Thursday, June 5, 2014

Catch up beer post and a couple of food tastes

This is the catch-up beer post.  There's a lot of stuff on this list obviously so we'll keep comments moderately short.
  1. Founders - Nitro Oatmeal Stout 
  2. Birra del Borgo - ArcheoBirra Etrusca - Anfora - This beer is also made by Dogfish Head and Baladin, but this is aged in clay amphora whereas the other two are aged in stainless or wood. This is pleasantly sour and delicious - neither of the other two are as sour apparently (we have these in the cellar but haven't had them yet), but it will be interesting to compare them.  This was absolutely amazing!
  3. Avery Brewing - New World Porter
  4. Saucony Creek Brewing - Chocolate Cherry Schnickelfritz
  5. Devils Backbone Brewing - 16 Point Imperial IPA - This is their double IPA as compared to their regularly brewed 8 Point IPA.
  6. Boulevard Smokestack Series - Bourbon Barrel Quad - This is an absolutely awesome quad. 
  7. Breckenridge Brewery - 72 Imperial Chocolate Cream Stout
  8. Oskar Blues Brewery - G’Knight Imperial Red
  9. Terrapin Beer Company - Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout
  10. Stone Brewing - Ruination IPA
  11. Shmaltz Brewing - Reunion - A Beer For Hope 2013
  12. Birrificio del Ducato - My Blueberry Nightmare - We've tried a number of beers with peppers in them lately, but this was great.  Megan didn't like this much, but Brett bought the remainder in the store.  
  13. Bells Brewery - Smitten Golden Rye Ale
  14. Sierra Nevada Brewing - Ovila Golden - This is an excellent Belgian strong ale.  
  15. Brouwerij Rodenbach - Grand Cru - A nice readily available sour brown.  Their non-grand cru version is also nice.
  16. Boulevard Smokestack Series - Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale
  17. Shooting Creek Farm Brewery - Rebel Ale - All of the Shooting Creek beers are now brewed by Blue Mountain.  
  18. DC Brau Brewing - El Hefe Speaks
  19. Shmaltz Brewing - HeBrew Rejewvenator 2013
  20. Anderson Valley Brewing - Bahl Hornin’ Spring India Pale Ale
  21. Tröegs Brewing Company - Nugget Nectar Ale
  22. Sierra Nevada - Ovila Quad
  23. DuClaw Brewing - Hell on Wood - This part of Virginia is no longer going to be getting DuClaw due to distributor changes... sigh
  24. Goose Island - Bourbon County Barleywine - This is an amazing barley wine.  Yes, Goose Island is owned by AB-InBev, but it's still darn darn good.
  25. St. George Brewing - Pilsner
  26. Tröegs Brewing - Cultivator
  27. Terrapin - Side Project Pineapple Express Smoked Pineapple Helles - Weird, but not very much pineapple flavor.
  28. Avery Brewing - Collaboration Not Litigation
  29. Dogfish Head Brewery - Indian Brown Ale
  30. Woodchuck Cellar Series - Chocolate - This is terrible - it taste like powered-chocolate in cheap cider unfortunately.
  31. Old Dominion Brewing Company - Winter Brew (Baltic Porter)
  32. Abita Brewing - Spring IPA
  33. Brewery Ommegang - Abbey Ale
  34. Dogfish Head Brewery - Sixty-One
  35. Florida Brewing Company - John J Kelly’s Irish Raspberry Hard Cider - This is pretty terrible. Just skip right over this.
  36. Brewery Ommegang - Glimmerglass Saison
  37. Rogue Ales - Irish Style Lager
  38. The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Porter
  39. Allagash Brewing Company - Tripel Reserve
  40. Brewery Ommegang - Hop House
  41. Sierra Blanca Brewing - Roswell Alien Amber Ale
  42. Great Divide Brewing - Orabelle
  43. Dogfish Head Brewery - Piercing Pils
  44. Selkirk Abbey Brewing - Infidel
  45. DuClaw Brewing - Misery
  46. Rogue Ales - New Crustacean Barleywineish Imperial IPA Sorta
  47. Evil Twin - Even More Jesus - An imperial stout that even Megan (sort of) liked!  Really nice!
  48. Maine Beer Company - Red Wheelbarrow
  49. BFM - √225 Saison Apricot - This is the first of 3 beers Brett had while in DC for a meeting at Pizza Paradiso.  Excellent pizza, huge beer selection, and 3 locations - try one of them if you're in the area.  

