Best Beers in Kitchen 2014

Once again, it's that time of year where we take a look back at all the fantastic brews we had out in the Kitchen last year. This is not a comprehensive list, and lord knows y'all are quite likely to disagree with my selections. Feel free to comment and add any that I might have missed! This was going to be a list of every beer I gave a 5 to on Untappd over the last year, but that turned out to be a ridiculous number: Holy Cow!!! I rated 57 different beers a full 5 stars in 2014. Either I've gotten much better at finding beers I really like or I've gotten much easier-going in my rankings. (Or I just drank a boatload of beers? Correlation is not causation, but let's not get carried away lookin' for root causes!)

So, rather than subject both my loyal readers to the entire list of Fives, I'll just babble till I hit a baker's dozen. And just so y'all don't get confused, we'll start off with a baker's choice:

1) Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Banana Ale from Rogue Ales. This brew did NOT rate a 5 first time I tried it in 2013. There was no PB flavor at all and the banana seemed to leave a nasty chemical aftertaste. However, I'd bought two bombers when I first came across this and since the first tasting didn't exactly hit the spot for me, I left the second in the back of the fridge for 14 months. The time in the fridge did wonders: it had become ever so delicious! Cooking with gas on all 6 burners, second time out!





2) Shake Chocolate Porter from Boulder Beer Company. Y'all know I just love a chocolate stout, and this porter was plenty close enough to flip my switches! Chocolate-covered cherries and lots of malty goodness. Just a hint of dry chalkiness towards the finish, but not at all detracting from the flavor.

3) Pearl Necklace from Flying Dog Brewery. Absolutely fantastic! Who couldn't love  this one? ;-P

4) Wake Up Dead Imperial Stout Nitro from Left Hand Brewing. If you're a fan of Russian Imperials, you're gonna love this one! Opens up with a lovely taste of chocolate-covered dates, with mebbe a hint of licorice. And that silky smooth Nitro feel! Just can't go wrong with this one!

5) Crabbie's Spice Orange Ginger Beer. It's like boozy Mtn Dew with a spicy little kick at the finish. I gotta figure out how to brew this stuff!

6) Goat Boy from Southern Tier Brewing. And not Goat Boy vs. Cow Man, this is some seriously good freakin' beer! Southern Tier nailed this Imperial Weizenbock.

 7) Chateau Jiahu from Dogfish Head. When the brewers consult with a molecular archeologist and the results would rock any academic library down to it's cornerstone, you just gotta luv it. How many times does a beer this tasty get an "All Things Considered" episode? Did I mention how tasty it is?!?!?

 8) Huge Arker Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout from Anderson Valley Brewing Company.
Wow! This is one big ass brew, and having been stored in Wild Turkey Bourbon barrels didn't exactly shorten its stature. Bourbon-soaked bread, smoky sorghum and molasses. Just a truly outstanding Imperial stout!

9) Stovepipe Crow from J.Lee's Brewhouse and BBQ Emporium (the Infamous Kitchen! lol) I was shooting for a Mole flavored stout, akin to New Holland's Mole Ocho. Big chocolate stout base, with 5 oz. of dried smoke Serrano peppers and several cinnamon sticks added to the secondary. Came out just hotter than a hell and tasty as all get out, if you can stand the heat! (As y'all know, ALL the beers coming outta the kitchen get their name from Ray Wylie Hubbard songs. This death and devil brew got it's name from a line in Ray's song "Tornado Ripe" ... "And if you was to see a crow on a chimney
Meant someody's fixin' to die." If you aren't up to the heat, then yeah, this brew'll kill ya! ;-)

"Find what you love, and let it kill you!" CB

 10) Voodoo Doughnut Pretzel, Raspberry & Chocolate Ale by Rogue Ales. The Rogue Ales/Voodoo Donut collaboration makes a second appearance in this list. This bottle wasn't aged, just chilled and popped. The magic is in the Hole! Lovely fresh pretzel up front with chocolate-covered raspberries followed by by a dry "clean" tasting finish.

 11) Warlock from Southern Tier Brewing Company. Wow! I'm a big fan of pumpkin ales, but I'd never encountered a pumpkin Stout before! Fantastic! Melted and slightly scorched pumpkin pie, absolutely unbeatable!

12) Marionberry Braggot from Rogue Ales. Yet another entry from Rogue Ales, unlinked at posting due to their server being down? Anywhos, tasted like blackberries dipped in honey, set to age for a spell. Barleywine with honey sorta taste?

