Burger Weekend and Upcoming Fests

Lexington Burger Week this year coincided with a boatload of mandatory over-time for this sorry dog while the Fulfilment Center I work at geared up for Amazon's third annual Prime Day. So....I decided to make up for my lack of burgeration over a recent weekend by visiting a couple of new Lexington burger joints and an old favorite.

I started the weekend with a visit to Bad Wolf Burgers brand new location at 350 Foreman. I've been wanting to wrap myself around a Spalding burger ever since I heard such a thing existed...but working nights the early closing of Bad Wolf's original location just didn't work. At all.

What's a Spalding Burger? If you've ever had a Spalding donut, you know it's going to be delicious! Slice a Spalding donut in half to use as a bun, add a delicious hamburger patty, bacon and fried egg. Oh my! (if you could add sausage gravy and hash browns, it would be absolutely perfect, imho) Very delicious, and comes with very tasty crinkle cut fries: I took my order to go as Beer Trappe had a couple of taps I thought might complement this burger well, and though it's only a 7 minute drive from Bad Wolf to Beer Trappe, ALL my fries were gone before I found a parking spot. Chunk of onion ring breading mixed in with my fries was delicious enough to ensure I'll order some next time I visit.

On Saturday, I dropped by Shake Shack in the Summit. I had a SmokeShack burger.

SmokeShack is a Shake Shack burger with applewood smoked bacon,  and a sweet cherry pepper relish. The burger was absolutely delicious, but ShakeShack's menu is ala carte, so fries are extra. Burger, some very mediocre crinkle cut fries and a 16 oz. beer put my tab over $16. The burger was great, but the lack of nearby parking and the price (especially with barely there fries) certainly won't convince me to go back. (ok, mebbe just for a burger take-out...it really was damn tasty!)

Sunday, I opted for a Baja Burger from my old favorite, Smashburger. The Baja includes fresh (not pickled) jalapeños, guacamole, pepper jack, lettuce, tomato, onion & chipotle mayo on a spicy chipotle bun. I'd already taken several bites before thinking "what a gorgeous burger, I should have taken a picture!" LOL The jalapeño slices were huge, super fresh and incredibly tasty. I always love Smashburger's regular skinny fries, though they are better when you get a chocolate malt to dip them in. (The Shocktop Belgian Witbier I had just didn't cut it for fry dipping!)

To continue the theme this week, I dropped by BurgerFi earlier this evening. I opted for the CEO Burger. In their own words, this is a "Double Wagyu + Brisket Blend Burger, Homemade Candied Bacon-Tomato Jam, Truffle Aioli, Aged Swiss Cheese." With fries and a locally brewed hefe, my tab came out to just under $20. Yikes! Decent burger, very good fries, but $20 for an "order at the counter" burger?

Of the four recent options I tried, Bad Wolf was far and away the best value and the best overall tasting option. You can count on me stopping by there again soon!

Tech note--I was certain I'd scheduled this to post a coupla days ago...guess my scheduling talents are much akin to my posting regularity. ;-)

Back to an entirely different topic: Upcoming Beer Fests! I am super excited about The Festival in Atlanta this weekend, and I will tell you entirely too much about it next week!!! While all ya'll are waiting with bated breath on those astounding revelations and absorbing details, get yourselves down to Beer Trappe, Pazzos, Village Idiot or Liquor Barn and snag your bad self a ticket to the  Lexington Fest of Ales that is coming up September 1st! Don't wait too long, these tickets usually sell out before the event.

Have a great weekend, drink some amazing beers, and come back soon to see what else I've gotten up to! (That bucket of sour and brett that's been sitting in the kitchen for the last few months is gonna have to come out the bucket sometime...sooner or later.)

quick catchup

One of my faithful readers recently pointed out how long its been since I posted an update. (There being slightly less than three of you, y'all know which of you that might have been!) And yes, it has been much too long since I've done much babbling on about the nothings I manage to accomplish.

There hasn't been anything going on in the kitchen at all since I pitched that Wyeast Roselare blend into that first sour brew bucket ever been in the kitchen. I have been awfully busy outside the Kitchen though! Here's a brief rundown:

Elizabeth Cook at the Burl! Woot! Always a great time seeing EC. Surprise treat from that show: Maggie Lander!!! Absolutely delicious singer/songwriter from right here in Lexington. Beautiful voice, thoughtful songs. Entirely entrancing!

