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...!:-)

Stovepipe Crow Update and Some Things up in Heaven Recipe

To start things off, a short update on my "mole-flavored" stout, Stovepipe Crow. Y'all may remember the Kitchen babbles when I cooked that batch up: I took a heavy chocolate Stout base, then added 5 oz. of smoked serrano peppers and a couple sticks of cinnamon to the secondary. I was pretty tickled with the tasting from the hydrometer tube when I bottled it all up on May 4th, so I was very anxious to give it a taste. Though I usually try to leave heavier brews for at least a couple months, I couldn't wait that long with this beauty. I did manage to wait more than an entire month, though!

 
Now, I wasn't shy with the pour here, so there's no excuse for the skimpy, scrimpy head on this brew. Worse yet, it dissipated very quickly and left very little in the way of lacing. Other than the disappointing head, though, Stovepipe Crow Mole Stout turned out absolutely fantastic! It's really, REALLY, hot...I love it, but it is likely too hot for most folks. I certainly named this one appropriately! (Southern myth: If you see a crow perched on a chimney, someone in the house will die soon. Drinking a Stovepipe Crow gonna make someone think they're gonna die soon, sure enough!) So, because the serranos brought a little too much heat I'm thinking chipotles for the next batch: chipotles are just smoked jalapenos, so they'll add that same smoky flavor, with much less heat than the serranos brought to the party

No surprises in the chocolatey goodness. This was the same base recipe as B) Endarkenment, so I knew exactly this was gonna have lovely bitter dark chocolate all over itself. The cinnamon came out very understated; in fact, it's barely noticeable. So I'm definitely going to want to add more cinnamon next time, and I think mebbe a couple vanilla beans to round out the sweet side of this equation. And yes, I will be brewing up Stovepipe Crow Mole Stout again, and probably well before I run out of bottles of the current batch! This stuff is exactly why I started brewing my own beer in the first place, and all the reason I need to keep doing so!

Other minor events in the kitchen this weekend: I finally got around to making a batch of Some Things up in Heaven Marshmallow Dipping Sauce to go with Drake's Sweet Potato Waffle Fries...and they were out the damn things!!! We had a very small group of folks show for trivia night this weekend, but those who did show up seemed to enjoy Tots and Crinkle Cut Fries dipped in the butter marshmallow goodness! As did the manager who I made taste a bite, with the hopes they'll add this as the standard sauce accompanying their tremendous Sweet Potato Waffle Fries so I wouldn't have to keep bringing my own dipping sauce! (And yes, I am that exactly the kind of asshole that would insist someone try the unidentified glop I brought in a used tupperware container! Haven't you been paying attention?!?)

Anyhow, this is super easy to make, and just the freakin' bomb for sweet potato fries or tots, and pretty damn tasty with just about anything else. (Hell, I'd dip used cardboard in this if I couldn't find anything more appropriate!) With Drake's sweet potato waffle fries (which are freaking awesome on their own!,) I was hoping for a dipping sauce to bring up memories of Thanksgiving dinner sweet potato casserole. Here's the recipe:

Some Things up in Heaven Marshmallow Dipping Sauce

1. 1/4 cup sour cream
2. 3/4 cup marshmallow creme
3. 3/4 stick butter
4. cinnamon to taste

     Mix the sour cream and marshmallow creme as well as can be expected, then slap the butter in a skillet     and just barely brown it. Mix that in with the other stuff. Stir plenty, then sprinkle cinnamon till it tastes like heaven. It's great warm, but it seems to improve a bit when refrigerated overnight. And yes, even though this isn't a beer, it deserves a Ray Wylie Hubbard song name, to match everything else slapped together in the Kitchen.

Future news: next brew up in the Kitchen is gonna be a watermelon wheat. Same base as Red Dress Raspberry Wheat, but at least twice as much watermelon as Red Dress got raspberry. And some fresh-squeezed watermelon juice added to the secondary? Hell, I better get to the welding shop for an oxygen tank; this may turn out bigger than I expected! Service Soon light relit on the Saturn Wagon, so the OBD II bluetooth that I'd forgotten I even had is gonna get put through its paces soon. (What, you don't think I'll bring the SW2 in the Kitchen to do that??? Haven't you been paying attention?!?) Ooh, and Sprint's desecration of all things holy to English teachers everywhere:  the Framily plan. But all that's next week, so...

