Brewtopia on Labor Day weekend this year

Last year Brewtopia was held on the weekend of Halloween. Not hard to forget what with the funny outfits at the festival and the reminders from R to call for a ride home instead of walking home by myself and risking coming home looking like a pre-cooked omelet.

This year, it's not only a new time, but a new place.

The cruise ship pier has been replaced with the Park Ave armory. This is definitely a space with quite a bit more character, so it would seem to be a good move on the surface. We'll see how things go logistically.

The change in time, though, is a bit of a bummer. Like, the kind of bummer that means that I won't be going. Unfortunately Labor Day weekend is a bit too busy to make time for the festival. So I won't be there to get drunk or to serve homebrew, both of which I did a reasonably good job of last year.

Citi Field

Been a while. Sorry.

Went with R to Citi Field for the first time right after the last blog post, and it's high time that I jotted down my thoughts in this space. I'll try to keep the baseball points to a minimum and keep the beer related business in focus...

I've been to about half of the ballparks in the country. And there are some real gems out there, like Camden Yards in Baltimore and PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Citi has some problems and doesn't quite live up to either of my personal favorites, but it still kicks the snot out of Shea. And it's just great to see my favorite team in some more modern amenities and not in some generic, concrete, multi-purpose stadium.

We walked around the lower concourse (and the upper deck before the game started) and looked at the field from just about every angle. The sight lines are great, and the fans are really close to the action. Sure, there are some seats where you lose part of the outfield, but that's the tradeoff for moving the seats so much closer to the field. Deal with it. You can see the field from most of the lower concourse without actually taking a seat, which is a huge plus. That's one of the things that they got right and is very similar to PNC. However...

You lose the field when you walk behind home plate. There's some special, exclusive restaurant or something right behind home plate, so when you walk the lower concourse you can see the field from the outfield and down the lines. But when you walk around from first base to third base, you feel like you might as well be walking around in MSG (or any other arena for that matter). You completely lose the field. The TV's everywhere and the broadcast being pumped in make sure that you don't miss any of the action. But I'd rather be able to see it on the field. And if you don't have a super expensive ticket, you don't really get to see what the field looks like from behind home plate.

The line at the Shake Shack will tell you everything you need to know about how the Mets got the concessions right. There are tons of choices in the outfield food court area. The highlight for us was the fish sandwich that R got from Catch of the Day. It was crusty outside and moist inside. I'm not a huge fried fish guy, but that sandwich was really good. We also had some pretty solid frites from Box Frites. I got a pulled pork sandwich from Blue Smoke which was tasty, though a little disappointing due to the massive chunk of fat/skin that I had to remove from the center of the sandwich. I would think that is more an anomaly than the norm.

And now for the beers...

I love that some of the stands like Blue Smoke and Box Frites have "their own" beers. From what I've read, each of the Danny Meyer stands at Citi has its own Brooklyn Brewery brewed beer. I had a Blanche de Queens at Box Frites and a Blue Smoke Original at Blue Smoke. I put "their own" in quotes above, because these beers are not necessarily unique to these stands, but either existing Brooklyn brands re-named (like the Blanche de Queens, which is more than likely just the Blanche de Brooklyn) or a blend. Apparently the Blue Smoke Original is a blend of two Brooklyn beers, but I can't find out which. If I had to guess, I'd guess that Pennant is one of them. I'll take a wild guess on the Winter Ale as the other, though that might not make sense given that it's a summer beer and the winter ale is obviously a seasonal.

But that's not the point!!! Each stand having its own specific beer is, because that's a great way to get folks out there trying something different. It's interesting and unique, and I guarantee that they're selling more of those than they would be selling Brooklyn lager if it were on tap next to the Bud Light.

I suppose that Catch of the Day is not a Danny Meyer restaurant, because they did not have a Brooklyn beer on tap. They had Blue Point Toasted Lager. I had one. And it was good.

