Hopworks Revisited

Hop Works Revisited

We hit Hopworks again last night. One of our friends had just finished the exams for her PhD and we wanted to go someplace to have some food and beer. We got there around 5:30 or so and I’m glad we did. By 6:30 there was a definite line for a table. Unfortunately, they were out of El Diablo, but they did have the newly released Red Ale. I started with the pilsner which I love. They recently brought home a silver medal at the World Beer Cup for this. It’s so nice to see a NW Brewery make pilsner a staple beer. I’d love to see more brewers do it, but I know it can be a major time/space concern. We ordered some Nachofied fries and then some pizza. It being over 90 degrees yesterday, the pils went quickly and I moved to the new Red Ale.

It’s unmistakably a NW style red. Their specs say 5.6% alcohol but it has 55IBU with a strong dry hop aroma. Luckily it has enough malt to stand up to the hops and it’s an excellent beer with food. The IPA on cask is still terrific and it’s no surprise they won a gold medal for that as well. It’s interesting to note that I doidn’t think too much of the IPA when I had it last year at the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. But it was before their brewing system was installed and they had to do contract brewing elsewhere.

I did try the Doppelbock as well, which was very nice as well. It’s not as over-the-top as some other American interpretations but has a great malt profile and the requisite smooth palate. They also had a Baltic Porter on. It’s about 8% ABV, and quite dark. It’s a little roastier than some actual Russian and Baltic ones I’ve had, but still quite nice. At first I thought it had been barrel aged because it had fairly strong and distinctive vanilla notes and almost a little hint of Bourbon. It was a big beer and a good one to end on. I ran into friends in the bar and was tempted to have another pint, but my wife interceded and brought me home. Just as well, since I had sampled a five pints over the course of a few hours anyway.

Interestingly, my wife and our friend started with the pilsner but then switched to the stout. There are a lot of people who seem to think that women don’t like stout, but I never find the evidence. Most of the women I know who drink beer like darker beers. I just thought I should point that out to all the marketing genius’s out there who seem to imply the opposite.

May 13th - Quick Pasta and Pints at Green Dragon

I was contacted by a writer who’s looking to write an article on beer judging and the BJCP. She had spoken to a few people in the Oregon Brew Crew who referred her to me. I had agreed to meet her at Green Dragon for a few pints to discuss beer judging. Being essentially a cheap bastard, I decided to eat at home first before I ran over there. I still had a piece of homemade pancetta that I needed to use or freeze so I cubed some of it and sautéed it. As it browned and rendered its fat, I boiled some pasta. When the pancetta was browned I added more garlic and some crushed red chili pepper. I tossed all this with the pasta and a little pasta water to make a sauce. If I hadn’t been so lazy, I would have chopped some parsley and added that as well but I was in a hurry and was feeling lazy. It’s still one of my favorite quick pastas. Since I was going to Green Dragon I didn’t actually drink anything with it.

I got to Green Dragon a few minutes early and looked over their extensive draft selection. It’s a tough place to get a beer because there’re always too many great beers available. I had been told that the Weihenstephen Doppelbock was available last week but it was long gone by the time I got there so I had to settle for a La Chouffe. It’s still one of my favorite beers, although it is a little different on draft. It’s not as carbonated as the bottle conditioned ones but does have the same, slightly hazy golden color and the signature spicy nose from the yeast. It’s also incredibly easy drinking for an 8% alcohol beer. Luckily they only server it in 8 ounce pours. They were having a Meet the Brewer event with the Mia and Pia’s from Klamath Falls, so in addition to their ridiculous line up of great beers they also had four beers from Mia and Pia’s, including their pilsner, which is a wonderful beer. It wasn’t as hoppy as I thought previous batches were, but it’s got a good malt flavors and, because of its slightly subdued hop bitterness is actually a softer style delicious beer. Style-nazis may say it’s closer to Helles than pilsner, but I wasn’t concerned with splitting hairs. It’s a delicious beer and I was happy to have another opportunity to taste it again. The last beer I had was Six Rivers IPA from McKinleyville, CA. One of the bartenders had just been there and recommended it. It’s darker than many IPA’s and had a lot of caramel richness and sweetness. It had a much bigger and richer malt profile than most IPA’s but had the requisite hop bitterness and good citrus hop aromas and flavors. I’d love to taste more of their beers if they come into this area.

May 11th - White Beans with Pancetta and Foccacia

I had started some pancetta and knew it would be ready this past weekend. I couldn’t find large pieces of pork belly, so I had to make do with a couple of smaller ones. I didn’t use enough garlic in my last batch of pancetta and it did taste a little off, but was mostly fine. I use the basic pancetta recipe from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie but like most recipes, I’ve altered it a little to suit my own tastes. This go around I went a little overboard on the garlic and you could smell it through the bag as it sat in the fridge (I normally keep it in a zip lock as it cures). After curing for seven days, I washed off the cure (and garlic) and let them sit out to dry out some. Despite the intense amount of garlic, these ones came out quite nicely. The color is beautiful and the meat really tastes perfumed. Strangely, the garlic isn’t overwhelming and seems to tame the bay leaf which sometimes seems to strong. I made a pot of white beans with some cubed pancetta, onions, rosemary and parsley. On the side I made a batch of focaccia topped with basil and garlic. Beans and bread is still one of my favorite foods and this didn’t disappoint me.