Then we had Alltech's Lexington Beer Fest. Much fun, but they need to advertise the VIP tickets more effectively. You don't get early access to the fest itself, but you do get a catered meet&greet the night before. t-shirt and a badge that exempts you from the dmn tickets. I don't think I cked in any beers over the tickets amt, but just not having to keep track of those things was worth most of the ticket upgrade! LOL Surprise treat at this year's Fest: Somerset's Tap on Main Brewing. These personable young fellas brought a delightful Barrel Aged Porter that was just delightful.

Next weekend i was off to Dark Lord Day. Holy Cow, what a great time. I got French Vanilla Militia for my variant, which I've not tried yet. My buddy Steve got two vintage year bottles, but he was entirely ok with that...three year vertical tasting of one of the most sought after stouts in the world right there in a bag.

Dark Lord Day was entirely worth the ticket price. parking was kinda cluster-fucked but that was expected, and less snafu'd than I actually expected.

I'm only a few months behind now...I'll try to post a few pics & details soon. Shelton Bros. The Festival is coming up soon. Atlanta, here I come!

Lexington's Fest of Ales is also less than a month away--be sure to stop by Beer Trappe or one of the other spots with tickets available to pick yours up before they sell out!

Sour has been Soured and Upcoming Stuffs

Just a quick update on the first sour beer cooked up in the kitchen: The bucket had been sitting for nearly 7 weeks from the time I pitched the Brett Lambicus over the pound of dried currants, so I got around and ordered a packet of Roeselare Belgian Sour Blend - 3763 from MoreBeer. Pitched it and added the small chunks of Consecration barrels before I headed to work. Didn't take a gravity sample for this third pitch...so no tasting. :-(  Smelled delicious, though!

April has been mostly work, more work and work, again? Sheesh! May is looking to be a good bit more eventful! Elizabeth Cook is gonna be at the Burl on May 4th, and who wouldn't want to be there?!? It is a Thursday, but how could any EC fan miss that show--it's been way too long since she was in Lexington, so buy those tickets beautiful outlaw people!

A short week after that, it's DARK LORD DAY! And who got tickets this year (finally!) !?!

I am completely jazzed up on this one, since the tickets showed up in today's mail! WOOT! I've been preparing for this event for a month now, and so I'm very likely to arrive completely unprepared! LOL!

Backpack cooler and insulated bottle-bag? Check

Nervous anticipation and needless musings? Check

Very decent bottle shares from the pantry? Check

First timer at DLD, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a blast!

All that and Lexington Beer Week starts that weekend! And this year looks like a total blowout production! Wow! All of your favorite beer joints are having something special going on ALL WEEK LONG! The Lexington Beer Week events all lead up to the Alltech Brews and Food Fest. 

That is a boatload of beer drinkin'/hell raising! Hope I have regained the ability to speak before Ray Wylie Hubbard shows up at Willie's Locally Known, especially since Jim Lauderdale is gonna be at Willie's Locally Known on the 27th of May. What a month!!!

And Ray Wylie Hubbard hisownself will be at Willie's Locally Known in June. WOOT!

(In case one or the other of my two faithful readers have forgotten, Ray Wylie and his tunes have been a consistent inspiration for all the brews cooked up in the kitchen. Many of my brews start out from one of his songs, but if I start cookin' up a tasty beverage that needs a name, I queue up Ray Wylie's catalog and keep cooking until a name comes to me.

It's worked pretty well for my beers...try the stratcgy out for your next day at work: just queue up his catalog on shuffle (buy it first, damnits!) OK OK, this entire post has once again turned out to a blatant advertisement for the best rockarollers around: Elizabeth Cook, Jim Lauderdale and The One and Only Ray Wylie Hubbard.

Advertisement or not, this is NOT a paid statement, though I would happily accept $7 from anyone!

Hope both of ya'll have a great time at the library this weekend!

Dark Lord Day Tickets and Cash Back Yelp!?!

Faithful Readers, this will be a relatively short post, as I barely have an excuse to start writing, much less any actual information to convey. As has so often proven to be the case, I am tremendously excited about every bit of nothing I'm about to let all ya'll in on!

To start this little shafizzle® off (Shafizzle®: polar opposite of a shabang!) I gotta start with a little victory squiggle: I managed to get Dark Lord Day tickets this year! Woot! There's rumours floating about that tickets were popping for hours after they went on sale due to some technical difficulties at eTix.com, but I'm going to put it all on my technical prowess and my multiple device strategy: Ten minutes prior to 12 PM CST, I had my computer, my N7 tablet and my Pixel all loaded up on the sale page and spread out on my desk.

