Captain Tony’s Amber Ale

I’m not much of a beer drinker. Kevin and the Hoperatives would all tell you I like the wheat-y girly beers. But I did quite well with the Captain Tony’s Amber at Captain Tony’s Saloon in Key West. If you’re mulling the phrase “Captain Tony” around in your head, wondering why you’ve heard of it, the good Captain stars in the Jimmy Buffett song Last Mango in Paris. The video below is a mostly me, with Kevin chiming in because I don’t really trust myself to review beer. (Yeah, I know. I need to get over it.)

Big River Brewery (Walt Disney World)

Hello all, this is Kevin once again with a delayed review of our trip to Big River Brewery in Walt Disney World during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival.

We went to Big River after spending an exhausting but fun day sampling wines and our palates needed a little bit of hops and malt to help reset themselves, so we headed out the back door of Epcot and took a boat over to Disney’s Boardwalk for a mircobrew experience. We hope to try Big River again, hopefully with our friends the Hoperatives, who are big fans of the place. I suspect that we were too tired to fully appreciate the experience.

We tried the following:

Southern Flyer Light Lager (3.61% Alcohol by Volume – AbV) – The light cross over beer for people who are comfortable with Bud’s American ale, the flavor had a slight soapy quality similar to what I find in Bud American ale. I believe that quality is from the Liberty hops used.

Gadzooks Pilsner (3.61% AbV) – Standard Pilsner for those who like pilsners. Nother super remarkable, but exactly what is promised.

Steamboat Pale Ale (4.4% AbV) – Traditional Pale Ale. Once again a nice solid entry that hits the expected notes and won’t dissapoint ale drinkers.

Rocket Red Ale (5.3% AbV) – Nice upfront malt, fades to rounded finish. This one is pretty tasty and is memorable. This one is reccomended if you like a malty flavor in a light bodied beer.

Sweet Magnolia American Brown Ale (5.18% AbV) – Has similar taste to a Chocolate Malt. Very little coffee. Kevin’s favorite, Michelle not as much. The sweetness and chocolate would make this a recommendation for Guinness lovers, but it’s not a stout so the overall flavor has a strong hop presence, so try a sample and see if it’s a fit.

Wowser’s Wheat (4.29% AbV) – Traditional German style Wheat beer served with a wedge of lemon. The banana and clove components are balanced and in line with what is expected.

Overall, Big River was a nice diversion from the Food and Wine festival and the standard theme park food that you can usually find. If you are in the mood for a beer and chicken nachos, head over to Big River at Disney’s Boardwalk.

The Southernmost Microbrewery: Kelly’s Caribbean

It’s Kevin, once again filling in while Michelle is at CES.

We spent Christmas week in southern Florida, with several days in Key West. While we were there, Michelle got a tweet from the Hoperatives suggesting we visit Kelly’s Caribbean. Turns out, Kelly’s is a microbrewery. Like anything in Key West, they are the “southernmost” in the US.

Below you’ll find a video of me reviewing the three beers they had available.

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A Visit to the Alaskan Brewery

Back in July, when we took our amazing Alaska vacation, we got a chance to visit the Alaskan Brewing Company, at the urging of the Hoperatives. It’s great beer, and it’s a great tour. If you’re ever in Juneau, run away from the cruise ship and hop a city bus out to an industrial park – where you’ll find a brewery.

Not a brewpub, mind you. It’s where they make the beer. They may not have food, but they have a large selection of beer on tap and it’s all amazing. I am not a fan of the Smoked Porter (although the Hoperatives and Kevin both love it). I thought it tasted and smelled like fish, which makes sense. They use a local salmon smokery to, well, smoke the hops. I fell in love with the IPA, which is a rarity for me. I usually find IPAs too hoppy and bitter. It looks like they’re offering a Winter Ale at the moment, made from spruce. We discovered at a different brewery that spruce trees were often used to make beer, as the vitamin C helped prevent scurvy in the seaside Alaskan towns. Sounds dubious but tastes delightful, I promise.

The story behind the Alaskan Brewing Company can only be told effectively by one guy, and we were lucky enough to have him as our tour guide. You see, it’s not really a tour. They take to you a hallway overlooking the tanks, and tell you about their history. Every 5 or 10 minutes, you break for beer and then go back to the hallway to be entertained a little more.

We met some great people at this small, eclectic place, and we were rather grateful we took the bus back to the boat. I, for one, stumbled back on to the bus, but I was terribly sad to leave. It was one of the best places we visited in Alaska.

