Tag: food

Beer of the Week #5 Hoptober Golden Ale

New Belgium Brewing's Hoptober Golden Ale

I wish I had a picture of this but I guess I forgot to take one or accidentally deleted it. The beer was a lovely coppery color with a thick head. So, now use your imaginations to picture that in a frosted pint glass.

From the label:

Five hops and four malts make Hoptober Golden Ale a vaeritable cornucopia of the earth. Pale and wheat malt are mashed with rye and oats to create a medium-bodied ale with a creamy mouth feel. Centennial, Cascade, Sterling, Willamette and Glacier hops form a bonfire of citrus notes, fruity cheers and a bold finale.

From my notes:

Not as hoppy as I was expecting, the moniker might be a little misleading. This beer smells good. Citrus, spice, and maybe a hint of stone fruit. I was hoping it’d taste as good. But, it doesn’t. There are still hints of citrus and fruit in the beer but those flavors are overwhelmed by bitterness of the hops. Surprisingly, the finish, while bitter, tastes of grapefruit. Plenty of carbonation here. Smooth.

I’m not the biggest fan of hoppy beers. The bitterness of hops always seem to overwhelm everything else in a beer’s profile. So, I was a little leery picking this beer up, but, I’m a fan of New Belgium and so I gave it a shot. I wasn’t disappointed. New Belgium does a good job of balancing the flavors in this beer. I only wish it tasted as good as it smelled.

Rating (out of five):

 

Fall Garden 2011: Check-in

The fall/winter garden never gets as big and bushy as the spring/summer one...

It’s been a couple of weeks since we planted the seedlings and seeds so, I figure it’s time to update everyone on how the garden is doing! The short answer is goodish, the longer one is below. Last week we transplanted the chard into the plot and last Saturday we transferred the kale. The slugs (my nemeses) absolutely loved the chard seedling and consumed half of them before I realized what was going on and laid out more sluggo, as well as going out at dusk and dawn to pick them off plants. I take a great deal of pleasure in chucking them as hard and as far as I can into the dry fields behind the house…

Arugula bursting out of the ground

The arugula is starting to come in and one of the nice things about arugula is no pests seem interested in eating it, it’s the easiest plant by far to cultivate. As you can see from the picture above the spinach, bok choy, and cauliflower are also doing fine. The slugs have been nibbling on all of them, mostly the cauliflower, but not enough to harm the plants. We’ve been having a mild fall so far and I’m not sure whether that is helping the garden or hurting it. If I’m going to continue gardening I really do need to read up more on these plants.

Kale seedlings right beforethey were transplanted

I know the question that is on everyone’s mind is “when can you start eating that stuff?” And, the answer is, “it depends.” The bok choy is ready to be eaten now, but as it stands we won’t get much from it if we harvest now. Give the the bok choy a couple weeks and we can start stripping off the outer leaves of all six plants and use them while leaving the plants in the ground to continue growing. The arugula should be edible with in a week, that stuff grows like weeds. The kale and chard are going to take a bit longer, but when the get to the right size we’ll be harvesting them in the same way we do the bok choy. The cauliflower? I don’t really know. Last year, they stalled out in growth and we ended up throwing the plants into compost. Hopefully, they’ll do better this year.

 

Beer of the Week #4: Old Chico

Sierra Nevada's Old Chico Crystal Wheat

from the label:

Old Chico Brand Crystal Wheat. Only available locally, Old Chico Crystal Wheat is our lightest offering. This filtered beer is brewed with malted wheat and barley – leaving it light bodied, refreshing, and wonderfully drinkable.

I’d link you to Sierra Nevada’s information on this beer but their website doesn’t seem to include it amongst their beers…? Old Chico is a really light wheat beer. As you can see from the picture above it has a golden blond color and a fine white head. Old Chico has a floral bouquet with subtle hints of banana and wheat. Beer had a clear citrusy taste with a hint of apple on the roof of the mouth. I was surprised to find a bit of hops flavor in the beer as well that lingers. Not the best wheat beer I’ve ever drank but certainly will do on a hot, summer day.

You might have a hard time finding this beer outside of Northern California. That is okay though as there are plenty of good wheat beers out there and Old Chico isn’t amazing merely competent.

Rating (out of five):

Oddtoberfest 2011

Bratwurst with Dusseldorf mustard, hot sauerkraut, and relish; traditional German potato salad; and, green salad

My Oddfellows Lodge holds an Octoberfest dinner every year, cleverly titled, Oddtoberfest. As a Lodge we do a lot of fundraising and community outreach projects, but not Oddtoberfest. For Oddtoberfest we just sit back eat a big meal, drink a lot of beer (which the Lodge brews itself) and eat cakes. It’s pretty great. Oh, we also learn what Octoberfest is all about. Want to give it a guess? Don’t cheat! Just guess… Done? If you guessed it had something to do with the bored, pampered, royalty of Europe you are correct. Give yourself a gold star.

The Oktoberfest tradition started in 1810 to celebrate the October 12th marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to the Saxon-Hildburghausen Princess Therese. The citizens of Munich were invited to join in the festivities which were held over five days on the fields in front of the city gates. The main event of the original Oktoberfest was a horse race.  Anniversary celebrations were held annually thereafter that eventually became larger and more elaborate.

Now you know that you and every dumb frat boy in this country celebrating Oktoberfest is a disgusting Royalist pig. Learning is fun!

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk you about today was Dusseldorf mustard. Which until Oddtoberfest 2011 I did not know existed. I don’t know anything about how mustards are made but this was some spicy, tart stuff. Like no mustard I’d ever had before. All I know was that it was delicious and now I have to find some, you should too.

 

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