I'd decided before the tix went on sale to shoot for Group D (3pm to 5pm.) From what I've heard, this may limit my chances of getting a BA variant. However, having worked the overnight shift at AMZN for years, this dramatically improves my chances of actually showing up on time and not losing my entire allotment. Scheduling my arrival for a civilized time of day also dramatically improves the odds that I'll enjoy the venture, as well as act as mostly functional human being.

Having snagged a pair of tickets, I immediately went to Hotels.com to try booking a room. If you've attended this event, you likely think that's ridiculous, but since 3Floyds moved the event back a couple weeks this year, there were rooms available. Mebbe not very good rooms, but I was able to get a two queen bed double occupancy room at Best Western in Hammond for $95. Sketchy neighborhood but not as skeezy as the Motel 6 next door. And due to a slight misunderstanding, my buddy who is taking the second ticket got a room at the Motel 6 AFTER I emailed to let him know I had tix. LOL And OK, the two motels have nearly identical 3.2 Google ratings. but I've stayed at the Motel 6 and was less than impressed. The Best Western couldn't be worse unless the water heater explodes.The better hotels in Hammond were more than twice the price and none of them had rooms with two beds available. I do love my buddy Stevie, but he likes to cuddle when he's been drinking, so we definitely need a room with two beds!

So tickets nailed, room booked. Plenty of research to be done, though all of it trivial: drive to event, so the car is available to stow bottles, then uber back next day? uber to event, then back to hotel to drop bottles, then uber back to finish the night??? And then you hit the bottle-share aspect of the event: how many can I carry, and how many do I need for the line before I get my wrist-band and bottles? Entirely first ticket worries...a little research and common sense will prevail. (Or I'll just muck it up entirely...gonna be fun regardless!)

And on to a completely different topic: Yelp has added a "rewards card" type program that doesn't require you to carry around a rewards card...you just pay your check with the credit card you would normally use for dining out. Poof! you've got cash back!

You don't carry a rewards card, you link your credit card to the app. So yeah, you are giving Yelp access to ALL your spendung, For 10% cash back on your purchases with that card? no scanning, no "i have a coupon" Just you out having a bite, and using your favorite card to pay.


Thank you, faithful readers we'll meet again soon!

Why I'm Going to Continue Obsessively Rating Beers on Untappd, and Hope All my Untappd Friends Do Too!

I recently read an interesting article on PorchDrinking.com  titled Why I Stopped Rating Beers on Untappd, wherein Dan Bortz explained why he had chosen NOT to rank beers on Untappd, though he did plan to continue checking beers in with the app. My initial reaction to the title of the article was "Please lord, don't let this OR soured IPAs become the next trendy thing!" Upon further reflection, I do feel Dan has some valid points, but I sincerely hope his feelings regarding this matter don't become the norm, and I'd hope both my faithful readers share my reasons why with all the Untappd users they know!

Before I knuckle down and assault you with my compelling arguments, let me first apologize to Dan Bortz for completely hi-jacking his article. He and I seem to use Untappd in very different ways, so find what works for you. We don't all like the same beer, so why should we like the same things about Untappd?

Anywhos, Dan mentioned that he uses Untappd to help remember which beers he's tried, and I totally agree with that! That's one of the main reasons I started using apps for keeping track of beers I'd tried. And when you start getting into variations of brews, such as Evil Twin's lovely "Even More Jesus" series and New Holland's Dragon's Milk Reserve, whether or not you've tried a particular beer can become very confusing, very quickly.

My memory is probably a little shakier than Dan's though--I don't just have trouble remembering if I've tried a beer, but I often have trouble remembering if I liked the damn thing! Adding a rating and glancing at it later is much easier than deciphering whatever tasting notes I might have added at the time. (And I have to admit, my tasting notes can often be confusing:  "Dusty" "Rounder than I expected" "Cribbed wood" Like anyone I haven't been married to would assume that ?Cribbed wood" was a way of expressing a beer evoked pleasant memories? Or for that matter, that I'd even remember I considered that a pleasant taste and not just a horrid memory of horse spit and sharply fresh pine. Put a number next to those notes, though, and I can likely recall both the taste and the story behind the memories that taste evoked. Just seeing the "your rating" on Untappd is often all I need, especially if someone is asking my opinion while building a six-pk at a bottle shop.

Dan went on at length about subjectivity as it applied to his ratings and how it likely applied to others ratings. And all of his points are valid. My own ratings tend towards the high side if I'm having a good time, and I'm sure most people's ratings tend to do the same...so who cares? It happens, we know it will, and sometimes we'll get a bogus "wow this was the best" when it was just so-so. Or someone pans a beer that was actually ok. But it's usually not a huge difference...we don't pan 5s or give horrid beers a solid 5. Even the least objective among us still stay within certain boundaries, or their friends learn not to pay attention to their ratings or let them influence their decisions. Unlike many rating systems, on Untappd you can see your friends' individual ratings, and make reasonable decisions based on how those friends' rating correlate to your own.