Alaskan Brewing Company beer isn’t available here in the Cincinnati area (although we certainly brought a fair amount back with us). In fact, you can only buy it in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

So, I’m not really the Beer Girl, but I really wanted to share with this video that is long, entertaining, and perhaps tells you everything you might want to know about how they make their beer at the Alaskan Brewing Company.

Cheers!

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Beer: Goose Island Clybourn Review

On our recent trip to Chicago, Michelle and I made a slight detour on the way home to stop off at the Goose Island Clyborn Brewpub. With 25 different beers available on tap or in bottle, we knew it was going to be fun to try beers that we cannot usually find back home.

This was our first visit to Goose Island and it was well worth the time. The layout of the beer menu has the beers divided up into categories of flavor: Refreshing, Session, Malty, Hoppy, Belgian and New World. The menu gives food pairings based on these categories and we split an order of Sweet Potato Fries which seemed to work with the different selections we had.

We each tried a sample of 4 different beers poured 4-oz tall. My selections were:

Six (Session) – This was my least favorite of the 8 samples. It seemed a little off and basic. For a low alcohol beer, it just didn’t have enough structure in my opinion and gets a

S.O.B. (Session) - A nice Bitter with good solid balance and very little hoppiness.

Naughty Goose (Malty) – This cask conditioned beer was one of my favorites, this had a nice chocolate malt flavor that exploded in the upfront taste. This was like a stop at UDF for a malt. Nice and smooth and easy to drink.

Midway IPA (Hoppy) – Nice citrus with hops up front, in the middle and on the end. Not much else to say, but this impressed with it’s flavor.

Michelle went a little sweeter and selected:

Willow St. White (Refreshing) – Unfiltered wheat beer had a little more bitterness than Michelle’s favorite (Bell’s Oberon) but still had nice spice to balance the usual wheat flavor.

Hefeweizen (Refreshing) – Another wheat beer, but it had more concentration on the banana flavors.

Fleur (Belgian) – I think this was the overall favorite of Michelle and high on my list as well. This was crafted with a similar approach to the Grassroots ale from Great Lakes. This uses hibiscus tea leaves to add an incredible amount of spice to the beer. 

Wheatmiser (New World) – A 9.1% AbV was a nice finish to the two samples as the sweetness made this a desert beer. This was one to be enjoyed in small quantities (it’s sold in an 8oz snifter) It was also on the possible growler list, but we doubted we could finish it in time.

Overall, this was a great stop and we left with a growler of the Fleur and an extra empty growler for our friends over at Hoperatives. I’d recommend the trip if you are in the Chicago area and want to try more brews than we can get in the Cincinnati area. Goose Island gets a nice as both Michelle and I were able to find beer we liked.

– Kevin

The Moerlein Lager House is Coming

As I pulled into the driveway last night, I heard this news on the radio. It made my night!  After all, we love our wine, but we're equal opportunity beer and cocktail folks as well.

We love our German beer here in Zincinnnati (see Oktoberfest and Hofbrauhaus). So why not open a biergarten / brewpub featuring one of Cincinnati's original German brews? Christian Moerlein will be opening a 15,000 square foot restaurant and brewery, complete with outdoor biergarten, down on the Banks.

The new multi-story brewpub will be built on top of a parking garage across from the Great American Ball Park.
The restaurant, to be called the Moerlein Lager House, will seat 500
inside and 600 in the beer garden.  It will span the block on Main Street between Mehring Way and Theodore M Berry Way, in stumbling distance from the ball park, really.

According to the Business Courier, "Preliminary designs for the two-story building include a green roof,
balconies and terraces with views of the river, Roebling Suspension
Bridge and the ballpark."  I fell in love with green roofs in Vancouver, so I'm pretty excited about just that one small detail on its own.

The new restaurant will also offer brewery tours. It's slated to open in 2011.

I can't imagine the place being anything but packed all the time. When I lived in Maryland, my friends would go to the store looking for Moerlein beer, which just baffled me at the time. After all, I'd grown up with it. Moerlein is nationally known as a maker of craft brews and, combined with the ball park, will be a huge hit for tourists.

New Microbrewery in Town … at Vito’s Cafe

I enjoy going to Vito's in Fort Thomas – mostly for the bread pudding and the giant wheel of cheese, not to mention the music.

Now, however, they're offering something new. Matt Wehmeyer, Mary & Vito's son, is opening a microbrewery at the restaurant. Red Ear Brewing Company has launched with Endless Summer Ale, the new house brew. Wehmeyer hopes to release a brew for each season.