 13) Envious (Vintage 2011) from New Holland. New Holland threw my definition of beer for a loop with this one! Way too much going on for my knockabout palate, but truly delicious, nonetheless! Very complicated, in a "lemme take another sip" sorta way that starts with sweet malt/tart raspberry and finishes almost like pear brandy. If you see it, grab a bottle and let me know what you think!










And there ya have it folks, the absolute best beers found in the Kitchen during 2014! Y'all may not find these as fantastic as I did, but I guarantee you will find them interesting! Thanks to both my dedicated readers, and I'll be back with more babbling next week! :-)

The Kitchen in NYC

Most of y'all (both my loyal readers) know that Amazon decided to send me to New York City for two weeks in December to help launch a new FC across the street from the Empire State Building.

Turns out, midtown Manhattan has some absolutely amazing beer bars! I managed to visit three while I was in the city.

First up was Rattle n Hum. Located at 14 East 33rd Street, it was only half a block out of my way on the walk from work to the hotel. Downright handy! ;-) (Didn't hurt there's a Papaya Dog on the corner of 33rd St. and 5th Ave.! They don't look like much, but those dogs taste just like Fairbury Red Dogs at a Nebraska game!)

They had 40 rotating taps, with some great selections. The staff was very personable and knowledgeable about the choices on hand, as well as incredibly patient with an out of town jackhat like myself. They also had the best flight paddles I've come across: shaped like a large beer bottle laid on its side, what made them so great was the chalkboard coating: the bartender could write your choices right on the paddle! None of that scrabbling around with your receipt or trying to remember what the hell you ordered and what order the 'tender said they were in on the paddle. Super handy for folks like me with the attention span of a distracted gnat!

Rattle n Hum had some of the most personable staff of any bar I've visited, and certainly the most knowledgeable and willing to chat about brews.

They also have fairly frequent and interesting "tap takeover" events. While I was in NYC, they had a Troegs takeover which was fantastic as Tröegs doesn't distribute in Kentucky. Tröegs makes some fantastic beers!

The next weekend, I made my way all the way to 11 East 36th Street to visit The Ginger Man. 70ish taps available, with some really outstanding variety and unique choices.

 Their flight paddles weren't anything to get excited about, but the bacon they add to their Ginger Man Dog was just out of this world. The tater salad had too many onions for my taste, but I

 usually don't like potato salad anyhow.

The staff was super friendly, and very willing to spare a moment to chat about beers, Untappd, etc.


After my last night at JFK7, I bounced all the way up to 300 W 40th St to visit Rattle n Hum's sister bar, Beer Authority. (It was cold and raining, it seemed like quite the hoof!) 80 brews on tap, three floors (rooftop view would be great if it wasn't 30 degrees and raining!) They had a fairly ridiculous flight ordering/pricing structure that nearly pushed me out the door, but their current web menu no longer mentions this...hopefully they dumped that nonsense. They had some fantastic selections, though somewhat less adventurous than Ginger Man or their sister bar Rattle n Hum.

 The "tap number on the paddle" worked, but it wasn't fantastic in bar lighting with small-print beer lists.

Before I sign off on this, I have to give a "thumbs-up" to the bartender at the Martinique Cafe. Stopped in there with a coworker and the "Free Drink" coupons the Radisson provided at check-in. It takes a true professional to put up with fussy out of town jackhats like me handing over coupons in place of cash while taking up valuable bar stool real estate. ;-0

Catching Up in the Kitchen!

Sorry it's been forever since I last posted! The latter half of 2014 was VERY busy, from the road trip to Wrigley Field right through the couple weeks I spent in NYC in December (ostensibly for the purpose of helping launch Amzn's most recent FC in Manhattan) but y'all know I was really there for the beer! This post would be much too long if I tried to dump all this on the table at once, so I'll drop a bit of it at a time, to avoid boring both my devoted readers to tears!

Wrigley Field celebrated its 100th year in 2014, so I figured I'd better haul my butt up there for a game and the full tour.

The tour was money well-spent! They dragged us all over the ball park, so you got to see a lot more than you would just catching a game, and learn a lot of Wrigley history in the process.

Of course, after the tour, we had a couple hours to kill before the game. Fortunately, Goose Island Beer Company has a brewpub location just up the street from Wrigley. They are swamped on game days, so they have a "fixed flight" menu (three of their most popular beers and one seasonal offering, absolutely no substitutions.) So I was only able to try one new beer that day, a Belgian Brown Ale called Hagglethorn. It rated a 4.5, so it turned out to be a good choice. 

