Beer, basil & bread

Posted on March 13, 2017 by melsmosaic

Beer, basil & bread…sounds like some kind of heaven to me.

So when I was making a dinner menu for the other night I decided that I really wanted to bake some bread to pair with the pork tenderloin I was craving. A recipe I had used a long time ago popped into my mind and then it was a matter of finding it…Basil Beer Bread. It’s from an issue of Real Simple in 2006! What’s great about this recipe is that you don’t have to think too far ahead because the stuff doesn’t have to rise.

Ingredients

Olive oil for the baking sheet
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4-ounce package active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 cup (3 ounces) grated Parmesan — I used Manchego
1 12-ounce bottle beer, preferably ale — ok, total side note, somebody brought non alcoholic beer to a party at my place once. It’s been sitting around for awhile. Finally got to get rid of some of it here!
flour for the work surface
1 cup chopped or torn fresh basil

Directions

Heat oven to 400° F. Oil a baking sheet. In the bowl of a standing mixer on low, or in a large bowl using a spoon, combine the flour, yeast, salt, pepper, and Parmesan.

Add the beer and mix just until the dough comes together. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle with the basil and knead gently just until incorporated. Shape the dough into a round loaf and transfer to the prepared sheet.
Bake until the loaf is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Turn the loaf onto a wire rack. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

The loaf is heavy! Definitely not light and fluffy but totally delicious! Paired perfectly with the tenderloin and roasted Brussels sprouts.

Prost Brewing

Posted on January 14, 2017 by melsmosaic

Last time I was in Ft. Collins was able to visit another new (to me) brewery — Prost Brewing. They also have a location in Denver. To find this place, you have to walk down crazy back alleys and around corners. Sort of hard to find, but very fun.

They have a huge menu of German-style brews, and offer all of them in small pours (as well as quite large ones), so you can get a good taste range. They have based what they offer on quite a history of alcohol & beer in the US. The way they craft their suds is from German influence and you get great bier satisfaction at this place. And, they welcome dogs. How can you go wrong with that?

There were a few of us there and we ordered several small pours to share. I know I grabbed the Weißbier and Kölsch. Both just great. The others around the table were equally as enjoyable. Glad I was able to check this place out.

Prost!

Big Beaver Brewing Co.

Posted on January 5, 2017 by melsmosaic

When recently in Colorado, I of course had to try a new brewery. This time I checked out the Big Beaver Brewing Co in Loveland.

Wanted to get a taste of all their beer so opted for a sampler — the Beaver Teaser. They give you hefty 3oz. of 8 beers for $6.50. They say it’s only supposed to be 2oz each but that doesn’t happen. All the beers have great names, as noted below to the left.

A description of the beers, per the brewery:

Wonder Weiner Wheat: This beer is brewed in the Bavarian tradition with notes of cloves and bananas. No, we do not put bananas or cloves in the beer. The aromas are produced by special yeast that are neither lager nor ale yeast. ABV: 4.6%, IBU: 10

Bust-a-Nut Brown: Our most popular beer, this brown ale is brewed in the Northern England malt forward tradition. A light, sweet malt flavor with a clean, nutty finish. ABV: 4.6%, IBU: 10

Shaved Tail Ale: This classic Belgian ale is brewed with Belgian yeast, hops and malt. It contains a minimal amount of hops, which gives it a crisp finish without the bitter bite. ABV: 6.0%, IBU: 10

Juicy Peach Ale: A sweet twist on Belgian ale, this beer has the light aroma and flavor of a ripe peach picked right off the tree. A subtle citrus flavor balances the peach and hop bitterness. ABV: 5.8%, IBU: 10

Amber Was Her Stage Name: Amber was her Amber’s bright copper in color with a golden head, medium bodied, and smells of fresh biscuits. She’s made of flaked barley, has a moderate amount of Horizon hops for bittering, and a slight residual sweetness from caramel malt. ABV: 5.8%, IBU: 35

Whiskey Dick Stout: Bourbon soaked French oak chips are used to make this well balanced stout. Finishes smooth and the bourbon is not overwhelming. And darn it all… who took a sip of the stout before I finished taking the photos? ABV: 6.0%, IBU: 17

Screw the Pooch Ale: This American Pale Ale is a 100% domestic ingredient beer, made with hops and barley grown in Washington State. Citra hops produce a citrus aroma and flavor. Crisp finish and a pleasant bitterness will make even non hop lovers’ palates tingle with excitement. ABV: 5.7%, IBU: 24

Potent Peter IPA: This IPA is nicely balanced with a moderate dose of bittering hops and crystal malt. A variety of hops are used to dry hop this beer, which produces unique aromas and flavors. ABV: 5.7%, IBU: 42

The Wheat was nice and I loved the Peach — would be perfect during the summer. The Shaved Tail was also a nice standard beer. The others were good to try but not ones I would reach for all the time. Overall, though, nice beer making and glad I checked this place out.