In a similar vein, Dan noted the potential for bias based on others ratings. Personally, I am terribly subject to influence, taste-wise: if your notes mention cinnamon, i may very well taste cinnamon where it doesn't exist! OTH, I'm a disagreeable asshat, and faced with my favorite beertenders loudly exclaiming "ooooh, this tastes like the cheap kerosense" I will still insist "it kinda grows on ya." Personally, if I think a beer deserves a really poor rating, but general opinions differ, that is when I'll leave no rating at all. I will assume the fault is mine and not the beers. If I'm in danger of ranking a beer higher than it objectively deserves, who cares? Nobody on earth will decide a crappy beer tastes good because I said so.

If I want an objective, considered and educated opinion regarding any particular beer, I'll look to an expert like Kevin Patterson, GM at the World's Best Bottle Shop, His reviews on BeerAdvocate are excruciatingly detailed, informed and accurate. To achieve this, they are also fairly lengthy...Exactly what you want when you're researching your purchases at home BEFORE you hit the bottle shop, or deciding on a flight before you get to the tap room, but prolly not what you need while standing in front of the shelves,

I have a pretty good idea of what beers are gonna work for me and why. I don't ever use my friends' ratings to help me decide if I want a beer or not (ftm, I'll drink some pretty crappy beers just to snag a badge on Untappd!) I do use my friends' ratings to decide between beers: for example, if I'm browsing Beer Trappe's Cellar Reserve and have narrowed my choice to two or three different beers, I'll often take my friends' aggregate rating and go with the higher of the two. Same thing if none of the friends' whose palates I know and trust have checked in a particular beer.

When I started using Untappd, I actively selected "friends" whose palates matched mine: when I found a beer I thought deserved a 5, I looked for others who agreed and sent friend requests. Many of these friends, I'll likely never meet in person, but I am very familiar with their palates, and how well those palates correspond or disagree with mine. I trust them implicitly, and know how their tastes agree/disagree with my own. They have led me to some absolutely delightful beers, and steered me away from some ot their own regretted tastes. I can't begin to thank them, and I hope they never stop!

I don't think we need to fix anything about the rating system in Untappd (unlike many of the ux issues added by the last updates...but that's another post entirely!) Just remember, everyone's rating is inherently subjective....if you can find a way to use Untappd to help you enjoy those tasty beverages more, go for it, If it seems an unhelpful chore, drop it in the Uninstall box soonest!

Sour Brewing up in the Kitchen, Tailspin Ale Fest, Hayes Carll, Magnolia Road and assorted other ramblings-on

Welcome back, Faithful Readers! It's been awhile since I've babbled at the ya, so this may be even more long-winded and meandering than my usual nonsense. I'll trust you've both retained the legendary patience it's taken you to slog through my rambles this far, and have at it!

First off, I've finally got a sour cooking in the Kitchen. I've posted previously about replacing bits of older equipment, to use the old strictly for sour in order to avoid cross-contamination. That "piece at a time" strategy may have as much to do with building up the nerve to make the jump to sours as any worries about contamination, but I finally got over the hump. MoreBeer has a Russian River Consecration clone extract kit that includes a chunk of a Cabernet Sauvignon barrel that Russian River used producing Consecration, so I'm jumping into "oak aging" along with my first sour. No sense dipping a toe, when I have two good feet!

So I cooked up the grains/extract in the kit with no major surprises, other than the silicone tubing I had been so terribly impressed with for it's flexibility and ease of connecting to whatever, did some really, really SCARY expanding when I started running water through my wort-chiller:

This is just what I was comfortable with long enough to take a picture. At full pressure, it looked entirely suitable for making balloon animals!

A reinforced silicone tube for the faucet side of the wort chiller is on order; it didn't do this at all the first few times I used it, but I definitely do NOT want to find out how many uses it takes to blow all over the kitchen! LOL (It's a wonder I didn't blow a tube watching this!)