And because I just love to end on a sour note, the Beers Of The World stand.... Ughh.... I guess A-B had to get their hands on this one. At first glance it seems pretty cool - a big beer stand right smack in the middle of the center field concourse with a large selection of imports and domestic craft beers. But if you're tuned in to the beer scene and you pay close attention to the brands that are available, you quickly realize that they're all beers that A-B owns distribution rights to.

That means that the Danny Meyer restaurants and Catch of the Day are the only spots in the park where you can buy a beer that A-B doesn't get a cut of. Lame.

So if you go to Citi, support the scene. Get your beer in the center field food court and don't get it at the Beers of the World stand.

And LET'S GO METS!!!!!

Oysters and Rogue (or Rogue and Oysters) at the Blind Tiger

Dumbass that I am, I needed to look at my own blog to be reminded at the last second about this awesome event. I went last year, ate a dozen Yaquina Bay oysters and got bombed on some fantastic Rogue beers. This year was not to be as fun filled and exciting, since I didn't really have the time to spend there. I was in and out in about 25 minutes last night.



Rogue: They're just one of America's best microbreweries. They make killer beer. They have a hop farm. One of these days me and R will make it out to their public house/inn thing that they have out there in Oregon.


As far as last night goes, I only had time for one, so I went with the Northwest Signature, a Rogue beer that I'd never had the opportunity to taste before. I'd describe it as an American IPA that was more evenly balanced. Rather than being hop forward it had some thick maltiness to it. Darker than most IPA's. Great stuff from them, as usual. Also, big props to the Rogue folks (and the Tiger, I guess) for having plenty of full pints on the menu. It's nice to see the Tiger have an event where half the board is filled with $7, 10 oz servings.


Oysters: Hit and miss. They were definitely tasty. Mild, not very briny. The plate that I got varied in size quite a bit. The biggest problem was that half of them were mangled. Busted shells, bits of shell hiding in the meat. Kind of ruins the experience, but the half that were in good shape really hit the spot. And for the price ($16 a dozen), it's kind of tough to get worked up about it. I'd just like to see the Tiger get someone in there next year who knows how to handle oysters, especially considering that the thin shells on the Yaquina Bay variety are more susceptible to breaking.


And special thanks to the dude who let me encroach on his space while I ate my oysters. I was panicking at the thought of trying to handle a dozen oysters in the usual elbow-to-elbow after work environment of the Tiger.

Beer Wars Tonight and Home Brewery Troubles

So tonight is the Beer Wars Live movie/live-simulcast-panel-discussion-thing and I will be seeing it, along with R, at the theater in Union Square. Earlier in the week I looked over this FAQ post on the movie's web site. The very fact that this post is even there would indicate that the movie's director/producer has been taking some heat and decided that they'd take the time to address some of the more frequent or pointed questions thrown their way. I'm pretty surprised that they'd get so many questions about the cost and the decision to have Ben Stein host the panel discussion.

First, $15 is not a heck of a lot of money these days. And when you consider that this movie is only being shown in theaters on one date, at one time, AND they're satelite feeding some discussion, I would have expected it to be more than $15.

Second, on Ben Stein... I completely agree that he's a piece of crap. I watch the Sunday Morning show on CBS with R on the weekends and his rants about the economy, politics, and whatever else is on his uber-capitalist mind, are really annoying. But to boycot the movie over it (see the comments section on the FAQ post)? Seems a bit rash to me.

.................................

Some potentially troubling news out of my home brewery. I think I may have an infection. I'm noticing that my last three batches seem to have a mild bit of sourness in the finish. Unfortunately, living in an apartment in an Urban Area, I don't really have the ability to separate some of the functions of a brew day. For example, I have to crush grains in the same room where I store all of my gear. I do a pretty good job of minimizing the proliferation of grain dust, but it's not remotely possible to contain it all. So I wouldn't be surprised if I got some kind of lactic acid bacteria infiltrating my gear. Frankly, I should be surprised that this hasn't happened sooner.