While I was cooking I had a bottle of the current Full Sail Brewmaster’s Reserve Brown Ale. It’s a really impressive beer. It has full, smooth malt profile with a slightly dry, bitter chocolate note in the finish. The hops play a background role in this beer. It’s all about the malt in this one. It used to be available year round but got dropped from the line up many years ago, because, unfortunately, brown ale doesn’t sell well in the US. (Too low in hops? Too malty?). It would have been a fantastic beer with food, but it didn’t last long. At 6% alcohol, it’s bigger than many English examples, but it’s still an easy drinking beer.

With dinner I actually had a Hair of the Dog Fred, in honor of Fred Echkhardt’s birthday. This bottle had been lingering on the shelves of a supermarket for some time and was showing some age (not in a good way), but it was still a remarkably complex beer. Even though it’s intense and rich, it was a nice match with earthy, comfort food quality of the white beans and focaccia.

May 10th - Brewing and teaching update

Brewing and Teaching Update

Last week’s lecture at a regional gathering of Mensa seemed to go fine. I had been asked to present a one hour discussion on beer for beginners. I broke it down into two basic sections. The first covered the ingredients in beer and tried to give people a lexicon for the various flavors that are contributed by different ingredients. The second area tried to cover some of the more well known and available styles of beers and what types of flavors to look for in each of them. This was followed by an hour long tasting where we tasted through about 8 different styles. I had about 25 people for it and it seemed to go well. The toughest thing was getting everything condensed into an hour and not losing people by carrying on too much.

I’m also trying to work on some single subject lecture/tastings to start sometime in the next few months. I’m trying to fit them into something that would fit the BJCP Continuing Education rules, because it’d be nice to get points for this, but the main focus would be to set up a series of tastings that give people an opportunity to delve much more deeply into a single style of beer and taste 8-12 examples in a single 2-3 hour session. I have no idea on when this may start. I’ve thought about doing this for a few years and hope I’ll actually get it accomplished this year.

Still have a limited amount of beer at home (OK, I guess having four beers on tap at home and a couple bottled batches of lambic-style beers at home isn’t really limited, but….). The brown ale blew last week, about a day after I was raving about how good it was. The Saison is finally kegged and will be ready to drink in a day. The Belgian golden appears to have perennial chill haze, but has a great flavor profile. Nice spice and fruity esters and a distinct orange note. The steam beer continues to be an enjoyable easy drinking beer with great hop aroma. The Biere de Garde/Biere de Noel is likely need the end, because it’s been such a great drinking beer, despite its higher alcohol content.

We brewed more English style pale ale because as we come into warmer weather, it’s nice to have some “standard” beers with lower alcohol. This one was 86% pale malt and 14% Carastan 35L. That may seem a little high for some people, but I them this way. We used Centennial’s for bittering (because we have them and they’re high alpha), but kept the Goldings for the idle and final additions. It ended up about 1.055, which is higher than we expected, but should still fit the bill nicely.

Since we’re coming into raspberry season, we will be blending this year’s Framboise in the next several weeks. We’re down to about 90 gallons of base lambic, so we’ll likely need to brew more. We’re hoping to blend some gueuze at the same time. I still have some of last years, but it’s not as tart as some previous blends. I‘m hoping it will get tarter as it sits in the bottle, but it’s tough to predict how lambic-style beers will age and change.

May 2nd - Steaks with Bleu Cheese and Philip Togni Cabernet

May 2nd - Steaks with Blue Cheese and 1985 Philip Togni Cabernet

My wife recently got My Last Supper from the library, which details what 50 world class chefs said they would have for their last meal on Earth. It’s an interesting book and the responses make for a interesting read. It’s definitely an interesting book to check out. Jose Andres, whose cooking I admire greatly, described a picnic in Asturias, Spain which consisted of piles of incredibly fresh seafood, but also had a course of steaks with Cabrales bleu cheese, which is really what got me going.

I was thinking about steaks and bleu cheese and knew I had to have them. I found a couple of cross rib steaks (which are cut from the Chuck) and some good bleu cheese (not Cabrales unfortunately, but any good, creamy bleu will do for steaks). I’ve been in a roasted potato kick of late, so I had more roasted potatoes and added a few onions into the mix as well. I picked up some mushrooms as well. I grilled the steaks on the Weber over a medium hot fire. Cross rib steaks are incredibly flavorful (most of the chuck cuts are) but can be tough if you cook them too long. I gave them a decent sear but pulled them off when they were still very rare. I put the blue cheese on and watched it start to melt. The potatoes and onions went on the side as did the mushrooms (which I sautéed with garlic and finished with sherry and parsley).

