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13 Days of Pumpkin Beer: Day 1 – New Belgium’s Pumpkick

October 1, 2013October 3, 2013 What I'm With...Leave a comment

Guest blog post by Alia Broman

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I LOVE Fall! Crisp, clear days warming up to the 80s, and chilly nights requiring fuzzy fleeces. Crunchy leaves, early morning frosts, and the anticipation of binging on candy provided by strangers. But as I am at the age where it is inappropriate to go trick-or-treating without a child of my own, I am sequestered in my apartment, searching for the same enthusiasm for the month of October that I once had.

Then it hit me; the other reason I love October is pumpkins! And what go better together than pumpkins and beer, or rather, pumpkins IN beer?! Unfortunately, I don’t have access to enough pumpkin beer to blog about a different one for 30 days, but I’m going to try my hardest to blog about them for 13 days. I will report on their color, ABV, cost (based on my local liquor store in Denver, Colorado), availability, and of course, pumpkiny-goodness! Overall scores of awesomeness will be one to four pie pieces, as an ode to my anticipation of homemade pumpkin pie in November. One pie piece is old and rotten, two is a green pumpkin from the grocery store, three is orange fresh from the pumpkin patch, and four is a hand-carved, smiling jack-o-lantern.

#1 – Oct 1, 2013: Pumpkick by New Belgium Brewing (Fort Collins, CO)

lPumpkickLogo

Year of conception: 2013

ABV: 6%

Color: light amber, with a nice orange glow at the bottom of the glass from reflected light

Cost: $8.99 + tax for 6-pack of 12oz bottles

Availability: all liquor stores great and small

Description by New Belgium Brewing: “PUMPKICK is brewed with plenty of pumpkin juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, but it’s the cranberries and touch of lemongrass that send your taste buds sailing.”

Pumpkick has pleasant aromatics, with defined hints of nutmeg and cinnamon. The first sip is a tangy assault on your tastebuds, but after sips two and more, the beer simply melts onto your palate. It’s a very easy beer to drink, but also a very easy beer to forget. As for the touch of lemongrass, I would argue that there are more than a few stalks per bottle, that culminate in a sour aftertaste. The lemongrass and cranberries also seem to insult rather than complement each other. That being said, my hat is tipped to my hometown brewery for entering into the stiff competition that comes with all seasonal ales.

Pie Pieces: 2 – Green

Girl, You Want That Hop Bod?!

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 What I'm With...2 Comments

All right, so you have a deep, undying love for beer. Sure, you’re not alone in the world. But do you love the smell of hops so much you would literally bathe yourself in it? Or so much that you would want the smell to engulf you 24/7 (whether or not you’re drunk)? Then you’re in luck, because there are some people as beer obsessed as you are with a penchant for entrepreneurship.

I’ve made a list of some cool beer and hop paraphernalia that might tickle your fancy. Or if you’re looking to buy me a gift, any of these would do. Thanks!

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Candles Made from Recycled Bottles:

A cool way to reuse bottles and decorate your home, if you’re into that beer chic look (which I am). Although the candles are unscented and more akin to tea lights, the bottled candles last a long time and look beautiful. Like these Growler Lamps that I desperately want to make (considering that Fitger’s does not give you the deposit back on growlers and I have several).

Hop-Scented Candles:

This is probably the most intriguing to me because of the disclaimer that not everyone, even homebrewers, will like the candles’ smell. Although saying that “it’s like sticking your nose in a glass of hoppy beer” sounds awesome, it worries me that the candle is based off “one kind of hop”. Tell me the kind, even name the candle after said variety. But in their defense, hops do have a strong smell and it’s definitely not for everyone. But if this candle can replicate the smell of the moment you drop the hops in the mash, I want it. Bad.

Hops Shampoo & ESB Shampoo and Conditioner:

Yes, please. Pour it on me. Hops shampoo sounds delicious, and I bet it is good for my hair what with its preservative properties. And the branding? Swoon. I could use a matching conditioner though, I don’t know if it would go with the rosemary mint thing I’ve got going on. Duffy’s ESB Shampoo and Conditioner look pretty good, albeit a little male-oriented, which is fine I guess. What’s cool is they actually used an ESB from Elysian Brewing Company to make it and in the description, detail the hops and malts that go into the beer and how it impacts the hair product.

Hops Lip Balm:

I know it’s cheap to spotlight a product from the same brand I mentioned earlier, Atlantic Farms, but what’s cool about the hops lip balm is that they offer four different ones, a Lavender, Mint, Grapefruit and Double IPA (as if there weren’t enough hops or hop smell in it already – they even name them, Chinook and Cascade). All natural and organic, they’re not cheap, but damn they look tasty. The only question is, would it be weird to drink a beer with one of those on your lips? Maybe.