  50. Jopen / The Monarchy - Vereinigte Historische Bierfanatiker Grätzer - This was an interesting gose - went well with the pizza!
  51. Hanssens Artisinal -  Experimental Raspberry (Frambozenlambik) - Tired of your sour beers not being sour enough?  Try this!  This is possibly the sourest beer Brett has ever had.  He loves sour and yet this might be almost, it isn't, but almost too sour.  Note - this is almost one dimensional because of the dominant sour notes.  If you don't like sour, don't bother trying this - this is not your sweet Lindeman's Framboise!
  52. Southern Tier Brewing - Blackwater Series: Choklat
  53. Uinta Brewing - Bristlecone Brown Ale
  54. Bells Brewery - Hopslam
  55. Brewery Ommegang - Chocolate Indulgence
  56. Damascus Brewery - Backbone Bock
  57. Parkway Brewing - Magella Belgian Dark Abbey Ale
  58. Great Lakes Brewing - Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
  59. Abita Brewing - Andygator
  60. Kona Brewing - Fire Rock Pale Ale
  61. Dark Horse Brewing - Tres Blueberry Stout
  62. Verhaeghe - Barbe Ruby
  63. Off Color Brewing - Scurry - Unusual and very good.  Pairs great with food or enjoy on its own!
  64. Great Shoals Winery - Bosc & Bartlett Hard Pear (Perry) - Perry is pear cider.
  65. Great Shoals Winery - Blazing Star Hard Peach
  66. Stone Brewing - Spröcket Bier
  67. Maui Brewing - Lahaina Town Brown
  68. Flying Dog Imperial IPA - Amarillo Single Hop - Ugh, don't like just amarillo hops in a beer... Also this tasted a bit like burned Corn-Nuts - strange strange strange.
  69. Otter Creek Brewing - Fresh Slice
  70. Stone Brewing - Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout 
  71. Left Hand Brewing - 400 Pound Monkey
  72. Odell Brewing - India Pale Ale (IPA)
  73. Hellenic Breweries of Atalanti - Blue Island - Yes, beer from Greece.  It's as "amazing" as you might expect.  It was literally $10 a case, but we bought a 6 pack for post-lawn mowing or boiling brats or something.  
  74. Long Trail Brewery - Ramble
  75. Bavik-De Brabandere - Petrus Oud Bruin
  76. Fort Collins Brewery - Chocolate Stout
  77. R.J. Rockers Brewing - Son of a Peach Wheat Ale
  78. Allagash Brewing - Curieux - What an excellent aged triple - super complex!
  79. Natty Greene's - Salute American Stout
  80. Natty Greene's - Summit IPA
  81. Natty Greene's - Springfest Pilsener
  82. Natty Greene's - Wildflower Witbier
  83. Natty Greene's - Ordinary Bitter
  84. Natty Greene's - Elm Street IPA
  85. Blue Dog Mead Company - Green Collar Mead
  86. Tröegs Brewing - Troegenator Doublebock
  87. Evil Twin Brewing - Hipster Ale
  88. Breckenridge Brewing - SummerBright Ale
  89. Founders Brewing - All Day IPA
  90. Mikkeller - Better Half
  91. New Belgium Brewing - Lips of Faith:  Le Terroir - It's a giant pity that we can't get this regularly out here.  We found this only because a distributor had made a mistake and we managed to grab a bottle.  If you can get a hold of this, enjoy!
  92. Chaos Mountain - Cheeky Monkey Belgian Blonde - A new brewery popped up about 1.5 hours away from us, but conveniently right near The Harvester where we went to see Toad the Wet Sprocket!
  93. Chaos Mountain - Mad Hopper IPA
  94. Chaos Mountain - Squatch Scotch Ale
  95. Chaos Mountain - 4 Mad Chefs Quadrupel - Brought a growler of this home!  Not quite the thick mouthfeel expected from the style, but the taste profile was dead on.
  96. Chaos Mountain - Agents of Chaos Belgian Special Dark
  97. Chaos Mountain - Cocoborealis Triple Chocolate Stout - Again, this was a bit thin feeling compared to the expected mouthfeel for the style and the coffee flavor was more dominant than chocolate for us.
  98. Chaos Mountain - Edge Of The Sun Lager
  99. Chaos Mountain - Toulouse to Trek - Probably Brett's favorite - this is a saison and very nice, but Megan doesn't really like saisons so growler fill was the quad!
We ate at Blue 5 before the Johnnyswim concert (they're awesome - give them a listen!) for our anniversary night out.


