wild yeasts that would integrate into this program.” He purposefully uses local wine barrels and grapes for fruited sours, honoring lambic’s regionality.

In keeping with tradition, Brynildson leaves fermentation to the whims of indigenous yeast,  but he pushes the funk even further, inoculating wort—the initial liquid extracted from the mashing process—with bacteria such as pediococcus and/or lactobacillus. Firestone’s Ferus, their first gueuze-like blend, won a few awards against Belgian beers in Belgium, giving them some confidence in blending. But on a microbiological level, Brynildson thinks American wild beer producers are focusing too heavily on lacto as a driver for acid production. Brett and pedio are much lower in acid, and evolve less heavily, which Brynildson associates with his German beer instructors who brewed under the rules of the Reinheitsgebot; they were only allowed to adjust pH through naturally occurring acids. Brynildson focuses on a balance point that relies on these beers’ acidity not being too aggressive, “like an IPA with 100 IBUs.” There’s also a school of thought about pre-acidifying the wort before it enters the coolship, which Brynildson suggests “wards off certain histamine-producing bacteria,” but also tames the wild beast, or yeast as it were. Whether foreign or national, there’s something special about the spontaneity of these beers.

The post The Coolship Has Landed: Film Elevates the Art of Lambic Brewing appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

The truth is, not all smoke is the same. Chef Isaac Toups of Toups’ Meatery in Mid-City, New Orleans, uses a large variety of woods for smoking various meats and the results demand different beers. Whether cooking in the ad hoc at-home smoker he built out of firebricks in his backyard—with grill grates and crawfish pot lids on top—or the restaurant’s new custom-made smoker built by Riverside Meat Smokers from Linwood, Kansas, there’s variety in intensity and intention when it comes to cooking with smoke.

At Toups’ Meatery, smoked elements are found throughout the menu. “I’m not a barbecue restaurant making brisket or pork butt,” explains Toups, though all his house charcuterie is smoked: jalapeño cheddar sausage, capicola, and tasso (ham). His food is all about overtones— implying smoke without completely overwhelming the tastebuds, “like a bonfire you hang around, and your clothes allude to its aroma the next day: sweet, earthy, like an expensive cigar,” conjures Toups.

Hot smoked duck is used in a fried rice bowl, topped with blistered shishitos, mushrooms, and pickled plum aioli. “Duck is more elegant and pairs well with Urban South’s Rectify Coffee Porter,” believes Toups, who also suggests Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan brown ale to contrast both fat and flavor, matching the sweetness of the meat, or Gnarly Barley’s Imperial Korova Milk Porter, which Toups deems “delicious without being too perfumey.”

Toups also practices cold smoking, a method that “gives food the flavor of smoke without cooking the ingredient, like we see in smoked salmon,” which he utilizes for his cold-smoked quail perched atop corn maque choux. There are more subtleties when it comes to cold smoked fish, too. “Smoked trout goes great with a lighter refreshing Kölsch,” Toups says. At the restaurant they’ll pour Port Orleans Kennerbräu from the tap or Zony Mash’s Among The Bugs hefeweizen. The combination works because of a lesser ratio of fat to smoke in fish versus poultry (see the Smoked Turkey Leg recipe), which Toups thinks needs something more.

While Toups loves the refinement of Old World beers, he has been into Gnarly Barley’s Jucifer lately, a hazy IPA that uses Citra and Mosaic hops for big, juicy tropical notes, which he finds “so unique and delicious,” but needs a smokier dish to stand up to, like tender beef back ribs served alongside cowboy red beans, root beer BBQ sauce, and slaw. On the more refreshing side, even Toups was surprised to find how well a lime cucumber gose from Urban South paired with his smoky bacon burger—its bright, slightly sour acidity can cut through all that smoke and fat.

Bringing the Smoke

Not all smoky food has to be fatty. In Michigan, an area of the country where micro-regional smoked sausages, jerky, and snack sticks can be found in most rest stops and supermarkets, Chef James Rigato of Mabel Gray Kitchen in Detroit’s Hazel Park spent the summer smoking foods for a vegan menu, including tofu to make soft whipped spread and dark Michigan maple syrup as an accompaniment to cornbread.

Rigato jerry-rigged a method of bringing smoke into his dishes without actually having a smoker. He “sautés” soaking wet wood chips over his Southbend range until the water has evaporated and the pan is dry and “ripping hot,” emitting a thick plume of smoke. He then transfers the pan to a rack in the oven, filling it with sweet, thick woodsmoke. He adds whatever food he’s smoking to the oven, closes the door, and lets it absorb the full flavor of the wood.

Admittedly, his favorite thing to smoke is lamb neck. “We do a pastrami brine and spice, smoke it for 1.5 to two hours, sous vide it at 180° F for six to eight hours (to break down the thick, hard fat), and then hard sear it in a cast iron,” explains Rigato. He serves this smoky set with sauerkraut, pickled mustard seeds, and spaetzle. He’s also done a beer cheese sauce on the side, made with, and served alongside, a slightly sour saison. Be it tofu, maple, or lamb, much of what Rigato looks for in a pairing is mouthfeel.

Whether vegan or carnivore, the drink list relies heavily on clean, crisp lagers and saisons that Rigato equates to “sparkling water, great to have at any meal.” It’s a way of keeping  the palate refreshed and wanting more, without too many competing flavors. He also gravitates toward sour beers from Jolly Pumpkin from Dexter, Mich. for the same reason. “They’re like pét nat [wines], or Spanish-style ciders,” using carbonation to soothe the smokiness. Rigato offers Calabaza Blanca as a great entry-level pairing for any dish on his menu.

The rest of the beer list professes Rigato’s love for Urbanrest Brewing Company in nearby Ferndale, Mich. Next to Suarez Family Brewery in Hudson, N.Y., the lauded Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and Minneapolis, Minn.’s Fair State Brewing Cooperative’s Scope Creep pale lager, “I think Urbanrest is making some of my favorite beers in the country, especially their Odle Pilsner and Kaiser Vienna-style lager,” reveals Rigato, who tends to stay local but foremost cares about quality.

Where Barbecue is King

In Texas, where barbecue is king, beer runs a close second. Blake Robertson and Ryan Cade, co-founders of R-C Ranch in Houston, are looking to reimagine both markets in one fell swoop. “Our customers were used to drinking whatever light beer they had at the gas station,” says Robertson.