So what does this mean? Tomorrow night, everything that comes in contact with wort post boil is getting replaced, autoclaved, boiled, and/or thrown through some kind of multi-step sanitation regime of bleach, star-san, and iodophor.

Also, I used gelatin for the first time the other day to clarify a beer. That stuff stinks! After dumping the gelatin solution into the keg, I caught a whiff of the mason jar that I mixed it up in. Smelled like feces. Like an actual shit. Granted, the beer has no doodoo off-aroma at all. But I don't know if I can bring myslef to use that stuff again.

Props to some Manhattan watering holes

On Friday, along with R, checked out some gin mills we've never been to. After chowing down on some massive (and I mean MASSIVE) oysters at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, we hit:

The Campbell Apartment. If you've never been here, you have to check it out. The back story is that it was at one time the office/party space of some wealthy banker back in the 30's or so. Left unused for a while, it was finally converted into one of the most impressive bars you'll ever enjoy a drink in. You really have to see the place for yourself. With a ceiling at least 20 feet high, and beautifully decorated, they're really not lying on the web site when they tell you that it's luxurious.


The specialties there are the cocktails. R had two Prohibition Punches, which were tasty and deceptively strong (like most good cocktails). The beer list is really not much of a list. Pilsner Urquell, Amstel or Heineken (can't remember which), and Kasteel Cru, which caught my eye. Kasteel Cru claims to be a French "lager brewed with Champagne yeast". This phrase may not make much sense to American beer geeks since Champagne yeast is not bottom fermenting, but when you consider that in the Europen sense, "lager" more commonly means that it's an aged or cold-conditioned beer, you get the picture. So I polished off one of those, a bourbon (neat), and a Pilsner. Not the most mind blowing of beer experiences, sure, but we could have spent the entire day there studying the incredible detail in that room.


The Waterfront Ale House. This place has been here a while, and perhaps I should be somewhat embarassed to cop to never having been there before. But I'm just not in the area of 30th St and Second Avenue that often any more. So sue me.


Now here we would find an interesting beer list. Not massive, but some really interesting selections. Definitely quality over quantity, which is well appreciated these days when there are a lot of mega-tap-system bars popping up that just aren't doing anything all that exciting with the space they have. Ramstein Maibock, Goose Island Mild, and Schlenkerla Lentenbier were my selections. Without going all beer geek review on you, let me just say that all three hit the spot on a day when I was feeling more malty than hoppy. The awkward public feud between the bartender and the waitress aside, the Waterfront Ale House did us just right on a gloomy Friday evening. All that plus free popcorn!

NYCHG vs. BJCP

The New York City Homebrewers Guild is sponsoring a BJCP class for homebrewers who want to become beer judges. The first meeting is tonight at Jimmy's No. 43 at 7:30PM (I know, three hours notice). But the real classes don't start until next Tuesday, April 7th, at Burp Castle. The topic will be Malt and we'll be covering light lagers and pilsners. Discussion lead by none other than yours truly.

This is a great opportunity for any homebrewers in the area who want to get more involved in competition judging, to check out the Guild, and get more involved in the local homebrewing scene. You can pick up a lot of great pointers from the experienced brewers in the Guild, no matter what your personal level of experience may be. So come by one of the meetings or check out the NYCHG Yahoo Group for more information and up to the minute discussion.

Rolf's

I think that this blog post can be filed under "too little, too late" considering that the holiday season is over and the decorations are already most likely down, but I thought I'd give a shout out to Rolf's. Located on the southeast corner of 22nd St and 3rd Ave in Manhattan, Rolf's (sorry, no web site) is a small German restaurant that goes absolutely bonkers with Christmas decorations. Think the Indian restaurants on 1st Ave in the East Village, but with all of the lighting and hanging decorations Christmas-themed instead of random-themed. And with higher ceilings.