 Their menu consisted of typical bar fare. Sounded and looked great. Unfortunately, they were so busy their fried options had that greasy "not quite cooked through" taste and feel you get when your fryer is set to too low a temperature...or you're so busy your fryers can't keep up with the volume. So if it's game day, I'd take a pass on the food. Have some great beers and grab a couple dogs at the game!

And back to the game! I was in the cheap seats, but I managed to grab an Old Style while the Cubs lost. Mebbe this year will be "Next Year!"

After the game, we headed for Munster, Indiana and Three Floyds Brewing Company. Showed up at 8:45 on a Saturday night, and there was still a 45 minute wait to be seated. Very much worth the wait, though! Our wait was shortened somewhat by the party ahead of us: they decided to buy a six pack at the "to go" kiosk off to the side of the brewpub to tide them over while they waited, despite the signs warning guests in no uncertain terms that they would be asked to leave. 

Anyhow, I was able to try a couple of amazing beers while there. On the left is Deesko! a Berliner Weisse that was absolutely delicious. It's not a year-round offering, but can be found outside the brewpub. On the right is Speed Ball, a coffee stout that was also fantastic. Unfortunately, it is only available at the brewpub (so far.) They also had the most amazing fried cheese curds ever.

 The staff was super friendly, the beers and food were amazing. Well worth the trip and the wait!

Summertime Blues

Heyya folks...sorry it's been awhile since I posted, but it's summertime and sh*t happens.

So, y'all know I've been brewing a lot more this year, and I've been a little concerned about how much spent grain ends up getting pitched in the garbage after each brew date. So, I snagged a recipe for spent grain dog biscuits from a great site called 17Apart. (They have additional dog treat recipes, among other interesting things. Go check them out!)

Anyhow, this was nearly as much fun as making meatloaf! Y'all know the only reason I do anything in the kitchen other than brew beer is because I love playing with my food...and nobody says "stop that!" when it looks like you're cooking!

The recipe from 17Apart is pretty simple:
4 cups spent grain
2 cups flour
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs

The 4 cups spent grain was almost exactly what I had on hand from brewing up my Wild as Rome Watermelon Wheat. (I used a Boundary Waters Wheat Beer Extract Beer Kit  from Midwest Supplies as my base for that watermelon wheat. It included 1/2 lb. Caravienne and 1/2 lb. Carapils® specialty grains. Handy! :-)

Chunk it all in a mixing bowl and it's gonna look something like this (the peanut butter squidbillie takes some finesse, however!):

Once you've got it all mixed well, roll it out on a floured surface, and get out the cookie cutters! The three sized of dog bones and the fire hydrant came in one set, while the rabbit and carrot came in another (with a flower, not pictured here.)

  Here's a pic of the various shapes before baking:

and after:

These were baked at 350 degrees for half an hour, then reduce heat to 225 and bake them two more hours. The idea is to dry them out as completely as possible, without burning them and setting off your smoke detectors. Once they've cooled off, you may want to clean them up a bit before bagging them. They should keep for a couple of weeks or several months if you freeze them.

Once they were finished, I solicited the opinion of renowned biscuit critic Seamus Shamrock. He gave these biscuits Two Paws Up!

I mentioned earlier that the spent grain for these dog biscuits came from a wheat beer kit I cooked up as a base for my Wild as Rome Watermelon Wheat. To counter the sweetness of the wheat and avoid it turning into a Jolly Rancher Watermelon brew, I added an ounce of dried chipotles, which I also snagged from Midwest Supplies. Midwest offers a wide variety of dried peppers for folks interested in making their own hot sauces, but these can also make great additions to homebrew if you want to add a little heat and/or smoke. Wild as Rome is going into bottles tonight, so we'll give the FG test sample a taste to see what we might be looking at soon. It's a wheat, so it won't have to sit too long--couple weeks to carbonate and it should be good to go.

In the meantime, I managed to see Switchmen and Shooter Jennings at Busters. I'd never heard Switchmen before, but they put on a great show: solid straight-forward rock'n'roll! I'd been looking forward to seeing Shooter, as I've always enjoyed his songs. Love listening to his show on SiriusXM's Outlaw Country channel!

In addition to the Switchmen, I also got a chance to hear Billy Don Burns do a coupla songs and heard Josh Morningstar for the first time. Extremely talented singer/songwriter. Expect great things from this guy!