Til next week, folks. Drink like a chimney and jump like a crocodile!

PS: What's up with that "next week" teaser? Sheesh...I'll soon be adding titles like "You'll never believe what happened next...!" And yes, I am exactly that kind of asshole. Haven't you been paying attention? 

Tapping into the Potential of Untappd

Absolutely nothing going on in the kitchen at all this weekend, so I'm gonna babble on a bit about my favorite beer-related app, Untappd. First off, what the heck is this Untappd? Basically it's FB for beers; it allows you to "check in" to beers you are drinking, rate them, note your location (through Foursquare) and add short tasting notes (or random babble!) and share all that with friends on the Untappd service as well as post that info to Facebook and Twitter. You can also post pictures of your beers, toast your friends beers, add comments or questions to their check-ins, and earn badges for various craft beer "milestones." (The bar is set very low for most of these "milestones" but they can offer some direction to your craft beer journey if you find yourself at a loss as to what to try next. Mostly they're just for fun.) The Untappd app works with both IOS and Android, and can also be accessed through their website. A recent update has improved the speed dramatically.

While that all sounds great, what use is the damn thing really? Why go through the effort of "checking in" all the beers you enjoy as you drink them? Fair question, and honestly, if you mainly drink whatever is on tap, or whatever is on special this week at your local grocery, this app isn't going to interest you. (If that describes you, though, ya'll would never have read this far into anything I've ever babbled on about!) I'm gonna roll through several of the ways I use Untappd as well as some of the ways I think folks newer to their craft beer adventures might find it useful.

If you're fairly new to craft beer, you may think it silly to need any assistance in keeping track of what brews you've tried and what you thought of them. As you become more adventurous, or just are offered the opportunity to try wider varieties, you'll soon find that there are more different styles and varieties of beer than you ever imagined, much less different individual beers from each of the more than 2,500 breweries operating in the USA alone!!! If you are fairly adventurous, you'll soon find that you may remember having tried a particular beer, but you've no idea whether or not you liked it. (Much less, would it go good with pizza, or should you order some Thai take-out to go with this one!)

If you ever have the pleasure of attending a craft beer fest, you will be sampling perhaps a dozen brews out of hundreds of different beers from several dozen different breweries. You can check them into an app, or keep written notes...or agonize over which one of those samples was so fantastic you'd buy a dozen more...if you remember which one it was! Brewfests are notoriously short on tables, so don't forget your BeerSchwing!

As you try more different brews, just making sure you don't purchase something you didn't like last time becomes more of an effort. Next time you're standing at your local BrewPalooza beer store (in KY, Liquor Barn is THE place for stocking up!) take a good look at the 600 different singles they have lined up. So yeah, that's one of the most important uses I have for Untappd, and why I find it useful: I will open the app and enter each brand as I'm shopping in the singles shelves...Untappd shows which brews from that brewery I've already tried, and I can easily avoid repeats!

Untappd will list three suggestions of similar beers for each beer you check in, and you can add these to your "wish list" with a tap. This is a great way to discover new beers!

Another great way to discover new beers you'll enjoy is to pay attention to what your Untappd friends are drinking! If you see your friends giving 5 stars to a brew, and you know they like the same kind of brews you do...well, time to buy a few! Look for activity on beers you know that you really enjoy, and make friends with those folks. Then watch whatever high ratings they give, for your own wish list! I've been an Untappd user for a coupla years now, and I still scroll through activity on brews I rated 5 to see who else rated it highly, so I can find new friends who have tastes similar to my own. If you're new to Untappd and craft beer, just scroll through activity on the beers you know you like and go from there!

So, find out what your friends like; find friends that like what you do: Untappd!!!

Drink like a chimney and jump like a crocodile! (And check it all in on Untappd!)

