Beer Camp - Sierra Nevada / Bell's Brewery - Maillard's Odyssey

This is the second beer from the Beer Camp 12 pack.  This one is a collaboration with Sierra Nevada and Bell's Brewery.  They've created an imperial dark ale which is really an imperial dark strong ale.  

1418. Sierra Nevada / Bells Beer Camp - Maillard’s Odyssey - Pours a dark rich brown with 3 finger tan head. Head dissipates pretty quickly, but leaves a good deal of lacing. Aroma has notes of chocolate and caramel with subtle coffee underneath. Taste follows suit with some grassy notes early on. There is a little bit of alcohol on the finish giving a nice subtle warming in the belly.  This is quite rich, roasty, and very tasty.

Beer Camp - Ninkasi Brewing Double Latte

This year Sierra Nevada worked with 12 different breweries across the country in a program called Beer Camp to brew collaboration brews.  They then released a limited number of  12 packs and we managed to get one of the very few to come to our area.  Because these are special and so limited, we are going to post individual reviews to each brew.

The first one we tried is the collaboration with Ninkasi Brewing - Double Latte.

1417. Sierra Nevada / Ninkasi Brewing - Double Latte - This pours a dark color with light khaki head (2-3 fingers). Head is fairly resilient, but does fade some, leaving lots of lacing. Aroma smells like a latte - lots of rich espresso notes with creamy undertones and a touch of milk chocolate. Tastes follow the aromas to a tee. Really rich, creamy mouthfeel. Long finish, but it is subtle and nice.  It has been nice and cool here in the evening and this is going very nice with a chocolate chip cookie bar.  
      

Tasty in July

We still have a giant list of wine to catch up with, but we've had a few interesting other new tastes as well.  We're going to try to get the wine tastes up before long as well.

1389. Snapea Crisps - These are baked snap peas.  We had the lightly salted version, but they have other flavors as well (we bought the Caesar, but haven't tried that yet).
1390. Garden of Eatin' Red Hot Blues Taco shells - Apparently they don't make these anymore (must have been limited time since we bought them only a couple weeks ago and they're not on their website).  They do have regular blue corn taco shells though.  The Red Hot Blue ones were delicious and a little spicy.  
1391. Spinach noodles - Megan made this recipe and the noodles were excellent!  
      
1392. Archer Farms Dark Chocolate Himalayan Salted Almonds - These are really really delicious.  
1393. Kale pesto - We got a huge bunch of kale with our farm share so we made some pesto with it. It's a sharper taste than basil pesto, but it was still quite good.

Now for a few beer tastes.

1394. Verhaeghe - Duchesse De Bourgogne - This was nice, but was a bit thinner and sweeter than expected.  
1395. Gueuzerie Tilquin - Oude Gueuze Tilquin à l’Ancienne - This is a blend of old and new lambic. Megan didn't like this as much as Brett.
1396. AleWerks Brewing Company - Tavern Ale - This is an okay brown ale - went well with food.  
1397. AleWerks Brewing Company - Colonial Wheat Ale - This is a pretty nice wheat ale.  
1398. AleWerks Brewing Company - Bitter Valentine - Neither of us is a huge fan of DIPA beers, but this was pretty good - hoppy, but still well-balanced by malt.
1399. AleWerks Brewing Company - Twenty Knots - This is supposed to be a tripel, but it's awfully thin and lacking the traditional tripel flavors.  We really think this doesn't match the characteristics of a tripel and needs some modifications by the brewers to match style.
1400. Bells Brewery - Oberon Ale - a great spicy wheat beer.  
1401. Boulevard Brewing Company - Boulevard Smokestack Series - Saison Brett - Obviously good - I mean look at the name!  Brett loves saisons anyway - add in the earthiness and funk from Brettanomyces and this was awesome.
1402. Brasserie Rochefort - Rochefort Trappistes 10 - Classic quad from Belgium.  
1403. Lagunitas Brewing Company - Brown Shugga - Barleywine is a bit big for summer, but this is still good and it was a cool evening.
1404. Foggy Ridge Cider - Handmade - Crisp and fresh like a champagne, with obvious yeasty/bread notes, but obviously apple flavors too - nice.
1405. Shmaltz Brewing Company - He’Brew / Cathedral Square St. Lenny’s - A rye IPA brewed with Belgian yeast - a little bit torn on this.
1406. Hauser Estate Winery - Jack’s Hard Cider Conewago Orchard - Definitely not a sweet cider, this is crisp and refreshing and comes in cans!
1407. Sweetwater Brewing Company - Sweetwater Blue - Blueberry notes on the nose, but not a lot on the palate (which is fine in our opinion).  Okay, but not super.
1408. Humboldt Brewing Company - Humboldt Red Nectar - Dominated by malt notes, this would be better with food than drank alone.
1409. Anchor Brewing - Liberty Ale - One of the first Cascade hop IPAs (brewed in 1975), classic and still tasty.
1410. New Holland Brewing Company - Blue Sunday Sour (2014) - Really really good (and reasonably priced) sour ale from New Holland.  So happy we have another bottle of this in the cellar!
1411. Brouwerij De Troch - Chapeau Faro - Faro is a lambic-style beer, but with added sugar (post fermentation).  This was really sweet and not our cup of tea at all.  
1412. New Belgium Hop Kitchen #6 / Odell FOCOllaboration Pale Ale - This is only available on tap on this side of the country and that's disappointing.  We're a bit tired of the IPA trend and a pale ale, with its softer hop levels and better balance with the malt, is much more our taste right now. If you live near Colorado and can get this in bottles, we highly recommend stocking up!  
1413. New Belgium / Three Floyds Lips Of Faith - Grätzer Ale - This is a traditional Polish style ale made with oak-smoked wheat.  This is smoky, spicy, and great with grilled food.   
1414. Birra del Borgo - Rubus - Italian sour with raspberries.  Just say yes!  Crisp and bright without being overly fruity.
1415. Fiddlehead - Second Fiddle - The name represents their secondary status to Heady Topper. Honestly, this is better than Heady Topper in our opinion.
1416. Green Flash Brewing - Palate Wrecker - Not as much as a palate wrecker as the name might suggest.  We've certainly had far hoppier, far more ridiculously hopped beers that weren't nearly as polished or tasty as this.  While certainly very hoppy, it's still nicely balanced and not just an overwhelming sense of chewing on hop flowers.