The two have an Oyler commercial smoker in their butcher shop and pride themselves on their Wagyu cattle herd. While Cade is the rancher, Robertson’s family started Karbach Brewery in the early 2010s (they sold it to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2017). He knows firsthand that beer is synonymous with BBQ to Houstonians.

Roberston and Cade sell their Wagyu and smoked meats to many restaurants in Houston, including Georgia James Steak and Bludorn, but they also host beef and beer dinners at the ranch. The menu usually starts with a salad of sliced flank steak, progressing into street tacos with homemade tortillas made with Wagyu tallow, onto big meaty ribeyes with mushroom demi-glace. Each course builds with an intensity of richness through smoke and fat, while beer styles progress in expressiveness.

“We start with blondes and wheat, and move into hoppier styles,” says Robertson, who extrapolates as to how clean malt profiles can be delicately hopped without sacrificing character, augmenting slight smokiness, while the bracing bitterness of an IPA may seem big, but serves a purpose in pairings: to prevent total smoke exhaustion.

SMOKED TURKEY LEGS

Chef Isaac Toups

Serves 4

I don’t love turkey, but I can get down with smoked turkey legs. They’re the perfect outdoor barbecue food and practically beg to be brought to a tailgate. And there is no way to eat one without getting it all over your face and getting your hands dirty. Try it with a bunch of kids. It’s fun to watch them try and take down something that’s the size of their own legs.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 (1-pound) turkey legs (these
• are the big boys)
• 25 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 tablespoons mustard powder
• 6 tablespoons smoked paprika
• 6 tablespoons ground black
• pepper
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt

EQUIPMENT

• Smoker (optional)

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat the smoker (or oven) to 250°F. You can make these in the oven if you need to, but the smoker is where it’s at. Personally, if I didn’t have a smoker, I wouldn’t even bother.
• Score the turkey legs: On the meatier side of each leg, make three slices into the flesh, about an inch apart, cutting all the way down to the bone. Cut two more slashes on the other side, staggering between the other slashes. (That is, do not cut a ring all the way around the bone.) This will expose more turkey meat to the spice rub.
• In a small mixing bowl, combine the garlic, mustard, paprika, pepper, and salt. I like to mix it with my hand, really agitating it. Divide this mixture into 4 equal piles. Rub a pile into each turkey leg, making sure each leg is well covered and the spices get deep into the cuts and crevices.
• Place the seasoned turkey legs in the smoker (or oven) and smoke (or bake) for 2 hours, or until the internal temperature is 155°F. Let cool for about 5 minutes. Eat like the barbarian you are.

The post Smoke and a Beer appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

This inaugural semester of EEB offers classes in brewing history as well as tasting and evaluating beer (and the necessary vocabulary). More than half the class load covers how to make beer—breaking down styles, basic chemistry and safety, and procedures to begin brewing at home. Each student even gets their own 5-gallon kit to practice with.

For Apollon, who’s been homebrewing for the past decade and who opened Four City Brewing just footsteps from the Orange Transit station right before the pandemic, it wasn’t until three years into running his brewery, that, as a Black man, he realized there weren’t many others like him in the industry. With EEB, he hopes to extend the same kind of access he was lucky enough to have to everyone else.

Apollon has been a part of the craft beer world since creating the Brew Council, a tasting club run out of his living room, over a decade ago. “It was a once-a-month gathering that started with five guys and grew to 30. The idea was not only to drink beer, but also get educated,” says Apollon. Guests like Thomas Maroulakos, owner of Skopos Hospitality Group in New Jersey, as well as Garrett Brown, regional sales manager for Firestone Walker, came to drop their knowledge on the group. “We even made polos and wore them to a beer fest (Essex County Turtle Back’s Brew at the Zoo). Someone came up to me and asked where my brewery was, and that’s when I started drawing up the Four City business plan,” said Apollon.

While Mettle, a burgeoning entrepreneur, is admittedly a spirits guy first, his first foray into craft beer was through drinking with Apollon. Four City’s The Keg Stand is his current go-to beverage, an American-style lager brewed with Heidelberg malt, flaked rice and corn, New Zealand Hallertau hops, and a house lager yeast that is designed for session drinking at 5.5 percent ABV.

If Apollon is the builder, then Mettle is the architect behind EEB. “The aha moment came at the height of Covid-19 when everything was shut down and we quarantined at home,” says Mettle. It all started with a conversation by the fire pit in Apollon’s backyard. “It was the day before Thanksgiving 2020, and we were talking about the lack of access to information for Black and brown people/minorities (in craft brewing).”

“We’re creating this (EEB) out of necessity; there was no model,” emphasizes Apollon. “People from all over the country are reaching out to us with similar ideas. There wasn’t enough diverse talent in the industry when we looked around, so we had to grow it.” They found their instructor, Michael Simone, at the brewery. When Covid-19 first emerged, Apollon lost his head brewer, and Simone, an avid homebrewer and frequent customer at Four City, stepped in to help—first brewing on the big system for six months, then turning his attention to educating others.

Mettle’s longtime colleague and mentor, Dennis Thomas, is a seasoned corporate professional in marketing and sales, and an endless entrepreneur. He too offered his business expertise, beginning with developing a mission statement, as well as a marketing plan and budget proposals. Andrew Regenstreich, who’s part of HANDS, Inc., a non-profit organization in Orange that supports local community development, is blocks away from the brewery and gives EEB space to hold their classes. “Ultimately, we’d love to have our own hands-on campus,” says Apollon.

They’ve partnered with other brains in their community, but the guidance of Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn, N.Y., has really opened up the world of craft brewing to EEB. When Apollon worked at Pave Academy, a charter school in Red Hook, Brooklyn, he befriended Other Half owners Matt Monahan and Sam Richardson over beers during after-school happy hours, eventually dropping off homebrews for feedback. Even though Monahan and Richardson are not minorities, it was this shared sense of community that Apollon is trying to cultivate in New Jersey, and across cultures.