Beer Soap & Hops Body Bar:

Foggy Brew Suds doesn’t just use hops, but “local varieties of lager, ale, stout and porter” to hand-make the soap. Each bar has the flavor profile on it (or I guess olfactory profile, because you shouldn’t eat soap) that describes both the smell and the texture. I’m not sure if I would use it for my body, but then again a nice stout would be so creamy and soft on my skin, I couldn’t resist. Damn Handsome Grooming Co. has their branding down – slick and manly and referencing brewing companies in the name, it almost makes me want to hate them for so clearly excluding me. But I get it, guys don’t like to shower, so why not make if fun and beer-focused? Eye roll. Hence the Hop Shampoo and Body Bar, which looks damn good. But most other stuff is sold out, and this one makes me the saddest – Fall Nut Brown Liquid Beer Soap made with spent grains. But they have it all: beard oil, hair wax, even tattoo rescue oil. The thing I want most, however, is the seasonal favorite Pumpkin Ale Beer Soap that you get free with ordering (I don’t want to put soap in my hair, but I will use it on my body, thank you). I just bought the last one, sorry for you.

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The real question: would you consider me a crazy person if I had every one of these products? I hop(e) not, because I really, really want them.

Wine From Water – Food and Beer Pairing

June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 What I'm With...Leave a comment

Hello! I know this a little late (a year and a month late to be exact), but I wrote it, so I want to post it. Plus it’s interesting and cool and I don’t do a lot of blog collaboration – I want to do more of that. A while ago, Nelli and Brian started a blog called Wine From Water. It’s awesome with all sorts of good recipes, commentary, and food porn photos, etc. Nelli asked me to write a little piece about pairing beer with a meal they made, so here we go!

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I am so pleased to be blogging with Wine From Water; I’ve known Nelli and Brian for a long time, and well, let me just say that Nelli (and assumedly Brian) is a great cook and very adventurous when it comes to the palate. I’m just glad I have something to contribute to the mix (literally). Trust me, I know a lot about mac and cheese, because it’s pretty much the only meal I make (different variations thereof, including Annie’s, spruced up), and I know even more about beer. Here I’ve laid out different beer options for pairing beer with the two dishes Nelli and Brian have made, and a little bit about pairing beer with food to get your mind working. So next time you go to the liquor store after a grocery store run you can think about the flavors and come up with a pairing on par with the fanciest wine-only restaurant. Beer is for everyone, so I don’t want to hear that you don’t like beer. If you don’t like beer, you haven’t found the right one, so keep trying!

Food & Beer Pairing with Wine From Water’s Spicy Shells and Gouda Cheese recipe:

You pay a small amount for a meal, you don’t want to bust your budget on beer, but you still want it to taste good and compliment the deliciousness you labored over. With a meal like this, which is generally spicy, I would recommend an IPA. IPAs can help balance the flavors of robust meals like this one, because of their high levels of hops, and are good balancers for spicy and chili flavors (like the ones found in pepperjack cheese). Spiciness also part of their history. IPA stands for India Pale Ale, if you didn’t know the lore, now you do: when the British went to explore India they brought beer (good idea guys) and then they were worried it was going to go bad (unlikely) so they put some hops in the finished beer (called dry-hopping, hehe), which makes the finish (the lasting taste in your mouth once you’ve swallowed it) incredibly bitter and delicious.

If you’re from Michigan, a good standby is Bell’s Two Hearted, and it won’t break the bank, really (I would say on average, about $10 for a 6 pack, which is pretty standard for a nice craft beer). But if you’re from Minnesota, or can get your grubby little hands on it, have yourself a Surly Furious (more IBUs – international bittering units – than your mouth can taste). It’s about $12 for a 4 pack of tallboys. Or even better, and cheaper, you could get Rush River Bubblejack ($9 for a 6 pack).

If you’re not into IPAs, that’s fine, but you’re missing out. Instead, you could pair this dish with a beer that accents the smokey flavors in the paprika topping, and can help tone down the spicy notes in the food: a porter. A cheaper more widely found porter is the Anchor Porter from Anchor Brewing, one of the oldest breweries in the United States. A good Michigan option: Founder’s Porter. Deep, dark, and delicious. That’ll run about $10, but the Anchor can be as cheap as $8.

Cheers!