I had a bunch of beers I could have chosen from, but really do love red wine and steaks, so I opened my last 1985 Philip Togni Cabernet. I met Philip Togni when I worked in NY and spoke to him about this wine and he told me that it would never be fully mature and I could be buried with it. That was in 1992. The wine was 23 years old but was in fantastic shape. It wasn’t really as brown at the edge as I would have thought, and it still had a huge tannic bite to it. But it had massive fruit. It had the classic cassis, cedar and plum notes that great California cabernet has. It was not in the newer, modern, fruit bomb style. This was a big, brawny intense wine. He was right, it wasn’t mature and probably could have gone another 10 years easily. But it was amazing. Really amazing. In fact it was one of the best California cabernets I’ve ever had. The only thing that comes close was a magnum of 1976 Cuvaison cab I tasted in 1991 and a 1986 Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow that I had in 1996. The tannins were tamed by the fatty richness of the steaks and the creaminess of the cheese. The fruit was rich, dark and intense. It was one of the finest cabernets I’ve ever had. The real irony was that I was also preparing for a beer lecture I’m supposed to do this weekend. Nothing like great wine to get you focused on beer.

April 30th - Pasta with Sausage and Tomatoes

April 30th – Pasta with Sausage and Tomatoes

Pasta is still one of the fastest things you can make for dinner. The plan is pretty easy. Sauté some things together in a pan and toss it with cooked pasta. What could be simpler or faster? Pasta sauce doesn’t have to be an all day affair. In fact, most of the “sauces” I make for pasta can be prepared by the time the pasta cooks.

So, I had decided on pasta and the Black Olive and Orange Sausages were calling to me. Even though it’s not really a traditional Italian flavored sausage (it’s actually more Eastern Mediterranean or Greek) I still wanted to use it for pasta. I sautéed some onions in olive oil and let them brown a little and then threw in two sliced up sausages and browned those. The sausage already had a lot of garlic so I didn’t add more, but did add some tomatoes and let all that reduce. Once the pasta was done, I drained it (reserving some pasta water in case I needed to use it in the sauce) and then tossed it in the pan with the sauce. Put it on plates and grate a little cheese on. Simple.

For no special reason, I pulled a pint of my Steam beer, just because I felt like having something hoppy. Ideal match? Maybe not, but it was a great beer and the pasta was fantastic. The hop bitterness helped to cut some of the richness and it had enough malt body to stand up to the robust flavors. Although I like to match food with wine or beer, it doesn’t always have to be rocket science, and sometimes just having what you’re in the mood for will work.

Sesame Noodles and English Bitter

April 29th - Sesame Noodles and English Bitter

I was looking for something quick to cook and decided to make sesame noodles, which I hadn’t made in a long time. It’s another dish that I love but rarely seem to cook. I prefer to use whole wheat noodles because I think the nuttiness works well. The great thing about sesame noodles is their versatility. You can top them with shrimp, leftover shredded chicken, thinly sliced pork or beef, or sautéed tofu. I had some shrimp and opted to us those

The basic dressing is pretty simple: tahini, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, Chinese chile paste, a drop of sherry, and either a little lemon juice or rice wine vinegar to cut some of the richness. I basically just mix them all together in a bowl and adjust it until it tastes right to me. Cook and drain the noodles, toss them with the dressing, and add whatever vegetables you want. I used shredded carrots and scallions, but you could also add bean sprouts. I stir fired the shrimp in oil and then put them on top. You can garnish the whole thing with some toasted sesame seeds and cilantro as well. Although it’s not traditional, a nice squeeze of lime juice adds a burst of brightness it.

It being a quick casual dinner I hadn’t really thought about what to have with it, but I had picked up a can of Boddingtons Bitter at the Asian market. I will confess: I love canned beer. Canned beer has a stigma attached to it and there are still many people, beers snobs included, who think that canned beers have a metallic taste. They don’t. I don’t think they have in quite some time actually, but certainly the new generation of canned beers don’t taste metallic at all. Cans have a couple of key advantages over bottles: they don’t let light in, and they have are less prone to oxidation. Don’t believe me? Go get a bottle and a can of Pilsner Urquell and taste them side by side. The canned version will taste fresher and won’t have that light-struck skunkiness to it. In fact, at a tasting I’m conducting this weekend, I insisted on cans and the organizer still insisted on bottles. When we taste the beer, I’m sure it will have the light-struck quality that many people now associate with imported pilsners.

Back to the Boddingtons. Boddingtons draft bitter is a canned bitter that uses a widget and nitrogen to give a smoother, creamier mouthfeel which is supposed to emulate actual draft beer. Although the mouth feel is different, I like widget beers, although they can mask the aroma of the beer when it’s first poured. Boddingtons is deep gold color, but has a beautiful malt and light fruitiness aroma. It’s lighter bodied (which a good Bitter should be) and easy drinking, but it has a very solid malt richness. Because it’s such an easy drinking beer, it’s easy to overlook how good it really is. It’s actually quite good with Chinese food. The creaminess of the body (from the nitrogen) helps to cut the saltiness, and it has enough malt character to mix well with the mild heat. Although I hadn’t thought it would be an ideal beer, it reminded me how food friendly real Bitter is. It seems that some of the best beers with food, are the ones we don’t pay much attention to because they’re not big and flamboyant on their own. Keep that in mid the next time you’re trying to plan a menu around a an Imperial Stout or Double IPA.