The inaugural class participants of EEB range from artists to healthcare professionals, all with varying interests in craft beer. Some just want to learn how to brew at home, while others are more than entertaining the idea of opening their own business. However, you don’t have to pursue a path in beer to be a part of EEB. “I’ve learned a ton myself,” says Mettle, who’s now training to be a Certified Cicerone. “I’ve been studying for my certification, all self-paced and online, but being in front of Mike [Simone] and learning all the different details of beer has been extremely helpful, supplementing everything I’ve already been learning.”

When it comes down to it, it’s all about access. “Access to information,” Mettle reiterates. “We’re very familiar with being shut out just because of how we look, so we would never deny it to anyone.” The initial aim for EEB was for BIPOC individuals, but it’s not exclusive. “Discrimination or exclusion is bad,” asserts Apollon. “We would never ask about how you identify,” adding that the diverse cast of EEB students has added value to everyone’s experience.

“Craft beer can be a way out, a freedom thing,” Apollon preaches. “We’re hoping the BIPOC population will find this as a great way to enter the industry. What we can do is open the doors.”

The post EEB: Opening Doors to a More Inclusive Brewing Community appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

An Array of Flavors

Just as the speech pattern that turns words like “beer” into “beah” is a dominant trait in New Englanders, so too is a true affinity for seafood. Jeremy Sewall, chef/owner of the nearly decade-old Row 34, a series of oyster bars in and around Boston, has a long history with fish, and beer, in Beantown. Located in South Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, the restaurant is home to the city’s best lobster rolls and an area called the Cooler Room, a private dining room adjacent to the walk-in beer refrigerator boasting dozens of domestic kegs and hundreds of cans and bottles.

Sewall, an avid fisherman and IPA drinker, thinks of beer as revolving around a time and a place—a floral DIPA is a go-to for a happy hour with friends, but between casts on a boat, he’s more likely to reach for a crisp Pilsner or a session pale ale for the same reason they are often found on restaurant menus: their fresh and clean quality allows you to easily eat a dozen plump, briny North Atlantic oysters and be ready for more.

Sewall takes this same perspective in the kitchen. “Seafood, in general, is a lighter style of cooking—from sushi to fish tacos, to grilled or roasted fish. Obviously, there are heavier propositions like chowders, but when [I’m working with] seafood, I think of how to introduce acid and not overwhelm your palate.” He loves a mignonette with oysters and doesn’t shy away from serving a lemon or lime wedge on the side of most fish dishes. Beer should serve a similar purpose of accompanying without stealing the show, he believes, adding that while he’s not really a sour guy, that style’s tangy vibrancy goes incredibly well with seafood (just like a squeeze of lemon), much more so than something dark or with a high ABV.

Suzanne Hays-Bailey, Row 34’s global beer director and GM at the Boston location, spends a lot of time thinking through which beers will go best with which oysters; she’s a pro at it. Sewall’s most recent cookbook, “The Row 34 Cookbook: Stories and Recipes from a Neighborhood Oyster Bar,” includes a hardworking beer and oyster pairing guide from Hays-Bailey. She suggests juicy New England IPAs with most eastern (Virginica) oysters, and sours with “super-briny Wellfleets—the beer’s tart citrus will balance out the oyster’s salinity,” according to Hays-Bailey. She also likes having melon-forward West Coast Hama Hama and Kumamoto oysters with wild ales, such as those from Berkeley, Calif.’s The Rare Barrel and Portland, Maine’s Allagash Brewing. And if you’re going totally wild and trying to match the “copper-like intensity of a Belon,” an effervescent and bready saison can stand up to strong flavors. Hays-Bailey suggests Garden Beer from Plan Bee Farm Brewery in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., made with coriander and Paradigm hops and aged in oak; or Extra Dry, a super dry, biscuity, sake-inspired beer from Stillwater, a nomadic beer project currently in Connecticut.

Sewall highlights other shellfish too, like local littlenecks steamed with Saison du Row, the restaurant’s collaboration with Boston’s Trillium Brewing. The beer offers a bright, hazy carbonation, lightly spiced notes of clove and lemon on the nose, and a delicate hop profile from woodsy Czech Saaz. The beer is soft, round, and freshening, attributes that carry through the cooking process to elevate the inherently sweet meat of clams and bring out their earthiness. “They do grow in mud after all,” says Sewall. Bailey adds that Amory’s Tomb Brewing Co. out of Maynard, Mass. offers a nice saison swap-in for the aforementioned steamed clams.

Though Hays-Bailey thinks there’s a place for the robust roastiness of bock bier with seafood, often pouring Harmony Park—a collaboration between Schilling Beer Co. in Littleton, N.H., and Oxbow Brewing in Newcastle, Maine—she thinks it’s often confined to fried oysters and clams, calling on the beechwood smoked malt and mesquite blossom honey to balance out the salt and fat of a good fry.

When it comes to beer battering, Sewall’s go-to is Jack’s Abby Post Shift Pilsner from Framingham, Mass.—a lower ABV beer with a light body and crisp, refreshing flavor, so the color won’t get too dark when golden-fried. Sewall serves his fish with malt vinegar aioli to amp up the grain, and gravitates toward Lunch IPA from Freeport, Maine’s Maine Beer Company, or Substance IPA from Portland, Maine’s Bissell Brothers, to match the diverse and powerful flavors and textures of the dish (e.g., crispy fry, zingy vinegar, creamy fat), but also scrub the palate of any residual oil. They’re also great with baked mollusks, like angels on horseback, or bacon-wrapped oysters. Alongside a small bowl of grain mustard aioli to contrast the salty, smoky pork, dipping sauce and beer have a similar effect. In contrast to Sewall’s angels on horseback IPA choice, Hays-Bailey loves the Sap Haus smoked lager from Oxbow as well, which plays up sweet and smoky notes through the addition of maple syrup in the brewing process. “It’s really food friendly and adds extra depth, plus it’s a nice way to introduce smoked beers like Schlenkerla onto the menu,” says Hays-Bailey.

Untraditional Pairings

In New York City, local sustainable fish may not seem as ubiquitous as it is in New England, but at Rosella, an American sushi bar in the East Village that opened in 2020, Chef Jeff Miller and managing partner TJ Provenzano consider the understated nature of fish when selecting a beer.

“We do love serving fatty cuts of sashimi with sours like those from Peekskill Brewery (in Peekskill, N.Y.). Those beers add fruit and acidity, and rely less on the nose,” says Provenzano, who prefers not to go too heady or aromatic when it comes to pairing sushi and beer.