The Beauty and Elegance of High-Low Beer and Food Pairing

May 6, 2013 What I'm With...Leave a comment

Recently I’ve been itching to go to a beer dinner, a really delicious excuse to eat too much delicious food and drink too much delicious beer, but to be honest, they’re just too expensive. I mean $50 for a four-course meal with 4 beers is pretty reasonable, assuming that each of those beers costs $5, that’s $20 and then the dinner itself is $30. However the reason person within me thinks ‘wow, when was the last time you spent $50 just on food for yourself in a normal restaurant situation?’ I feel like beer dinners should just be cheaper – you’re a captive audience and supporter and blowing $100 on a weeknight meal for two just feels frivolous to do more than once a year. It’s ok to make it expensive sometimes especially if you’re involving a renowned chef, but to really get people excited and learning about craft beer and food/beer pairings, you have to make it more accessible – lower the cost.

However, it’s a two-fold situation. Beer-pairing dinners are the little brother to wine-pairing dinners, which are arguably more expensive and, for lack of a better word, ritzy. The discourse around wine is much more sophisticated and as are the people that talk about the ‘bouquet of the wine’ and nibble crackers in between tastings (that apparently you are not supposed to actually swallow). Wine is supposed to go with high-class food while beer goes with sporting games and burgers. But as we’ve seen recently ‘everyday’ food like burgers and grilled cheeses are become more popular, more ritzy, and definitely more expensive. So why not pair beer with those things instead of the unattainable Michelin star-type food you find matched up with wine? Well, some do, but then they charge wine dinner prices for it. Sure good quality craft beer isn’t cheap, but it’s definitely not fancy pants wine and that’s not what beer is all about so why charge like it is? Beer is for the people, even craft beer, believe it or not.

If craft beer is expensive then won’t people think it’s better and more elite, like wine? So then it practically needs to have events similar to those with wine. Craft beer no longer competes against crappy American lagers, it competes against wine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people who say they don’t like beer just haven’t found the right one. There is a larger variety of flavor profiles in beer than there is in wine because it can literally be or taste like anything – craft brewers are getting adventurous and by over-pricing beer dinners, people are missing out. Pairing craft beer with gourmet food isn’t the ‘next big thing’ because it’s here and frankly it’s unsustainable and further alienates people that craft beer has left behind. The future of craft beer and food is high-low beer pairings, bringing the people and the beer together rather than the beer to the people.

Last summer for a friend’s birthday we went to the Lagunitas and Heggie’s pizza beer-pairing dinner at the Nomad World Pub. It was awesome. For $20 we had four (five?) glasses of Lagunitas paired with five different slices of the famous bar-only Heggie’s frozen pizza. As an appetizer we had a handful of Totino’s pizza rolls in a whiskey glass served with a tasting glass of beer and then from there, the beer and pizza were flowing. Before every new pizza and beer, the local Lagunitas rep gave us a brief description of both and why they went well together – there were no white tablecloths, no cloth napkins for that matter, just a lot of beautiful patio and tasty beers. I honestly can’t tell you why there weren’t more people there – am I the only one who likes cheap craft beer and above average frozen pizza? Perhaps.

But my point still stands. Through that event, Lagunitas got their name out in the community, we got to try more Lagunitas than I have even had at a beer festival and we ate plenty – it was a successful beer dinner by all definitions. So now I want more but I have seen none. Unlike a wine-pairing dinner that teaches people that the only way to enjoy good wine and good food is to pay a lot at a fancy restaurant, the beauty of the high-low beer pairing is that it is inexpensive for everyone and a great way to focus on the beer and how to pair and enjoy it with everyday foods. That’s what craft beer is all about.

Beer Black Hole

March 1, 2013May 6, 2013 What I'm With...Leave a comment

As I stared at the never-ending rows of craft beer at Zipp’s, overcome with indecision and displeasure, I realized that I have a problem. I am bored by craft beer in its current state. It makes me sad and grumpy and disappointed – like a parent whose child wrecked the family car and claimed it was an accident when it was clearly a case of distracted driving. I have tried so many beers, and love trying so many beers, to such an extent that it is the core element of the beer experience for me now. I no longer want to just drink a beer; I want to try a new beer. I want to evaluate it. I want to recommend it to friends and love it for that moment, for that six-pack, and move on to another. And repeat. So I just stared at the beers, settling on a tried and true brew, but I was disheartened. How many others are suffering from this illness? This I-need-a-new-brew-to-survive disease? And the answer is, I’m sure, plenty. That’s why the beer scene continues to grow and there is literally a new brewery every other week in Minneapolis. But that begs the question, when will it be enough? A sinking feeling in my stomach – never. I will endure this forever, for better or worse, until the beer industry implodes on itself from too many beers.