There was a spell in my teenage years where we used to go to Rolf's every year around Christmas time to take Grandma (of Austrian heritage) to get some old school grub and to see the decorations. These days, the food at Rolf's isn't what it used to be. Not bad, don't get me wrong. But there are much better German restaurants that you can go to (Nurnberger Bierhaus being my current favorite). Rolf's has done some weird thing with they've added American and French dishes and the German food seems to have suffered at their expense. But it's totally worth a trip if you're in the Christmas spirit. I took R there on New Year's Day date and I wouldn't be surprised if we do it again next year.

While there I had one of these bad boys. A delicious, bready, full-bodied doppelbock that went great with my beef stew and spatzle. The Altenmunster Doppelbock has just the right noticeable level of alcohol without being overwhelming. Great stuff.

Dollar tacos are back

Been a while, right?

Before last night's NYCHG meeting, I stopped by the Hop Devil Grill on St. Marks Place and was pleasantly surprised to find that dollar tacos are back on Tuesdays. So now you know where you can find me on the third Tuesday of the month some time between 6 and 7:30. And in addition to beef, chicken, and vegetarian, there's now an option for chorizo too. Are they the greatest tacos in the world? No, they're not (that distinction belongs to Taqueria in downtown JC (sorry, no web site)). But for $1 apiece and with a nice selection of micros on tap, it will definitely fit the bill for the pre-meeting ritual.

Last night's guest speaker at the meeting was Dave Hoffmann of Climax Brewing. Always entertaining, Dave brought along some of his stellar beers for the club to sample (ESB, Nut Brown, Porter, IPA, Helles, and Doppelbock) and shared some of his secrets. Thanks, Dave!

I'll try to be back soon with some stuff that happened over the holidays - motorized my grain mill, picked up some interesting beer books, brewed a few times...

Kegerator woes

Kicked my keg of amber last night. That means I have exactly one out of four taps up right now on the kegerator. How embarrassing. I do have some oatmeal stout in the primary that fermented like crazy (almost done after three days) and should be ready to tap in about a week. Also a lager in the secondary, but that's at least three weeks away. I think it's time to brew a quick bitter or mild - something that will be ready to drink within a week of the next brew day.

Much like our sagging economy, we have to really examine the root causes of these horrible problems in order to ensure that we do not repeat them. Why so little beer on tap? Well, I typically brew once every two or three weeks. And in the last six months (say, ten brews) four have basically been giveaways. Two for the wedding, one for DC's, and one for Brewtopia this Friday. That's forty percent of my recent beer not getting tapped up on the kegerator and being given away.

What does that mean for you, loyal reader? No more free rides. So be there at Brewtopia on Friday night, stop by the NYCHG table, and get while the gettin's good. My American Red will be on tap.

HB Oktoberfest at Hop Devil

See below...

Stopped in there last night to sample this very intriguing beer. A bit disappointing in that it wasn't truly a wood beer, as the description made it sound. The cask was wood covered, but definitely lined either with plastic or stainless - no wood character in the beer at all. You could even tell by the seams in the faux hoops, that it was really just a show piece and not a "real" barrel at all.

The beer itself was good. A true German lager, just as you'd expect from HB. Not really an Oktoberfest beer, more like a milder pilsner. Had a fragrant noble hop nose and malt sweetness, but restrained hop bitterness.

On the homebrew front...

Got my 3.5 liter lager yeast starter going. I'm going to use the Carlsberg yeast for my next lager - the granddaddy of all lager yeasts. Unfortunately it got started very slowly, so I don't know if it will be ready for a Saturday brew. If not, I've got an ale yeast slurry ready and it will be Oatmeal Stout time.

The Hop Devil Grill on St. Marks Place does not do the world's greatest job of keeping their web site up to date, so I thought I'd share something very interesting that I received from them in one of their e-mail updates. This Thursday, 10/9 at 6PM they will have a

"wood cask of celebration beer from Staatliches Hofbräuhaus München sitting on their bar for the gravity pour"

Sounds pretty darn cool to me. Hopefully I'll be able to make it over there to check it out.