It's worth heading over for Happy Hour just to try the new brew. Cheers!

How to Host a Beer Tasting

A few days back, Michelle and I hosted a beer tasting for a few friends and I learned a few tips. The full review of the beers tasted along with recipes will follow later, but here's a quick list of what I learned.

1. When hosting a tasting try and pick foods that pair with multiple selections.
   The beer we served had different flavor profiles and I found a few items that matched with multiple beers. A few examples were a selection of stinky cheeses from Cork and Bottle, a nice salty prochuttio, mini quiches and a lean meat like buffalo or lamb. The stinky cheeses were able to hold up to a few of the hoppier beers and the lean meat (buffalo) worked with a few of the more herbal beers. However, having multiple different flavors of food allowed people to try different flavors along side the beer to how food changed what they were drinking.
2. Try to prepare food that can sit in a crock pot or warming plate.
   This is something I have learned for all parties. The worst feeling is having to stay in the kitchen waiting for food to finish cooking and missing the socialization that was the reason for the gathering in the first place. Most of the food I listed above was able to sit out the entire time everyone was here. I planned for the last dish to finish about 5 minutes after the party was supposed to start which seems to work well for when most of our friends arrive.
   

3. All sizes of beer can be shared.
   Most of the bottles I had were 750 ml bottles shared across 5 beer drinkers and 1 person who was just sampling. The origonal plan was for a total of 8 people and each of those bottles had enough with lighter pours that we could have easily served 10 or so. Later in the evening, I broke out a few 12 oz bottles that I had and those were also easily shared with the entire group. I was surprised as I thought that the smaller bottles would not have enough to share, but everyone poured enough to taste and there was still plenty to share.
4. Remember to relax and enjoy the evening.
   As a know beer lover and someone who tries to make sure that there is something for everyone, this is one of the tougher things to remember. If a pairing does not work like it should, treat that as an excuse to discuss why you picked the flavors and figure out what may have worked better. This time, I made the mini quiches with a Kahill's Irish cheese with Guinness. My thought was the stout in the cheese would complement a few of the darker beers that we tried. It was a less than perfect pairing as the dark beers were porter styled and the quiche worked better with a few of the lighter IPA styles instead. I did not expect that, but the egg mixture offset the cheese more than I expected. It was not what I intended, but I learned something from the experience and had a great time discussing why something worked and figuring out why it did not.

Overall, the evening was a great success and I am working on getting notes and recipes put together for a future post. Any other suggestions on how to host a beer pairing party? Tips or tricks that I don't know about?

 - Kevin

St Patrick’s Day in Cincinnati

There will be no Weekly Event posting today, as Kevin & I are gluttons for punishment. We're heading to the industry/trade tasting at the wine festival, stopping for dinner, and heading back to the special tasting room and evening session. Thank goodness we're staying in a hotel. We're kicking off Saturday with breakfast at Hathaway's and then the Cincinnati never-ever-cancelled St. Patrick's Day parade.

A quick reminder that next week is also Restaurant Week. Now, onto St Patrick's Day.

Image Credit

In Cincinnati, our German heritage is forgotten as the St. Patrick's Day celebrations kick off on Friday night and continue all day Saturday on Fountain Square. Urban Cincy has a great round-up of the downtown events.

Metromix has an entire section for St Patty's Day festivities including all those great little pubs across the city. The folks at CinWeekly also have a few listed, and there are a couple of events listed on CityBeat / ZipScene.

Midwest Winter Beer Festival

The Midwest Winter Beer Festival returns to the Radisson Cincinnati Riverfront on February 6th and 7th for the second year. For $35 you have the opportunity to try over 75 different beers from some  great micro-breweries. It looks like Bell’s, Great Lakes, Stone, Bluegrass Brewing Company and Kentucky Ale will all be in attendance. There will be 3 sessions this year:

Friday 2/6 from 7 until 11 PM
Saturday 2/7 from 2 until 6 PM
Saturday 2/7 from 7 until 11PM

Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door, a very reasonable price for a tasting event with proceeds going to the Big Joe Duskin Foundation. Also, designated drivers can pay $10 at the door that will get you everything except the beer.

Michelle and I missed out last year, but are excited the event has returned and we have a second chance to attend. Any readers brave last year’s event? Any good stories?

As always, I recommend checking out our post on the Wine Festival Survival Tips. Most of them translate to any event with a lot of alcohol to try and maybe find a few new favorites.

- Kevin