“I prefer pale ales, like Sierra Nevada Pale and SweetWater 420,” says Miller. “They’re versatile,” he added, explaining that the raw flavor of fish, like fluke, is so subtle in sushi that “texture is probably more distinguishing feature,” except for the iron-like qualities of bluefin tuna.  “We’re trying not to overpower the fish,” says Provenzano, who tends to avoid super hoppy and bitter beers, pointing toward Brooklyn’s Coney Island Brewery’s Mermaid Pilsner. “Whitefish, porgy, and tautog all have more minerality and are sweeter meat from their diet of shellfish,” says Miller, who notes they’re fattiest during the spring and summer and are best served raw then. “Flavor and texture combine with [elevated] fat content and end up lingering in your mouth longer,” Miller notes. “Really fatty tuna can be hit with soy sauce (because it can stand up to strong flavors). Things like mackerel are oily, and are best cured with salt and vinegar, because in the sea of subtly flavored fish, mackerel really smacks you in the face otherwise.”

Rosella’s omakase menu starts light and bright: acidic and sweet at the beginning, then moving into smoky and spicy flavors, separated by comforting broths. Provenzano believes these crescendos allow room to be untraditional in his pairings. Rather than going from sparkling to white to rose to red, he can go with a gose for raw preparations, then add some carbonation, then something hoppier or even Belgian, which he likes to pair with their signature laksa, a brothy Malaysian-style curry made with chicken broth, shrimp paste, coconut, and lime that Miller learned during his time as an exchange student in Australia.

Then there’s the quintessential list of sushi rolls. Arctic char and avocado riff on the omnipresent salmon roll. It utilizes their spicy homemade fermented Fresno chili paste as a piquant seasoning, and a single shiso leaf as an herbaceous cooling aid. A “Bagels-on-Hudson” roll is reminiscent of a Philadelphia roll, except with smoked steelhead trout, dill cream cheese, tamago (a sweet Japanese omelet), and cucumber. Provenzano pairs the latter with something super crisp to cut through the fatty creaminess, offering an Easy Blonde Ale from Alphabet City Brewing Company in New York City.

Provenzano touts Kings County Brewers Collective (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and its Polkageist Helles Lager, which he believes is multifaceted with sushi—it’s a bit higher alcohol and can go across courses. Also in Brooklyn is Other Half and its Ivy City Lager, with a maltier flavor profile than most other selections, but Provenzano loves to pair it with their tempura soft shell crab roll. Provenzano also likes Mother’s Milk from Keegan Ales in Kingston, N.Y. “It’s a little more vegetal and savory—not at all coffee and chocolate—so it’s more like having a nigori sake.” 

All the Salt in the Sea 

Mike Lata’s FIG restaurant in Charleston, S.C. has been serving southeastern Atlantic fish since 2003. Bistro classics like slow baked black bass and Lowcountry bourride (shrimp stew) paved the way for Lata to open The Ordinary, a Southern seafood brasserie that celebrates the “merroir” of the coast, in 2012. Local oysters like Sea Clouds, Caper Blades, and Steamboat Creeks are constants on the menu—their earthiness comes from South Carolina’s characteristic pluff mud. “The salinity here sets us apart—it’s near 2,900 parts,” more than any other ocean, says Lata. The Ordinary shucks about 7,000 oysters a week, and they’re often served alongside Westbrook Brewing’s White Thai, a Belgian-style wheat beer with ginger and lemongrass brewed in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. The beer is a great accompaniment to FIG’s fancy seafood tower in full, which also features similar Southeast Asian flavors in their Pickled Lil’ Neck Clams: lemongrass, coconut, and lime.

Lata’s seafood and beer approach is succinct and sustainable. “I don’t see why I should spend one nickel out of our community,” he preaches. Miss Paula and the Carolina Breeze come from the Wando Dock on Shem Creek, and their P&E (peel & eat) Tarvin shrimp are a stalwart. Instead of the classic “cocktail” preparation (poached, shocked, chilled), Lata gets these in fresh, pulls off the heads (which he uses for sauce), poaches them with the shells on, and then tosses them with a proprietary blend of spices. They’re chilled and meant to be eaten with your fingers. “They taste like the ocean,” says Lata, who says this dish screams for a nice cold beer.

“With our seafood palate, and the way we cook, we try to focus on freshness,” proclaims Lata. “Not a lot of cream and butter, but we do use it—it’s impossible not to, as fish goes great with it.”  For wine, Lata usually goes for high acid, so Edmund’s Oast Sour Cranberry Lime from Charleston, S.C. is a superb companion.

Another local gem is crab. “There are only two places we can get crab in the country—North Carolina or Alabama—so we go local first, regional second, and no farther than domestic; we don’t import any seafood,” says Lata, echoing the mission statement that he built his reputation on. The crab’s distinct and delicious, musty, super sweet, and firm meat, which Lata highlights in an okra gumbo and a lump crab rice with ginger sofrito, sunchokes, and a farm egg, goes great with the pronounced flavors of Coast Brewing Co.’s Hop Art IPA. Lata’s best advice, though, is to “start with a dozen shucked oysters and a Pils, like one from Munkle Brewing Co., and go from there … so long as food and drink aren’t really competing with each other.”

The Ordinary’s draught lines aren’t specifically South Carolinian—sometimes a nostalgic beer like Genesee Cream Ale or Point Beer (Lata’s business partner is from Wisconsin) are on the menu—but local beers complement Lata’s concept and highlight the prolific microbrewery scene in town. Sometimes you’ll even find Freehouse Brewery’s oyster stout, More the Merroir, on the menu, providing hints of brine and enough richness to take on all the salt in the sea.

RECIPES

Angels on Horseback

By Jeremy Sewall, Row 34, Boston, MA

Makes 18 oysters

4-6 servings

• 9 slices bacon
• 18 medium to large oysters, shucked
• ¼ cup grain mustard aïoli, or your favorite mustard mixed with mayonnaise

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Place the bacon slices flat on a baking sheet with about 1/2 inch between them. Bake until slightly crispy but still pliable enough to wrap around the oysters, 15 to 18 minutes. Remove the bacon from the oven and turn up the oven to 425°F.