CO Beer

Posted on December 11, 2016 by melsmosaic

Was in CO awhile back and was of course overwhelmed by microbreweries. They have new ones popping up nearly every week. What’s fun about this is that every time I head out there for a visit I have new places to check out. During my trip, I tried some new suds at breweries in Ft. Collins, Estes Park and Colorado Springs. Had to cover as much territory as possible. *Note, all of these were new to me, some had been around for a bit.

#1 Jessup Farm Barrel House, Ft. Collins, CO – This one is in a barn, which is fun. Also has outdoor seating. Their philosophy “By blending beers with different fermentation variations we are able to create unique and original flavors. Our goal is to take the robust characteristics from the barrels, and blend to bring out the complexities and nuances of the flavors.” They have plenty of options, almost overwhelming. They do offer flights, which I highly recommend splitting between 2 people because of the high ABV of some of the brews.

#2 McClellan’s Brewing Co., Ft. Collins, CO – Their in-house beer (they also have ‘other’ taps) are done in Celtic style. ‘Our Cask Ales are a British Isles style of beer naturally carbonated through the fermentation process. We utilize a beer engine to manually pump the beer from a firkin to your glass. We Americanize our ales by serving it cold, and it still maintains a smooth and unique flavor profile that is less filling than it’s carbonated relative.’

Nice because you don’t get it very often. You go to breweries that all have unique beer, but this is very unique.

#3 Maxline Brewing, Ft. Collins, CO – This is one of the locations that had just opened when I was there. And DOG FRIENDLY! Lots of great options. And, since they had just opened they made us sample tons of them, shucks! Look forward to being back soon and seeing how much they’ve grown.

#4 Estes Park Brewery, Estes Park, CO – Checked this one out after going to some very scenic parks and being outside on a cold day. Here you can either pay for pints in the restaurant of get healthy free sample. You get 5-6 (depending on who’s doing the tasting) hefty pours of their brews (of your choice). And when you have several people there, if each of you picks different ones, you’ll taste everything! They have a very nice spread of beer, and some decent food to help soak it all up.

#5 Butcherknife Brewing Co., Steamboat Springs, CO – You can tell this is a popular place. Packed! One of their pieces of info “If great water makes incredible beer then Steamboat Springs has got to be the soul center of the craftiest beer on the planet. Our location provides us first use off the Continental Divide which means pure, unadulterated, fresh, clean water goes into the heart of every batch we make.”

I personally didn’t love most of what I sampled, I think it was because the ABV was high on those we chose/were able to get on all but one. Was still fun to check out!

Sofie-Mosa

Posted on September 25, 2016 by melsmosaic

I have a great side job of working wine and beer tastings. You know when you walk into a wine store and get free wine or beer samples? I’m one of the people who stands behind the table. Talk about a great job. I get paid to learn about, drink and advocate this stuff!

So I had to do a training recently about Goose Island‘s newest ‘campaign’ — the Sofie-Mosa. It uses their relatively well-known Sofie Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale and OJ. Hmmm. Where did they get that name? I tried it after the training. That stuff is pretty darn good. And, think about the ABV on beer vs. bubbly…about half. Sofie is 6.5%. I’m not advocating going crazy, but you’re not going to get as tipsy having the Sofie-Mosa.

So you can make this great drink 50/50 of each ingredient or do the ratio of your choice. Definitely give it a try.

Cheers!

Noble Shepherd Craft Brewery

Posted on August 19, 2016 by melsmosaic

Awhile back I visited another great craft brewery, this one in the Finger Lakes. It’s Noble Shepherd Craft Brewery. It was started by a couple a few years back as they just wanted to move onto new things.

Opted for a sampler while visiting and the brews tasted included:

-Mosaic Foundation Pale Ale – 6.4% ABV
-Watermelon Wheat – 5.5% ABV
-20A IPA – 6.3% ABV
-Belgian With IPA with Spruce Tips – 6.6% ABV

The Mosaic was definitely my favorite. I would give you a great description of it but I didn’t write it down and they don’t have it on tap anymore so I can’t copy/paste it from their site. So all I can say is that it was really good. We left with a growler. How does that sound as additional endorsement?

The other cool thing is they have the machine that put the tops on the large cans if you want to leave with one of those. So much fun to watch it in action.

Check this place out if you’re up in the Finger Lakes area. Definitely worth the visit!

DC Brau

Posted on August 16, 2016 by melsmosaic

Finally made it to a pretty well known local DC brewery, DC Brau.

I knew it was somewhere in NE DC, but wasn’t sure where. Finally as I was getting there I figured out it’s in one of the developing areas, right off 50, near the relatively new Costco.

