Sorry once again for the dearth of news over the last several days, I was in San Diego from Sunday through Tuesday and at a beer festival in the Bay Area Saturday. But what took even more time out of my last few days was preparing a power point presentation for a talk I gave Monday at a California Small Brewers Association meeting in San Diego. I’m on the marketing committee and was going to the session anyway, but was asked at the last minute to give a presentation, which meant I had to scramble to get ready for it. I literally was working on it until an hour before showtime but I think it went off fairly well, if a little less polished and organized than I might have liked. Anyway, I’ve got a bunch of photos to post and much news to digest and chew over that passed me by while I was away. As a result, look for even more than the usual number of posts over the next few days. Cheers.
Rosy News About Hollister Brewing
Brewer Eric Rose’s new brewpub, Hollister Brewing, in Goleta, California (just outside Santa Barbara), got a nice write-up in the L.A. Times today in their food section. Really the piece was about Santa Barbara’s beer scene and included Telegraph Brewing, Island Brewing as well as Firestone Walker (which at one point the Times referred to as Walker Firestone), but Hollister got most of the attention. Also, I discovered Santa Barbara brewers don’t like a lot of hops. That should come as a bit of a shock to Eric Rose, whose IPA in the past has been fairly loaded with the stuff. All kidding aside, it’s nice to see some attention paid to craft beer by the LA Times, which is the fourth largest newspaper in the U.S.
Canned Beer Dinner
Last month, Monk’s Cafe and Beer Emporium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania hosted a unique beer dinner with beer cook Lucy Saunders at the helm to support her new book, Grilling with Beer. All of the beers paired with each course was a craft beer in a can. A growing trend among small brewers, there are better than two dozen now putting their beer in a can. The Philadelphia Inquirer attended and reviewed the dinner, titling their article “Can do — craft-beer makers kicking glass, going metal.” Lucy sent me some of her photos from the dinner.
Lucy also was kind enough to provide her write-up of the event:
Craft brewers certainly can be proud of canned beer – at least, that’s the take-home message from a celebration of all-American grilled food and canned brews at Monk’s Café, Philadelphia, PA, in May.
To help Lucy Saunders launch her newest book, Grilling with Beer, Chef Adam Glickman and his culinary team prepared a banquet of BBQ ribs and fixings. Hosts Fergus Carey and Tom Peters called on top craft brewers offering their wares in cans to share the bounty.
Answering the call from San Francisco, California, brewer Shaun O’Sullivan of the 21st Amendment traveled cross-continent to celebrate his birthday at Monk’s, bringing both the stellar Watermelon Wheat Ale and the IPA in cans. Chuck Williamson drove all the way from Garrattsville, across NY state to deliver cold cases of Heinnieweisse to the door. (Cans do travel well, provided they are kept cold.)
Stacks of cans grew like Great Pyramids of Giza on tabletops, as we sampled skewers of apricot-wheat ale chicken, Malt Monster Shrimp with 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat and the Butternuts Heinnieweisse. Brooklyn Lager paired with Chef Glickman’s grilled asparagus salad, and Dale’s Pale Ale partnered with the Porter Ginger Salmon Skewers. Sly Fox’s tasty canned offerings accompanied the beerbistro’s tender Apple Ale Ribs (braised in Éphémère Pomme before finishing on the new grill in Monk’s kitchen).
And at the end, we pulled the pop-tops off of cans of Old Chub Scottish ale, malty and rich enough to handle the Adult S’mores, stuffed with melted bittersweet Belgian chocolate and marshmallows made with St. Bernardus.
It was a cook-out to celebrate craft beer tasting just as the brewers intended, served from cool and classic aluminum cans, so convenient for any BBQ with beer. That’s why I think of cans as mini-kegs, perfect for keeping flavors fresh.
Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment, Fergie Carey, co-owner of Monk’s, Lucy Saunders, the beer cook, and Tom Peters, also co-owner of Monk’s.
For more photos by Lucy Saunders from the beer dinner, visit the photo gallery.
Bay Area Brewfest This Weekend
The second annual Bay Area Brewfest will be taking place this Saturday, from Noon until 6:00 p.m., at the San Mateo Event Center. I went to last year’s event, which was pretty good for a first time festival, well-organized and with a decent turnout. So I have high hopes for their sophomore effort and the music lineup makes it look like it could be a lot of fun. Sponsored by the radio station, “The Bone” 107.7, all five bands are tribute bands. There’s The Unauthorized Rolling Stones, Zepparella (Led Zeppelin), Gator Alley (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Petty Theft (Tom Petty), and Texas Holdem (Stevie Ray Vaughan).
Tickets are @25 at the gate or $20 in advance and can be ordered online. See you there.
Beer Can Pouring Robots
What do you get for the beer lover who has everything? How about the new Asahi Robocco BeerBot, a beer pouring robot. It used to be available only in Japan, but now you can buy one anywhere in the world. For a mere $799 (plus $99 shipping) you can have one of your very own. They’re “gently used,” having been part of a Japanese contest that Asahi conducted. The robot features include the ability to store and refrigerate six cans, ensuring the perfect temperature with an internal sensor, a programmable voice (male, female, or custom), a cleaning mode, and most important for American sensibilities, a child lock.
To watch it action and see how it works, watch the video below. What was most amazing to me was that it pour in three stages. First, with the glass tilted it pours less then half into the mug, then stops to let the head settle. Second, it tilts the glass slightly more upright before pouring a bit more. Then lastly, it repositions the mug upright and pours the remainder of the can. It’s a beautiful pour. I wonder if it’s programmed to do it that way every time or if adjusts as it goes depending on the volatility of the beer?