Let the bacon cool slightly, then cut the slices in half crosswise. Wrap each shucked oyster with a bacon slice and secure by pushing a toothpick through the oyster. Place on a clean baking sheet.

Bake the wrapped oysters until bacon is crisp and oysters are warmed through, about 6 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges and aïoli on the side.

Saison-Steamed Littlenecks with Parsley Butter and Grilled Sourdough

By Jeremy Sewall, Row 34, Boston, MA 

Serves 4 as an appetizer

• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 4 whole scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
• 40 littleneck clams, cleaned
• 1 cup Trillium Brewery’s Saison Du Row, or your favorite saison
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons parsley butter, or plain butter
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 slices grilled or toasted sourdough bread

In a large pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat the canola oil over medium heat. Add the shallot, garlic, and white parts of the scallions and sauté until they begin to color lightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the clams and the beer, cover, and steam until the clams start to open, about 8 minutes.

As the clams open, use a slotted spoon to transfer them from the pot to a serving bowl. Repeat until all the clams are open and in the serving bowl, leaving most of the cooking liquid in the pot. Add the lemon juice and parsley butter to the liquid and whisk until the butter has melted. Taste the sauce—it should be salty. Season with salt and pepper as needed, then pour the sauce over the clams. Garnish with the scallion greens and serve sourdough on the side.

Beer-Battered Fish and Chips with Malt Vinegar Aïoli

By Jeremy Sewall, Row 34, Boston, MA

Serves 4 as an entrée

• 4 cups canola oil
• 2 cups Beer Batter (recipe below)
• 1 1/2 pounds pollock or other white fish, cut into 4 pieces
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges
• 1 batch 242 Fries, or your favorite French fries
• 1 cup malt vinegar aïoli, or malt vinegar mixed in mayonnaise

Line a plate with paper towels. In a Dutch oven, heat the oil to 350°F.

Use a paper towel to thoroughly pat dry each piece of fish, then place the fish pieces in the batter, coating all sides well. Using tongs, carefully place a piece of fish in the frying oil by holding one corner of the piece until it’s three-quarters submerged. Count to 10, then let the entire piece drop down into the oil. (This will prevent the fish from sticking to the bottom of the pan.) Repeat this process with each piece of fish. Fry for 2 minutes, then flip the fish over and fry for another 2 minutes. The fish should be golden brown on both sides; do this in batches if necessary.

Remove the fish from the frying oil and transfer to the prepared plate to drain. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with lemon wedges, fries, and aïoli for dipping.

For the beer batter:

Makes about 2 cups

• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 ounces beer
• 3 ounces soda or sparkling water

In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients. Whisk in the beer and soda water until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.

The post Salinity & Suds: Pairing Beer with Seafood appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

The rules for pairing beer with pizza aren’t as definitive as the ones that apply to domestic pizza styles (e.g., Detroit, St. Louis, and Old Forge, Pa.), but, analogous to the craft beer movement improving the quality of beer, pizza has been vastly improved by access to better ingredients: 00 flour, tastier tomatoes, and locally made cheeses.

Full of Flavor

Leah Scurto, an award-winning pizza chef and member of the United States Pizza Team, spent over 20 years working in the Bay Area at Pizza My Heart before moving to Sonoma County to open Pizzaleah in Windsor, Calif. She now stretches pies only a couple miles up the 101 from Russian River Brewery. Pizzaleah is in the vicinity of great beer, but without Scurto’s supreme dough recipe, it would be for naught. Her crust is crisp on the outside, chewy in the middle, and super flavorful, like an artisan sourdough—achieved by a three-day cold fermentation followed by baking in high-temperature electric deck ovens. “The press focuses mainly on my toppings,” says Scurto, “but there’s flavor in our dough, too, which in and of itself pairs nicely with a saison’s funkiness.” (HenHouse Brewing Company in nearby Santa Rosa makes an excellent example.) Even Scurto’s pan pizzas, though thicker than her rounds, have a light airiness to them, more akin to focaccia than a deep-dish.

More than anything, it’s the array and inventiveness of toppings that make Scurto’s pizzas stand out. “I never make one-topping pizzas. I have a persimmon pizza finished with burrata and finger lime gremolata—which sounds like a lot, but there’s always something on a pizza that you can pair with,” she maintains.

In this corner of Sonoma County, IPAs essentially sell themselves—four of Pizzaleah’s tap lines are dedicated to them. Though IPA’s powerful punch of hops may seem like it would overwhelm the subtleties of certain pies, it’s the palate-cleansing bitterness that enhances each bite. Bear Republic’s Racer 5 is a mainstay, as is a rotating tap from HenHouse—its Incredible IPA highlights a quintet of hops: Cascade, Simcoe, Mosaic, Belma, and Hallertau Blanc. Scurto often carries beers from Fogbelt Brewing too, such as its flagship Del Norte IPA with aromas of pineapple and citrus and a malty finish that she loves to pair with her Triple Threat pizza (red sauce, mozzarella, pickled peppers, pineapple, and pepperoni).

“I’m not going to deter someone from drinking their beer of choice,” states Scurto, “but I often point them to a pale ale.” Cooperage Brewing makes a lineup of offerings called Curt that are crisp, clean, and less hoppy than an IPA, but with enough bitterness to complement the pizza. But it’s often beers that fall outside the hop-forward realm that Scurto finds more intriguing when it comes to pairing with pizza. For pizzas with spicy toppings like Old Grey Beard, a red sauce-slicked pie with mozzarella, fontina, Italian sausage, Calabrian peppers, hot honey, and orange zest, Scurto recommends a Pilsner or something lighter to quell the heat. Seismic Brewing’s Liquifaction Kölsch from nearby Sebastopol accents the citrus flavors on the pizza.

Pizzaleah also pours an array of Alvarado Street sours, which play well with fatty and salty toppings mainly due to their acid, reinforcing the notion that pairing isn’t all about straightforward assumptions. Scurto’s most popular pizza is called Roo’s, a fontina and mushroom medley with fresh thyme, roasted fennel, parsley, and shaved parmesan. With this, she’ll suggest a dark amber lager from Barrel Brothers, or even the brewery’s Dark Sarcasm porter as it is full-flavored—just like her pizzas.

