Blue Plate Diner (Salt Lake City)

On a recent trip to to Salt Lake city, the first time I had ever left the SLC airport, a friend and I stopped at the Blue Plate Diner for a quick bite to eat on the way to a conference. Blue Plate Diner was featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

I had a vegan burger and cajun fries. The burger is assembled with beans, cooked oatmeal, onions and plenty of other non-meaty goodness. The burger was served on a toasted fresh bun and was fantastic.

The Blue Plate Diner is a collection of restaurant artifacts from the Salt Lake area. Booths from an old diner, a soda fountain from a general store up the road.

The test of any restaurant is if you would go back. To answer that question, on the way back to the airport, we stopped in again for a pre-flight meal. This time it was Chicken Fried Steak for me.

Served with home fries and 3 eggs over easy, this was an amazing end to a trip to my trip to Salt Lake. I’d recommend the vegan burger over the breakfast, but I was not disappointed in either.

– Kevin

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.

Note: If you subscribe to  the RSS feed or email, you may need to visit our site to view the video.

Laphroaig Distillery Live (from Loretto Ky)

Hello all. This is Kevin is filling in for Michelle who is in Las Vegas this week for CES.

Back in September, Michelle and I were invited (as a member of the Friends of Laphroaig) to a preview of the distillery live tasting that happened down in Loretto, KY at the Beautiful Maker’s Mark distillery. John Campbell (Distillery Manager from Laphroaig),  Kevin Smith (Master Distiller of Maker’s Mark), and Simon Brooking (Master Ambassador for Laphroaig) were all there to help answer questions. Laphroaig is located on the isle of Islay (pronounced eye-luh) and is part of the Beam Global family. John also taught everyone a trick to remember the spelling by using Laphr-o-aig, with the last part standing for Oh Ain’t It Great.

The reason for the visit to Loretto is Laphroaig uses old Maker’s barrels for aging their scotches. Since, by rule, bourbon must be aged in a new charred oak barrel, bourbon distillers look for places to send the used barrels. As John mentioned, the Scotch have no problems putting those barrels to use for a few more decades. Maker’s also uses char level 3 (on a scale of 1-4) and air dried to remove the tannins that make red wines great, but cause difficulty in the creation of Maker’s Mark.

I’ve made no secret that my two favorite online programs are Marker’s Mark Ambassadors and the Friends of Laphroaig. Both offer great opportunities for their members and this was a great example of that. The Friends sent out an email inviting anyone close to the Louisville area out for a night with the Scots the day before the Distillery Live presentation was to be recorded.

We were met by John and Simon in Louisville at The Pub for appetizers and unsurprisingly a bottle of Laphroaig 10 and Laphroaig 18 year old scotches. Michelle, who is not a Scotch drinker, chose a bourbon selection from the bar instead. After a drink, we were off on a chartered bus (somehow a bottle of Makers and a bottle or 10 year Laphroaig ended up joining us as well) down to the distillery for dinner bites (fantastic bourbon BBQ meatballs, finger sandwiches and chocolate) and a few more drinks.

The Friends of Laphroaig signed a Maker's Mark barrel headed to Scotland. Kevin & Michelle are on either side of the barrel.

Then, after a quick tour of Maker’s Mark and a group signing of a barrel headed to Scotland, the main event started. John walked us through a very similar tasting to what can be seem on the final video as they adjusted for time and ran through the presentation with all the equipment to make it smooth the next day.

We were able to taste:

Laphroaig Tasting at Maker's Mark

Laphroaig White Dog (63.6% Alcohol by volume (AbV) – This was a treat for me as trying an unaged Scotch from Islay as the sweetness from the barrel is absent and the flavor of the peat smoke and iodine of the water come through. Michelle was not a fan, but I was impressed as an excercise and I’m not sure if I could finish a full pour.

Laphroaig 10 year old (63.5% AbV) – This is the #1 selling Islay single malt and was what I have tried in the past. The time in the barrel gives this a sweeter flavor, but there still is  a large amount of iodine, band-aid-ish, medicinal aromas from the moss that is part of the bog. Plenty of smoke on the finish to help cut through the early bitterness and you have a very well made item.

Laphroaig 18 year old (38% AbV) – Time has started to help add a sweetness that Michelle started to enjoy. There is still a hasrh burn on the finish, but the wood has added a lot of citrus notes as water is added. An interesting point, for anyone who has read this far, is that distillers will add almost 50% water into the scotch or bourbon before tasting in order to lower the alcohol and detect any flaws that exist. Overall this is an non-chill filtered whiskey with a great nose and balanced taste.

Laphroaig 25 year old (50.9% AbV) – This bottle runs about $275 to $300 and is bottled at cask strength. This one is an absolute beauty.  It is made up of a mix of Laphroaig  aged in the Maker’s barrels (about 60%) and Laphroaig aged in Oloroso sherry casks. The color ends up about as bright as Maker’s Mark and the long finish switches to a sweet fruit character from the influence of the Sherry. This one impressed both Michelle and myself.

We also got to taste some Maker’s Mark. We often drink Maker’s at home, but the context of seeing what the barrels did before the Scotch was introduced provided a nice component that was too sweet for the pure Scotch drinkers in the crowd, but I thought it was a very nice choice to have on the table. Aside from the Laphroaig 25-year old, this was Michelle’s favorite.

After we finished the tasting, it was back on the bus for the ride back to Louisville and our car, but somehow another bottle of 25 year old joined us back on the bus.  A very enjoyable drive back to our cars ended up a little later than planned, but well worth the lack of sleep that evening.

The final video that was filmed the next day can be seen online at Laphroaig’s site. Our photos from the event are posted on Flickr.

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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Happy Birthday to Kevin!

My husband, occasional blog contributor, beer-guy, and wine-event companion (he likes to joke that he is arm candy) is 30-something today.

Happy birthday Kevin!

Tonite: Distillery Live!

Last night we sat through the equivalent of the rehearsal for Distillery Live! It's a live-streaming web event held by Laphroaig Scotch at Maker's Mark in Loretto, KY. Laphroaig sources their barrels from Maker's Mark. It was a lot of fun. If you're interested in tuning in without the 2-hour to drive to Maker's Mark from Cincinnati, then you can. The event will tell why Maker's Mark is so special to Laphroaig (and
will of course include a tasting of both) but will also include some food pairings and some very special cocktails!

Distillery Live will be tonight at 8 pm (EDT), live
from the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, USA.  You can tune in at http://www.distillerylive.us.com.

We'll write more about this experience (well, Kevin will) next week. Right now I just want to offer my thanks to the fine folks from Laphroaig for such great hospitality and a wonderful evening!

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.