Sasquatch Brew Fest in Eugene
Last Saturday, while I was attending the Santa Rosa Beerfest, 550 miles to the north in Eugene, Oregon, another beer festival was taking place. The fifth annual Sasquatch Brew Fest is a benefit for the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation, a charity set up after the untimely death of the well-known Eugene brewer in 2002. The Foundation provides scholarships for brewers to attend the Siebel Institute in Chicago.
Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder and brewmaster of 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco, attended the festival and was kind enough to share some of his photos. Thanks Shaun.
Jamie Floyd, from Ninkasi Brewing, John Maier, from Rogue Brewing, and Nikos Ridge, also from Ninkasi.
Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder and brewmaster of 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco, and his girlfriend Adrienne McMullen.
For more photos from this year’s Sasquatch Brew Fest, visit the photo gallery.
Beerfest in Santa Rosa
This was the 16th annual Santa Rosa Beerfest, which is a benefit for Face to Face, a Sonoma County AIDS charity. What’s fun about this festival and what sets it apart is two things. First there’s the emphasis on local beer and food producers. Second, and most importantly in my opinion, is the way they treat food. There are as many, perhaps more, food stands than beer stands. And for your admission price you get unlimited samples of both food and beer. That means you can choose a food and a beer to pair, and try endless combination of pairings right there on the spot. More festivals should adopt this method, because it’s a terrific way to really show just how good beer and food are together. I can write about it until I’m blue in the fingers, and you can try single pairing after pairing, but to have an opportunity to mix and match like this is priceless and a fantastic learning experience. Plus, the equal emphasis on food alleviates the drunkenness that sometimes accompanies lesser festivals. Anyway, it was a great day — perfect weather — and I had a great time talking with friends, eating and drinking and listening to live music. After the festival I was so full, I didn’t have another bite for the rest of the day. I was satiated and satisfied.
Rebecca and Fraggle, inveterate festival-goers, at this year’s Santa Rosa Beerfest.
Two from Russian River Brewing, co-owner Natalie (center) and as many times as I’ve met this gentlemen I can’t remember his name, along with Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing (right).
For more photos from this year’s Santa Rosa Brewfest, visit the photo gallery.
Sheboygan Brewing History
Just hearing the word “Sheboygan” brings a smile to my face. I don’t know why exactly — and I certainly mean no disrespect to the town’s residents — but it’s just one of the words. The name is believed to be a Chippewa word, probably meaning “a noise underground,” or “river disappearing underground,” though some scholars think it may have meant “perforated object, as a pipe stem.” It just makes me laugh every time I hear it.
In the wonderful Billy Wilder movie “Some Like It Hot,” Josephine and Daphne (played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) went to the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music. It’s located in eastern Wisconsin along the shores of Lake Michigan. The town itself has a population of just under 50,000, or almost exactly the same as the town I live in, Novato, California. But we have only had one brewery throughout the entire history of the town. Sheboygan, by contrast, has had as many as eleven at one time throughout its own history. That’s according to Bill Wangemann’s latest column in the Sheboygan Press where he details some of the breweries that have operated in Sheboygan over the years.
The earliest Sheboygan brewery was the Gutsch Brewing Co (later Kingsbury Brewing Co), which first opened in 1847. In the photo below, from the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center in Sheboygan Falls, a “truck from the Gutsch Brewing Co. is loaded with beer for delivery by driver Edwin Kreuter, right. The other man is unidentified.”
Turtle Mountain Profile
The Albuquerque Tribune had a nice, in depth profile today of brewer Bill Krostag of Turtle Mountain Brewing in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Beer-Battered Fish and Chips
MSNBC recently shared a tasty sounding recipe for beer-battered fish and chips. The recipe is taken from a new cookbook, “The Summer Shack Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Shore Food” by Jasper White. There’s even a video of it taken from the Today show. I’m hungry just looking at the ingredients. Yum.
Here’s the recipe for the batter:
INGREDIENTS
- About 6 cups peanut, canola, or other vegetable oil for deep-frying
- 1-1/2 pounds (or a little more) skinless fish fillets (large flounder and fluke, haddock, hake cod, Pollock, ocean perch, or tautog), cut into 4 thin (less than 3/4 inch) slices
- About 3 tablespoons Spiced Seafood Salt, or salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1-cup all-purpose flour
For the batter:
- 1 cup of cornstarch
- One 12-ounce can beer or ale
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
DIRECTIONS
The batter can be made several hours in advance and refrigerated until ready to use.
- To make the batter: Combine the flour, cornstarch, beer, egg, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk well. The batter will be very light-slightly thinner than a regular pancake batter. Cover and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, or up to 3 hours.
- Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Heat 3 inches of oil to 375 F in a 4-to-5-quart Dutch oven over medium heat or in a deep fryer.
- While the oil is heating, dry the fish fillets between several thicknesses of paper towels. Season with the spiced salt (or salt and pepper). Drop the fillets into the batter and toss with tongs to coat evenly.
- When the oil is hot, lift the fillets one by one from the batter with the tongs, letting excess batter drip back into the bowl, and lower them into the oil, holding each fillet suspended in the oil for a few seconds to set the batter and prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot. The temperature of the oil will drop when the fish is added, but you overheated the oil, to 375 F, to compensate for this. Don’t let the oil come back over 350 F once it recovers. Fry the fillets until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer them to the paper towel-lined baking sheet with tongs. Serve the fish hot with the French Fries, coleslaw, tartar sauce, lemon wedges, and malt vinegar.
There’s also a recipe for “Boardwalk French Fries” to complete your meal. Sounds good to me. One of my favorite meals that my mother made was beer-battered fish and chips but, sadly, her recipe was lost when she passed away. As a result, I’m always looking for a close approximation of that comfort food from my childhood. This one looks pretty close, but who knows, I never really watched her make it. But there’s really only one way to find out. I guess I better get cooking.