Waiting for Enlightenment

Down in Houston, Nicole Bean, president of Pizaro’s Pizza, has been changing the way Texans perceive pizza for a decade, and now she’s doing the same with beer. In 2011, her father, Bill Hutchinson, a lifelong oil and gas industry worker, wanted to replace his barbeque pit with an outdoor oven, and it sort of spiraled out of control— the family now owns two pizzerias in Houston. “I was in fashion merchandising, doing window displays, when he called me to open a second location. I said no—I didn’t want to be part of the family biz,” recalls Bean. Two years later, Bean attended Tony Gemignani’s International School of Pizza, forever changing the way she looked at dough.

“There was a lot of guff that the crust was soggy, too soft, doesn’t travel well, not enough toppings,” recalls Bean of her pizza school experience. She eventually got tired of telling people no and joined the family business. When their Neapolitan-only approach became too cumbersome, Pizaro’s introduced Detroit-style pizza for something more substantial, and eventually New York-style, too. But just like with pizza preferences, Bean found that beer drinkers were waiting to be enlightened.

Pizaro’s pours Fireman’s #4 from Real Ale Brewing Co. in Blanco, Texas, which Bean describes as a versatile blonde ale that plays well across pizza styles. She also likes Southern Star’s Bombshell Blonde, out of Conroe, but it’s Bean’s brother, Matt, who’s the real beer buyer, scouring the country for the “funkiest stuff,” as she describes

“He goes to Colorado just to bring back a six-pack,” Bean says half-jokingly, “or to New Orleans to bring in Moon Shoes (a New England-style IPA from NOLA Brewing),” attracting the rare-beer drinkers to the pizzeria. They may come in for a can or bottle, but while they’re there, they also get a pizza.

Though Pizaro’s Neapolitan Margherita pie is still their most popular pizza, a lot of pepperoni gets sold there too—almost a third of all orders have pepperoni on them. Pizaro’s carries regular pepperoni and cupping pepperoni (the kind that curls up when cooked), and their Death by Pepperoni pie uses both styles. Bean highly recommends a beer that can cut through all that fat. “Lone Pint’s Yellow Rose IPA out of Dallas is both strong and clean, and SpindleTap’s Houston Haze [IPA] works well too; it has a lot of citrus to counteract the intense meatiness.” Plus, on those 100-degree Lone Star State summer days, you need something cold and refreshing.

Local & Seasonal

Asheville, N.C. is a hot spot for the craft beer scene, with more than 50 breweries serving just under 100,000 citizens. It’s also home to All Souls Pizza, a pizzeria that got its start in grain. Owner David Bauer and chef/owner Brendan Reusing think of flour as a local, seasonal ingredient, especially since Bauer also operates Farm & Sparrow stone mill down the road.

While Bauer advises on the dough/crust, Reusing thinks about toppings year-round, leaning into more proteins in the winter and vegetables in the summer. “We make bresaola, guanciale, and bacon, but also our own sauerkraut and kimchi,” Reusing says. He admits that the restaurant tends to stock what he likes to drink, and he’s a light beer person, preferring a good Kölsch.

“There’s no expectation with a beer and pizza pairing like there is with wine,” insists Bauer. As he so poetically puts it, “Pizza is a convivial, social food—people steer toward what they want to have in that setting regardless of the food.” Bauer tends to think sours work well with the fermented flavors All Souls puts forth, but maybe not so much with the meaty/tangy offerings, like salumi and pickled menu items.

In the “everything local” vein, All Souls sources strong cheeses from Blue Ridge Mountain Creamery in North Carolina to pair with funky brews, but it’s the other fermentables on the table that are staples of the restaurant. With their meal, customers get small bowls of lacto-fermented red jalapeño, carrots, turnips, and fine olive oil, which they proceed to mash together and dunk their pizza crusts into. “Sometimes you need a mental break from all those flavor bombs,” concedes Reusing.

A large blonde wood-framed chalkboard at All Souls highlights the local beer offerings: Goldenrod Pilsner from French Broad Brewery; the latest releases from Wedge Brewing Co. and Hillman (most likely their Mommabeer Brown); Hi-Wire Brewing lager; Jape IPA from Foothills Brewing; TRU light; and Nebo Pilsner from Fonta Flora Brewery. Fonta Flora, about 35 minutes east of Asheville, integrates local fruits, vegetables, and wild-crafted products into sour ales for their bottle releases. Bauer has supplied them with grains over the years, and in turn, All Souls has provided them a place to savor their beer—with pizza, of course.

The Roo

By Leah Scurto, Pizzaleah, Windsor, CA

• 10 oz dough ball
• 4 oz whole milk, low moisture mozzarella
• ¾ oz fontina, small dice
• 10 g extra virgin olive oil
• 20 g roasted fennel, diced
• 1 cup mixed mushrooms (cremini, oyster, maitake), sliced (should yield approximately 70 g once cooked)
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 1 gram fresh Italian parsley
• 2 grams Parmigiano Reggiano

For the mixed mushrooms:

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
2. In a bowl, toss mushrooms together with a pinch of salt, then place on a sheet pan. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until the liquid released has steamed off and the mushrooms just start to dry out.

For the pizza:

1. Preheat the oven to 565℉.
2. Push 10 oz dough ball out to 12 inches.
3. Spread out mozzarella and evenly distribute the cubes of fontina.
4. Add mushrooms and fennel. Drizzle olive oil on top.
5. Sprinkle herbs over the pizza.
6. Cook at 565℉ for 7 to 8 minutes, or until dark golden brown.
7. Pull the pizza from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
8. Shave 2 grams of Parmigiano Reggiano on top and then sprinkle chopped fresh Italian parsley.
9. Cut and serve!

Pair with a dark lager or amber ale.

Cracker Thin Pizza Sauce

By Nicole Bean, Pizaro’s Pizza, Houston, TX

• 8 oz Stanislaus SuperDolce Pizza Sauce
• 2 T. red wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper, ground
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1.41 oz Stanislaus 7/11 Ground Tomatoes

Mix all ingredients together and puree.