Went on a Sunday, a bit after they opened so it was pretty quite. Opted for a sampler so that I could try several of their brews. Ended up with the first six on the list. Of course there is a quite a bit of power to most of them.

Info on the beer, straight from the DC Brau’s site:

Brau Pils was our newest summer seasonal alongside El Hefe Speaks, NOW YEAR-ROUND.

EL HEFE SPEAKS! is a traditionally brewed German-style Hefe. It is fermented around 65°F and hopped with German Tettnang hops. 11 IBUs and 5.3% ABV make this one extremely drinkable.

The Citizen is one of the original flagships brewed here at DC Brau and draws inspiration from the stronger ales made famous over the centuries by the Trappist and Abbey brewers of Belgium. Although the label denotes “Pale ale” this is mainly a reference to the color of the beer and not the bitterness of the beer as is commonly associated with American Pale Ales.

The Public™ Pale Ale is brewed in the classic American Pale Ale style. Assertive bitterness backed by C-60 and Vienna malts which lend notes of rich, yet semi-dry caramel. Then followed up with a nice white grapefruit and citrus aroma that begs for a follow up sip.

The Corruption™ IPA is DC Brau’s take on a Pacific Northwest IPA. Brewed with Pale 2 row, C-10, Honey and Victory malts. Exclusively hopped with 40 lbs of Columbus hops per brew to ring in at 80 IBU. “The Corruption” comes in at 6.5% ABV. This beer straddle’s the line between IPA and Imperial IPA and has a supportive malty backbone with an assertive hop presence that smacks your mouth with a dank, resinous bitterness followed by pleasant aroma’s of pine sap and burnt spruce.

The Hefe was great with the Citizen being another great one. The Imperial IPA was a bit strong. Overall, a great time and the staff was awesome to talk to.

The final one is a cask beer that changes all the time. Very strong…

The Hefe and Citizen were probably my favorite. Overall great time at the brewery, chatting with the staff and enjoying some local, cold beer.

Brazil Flashback

Posted on August 12, 2016 by melsmosaic

I have been thinking back to my trip to Brazil several years ago while watching the Olympics. Most of it came while watching a soccer game the other day, which was played in Manaus. I took a week-long trip in the Amazon on the Rio Negro. We were on a 16-person vessel with a trip through REI. This river begins in Manaus and heads north. The sight of it is amazing because when it and the Amazon intersect the difference is so distinct — black and brown. This is because of the speed of the water, not because of the direction of the currents.

Aside from some of the great sights, the fun food pieces were:

Piranha fishing. Oh, we got to go for them. You literally have a stick and tap the water and they eventually bite the lure. And the best thing — you eat them, they don’t eat you. Check out the teeth! They really do have them.

On the boat we could have beer and wine. What was the beer that we enjoyed at lot, as we were so close to the equator? Yes you’re reading the can right…Antarctica. Just a light one, great for the hot days. It’s a pils. And unfortunately in the whole grand scheme of the beer world, Budweiser owns this beer.

Towards the end of the trip we had true local drinks. We were taught how to make Caipirinha, Brazil’s national cocktail. The key ingredients — cachaça, sugar and lime. Cachaça is Brazil’s most common distilled alcoholic beverage. The first night our guide showed us how to make the great drink then on the final night we got to make them ourselves.

Denizens Brewing Co

Posted on August 8, 2016 by melsmosaic

Finally got around to checking out Denizen’s Brewing Co. in Silver Spring, MD recently. They are just outside of Washington, DC and have been around for a couple years as the craft brewing industry continues to grow.

They have both the indoor portion of the brewery/restaurant and a huge outdoor area, which is great on gorgeous night.

My friend and I each ordered different beer flights, but got a bit confused because they might have gotten turned around when handed to us, and given us a wrong tasting card, so not quite sure what I ended up enjoying. But, they were all pretty good; lots of variety, from IPA, pils, ales and more.

Enjoyed some good food, too. Outside they have a smaller menu. I ended getting the grain burger; a grain blend, root veggies, aoili, kale slaw with some manchego. It came highly recommended and dang, that was good!

Totally worth visiting, especially with great weather. And the outdoor patio is dog friendly if you have a 4-legged friend.

7 Locks Brewing

Posted on July 12, 2016 by melsmosaic

Microbreweries are growing and growing. One of the latest is in Rockville, MD (just outside of DC), 7 Locks Brewing.

(logo source: 7locksbrewing.com)

They have a nice spread of beer on tap, which can of course always change.

When I checked it out, my friend and I split of flight of 6 (4 oz each), which is only $8. We also did this because they were sponsoring a 5K that we had to run not to long after we were going to enjoy the brew. All were nice to try, not all were my (personal) favorites.