Come try my beer

I had the privilege of serving a keg of homebrew to some friends last night. Some old friends, some new friends. It was well received, though I'm going to keep tweaking the recipe. The feedback was very helpful. We kicked the keg in about two hours.

I was calling the beer an American Red Ale, though it was really more like an American Brown in the BJCP style guideline sense. I often think back on the beers that I drank in brewpubs back in the mid-90's when brewpubs were first coming on the scene here on the east coast. It seemed like every one of them served a Red Ale - ruby colored, full bodied, slightly hoppy - and this was the kind of beer that I was trying to conjure up.

I felt like I missed the mark, but I wasn't really all that far off. It was too dark, a bit too chocolatey, a bit too bitter, and maybe not malty enough. I took another stab at brewing it yesterday. This one will be served at Brewtopia on Friday night at the NYC Homebrewers Guild table. If you're there, stop by and say hello.

Here's the recipe I went with yesterday:

7 lbs Briess Organic 2-row
3 lbs Weyermann Light Munich
.5 lbs Munton's Medium Crystal
.5 lbs Munton's Dark Crystal
.25 lbs Weyermann Carafa Special

Mashed at 148º for an hour, 3:1 liquor to grist ratio. Added approximately 2.5 gallons boiling water to raise temperature to 168º. Recirculated until clear, sparged to collect 7.25 gallons wort. Boiled about 2 hours and 20 minutes down to 5.75 gallons (stupidly collected too much wort, plus boiling on the stove top is not the most efficient and I like to make sure I drive off all of the DMS) .

17 grams Target hop pellets, 10.4%AA for bittering
5 grams Willamette whole hops, 4.5%AA added with 20 minutes remaining in boil
5 grams Willamette whole hops, 4.5%AA added with 10 minutes remaining in boil
5 grams Centennial whole hops, 9.7%AA added with 5 minutes remaining in boil
5 grams Centennial whole hops, 9.7%AA added at flame out

Added whirlfloc tab with 15 minutes remaining in boil, rehydrated yeast nutrient with 10 minutes remaining. Whirlpooled briefly, cooled to 63º and collected about 5.5 gallons in primary fermenter. Pitched ale yeast slurry and gave about a minute and a half O2.

The big differences between the beer served last night and the one that will be at Brewtopia are:

1) Used Carafa Special this time instead of Chocolate Malt. Hopefully this cuts down on the chocolatey finish and brings out the maltiness a bit more.
2) Used Target instead of Summit for bittering hop and shot for lower IBU.
3) Used Willamette instead of Northern Brewer as flavor hop.

Come to Brewtopia on Friday night to let me know what you think of it!

Cask Ale Fest recap

Friday night at the Cask Ale Fest was a very good time. By all appearances, it was quite a success. To the left you see the Harviestoun Ice Maiden - first one I sampled. I was definitely surprised at how hoppy it was. This was more of a British bitter, not a Scottish ale like you might expect to come out of that particular brewery.

Jersey represented very nicely with casks from Harvest Moon (Elmes' Mild Manor is one of my favorite brewpub beers, a treat to try it from the cask) and Pizzeria Uno. And the Chelsea beers were also very nicely done. The 1000 Gyle Imperial Mild is aging very nicely and their wet-hopped beer was tasty too. I had a chance to chat with both Chris and Mark, the brewers at Chelsea, for quite a while. Nice guys.

Saturday, after visiting the Raptor Trust in Millington, took a trip with R to the Trap Rock. Had the sampler again, as it's impossible to choose from all eight of their great and varied beer selections. Food was excellent as always.

Sunday at Giants Stadium was the long awaited seafood fest tailgate. Old Bay Shrimp boil for the first course. I just do the standard steamed shrimp recipe from the back of the can and I use red wine vinegar. Cooked with shells on, of course. Second course was grilled clams with a butter and shallot sauce for dipping. Third course was New Orleans style BBQ shrimp - recipe (more or less) based off of the one found in the recent issue of Beer Advocate. Sopped up the gravy with a biscuit (sorry, no luck finding the clip from Coming to America). Lots of homebrew. Great stuff.