Pairs beautifully with:

• Southern Star Bombshell Blonde
• Cigar City Guayabera Pale Ale
• SpindleTap Houston Haze

The post Pizza by the Pint appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

For so long American craft beers have been left out of Japanese and Korean restaurants—because they seemed to clash with, or overshadow the food’s character (too hoppy, too sour, too spicy). But by sticking to dependable pairing ideologies—big flavored or high alcohol beers with salty, fatty foods and more balanced, lower ABV beers with high acid, spicy ones—and expanding on others, such as matching sour with sour, chefs and beverage managers are now finding smart ways that these cuisines and beer pairings can coexist (and maybe even improve one another).

Korean cooking is permeated with the unmistakable likes of kimchi (lacto-fermented vegetables) and gochujang (a fermented bean paste with red chile pepper) as culinary building blocks for tanginess and spiciness. In Japanese kitchens, rice vinegar is a backbone to many marinades, dipping sauces, but isn’t as detectable an acid as one would expect. Spice doesn’t play a big role in Japanese cuisine though there is chile: shichimi togarashi, a 7-spice chile flake seasoning, used more as an on-the-table condiment than prominence, not unsimilar to yuzu kosho, chiles fermented with salt, yuzu zest and juice. While impactful, they tread lightly in Japanese recipes—a more nuanced approach to Korean’s palpable palate.

Rachel Yang, chef/owner of Joule, a Korean steakhouse in Seattle, WA. Admittedly, Yang didn’t think too much about how drinks work with food until owning a restaurant. “Koreans have their own name for chicken and beer: chimac. Chi means chicken, and mac is the first few letters of beer in Korean; beer is called macju, which literally means barley drink.” “It’s a cultural phenomena, immensely popular amongst young people,” says Yang, who had a restaurant in Portland called Revelry, which closed last year—it served spicy Korean fried chicken. The chicken and beer (usually a pale lager) combo was by far the most popular item on our menu.

When it comes to spice, one of the best-selling items at Joule is tteokbokki, Yang’s take on a staple Korean dish of chewy cylindrical rice cakes that are tossed in gochujang as part of a stir fry. To this, she adds garlicky chorizo, and fermented mustard greens, describing it as “a 4 out of 5” on the heat scale, but with some acidity. “ Beer would be better than wine with this one,” Yang says, pointing to the effervescence as a means of sort of “mentally” washing away the heat. “Physically, high alcohol accentuates spice, that’s why wine wouldn’t help.”

In Korea, lagers are #1—a clean crisp choice for all the big and bright flavors in Korean food. Yang was first approached by Fremont Brewing, a neighbor to the restaurant, to help them pair their hard-to-find dark beers and aged-reserve stock. She had to do a lot of tasting to figure out what kind of foods would go well with them. The answer: big flavors, like juicy pork dumpling (fat), kimchi (acid), szechuan peppers (heat).

At Joule, Yang has come to understand that no matter what her guests are ordering from the menu, they really just want to drink west coast IPAs, which aren’t always the most food friendly. She advocates for beers where the hop character isn’t overly assertive, as with hazy or session IPAs. “We’re not a bar, so all our drinks have to be enjoyable to supplement our menu.” Yang prefers the unfiltered mouthfeel of a hazy IPA and its smooth finish.

As a chef, the food’s flavor profiles come first. “We talk a lot about acid here, bright citrusy vinegary flavors,” says Yang. A cool cucumber salad, or even heirloom tomatoes will raise your taste buds, and a big, hoppy beer can make that unenjoyable, a battle between two opposing flavors. “Goses, saisons, sour beers are all extremely food friendly because acid works well with acid,” she says.

But often, in her cooking, dishes aren’t just high acid or just spicy, but will be a combination of the two.“Our kimchijeon (spicy and sour kimchi cheese pancake) is very spicy, but the lactic acid in the kimchi is sour. With two big flavors, you really need a bigger beer,” says Yang, suggesting more malt or higher alcohol.

Alexandra Nowell, brewmaster and director of brewing operations of Three Weavers in Inglewood, CA. As a resident diner of Los Angeles County, home to the highest Korean population in the country and highest number of Japanese residents among cities outside of Japan, Nowell has eaten her fair share of both cuisines, plus her business partner (Lynne Weaver, who’s family is from Fukuoka) is Japanese. Nowell believes their IPAs have a place at the table in both these cuisines—made for easy drinking, but also these kinds of cuisines in mind. “Our Expatriate IPA isn’t overly bitter, it lends well to fermented food and fatty meats. Hopped with El Dorado and Mosaic, you’ll get a hit of bright grapefruit, bag of weed, and Christmas trees, ending with a candied lemon tropical note from the Simcoe,” states Nowell. They’re very balanced for west coast IPAs, they don’t finish with astringency or bitterness,

“We brewed a beer for the (now shuttered) Japanese restaurant MTN, an offshoot of Gjelina. We made a rice lager with a light hopping of Citra, which gave it a mango-like character. Super flavorful, but it was restrained enough in structure, that it also complimented everything else they had on the menu from sashimi to ramen to funky fermented pickled stuff.”

Nowell says it’s beer’s low pH, that really works well with the subtleties of Japanese cuisine. ““Anything with a phenolic yeast bite, anything floral, mild citrus, works well with Japanese food,” she says.Three Weavers makes an IPA with Japanese yuzu and Buddha’s hand citrus, but Norwell thinks even that may be too citrus-forward.

In Brooklyn, where citrus isn’t as local, husband-and-wife team Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi of the Japanese-Jewish restaurant Shalom Japan, riff on many classics from Hiroshima, where Okochi grew up. That region is known for both its okonomiyaki, savory, cabbage-filled pancakes piled with many sweet and savory toppings, and ramen, like tsukemen, a dipping-style. There’s also oysters, big ones, that are usually grilled, and served with local lemons—relying on layers of umami throughout the menu. Umami is made of glutamic acid, and needs a balanced beer that will fortify flavors rather than be a force of its own. Their mainstay beer: Rockaway ESB.

“I try not to drink that much beer when I eat ramen, I get so full,” says Okochi, ”but ramen has such fattiness, it needs another note”. Randolph Beer in Brooklyn approached the couple about making a specialty beer for these flavor bombs. And thus, Ume-Gose-Shi was born. “It’s a bit sour, and that acid through the fat well.” Originally meant to pair with their house-smoked wagyu pastrami sando (served on shokupan, Japanese milk bread, with Gulden’s mustard and dill pickle), it wasn’t a super sour gose, a little more balanced and hoppy than a full sour. “With undernotes of plum, the ume isn’t really acidic, it’s more basic, but feels the same on your tongue,” mentions Israel, but admittedly leaves the beverage pairings to Robert Sniffen, the beverage manager at Shalom Japan.

