Stan Hieronymus

Lost Abbey barrel tasting: It’s a wrap

Barrel with beerOne of the many perks – beyond watching a roadrunner pace up and down the burm outside my office window right now, not quite sure what his plan is – of living where I do is that I know that the New Mexico Rio Grande Valley is not the Best.Beer.Region.On.Earth.

They worry about such things in Philadelphia (see here and here) and Portland (do I have to type Oregon?) and San Diego.

I don’t have to. Thus I can claim to be impartial. So I’m declaring that in many years when somebody writes a book about the history of artisan beer in America they’ll want notes from the evening of Aug. 25 at Lost Abbey Port Brewing (near San Diego, for those of you participating in the regional wars), because the first Lost Abbey barrel tasting was a watershed event.

Steve at Summer of Beer has a really solid account. I’m impressed how lucid his notes are to the end, including dessert and the final beers. Read it at your own risk – you’ll want to reserve a spot next year.

A recipe in memory of Copa, Too!

Jack Curtin recently reported that Philadephia’s Copa, Too! has closed, and wrote about that restaurant/bar’s place in history. I added a few details at Beer Travelers, but since we seem to have slipped into beer-and-food mode here I’ll use the news as an excuse to post another recipe (a dessert, of course).

Tom Peters managed some extraordinary beer dinners almost every month before leaving Copa to start Monk’s Cafe. The recipe comes from one in July of 1994 when the theme was “Tom’s Favorite Beers.” The full menu follows.

Peters started hosting beer dinners in 1994, and began serving dishes prepared with beer by the third one. In the beginning most of those who showed up were homebrewers, but soon there were lawyers, stockbrokers, art students, just about anybody.

It was always a hands-on event for Peters, starting at 4 a.m. with a visit to local markets. Grouper might have been on the menu when he laid out the menu but if the rainbow trout looked better that’s what ended up on the plates. Although he wasn’t a regular in the Copa kitchen, on beer dinner days you’d hardly find him anyplace else.

So here you go . . .

Angel Food Cake
w/ framboise-scented cream anglaise

Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

10 egg whites, room temperature (save yolks)
1¼ t. cream of tartar
1/4 t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1¼ cups sugar
1 cup cake flour
1 cup fresh raspberries – optional

Beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt with a whisk or an electric mixer until soft peaks form.
Add vanilla and almond extracts and blend.
Add sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff and shiny (do not let them dry out).
Sift flour into stiff egg whites. Add flour in three steps and fold in carefully. Do not break the egg whites. Fold in raspberries, if desired.

Spoon mixture into ungreased nonstick tube pan.
Bake for 40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.
Invert pan onto a cake rack and let cool in pan.
When completely cool, carefully run knife around outer and inner edges and invert pan, gently shaking until cake slides out.

Cream Anglaise
2 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean
10 egg yolks
1/4 cup Boon Framboise

Heat milk, cream and sugar in a heavy saucepan.
Split vanilla bean lengthwise and heat with cream until mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat.
Whip egg yolks in bowl and gradually add hot cream very slowly, whisking continuously. When half of the cream has been added, pour yolk mixture into pan containing remaining cream.
Return to stove and cook over very low heat until custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove vanilla bean and scrape seeds into custard.
Place in food processor or blender and process until absolutely smooth.
Gently fold in Boon Framboise.
Refrigerate until well chilled.

Presentation:
1 ounce ladle of creme anglaise.
Slice of angel food cake
Sprinkle with fresh raspberries.

Copyright Tom Peters

THE MENU

Pre-dinner beer
Dock Street Frambozen.

Appetizer
See Scallops on Spicy Black Bean Cake. Served with Duvel.

Salad
Tom’s Home Grown Lettuce & Tomatoes with Basil Vinaigrette. Served with Corsendonk Brown Ale.

Entree
Chicken Breast with Rosemary, Garlic & Lemon
or
Grilled Salmon with Watercrss, Ginger & Sesame
Served with Chimay Grande Reserve and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Dessert
Angel Food Cake with Framboise Scented Creme Anglaise. Served with Boon Framboise and Scaldis.

Speaking of brewsters – a photo

Brewster Street

In Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England Judith Bennett writes that women brewers were so common during the 16th century that in northern England the term brewster was preferred for anybody who made beer, male or female.

Over time, brewer won out as a term for both sexes and brewster survived only in limited cases, mostly used by historians and as a surname.

The photo above was taken recently in Plymouth, Mass., a town with just a little history. The street, quite near Plymouth Rock, may have been around for going on 400 years but likely takes its name from a family called “Brewster” rather than because there was a brewery located on it (too bad).

Calling all brewsters (female brewers)

Pink bootsIf you’ve been following Teri Fahrendorf’s brewery trip across America (and if not, why not?) you know she’s assembling a list of woman brewers.

Her focus is the United States, but the news that a woman has become the only head brewer in the north of England seems relevant.

Michelle Bright has been promoted to the position of head brewer at Wentworth Brewery in South Yorkshire at the age of 26. She is an ex-army chef who has served in Kosovo.

There is only one other female head brewer in the country – Sara Barton in Grantham. That doesn’t mean it was always the same. Women brewed and consumed most of the ale consumed in medieval England, but after 1350 men slowly took over the trade by 1600. The book Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England explains how brewing ceased to be women’s work. (Good book.)

Back to America and the Road Brewer blog. Fahrendorf has asked for help building out her list. You can e-mail her (start here – I’m not going to post the address and add to her spam headache). And I’m going to go drop her a line about two New Mexico brewsters now.

Shouldn’t every dinner be a beer dinner?

Beer belongsFlying Dog Brewery, based in Denver, has launched a stand alone site dedicated to beer dinners.

It’ll be interesting to follow how this plays out, since right now the information posted is Flying Dog centric. This certainly could be a great resource.

There’s a category for promoting dinners, which would allow brewpubs, restaurants and even organizations (say a local homebrew club) to promote events. Will they want to do this within the Flying Dog pound? We’ll see.

Visitors may also submit beer dinner ideas or review dinners. “We want to educate beer aficionados about the entire beer dinner concept, show people how pairing food with beer can really be a remarkable experience and help them be in-the-know on this hot new trend,” Flying Dog director of marketing Neal Stewart says in a press release.

The notion that fine food and fine beer belong together is hardly new, but is still gaining momentum. Lucy Sanders’ The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer has just gone to press, and you can expect plenty of articles about cooking with beer and pairing food with beer throughout the fall.

You’re going to want to read about beer and food somewhere, and this may turn out to be a fine place to “shop” for recipes, full menus or just plain tips.

About the photo above: Flying Dog has a bunch of delicious looking photos at the site. But I went with one from the “Beer Belongs” campaign of almost 50 years ago because I love those old illustrations (they ran in mass circulation magazines – also becoming a throwback).