TONIGHT - 2nd Manhattan Cask Ale Festival and Chelsea Brewing Co

At the NYCHG meeting this week I had the opportunity to chat up Alex Hall, the man responsible for the cask ale fests at Chelsea and also tri-annually at the Brazen Head in Brooklyn. He gave me a peek at an advanced copy of the list of casks that will be pouring tonight, and it was quite impressive. Looks like the full list is up there on his site now. Hopefully there will be one imported cask on tap, a Scottish Ale from Harviestoun.

It's a pay as you go thing, so hopefully I'll be able to control myself this time around (as opposed to last week's beer festival). I definitely recommend going with the 8oz pours. A lot of these beers you'll never get the chance to try again, so might as well keep the volume of each small in order to get to as many as can reasonably be gotten to.

Also, looks like there will be a few from some unlikely Jersey candidates - Pizzeria Uno out of Metuchen, and New Brunswick's Harvest Moon. I'm sure that the availability of Jersey casks has something to do with the recent cask fest that was held at Uno's. (Yes, there's a Pizzeria Uno that brews beer. They're the only one in the country. Another story for another day/post.)

As for this afternoon, it's the last day (for me, anyway) to hit the San Gennaro Festival. I think I'm going to check out one of those very intriguing cheesesteak sandwiches on garlic bread. Looks like R will have to put up with some fierce breath this evening.

Cheers!

It's Uinta, you intiot!

Special thanks to Mikey of the Utah Beer Blog for pointing out my mistake on the name of Uinta Brewing. You'd think I would have caught that. It's not like I posted a big graphic with the brewery's logo up there or anything...

Went over to the Blind Tiger last night and sampled two of the Uinta beers. I'm not really loving the whole beer review thing these days - there are a zillion beer reviews out there, I don't think that mine are any more or less interesting or qualified, so why bother? But anyhow, here are my notes:


Uinta Solstice Kolsch: Brilliantly clear golden straw color with a thin white head. Definite wheat in the nose. Sweet, grainy in flavor and aroma. Some mild noble hop flavor. Low bitterness. Dry finish with a wheaty aftertaste. Easy drinking and flavorful, great late summer beer.


Uinta Gelande Amber Lager: Clear amber with a thin, quickly fading white head. Chocolatey. Super clean. Think a nut brown ale brewed with a lager yeast. A touch of hops in the finish. Interesting beer, again, very drinkable. Only flaw might be a very slight paprery oxidized note in the aftertaste.


I wish I could have hung around to try more. The two that I had were great, clean, easy drinking beers. Right up my alley.

Unite for Unita!

There's a Unita Brewing event tonight at the Blind Tiger and I'm going to try and stop by to sample one or two. Unita is a brewery in Utah that has to adhere to some arcane law about beer not being greater than 4.0%ABV/3.2%ABW. Why am I not surprised?

I haven't been able to find a list of the beers that the Tiger will have on tap, but I think I'd be most interested in trying the Brown, the Pilsner, and/or the Kolsch. No particular reason why. And what's up with the Cutthroat Pale Ale and the Angler's Pale Ale? What's the difference? Looks like the same label, same beer, different name. I'll see if I can get to the bottom of it...

One other thing about Unita that I think is particularly cool is that they are 100% wind powered. I can't find much on their website other than boastful claims to that effect, so I'll try to get to the bottom of that one too. I wonder if they have anything on site or if they're just buying wind power from the local power company. I'm quite sure the latter, but it's kind of cool imagining a brewery with a bunch of wind turbines in the parking lot. If I were them I'd throw in some solar panels too. Heat the sparge water. Just a thought.

NY Brewfest Sh*tshow

And by sh*tshow I mean two things - the combination of rain and crowd that made for a less than ideal experience, and the general state of my being by the time the thing was over.