As if all that excitement wasn't enough, the following week I got a chance to catch the Restless Leg String Band down at Cosmic Charlie's. My favorite Lexington music venue, and RLSQ did some fantastic picking! Very hippie crowd, lots of great folk having a great time listening to some fantastic bluegrass. Saw a girl in her pajamas dancing like I haven't seen since Jerry left us! Really impressed with this band and looking forward to catching them again!

 Well, that's enough babbling for one post, even if it has taken me a month to jot these rambling notes down. It's summertime, go try something new! I'll still be here when you get back!

Sprint Framily Shiznit N02229950lx

Sprint Framily ID:  N02229950lx

OK, so the name of this plan is the dumbest thing ever, and kinda confusing. It's not one of those goofy "circle of friends" calling plans where you save money calling people in your plan. I know none of y'all want to be talking to me on the freakin' phone, and the feeling is mutual. This is more like a co-op combo plan, we all sign up, we all share the last 4 digits of our phone numbers and the fact we're on the same "Framily ID" plan...and we cut our monthly bill down to $25 per month for unlimited calls, unlimited texts and 1 GB data. All going through Sprint's network, which has always been good to me.

I was the first to sign up with Sprint ID   N02229950lx    and my first month's bill was $55.  Every time someone new joins the Framily plan with ID N02229950lx, everyone's bill goes down $5 until we hit $25 per month (that takes seven members, and we can add ten, so we'll have some room when folks bail.) And this is a monthly plan--you are not locked into an annual contract, you can leave anytime you want. (You won't get a huge discount on a phone every two years, either...but you will save more than enough money to buy outright whatever phone tickles your techie heart!)

The biannual upgrade cycle has worked really, really well for cell provider profits, and contributed significantly to maturing the market for smartphones. The market no longer needs your monthly contribution to advance...take a step back and then step off the upgrade train. Do something new, and save a few bucks in the process! ;-)


N02229950lx

Drake's, Cupcakes and AmazonLocal

Another week where I've let most of the shit happen in someone else's kitchen. Sunday Night Trivia gang went to Drake's over on Tate's Creek this week, where I enjoyed one of their BBQ Burgers and some Sweet Potato Waffle Fries. I just love those onion straw things on a burger, and who can turn down a tasty waffle fry? Drakes recently started providing a printed tap list, to better promote their rotating tap selection. Great idea, and apparently having a positive effect on sales: they've been out of most options I was interested in trying the last couple of visits. Super positive move forward for more brew choices. And sure, Drake's is not the place to head if your main reason for going out is to sample a wide variety of brews; it is a great choice for Live Team Trivia on Sunday nights, though: decent brew selection, great food and a lot of fun!

This morning, I stopped by to redeem an AmazonLocal voucher (more on those later) at Caramanda's Bake Shoppe. I stopped at their Boston Road location at 3805 Dylan Place. I didn't realize they have three locations now (4 if you count the mall kiosk!) I was really impressed; great, friendly service and an amazing variety of delicious looking cupcakes. (That are just as yummy as they look!!!) They even had a drive-up window so you could grab your sugar fix in a hurry!

If I had seen previous advertising for Caramanda's, it hadn't registered deeply. What brought me to this shop was an AmazonLocal deal for a dozen cupcakes at half-price. If you're not familiar with AmazonLocal, it's pretty much Groupon run through your Amazon.com account. I've never been a Groupon user, so I can't compare the two, but I am quite impressed with AmazonLocal. (Disclaimer: I do work for Amazon.com.) There seems to be quite a few deals available locally, the interface for setting your preferences as to what type of deals you are interested in fairly straightforward, and the vouchers you purchase are easy to use: you don't have to print out any coupons to lose track of, just pop up the app and there's your voucher!

I don't know how the deal works for retailers (e.g., how long till between vouchers being purchased and their receipt of  payment from Amzn, etc.) but it seems like a great deal for consumers, especially those who might need a little nudge to step out of their comfort zone and try out something new. And all y'all know what I think about something new! 