Redneck Mother

I finally got around to bottling that Imperial Red that's been sitting in my primary for a month now. It was still occasionally showing some activity in the airlock up until last week, so I let it sit till it settled down entirely. FG was 1.030...so pretty lousy attenuation. It's gonna be awful damn sweet, even for my sweet tooth, but I decided to bottle it anyhow and see what happens. I added 5 oz. priming sugar AND used those Prime Dose Carbonation Capsules that I tried in B) Endarkenment 2.0. So mebbe some over-carbonation, but I'm guessing prolly not--the one bottle of Endarkenment that I opened was barely showing any carbonation at all. So i'm not too worried about bottle bombs...and I let everything sit in the laundry room just in case! :-)

 Here's a pic of my hi-tech bottling settup in use. Ignore the mess on the counters and pay attention to the mess in the dishwasher! It is simply not humanly possible to use a bottling wand without making a huge freakin' mess, so if you don't have a dishwasher handy, be prepared for beer all over the place! With the dishwasher, you just close it up and run it through a rinse cycle....woot! OK, you will still need to mop the floor afterwards, esp. the area you've been setting your full bottles until their capped. Still a huge time/mess saver!!!

Red Dress Raspberry Wheat is tasting even better this week...just the thing for a little time on the front stoop! Endarkenment 2.0 and Choctaw Bingo still need some time, and I'm getting very impatient to sample Stovepipe Crow (the mole stout.)

Drink like a chimney, and jump like a crocodile! :-)

1st Annual Alltech Craft Brews and Food Fest

Well, this event definitely did NOT happen in the kitchen, but it explains why so little did occur in the kitchen this weekend!

Held at the Lexington Convention Center on Saturday, May 17th, this event was a huge success and just a boatload of fun!!! I'm already looking forward to next year's event! With more than 40 breweries from around the country served up 3 oz. tasting samplers of some of the best brews, and only 15 beer tickets included in the admission fee, there were a LOT of great beers I didn't get a chance to sample. I did get to try some great brews and even discovered a fantastic brewery that I'd never heard of before! Woot!

 Not having anywhere to set my glass during the brewfest, I took a couple snaps of it before writing up this little post.

3 oz. of pure fancy, and mustachioed at that!

 I attended with my friend Ben Hays, who was a a lot of fun at this event. He loves his beer, but hadn't ventured into some of the less common styles available. It was a blast watching him try beers he'd never imagined, especially when he discovered a style he truly enjoyed! Few things as much fun as introducing folks to the depth and breadth of tastes that truly great beers can encompass!

 As mentioned last week, we were well prepared with our Beer Schwings! In addition to being incredibly useful, they were a great conversation starter, and garnered us both a few free beer tickets from the suitably impressed! If you plan on attending a brewfest, I cannot recommend these more highly. Even if you aren't an Untapp'd fanatic like myself, with an urgent need to check in every beer with your cell, you still will tire of holding onto that darn glass after several hours, and you might even want to enjoy a sandwich or some other tasty treat that doesn't fit well into your tasting glass!


One of my favorite beers from the event was the Imperial Biscotti Break from Evil Twin Brewing. Fmj-tasty!

Evil Twin, and several other breweries added "tasting notes" to their tap listings. This being only the second brewfest I've attended, I have no idea if this is common practice or not, but it certainly seems sensible: folks unfamiliar with the offerings can have several of their questions answered before they get to the front of the line, or even before they decide to get in line! It seems to speed up the serving process and I'm sure the folks manning the taps are grateful! (Especially the local hires who may not be terribly well informed about the offerings, leading to awkward silence on both sides of the tap!)


The most unusual and  surprising brew I tried was Goin HAM from Against the Grain Brewery and Smokehouse. A nice little rauchbier, it tasted just like a nice hunk of country ham soaked in beer...all it needed was a biscuit to go with!!!

And on the recommendation of AtG bartender Celeste, I tried Flanery Brew (Flanary Brew sp?), an oatmeal/smoked stout from Hammerheart Brewing. I'd never heard of these folk, but they are brewing some exceptional beers! Absolutely outstanding!!! Without a doubt, one of the best brews I tried at the fest, and I'll certainly seek out more from them in the future!

There were also some great tunes provided by local artists, especially Coralee and the Townies!

This being the first time for this event, there were a few minor things I felt could be tweaked for next year:

1) A more streamlined registration process for folks who purchased their tickets online. Why buy your tix early if you're waiting in the same lines with the rest of the crowd?