Blueberry Hill!

Tis the season for berries.  So far it's mostly been blueberries at our local u-pick-em place, Three Birds Berry Farm, so we spent the Fourth of July gathering a gallon in the unseasonably reasonable temperatures.  So here are two recipes we've tried and they both seem to have turned out really well.

Brett picking berries

1387.  Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake

This is adapted pretty closely from Chef-in-training.com  The biggest difference was that we subbed the buttermilk for sour cream and 2% milk mixed to roughly the right consistency.  I also added in a few frozen berries from last summer that we hadn't eaten yet, but this seems like it would work well with all frozen (but not thawed) berries.  We froze several cups of berries with our vacuum sealer so this is an option for a nice winter dessert.

A delicious and moist pound cake that is bursting with refreshing and amazing flavor!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup butter
• 1¾ cups sugar
• zest of one lemon
• 3 eggs
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 3 cups fresh blueberries
• 2½ cups flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Lemon Glaze

• 1½ cup powdered sugar
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 Tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar, and lemon zest together for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time and beat an addition minute per egg.
4. In a separate large bowl, mix and combine dry ingredients together.
5. Add dry ingredients alternatively with the buttermilk to the butter/sugar/lemon zest/egg mixture. Fold in blueberries.
6. Grease and flour either 2 large bread pans or 3 small bread pans.
7. Pour batter and bake at 350 degrees F for 55 to 60 min.
8. Let loaves cool and pour glaze over them.

Lemon Glaze

1. Whisk glaze ingredients together until smooth

1388.  Canned Blueberry Pie Filling

We wanted to make sure we can save some of these delicious berries for enjoying later in the year, so we made 4 quarts of pie filling and canned them to be shelf stable.  Now when the cool days of Fall have us hankering for berries, we can open two jars and fill a pie crust.  This is taken from The Nap Time Chef, which has an easy-to-follow directions for anyone new to canning.

Ingredients

makes 2 quarts

10c.	blueberries, washed and dried
½ c.	water
1    ½c.	sugar
6 T.	cornstarch
5 T.	bottled lemon juice

Instructions

1. Wash and dry the blueberries and set aside. Sterilize 2 quart jars along with the lids in boiling water or in a dishwasher run without soap.

2. In a large stockpot bring the water, sugar, corn starch and lemon juice and to a boil.

3. Pour in the blueberries very carefully and bring the mixture back to a boil, stirring continuously with a long spoon. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes while the berries release their juices and the mixture thickens, becoming blue and glossy.

4. Set a funnel over a quart jar and ladle in the blueberry mixture, leaving about 1″ of room at the top. Repeat with second quart jar.

5. Placed the sterilized lids on the jar and seal them with the rims, only tightening the ring as much as you can with your own hand. Do not force it.

6. Place the jars in a pot of boiling water standing on end. Make sure the water covers the tops of the jars. Boil for 30 minutes, starting the timing when the mixture has returned to a boil after the jars have been added.