Which brings me to the newest bottle of tasty goodness I've run into from Rogue Ales: Voodoo Doughnut Pretzel, Raspberry and Chocolate Ale. This is a super rich, super tasty brown ale. Rogue recommends pairing it with dessert or doughnuts, but I think it would work fairly well with some hefty, HOT foods that would benefit from the sweet to balance their heat. As soon as you pour, you get a wonderful aroma of pretzels, raspberry and chocolate. On tasting, you definitely get a lot of the pretzels towards the start, but they fade some as you get further into your pint. The chocolate makes itself know about mid-sip and the raspberry bats cleanup to the whole taste sensation. I've enjoyed both previous Voodoo Doughnut Ales (the Bacon Maple Ale and Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Banana Ale) but this is definitely my favorite so far!

 Drink like a chimney and try something new this week! :-P

Redneck Mother, 500 Beers and the Lovely Redhead

Not much going on in the kitchen, as I was busy rambling about Lexington this past weekend. I did pop the top on the first bottle of Redneck Mother, that Imperial Red that sat in my primary fermenter for an ungodly amount of time, while the yeast slowly moseyed it's way to a horrid attenuation. It's my own damn fault...I bought that oxygenation kit a couple months ago, I just haven't gotten around to dragging my ass up to the welding shop to buy a bottle of oxygen. And yeast definitely needed the oxygen boost for this brew: it should have come out somewhere between 9.5 and 10% ABV, and it barely squeeked out 7.8%...and took forever to do even that! Anyhow, WAY too freakin' sweet, even for my Zombie Woof sweet tooth hangin' half a mile long, and under-carbonated. It looks OK in the pic, but the carbonation dissipated almost immediately. I'll let it age some more just to see what happens, but I'm thinking very large batches of chili, marinating ribs and other cooking uses are in this brews future till next attempt at brewing. And yeah, I think it's got potential, I just missed the mark on this one.

 Now, the 500 beers in the title: y'all have heard me babble on about Untapp'd and what a fantastic app it is for discovering new brews, finding the beers you like, keeping track of what beers you've tried and what you thought of them, as well as sharing all that with your beer drinking buddies. Well, I talked a couple friends into joining me down at Country Boy Brewing here in Lexington to enjoy some flights of their tasty brews Saturday, as I knew I was going to hit 500 different beers checked into Untappd. Halfway through the second flight, Amos Moses Porter (one of Country Boy Brewing's own amazing brews!) tipped me over that 500 mark! On to the next 500...! Drink like a chimney, and enjoy every beer!

As you can see from the pic below, I wasn't the only one at the table enjoying some flights that afternoon! :-)

Flights are a great way to discover new beers and compare offerings. Or just bump your numbers up, if you're a badge-hound. ;-) Most bars with multiple taps will offer flights...ask you friendly, neighborhood bartender. Then tip like crazy--there's a lot more dishes to wash, and a lot more questions to answer.

Gastro Gnomes Food Truck had stopped by Country Boy Brewing that afternoon, and I enjoyed a Country French Burger (I may be mangling the menu listing?) It was a burger with ham and asparagus in a bechamel sauce. It sounds kinda weird, and with my poor photography prolly looks even weirder. But OMFG it was TASTY!!!!! It was definitely too messy to grab a handful and just stuff in your mouth like a lesser hamburger; knife and fork and a big pile of napkins required for this one, but it was a truly lovely taste experience!

And don't forget, Country Boy Brewing is one of the few brewpubs in the world that offers 2X4 Jenga on their patio!!! Life-size fun!!!

 Keep Gastro Gnomes on your short list--this truly outstanding and amazing eats! Eat Well and Die Happy!

 Alright, already...I'm getting to why you clicked in the first place: the Lovely Redhead. By which, I of course mean, the lovely Lydia Loveless, who recently played an outstanding show at Willie's Locally Known here in Lexington. This was my first visit to Willie's Locally Known...it smelled great, and I'm sure the food was fantastic, but it's not gonna make my list of great places to catch live music. It's really, really difficult to create a space that works well for live music. I really applaud the owners for booking the incredible talent they've been bringing into their restaurant, but the space just sucks as a music venue. Sorry Willies, but I won't be back often.

The Lydia Loveless show itself was fantastic! The night opened with several songs rocked out with plenty of support from her band. All showed tremendous enthusiasm and talent, but special accolades for their drummer who just carried the shit in this crappy little room, and for the bassist James Lamb. I've seen a lot of bands, but I've never seen anyone attack a stand-up bass quite like that! Loved it!!

 

She finished out the night with some solo tunes. Lovely stuff...

 And after the show, Lydia was gracious enough to allow her picture to be taken with

 that guy from KitchenBrews! Now, if I could just get her to sing a few tunes in the Kitchen...!:-)