  1. Moonshine chicken sandwich - Megan had this and it was good.  The fries were really crispy!
  2. Blackened cajun catfish - Brett had this - very nicely cooked blackened catfish with lump crab on top and some excellent red beans and rice as a side.
  3. Brownie cheesecake with vanilla ice cream - Megan's dessert
  4. Bread pudding with vanilla ice cream - Brett's dessert;  nicely spiced and it almost tasted like there were pieces of apple in it








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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

New food taste!

We still haven't gotten enough time to put in all of the tastes from beer and wine since the start of the year, but we do have a new recent food taste!  Our garden is essentially gone - the plan is to replace it with some raised beds, but we haven't finished those yet.  To make up for our lack of our own fresh veggies, we decided to get a farm share from Glade Road Growing.  We had always bought a lot of veggies from them at the Blacksburg Farmer's Market so it seemed a no brainer.  We get a weekly bag of veggies fresh from the farm for what feels like almost nothing!

We just got our first bag this week - it was filled with a huge bunch of spinach, leeks, broccoli, and some dill.

We were looking for a fun recipe to use some of the veggies this week with.  We decided to modify a recipe from Jamie Oliver, Leek Lasagne.  Below is the recipe as we modified it - note this makes 2 9" by 9" pans of lasagne and according to the original recipe, one serving is one sixth of the two pans - that's a LOT!
  1. Leek and sausage lasagne


  • 4 leeks, thinly sliced
  • 2 red onions, thinly sliced
  • 200 g spinach, washed and chopped
  • 440 g mild italian sausage
  • 350 g good-quality ricotta
  • 1 litre base tomato sauce
  • 1 packet lasagne sheets, wholewheat if you can find them
  • 125 g mozzarella ball
  • 75 g fresh Parmesan, grated
Cook the sausage, remove it from the pan, then drain any excess grease.   Add a small bit of olive oil to the pan and slowly sweat the onions and leeks for about 10 minutes.  Add the chopped spinach and heat it until it's slightly wilted.  Remove from heat and let it cool a little bit.  Preheat your oven at 350F. Mix the ricotta and sausage back into the vegetables.  Spoon ~1/4 of the tomato sauce into the bottom of the two 9" x 9" pans.  Add a layer of noodles, then a layer of the veggie/sausage mixture, more sauce, another noodle layer, the last of the filling, sauce, another noodle layer, and top with more sauce. Grate the mozzarella and Parmesan over the top.  Place the two pans on a large flat pan, and bake for about 35 minutes or until the cheese is just browned over the top.  
  1. 2007 - Viña Siegel - Merlot - Crucero Reserva - we had this with dinner and it went fabulously with the lasagne.  
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