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.

1284. Founders - Nitro Oatmeal Stout 
1285. 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!
1286. Avery Brewing - New World Porter
1287. Saucony Creek Brewing - Chocolate Cherry Schnickelfritz
1288. Devils Backbone Brewing - 16 Point Imperial IPA - This is their double IPA as compared to their regularly brewed 8 Point IPA.
1289. Boulevard Smokestack Series - Bourbon Barrel Quad - This is an absolutely awesome quad. 
1290. Breckenridge Brewery - 72 Imperial Chocolate Cream Stout
1291. Oskar Blues Brewery - G’Knight Imperial Red
1292. Terrapin Beer Company - Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout
1293. Stone Brewing - Ruination IPA
1294. Shmaltz Brewing - Reunion - A Beer For Hope 2013
1295. 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.  
1296. Bells Brewery - Smitten Golden Rye Ale
1297. Sierra Nevada Brewing - Ovila Golden - This is an excellent Belgian strong ale.  
1298. Brouwerij Rodenbach - Grand Cru - A nice readily available sour brown.  Their non-grand cru version is also nice.
1299. Boulevard Smokestack Series - Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale
1300. Shooting Creek Farm Brewery - Rebel Ale - All of the Shooting Creek beers are now brewed by Blue Mountain.  
1301. DC Brau Brewing - El Hefe Speaks
1302. Shmaltz Brewing - HeBrew Rejewvenator 2013
1303. Anderson Valley Brewing - Bahl Hornin’ Spring India Pale Ale
1304. Tröegs Brewing Company - Nugget Nectar Ale
1305. Sierra Nevada - Ovila Quad
1306. DuClaw Brewing - Hell on Wood - This part of Virginia is no longer going to be getting DuClaw due to distributor changes... sigh
1307. 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.
1308. St. George Brewing - Pilsner
1309. Tröegs Brewing - Cultivator
1310. Terrapin - Side Project Pineapple Express Smoked Pineapple Helles - Weird, but not very much pineapple flavor.
1311. Avery Brewing - Collaboration Not Litigation
1312. Dogfish Head Brewery - Indian Brown Ale
1313. Woodchuck Cellar Series - Chocolate - This is terrible - it taste like powered-chocolate in cheap cider unfortunately.
1314. Old Dominion Brewing Company - Winter Brew (Baltic Porter)
1315. Abita Brewing - Spring IPA
1316. Brewery Ommegang - Abbey Ale
1317. Dogfish Head Brewery - Sixty-One
1318. Florida Brewing Company - John J Kelly’s Irish Raspberry Hard Cider - This is pretty terrible. Just skip right over this.
1319. Brewery Ommegang - Glimmerglass Saison
1320. Rogue Ales - Irish Style Lager
1321. The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Porter
1322. Allagash Brewing Company - Tripel Reserve
1323. Brewery Ommegang - Hop House
1324. Sierra Blanca Brewing - Roswell Alien Amber Ale
1325. Great Divide Brewing - Orabelle
1326. Dogfish Head Brewery - Piercing Pils
1327. Selkirk Abbey Brewing - Infidel
1328. DuClaw Brewing - Misery
1329. Rogue Ales - New Crustacean Barleywineish Imperial IPA Sorta
1330. Evil Twin - Even More Jesus - An imperial stout that even Megan (sort of) liked!  Really nice!
1331. Maine Beer Company - Red Wheelbarrow
1332. 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.  
      
      
      
1333. Jopen / The Monarchy - Vereinigte Historische Bierfanatiker Grätzer - This was an interesting gose - went well with the pizza!
      