2) They definitely needed more room. Some of the brews were extremely popular, resulting in some very long lines that made getting to other brewers' offerings difficult for folks not in those lines.

3) Lastly, I think they really should have intermingled the food vendors throughout the venue instead of clustering them in their own separate area. Most folks came for the beer, and having the food vendors spread throughout the area would have brought them a lot more attention. And thereby broadened the experience for attendees!

All bitching aside, I think the Alltech Craft Brew and Food Fest was a fantastic endpoint to National Craft Beer Week!  Hats off to Alltech and everyone involved in hosting this wonderful opportunity to experience some truly great beers, and make some great new friends! I'm certain next year will be even more enjoyable!

In the meantime, keep drinking the good stuff!

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/17/3247492/hungarian-brewery-wins-alltech.html#storylink=cpy

Schwing!!!

Not a whole lot going on in the kitchen this week:  I thought I'd be bottling up that Redneck Mother Imperial Red Ale that's been sitting in my big Speidel fermenter in the living room for the last coupla weeks, but I'm still seeing some activity in the airlock. Not frequent, but every so often it cuts loose with a huge bubble. So we'll let it sit for another week, and see if it settles down. I think it's likely just the yeast got tired before finishing the job--this is going to be a pretty high ABV brew (very close to 10%) and it most likely could have used a strong infusion of oxygen before I pitched the yeast. (And yes, I got the equipment for that, just didn't get to the welding supply shop before I cooked this batch up.)

I did recently try both my Red Dress Raspberry Wheat and Choctaw Bingo Chocolate Milk Stout. Red Dress could use more raspberry and Choctaw Bingo could use a little more chocolate. Live and learn, then brew some more and learn again! LOL! Both are quite drinkable, just not quite "nailed it!"

 Last week, I promised y'all side X side comparison pics of the Spiegelau IPA and Stout crystal glasses, that they designed with input from Rogue, Left Hand, Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada. So here ya go:

Rogue Stout Glass

Dogfish Head IPA Glass

 If you're not fond of those breweries, or prefer unadorned crystal glassware, these can be purchased elsewhere completely clear and devoid of all logos or other markings. WineEnthusiast carries both glasses and are very pleasant folk to deal with. These glasses look lovely on their own, and look even lovelier when filled with your favorite beverage. I honestly think any taste enhancement is likely little different than you'd achieve pouring into a pint Ball Mason jar. They do look pretty freakin' uptown though!

Drinking beer from a mason jar does let folks know you come from the side of town where the cars are on blocks, and the houses have wheels. Les debris ils sont blanc!

In other news, my Beer Schwings did show up in the mail! WTF is a Beer Schwing, you ask?!? Well, just what you'd expect it to be: a swing for you beer! Why do you need one? Because how else will you manage to check in all your brewfest beers on Untapp'd?!?!

If you've ever attended a brewfest, you already know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who've never enjoyed the marvelous brewsy fun of a brewfest, here's a little background:  I attended my first brewfest last fall when I went to the Kentucky Kicks Ass Brewfest. Incredibly fun and a wonderful opportunity to meet some of Kentucky's Kick Ass Brewmeisters. I immediately noticed a huge problem: how would a solid Untapp'd beer ticker check in their beers while holding on to their tasting glass? Or enjoy a tasty sandwich from one of the fine food trucks present while holding onto their tasting glass? Having worn a flannel shirt, I had a convenient pocket into which I could drop my tasting glass (having quit smoking several years prior, said pocket was otherwise unoccupied.) I immediately reached the conclusion that what I really needed was a cupholder on a lanyard. I briefly imagined how unimaginably wealthy I was going to become...then realized that such an obvious idea had surely struck some other like-minded geniuses.

And sure enough--those bright folk at Beer Schwing had not only thought of this, but were actually selling them!!! These are entirely adjustable to whatever size tasting glass might get handed out at the next brewfest you attend. (They will also work at the ballpark, fair or other event where larger beers might be the standard.) Order yours now, and keep your tasting glass handy while you check-in those brews to Untapp'd!

Drink like a chimney, drive like a maniac and jump like a crocodile! Not all at once, though! ;-P