The folks at the NY Brewfest corrected two of their biggest problems from last year's event. One, they allowed people to check-in before the actual start time of the event, which made getting in a heck of a lot easier. Two, they arranged for each brewery to have enough beer to last the event. At the end of last year's Brewfest there were huge crowds around the few remaining tables that still had beer. You can imagine what a mess that was, so hat's off to them for correcting it.

Unfortunately there's not much that they could have done about the rain. It rained steadily for most of the evening, which was a real drag, but made a bit more bearable when we scored some cheap ponchos. And like last year's event, the crowd just got huge about halfway through. It would be nice if they could do something to control the size of the crowd, but being completely out in the open in a public space, there's really not much they can do. And besides, I'm sure they're not really interested in selling fewer tickets.

Didn't really try any memorable beers. Seemed like every other one was an amber lager this year for some reason. I did speak to some very friendly people, like the reps from Abita, Otter Creek, and Kelso. And one complete dick - the guy from Dundee who, when asked "what are you pouring?" responded "who cares, it's good".

Of course, by the time it was said and done, I went and got myself completely wasted, falling into the trap of trying to get my money's worth. At this point I'm feeling like I probably wouldn't go back next year. But who knows. By August of 2009 I'll be all pumped up for the Brewfest again.

Going to try and make it to the Blind Tiger on Wednesday for the Unita thing. And we'll be at Chelsea for the Cask Ale Festival on Friday.

I hate that feast with a passion

The 81st Annual Feast Of San Gennaro is now on, right around the corner from my office. Contrary to the title of the post, I do not hate the feast. I just can't think of a Feast in Little Italy without conjuring up Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets. That's one of those movie lines that goes around and around in my head, over and over again at nonsensical hours of the day for no reason at all.

The Feast means two things: Sausage and Peppers with Broccoli Rabe, and Mozzarepas. I like to get my sausage and peppers with a little broccoli rabe thrown in. It makes me feel good about myself because there's some green in there. Hey, you have to be able to hang your hat on something. As for mozzarepas, there's not much to explain. They're delicious and awesome and awesomely delicious. And absolutely horrible for you.

Try a mozzarepa at The Feast on Mulberry Street some time between now and the 21st. Good street food and carnies. Can't beat it.

As for tonight - see you at the NY Brewfest...

NYCHG August meeting wrapup

Karl, the Operations Manager for the Brooklyn Brewery, was the special guest speaker at Tuesday night's NYCHG meeting. He regaled us with some very interesting tales about the fire up at the F.X. Matt Brewery, where Brooklyn Lager and Pilsner are produced. If you don't feel like reading up about it on the Saranac site (link above), rest assured that all is now well.

A couple of years ago I went with R to a wedding up in Utica, so we took the opportunity to tour the brewery. It's a huge facility, so the tour of the production areas doesn't really hold much charm, but it finishes up in their tasting room, which is truly one of the most unique and charming places we've seen in our beer-related travels. There's a beautiful old bar and an attached room with a player piano and tables made from barrels. A really neat spot that, apparently, is only used at the end of the tour and for the occasional private party. Karl assured us that the tasting room was not damaged in the fire.

Karl was also nice enough to bring along some rare treats from the secret Brooklyn stash. The highlight was the 2000 Brooklyn Monster that was poured. A great big barleywine with alcohol, vanilla, and caramel flavors - I've got two bottles of this in the fridge myself, so I now know what I have to look forward to.

Asian sandwiches and cheap beer

Checked out a place I've been meaning to get to for a while called Province. R sent me a Times article that had some reviews of NYC sandwich shops and this was on the list. I didn't have the mackerel sandwich recommended in the article, but I had braised pork shoulder and the short rib and kimchi. Really tasty stuff. The kimchi (luckily for me) wasn't too spicy. Meat was very flavorful and the mantou buns that were talked up in the review did not disappoint.

Wasn't exactly a cheap lunch, but I did notice something interesting. They serve beer and wine, including two Goose Island selections. And they have a happy hour special starting at 4PM where beers are $3 each. Not a bad thing to check out if you have the opportunity.