ESB, Extra Special Bitter, is an often-neglected style in the States, and funny enough, isn’t usually as bitter as an IPA—most run at about 50 IBUs. Around 5% ABV, with some malt character, a little richness, and of course, slight bitterness, the beer doesn’t take over the food. Sniffen likes pairing the Rockaway with their fall-off-the-bone Teriyaki Duck Wings, which have a bit of sweetness in the sauce; the ESB cuts through that nicely. “A little bit spicy from sriracha, the teriyaki sauce is basically a caramel, shocked with soy sauce and mirin, blended with garlic confit, and hot sauce for heat and acidity,” mentions Israel. With a lot of gently-hopped pairing options in the New York State region, Sniffen is looking forward to welcoming Grimm Ales, Threes Brewing, Captain Lawrence, and more beers from the Hudson Valley.

They also serve a very beer-friendly roasted oyster appetizer, topped with miso butter that starts you off with salt, fat and umami in a single slurp. Follow that up with a few sips, and you’ll see how you won’t miss mignonette—the acid’s already there (in the beer).

RECIPES

Kimchijeon (Spicy and Sour Kimchi Cheese Pancake)

By Rachel Yang, Joule, Seattle, WA

Tangy kimchi, spicy gochujang, melty cheese—a trifecta of tastes cohere into a spectacular singular savory pancake.

Makes two 9-inch pancakes

Active time 15 min

Total time 15 min

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup water
• 2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste)
• 1 cup kimchi, chopped
• ¼ cup mozzarella cheese
• ¼ cup cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne powder, salt, and baking powder.
2. Add egg, water and gochujang to the dry mixture. Mix well with a whisk.
3. Add kimchi and mix well.
4. Heat 1 tablespoon of the canola oil in a 9-inch non stick pan over medium heat.
5. Pour half of the batter into the pan and spread well, turning the pan to coat the bottom.
6. Sprinkle half of the mozzarella and half of the cheddar cheese evenly over the batter.
7. Once the bottom has crisped up and browned (2 to 4 minutes), flip and cook the other side the same way.
8. Repeat with remaining batter.
9. Serve the pancakes hot, on their own, or with a soy-based dipping sauce.

Teriyaki Sauce

By Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi of Shalom Japan, Brooklyn, NY

Teriyaki is a very stable sauce—a quart will last in the fridge for months.

Yields 1 pint

Ingredients

• ¾ cup peeled garlic cloves
• Canola oil
• ½ cup mirin
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• One 1-inch knob of ginger, cut into ¼ inch slices
• 1 cup and 2 tablespoons (250 grams) sugar
• 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons (25 grams) sriracha
• Candy thermometer, optional
• Heat proof or wooden spatula

Directions

1. To a small pot, add the garlic with enough canola oil to cover. Over low heat, bring to a very gentle simmer. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until the garlic cloves are soft enough that they can be easily smashed with a fork. Remove from heat and strain off the oil. (You won’t need it any further in this recipe, but it’s wonderful to have on hand for other uses, like for fish or tofu. Just let it cool, and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a month).
2. Put the garlic cloves in a blender and buzz on high speed until you have a smooth paste. Remove from the blender and set aside.
3. To a small pot, add the mirin, soy sauce and ginger, and bring to a boil over high heat. Once it boils, turn down to low, and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat and let the ginger steep in the liquid for 10 minutes; then remove the ginger and discard.
4. To a medium sized pot (4 quarts would be ideal, but not smaller), add the sugar. Add a tablespoon of water and mix thoroughly until the sugar has the consistency of wet sand. If you have a candy thermometer, clip it to the rim of the pot and set in the sugar. Turn the heat to medium high—do not disturb the sugar. Once it starts to melt, and you see it starting to caramelize, about 3-5 minutes, give it a couple to few stirs using a heat proof spatula or wooden spoon. Let the sugar continue to caramelize, stirring infrequently, only once or twice every few minutes. If you stir it too much, you risk having it crystalize. Once the caramel  reaches 350F, about 8-12 minutes—it should have a uniform, deep amber color, and just barely start to smoke, with a deep caramel aroma.
5. Turn off the heat, and immediately, and incredibly carefully, pour the mirin/soy liquid, very slowly into the caramel. This is the most dangerous thing you will do in a kitchen, with the molten caramel having the capacity to sputter and jump out of the pot. This is why you want an amply large pot. Do not take your eyes off the bubbling caramel and don’t allow any pets or small kids near the stove during this procedure. The caramel and mirin soy will bubble violently when they meet each other, but should settle down within 15 to 30 seconds. Let the hot caramel cool for twenty to thirty minutes in the pot.
6. Once the caramel has cooled slightly, whisk in the garlic confit and sriracha. Transfer to a heat proof container and store in the refrigerator, for up to two months, until you are ready to use it.

Roasted Oysters with Miso Butter

By Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi of Shalom Japan, Brooklyn, NY

Panko breadcrumbs are added into this simple compound butter so when it melts on top of the oyster it doesn’t melt all over the place—it’s more like a crust. Use awase miso for middle of the road umami, and an oyster that’s not too salty.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 stick (¼ pound) butter, at room temperature
• 2½ tablespoons awase miso
• 1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
• Aluminum foil
• Shucking knife
• 12 large oysters (preferably ones with a nice deep cup)
• 1 lemon

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine the butter and miso and mix thoroughly. You can use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment for this step. Once mixed, fold in the panko breadcrumbs. Put in a non-reactive container and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 475F.
3. Set some crumpled aluminum foil on a baking tray. Shuck the oysters, and set them on the foil, so they don’t tip over. Spread about a teaspoon of butter in a nice even layer on top of the oysters. Bake in the oven for 6-8 minutes, until the miso butter is golden brown and the breadcrumbs are toasted. Alternatively, you can broil the oysters for 3-4 minutes, just take care not to burn the breadcrumbs.
4. Remove the oysters from the oven, and grate some lemon zest on top of each one. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze a little juice onto each one as well. Serve immediately.

The post Spice, Fat, Acid, Beer appeared first on CraftBeer.com.