1334. 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!
1335. Southern Tier Brewing - Blackwater Series: Choklat
1336. Uinta Brewing - Bristlecone Brown Ale
1337. Bells Brewery - Hopslam
1338. Brewery Ommegang - Chocolate Indulgence
1339. Damascus Brewery - Backbone Bock
1340. Parkway Brewing - Magella Belgian Dark Abbey Ale
1341. Great Lakes Brewing - Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
1342. Abita Brewing - Andygator
1343. Kona Brewing - Fire Rock Pale Ale
1344. Dark Horse Brewing - Tres Blueberry Stout
1345. Verhaeghe - Barbe Ruby
1346. Off Color Brewing - Scurry - Unusual and very good.  Pairs great with food or enjoy on its own!
1347. Great Shoals Winery - Bosc & Bartlett Hard Pear (Perry) - Perry is pear cider.
1348. Great Shoals Winery - Blazing Star Hard Peach
1349. Stone Brewing - Spröcket Bier
1350. Maui Brewing - Lahaina Town Brown
1351. 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.
1352. Otter Creek Brewing - Fresh Slice
1353. Stone Brewing - Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout 
1354. Left Hand Brewing - 400 Pound Monkey
1355. Odell Brewing - India Pale Ale (IPA)
1356. 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.  
1357. Long Trail Brewery - Ramble
1358. Bavik-De Brabandere - Petrus Oud Bruin
1359. Fort Collins Brewery - Chocolate Stout
1360. R.J. Rockers Brewing - Son of a Peach Wheat Ale
1361. Allagash Brewing - Curieux - What an excellent aged triple - super complex!
1362. Natty Greene's - Salute American Stout
1363. Natty Greene's - Summit IPA
1364. Natty Greene's - Springfest Pilsener
1365. Natty Greene's - Wildflower Witbier
1366. Natty Greene's - Ordinary Bitter
1367. Natty Greene's - Elm Street IPA
1368. Blue Dog Mead Company - Green Collar Mead
1369. Tröegs Brewing - Troegenator Doublebock
1370. Evil Twin Brewing - Hipster Ale
1371. Breckenridge Brewing - SummerBright Ale
1372. Founders Brewing - All Day IPA
1373. Mikkeller - Better Half
1374. 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!
1375. 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!
1376. Chaos Mountain - Mad Hopper IPA
1377. Chaos Mountain - Squatch Scotch Ale
1378. 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.
1379. Chaos Mountain - Agents of Chaos Belgian Special Dark
1380. 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.
1381. Chaos Mountain - Edge Of The Sun Lager
1382. 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.

1383. Moonshine chicken sandwich - Megan had this and it was good.  The fries were really crispy!
1384. 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.
1385. Brownie cheesecake with vanilla ice cream - Megan's dessert
1386. Bread pudding with vanilla ice cream - Brett's dessert;  nicely spiced and it almost tasted like there were pieces of apple in it

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!

1282. 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.  

1283. 2007 - Viña Siegel - Merlot - Crucero Reserva - we had this with dinner and it went fabulously with the lasagne.  

Long time, no posts...

This has been one heck of a semester and we obviously haven't spent any time whatsoever about posting our new tastes.  We haven't been slacking off in terms of tasting, but sure have been about posting about those tastes!  Because we have such a backlog, we'll start with just some food tastes, then move to beer, and then wine.

1257. Lake Champlain - Salted dark chocolate
1258. Crostini with Balsamic Caramelized Onions, Melted Cheese & Sage
1259. Almond-Bacon Cheese Crostini
1260. Stowaway Chocolates - Peanut Butter Meltaway

We went to a special wine tasting dinner in Marion, Virginia held at the General Francis Marion Hotel/Black Rooster restaurant.  There were some phenomenal wines and great food.  The food and wine was a smattering of spanish wines and foods.

1261. Esparragos blancos - white asparagus, lemon, caper
1262. Aceitunas arbequinas y cabrales - sweet brown olives, artisanal blue cheese
1263. Manchego, jamón y membrillo - sheep's milk cheese, cured ham, and quince
1264. Pan a la catalana - crusty bread, garlic, tomato, wild olive oil
1265. Torta de cangrejo - crab cake and saffron aioli
1266. Lubina con romesco - Mediterranean seabass, roasted pepper, and almond sauce
1267. Carrillada de cerdo - braised pork cheeks, sofrito, glace
1268. Tarta de Santiago - marcona almond cake
1269. Flan con jarabe de café - custard and coffee syrup

One of the regulars at the wine club is starting a fine chocolates business, Chocomiro, and their chocolates are incredibly delicious.  They have a limited selection now, but every single one we tried was phenomenal.

1270. Chocomiro - Creamy espresso caramel
1271. Chocomiro - Jasmine tea lemon ganache
1272. Chocomiro - Earl grey garnache
1273. Chocomiro - Deep vanilla caramel
1274. Chocomiro - Cherry fondant cordial
1275. Chocomiro - Coconut
1276. Chocomiro - Deep vanilla sea salt caramel
1277. Chocomiro - Four spice fusion
1278. Chocomiro - Raspberry ganache
1279. Chocomiro - Saffron lavender honey fusion

We're sure that there's more foods we've tried, but we are often lazy about remembering to record new foods.  

Brett went to a meeting in the DC area and was able to go to Pizza Paradiso (the DuPont Circle location) and got a nice pizza.

1280. Macellaio - Paradiso Tomato, Pepperoni, Mozzarella, Sausage, Red Onion 

Megan found a quick casserole recipe for dinner.  It's fast to make and darn tasty!

1281. Hamburger potato casserole