Cooled wort in my fermenter, I pitched a smak-pak of Wyeast 1214 Abbey Ale. It hadn't expanded ALL the way (i.e., it didn't look like it would burst if you left it much longer) so I made a run up to BeerWorks to see if they had the White Labs equivalent. Unfortunately, they had just sold the last tube of that variety. I though possibly under-pitching would be preferable to pitching yeast that would produce a distinctly different taste profile, so I opted for pitching my questionable smak-pak. (it hadn't expanded completely, but the temp was significantly higher than ambient, so I kinda thought/hoped that's just how this yeast acts in a smak-pak?) While there, I did enjoy a lovely Gännuhn (2016) from Blue Stallion on tap. So nice to enjoy a tasty beverage while shopping for homebrew supplies!

So I pitched my questionable yeast, and let it roll for a little longer than recommended per kit instructions. Moved the batch into a secondary fermentor (a brew bucket I picked up on that trip to BeerWorks so I wouldn't be tieing up one of my Speidel fermenters up for the year this may take!) on top of a pound of dried currants and then pitched a Wyeast 5526 Brett Lambicus pack. (No "smack" to this pack at all; I assume due to Brett's characteristically slower speed?) This is gonna sit in the kitchen undisturbed for the next 7 weeks or so, when I'll pitch a Wyeast 3763 Roeselare pack. The main thing I'm looking for from this are the lacto and the pediococcus, but the additional yeasts will hopefully add some pleasant complexities while munching up any off-flavor compounds present.

Once I've pitched the Roeselare and added the Consecration barrel chunk, this brew will sit for at least 8 months to a year before going in bottles. As it nears bottle-day, I may add in an oak spiral soaked in some Cabernet Sauvignon for just a bit, to increase the oak and soak up some of the bugs for future batches? Or not...I was kinda thinking out loud there. LOL!

So much for cooking beers, how about drinking a few (dozen?!?) Liquor Barn sent me an email about the Tailspin Ale Fest 2017 and I decided I had to go. $45 for 40 beer stamps? heck yes, I'll sign up for that when the beer list looks so tasty! They also had a deal where for $10 you could buy a shuttle bus ticket that included early registration, a pint and a bite to eat before you left for the fest. What's not to like there?

Before going further, Against the Grain  that sad feeling when there's only one pork belly stick left!

Having looked over the locations for the shuttle bus, I decided New Albanian Brewery looked like the place to start this adventure, and chose a hotel nearby. Unfortunately, our Uber driver decided she knew the area better than Google Maps, and took us to the WRONG NABC location. No "early registration" No "pint and a bite" No ride at all! Sheesh!

Fortunately, there were some homebrew party hounds with a bus who were willing to let us tag along with them. Super enthusiastic and friendly folk pulled my butt right out of that uber nightmare. There were some delays on the freeways, so I still started the fest a little bit late,; it was after 3:45 when I checked in my first brew. :-(

Having arrived late, I found this festival a little difficult to navigate and find any specific brewers I was seeking. Lovely location, but really odd layout (huge empty spaces; tightly packed lines of tables blocking passage between the main sections, huge field of empty to the food trucks, etc) Having paid for 40 punches, I ended up drinking less than 20 beers before the event ended. So not my best time at a beer fest but much of that can be attributed to the late start. So I'm gonna blame the Uber driver and not the fest! LOL

Leaving the fest, we got lucky with a shuttle to the Paddock Drakes, which was sooo very close to the Kentucky Day School where Hayes Carll was playing. Woot! Finally something worked out right!

Having arrived at the Hayes Carll show, everything started clicking! A lovely couple from Cincinnati seated on the aisle to our right decided it would be a great idea to buy me enough beers to float me over their seats and Hayes played a beautiful show. That fella can play a tune to bend your heart-strings and get you to jump for joy, next tune out.

Buying tees and beers and waiting for a handshake and a pic, met the sweetest couple ever: Jason and Andrea, who also have a band called Magnolia Road. You can find them at Magnolia Road YouTube or on Facebook. Hit those links and come back here, tell me there isn't a smidgen of hope for this f'd up species!

Jason, my silly self, Hayes Carll and Andrea....

And thank you, Hayes, for kinda backing me up with the Ray Wylie brew name thing!

After the Hayes Carll show, Jason and Andrea suggested Monkey Wrench as a good after-show bar. Fine suggestion, as it had that funky Cosmic Charlies feel to it, and had some great beers on tap. Seems such a shame to find a fine place like this less than a month than its going to close down. :-(

Later in the evening, these fine folk introduces me to a tiny dive called Time and Space. If you're looking for skeezy dive, this place will hit ALL your happy buttons. Everything you could ask for in a less than upscale space. Great music, cheap drinks, equality, liberty, brotherhood.

And once I start quoting French revolutionary mottoes as reasons to visit my new favorite dive, it may indeed be time to goodnight, dear Faithful Readers.