Penne Paired with Logsdon Farmhouse Seizoen Bretta

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Nick Ladd

Penne and Logsdon Farmhouse Seizoen Bretta

Fresh Pasta and Seizoen Bretta

Reminiscing about a past you have never actually experienced can be an interesting experience in itself. Your mind tends to create a utopian image of the way people used to live and instill upon your current psyche a sense of loss for something you never had. Whether it ever existed or not, my mind likes to go to a place in the not-so-distant past where people sourced products from those who were experts in a particular trade and whose knowledge of their craft was both a matter of personal pride and value to their customers. Our busy lives make this type of product sourcing difficult (as does the cost). The ubiquitous all-in-one-vegetable-hermetically-sealed-vacuum-packed-meat-deli-baker-green-grocer is an easy, and in many ways, logical option. With that said, I look fondly on those quiet mornings when nothing dire needs my attention and the sun and blue sky beg me to take a walk and pick up the products I need for that evening’s dinner. This particular Sunday morning started with the craving to make a pasta dish similar in some respects to the spaghetti with meat sauce my grandma made when I was growing up and that my wife (and many other family members) love.

Picking up my basil at the Washington Park Farmer’s Market

The day started with a short stroll from my apartment to the Sunday Farmer’s Market held at Washington Park. (Fun Fact: Washington Park was home to the Brooklyn baseball club which would later move to Ebbets Field and become my beloved Dodgers.) Here I scored a large bunch of fresh basil for $2–a steal by New York (or really any) standards. Basil in hand (along with some awesome sourdough bread from Orwashers bakery) I headed over to Cobble Hill.

My next stop was to pick up the meat for my sauce at Los Paisanos Meat Market.

Los Paisanos Meat Market

Los Paisanos–a Brooklyn institution for over 45 years–provides great meat, fresh pastas, cheese, and many other Italian specialties. The main reason I came here was to obtain some guanciale, which would form the heart of my sauce. Guanciale is a lot like bacon, but uses the hog jowl rather than belly and is not smoked. The jowl is much fattier than the belly and has a more pronounced porky flavor. This would be the base for my sauce, providing delicious fat and a rich cured saltiness. While there, I rounded out what I needed for the sauce, picking up canned San Marzano tomatoes, a well-aged Parmesan cheese, and housemade ground beef mix.

The Process

Guanciale

I began by cubing up a chunk of guanciale about half the size of my fist. I threw it into a heavy sauce pan and rendered out about half of the fat. I then added a diced yellow onion and sweated it out. From there, I added a pound of freshly ground beef and browned it. Next went in three 28 oz. cans of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, which were left to cook under very low heat for about 4 hours. With about 30 minutes left I added a handful of chopped basil and adjusted the seasoning with some kosher salt and pepper, as well as a splash (or three) of red wine vinegar. The fresh penne pasta that I purchased from Los Paisanos was boiled in water for about 4 minutes before cooking for another 3-4 minutes in the actual sauce. The plate was finished with some freshly ground aged Parmesan cheese and paired with Seizoen Bretta from Logsdon Farmhouse Ales.

So, was the pairing any good?

A lovely pairing

This was a wonderful pairing. The Parmesan cheese that was used had a nice fruitiness as well as an earthy undertone that sang wonderfully with the earthy brett used in the saison. Additionally, the saison was very effervescent and had a firm bitterness than created a nice interplay with the fairly rich and flavorful sauce. The only negative aspect was that the beer had a bit of a plastic / peated scotch phenol, which was a little harsh and stuck out a bit from the overall harmony of the pairing.

Troegs Perpetual IPA Review

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Nick Ladd

Perpetual IPA on a Sunny Brooklyn Afternoon

East coast IPAs are frequently eclipsed by their hoppier west coast cousins. This was especially true a couple of years ago, before wildly popular beers like Heady Topper and various offerings from Hill Farmstead stormed the national beer stage. Of course, like all generalizations, there are certainly exceptions. More and more east coast breweries are shifting production towards the market’s demand for over-the-top hop aroma and flavor and producing beers like Perpetual IPA; a beer that makes the west coaster in me feel right at home.

Beer Data:

Purchased: 9/10/12 at a neighborhood bodega – $14.99 / 12oz. 6 pack
Availability: Year-round (according to Troegs’ website)
Bottle Date: 7/2012
Alcohol: 7.5% ABV

Commercial Description from Website:

In our constant evolution as a brewery, we’ve developed an undying drive to meld the organic and the mechanical. Perpetual IPA utilizes our hopback and dry-hopping to engineer a bold Imperial Pale Ale. It features Bravo, Chinook and Mt. Hood hops in the boil, Mt. Hood and Nugget hops in the hopback, and is further dry-hopped with Citra and Cascade hops.

Tasting Notes:

Graphically Pleasing Label

Aroma: A thick luscious hop aroma fills your nose–reminiscent of tangerine, mango, and a touch of pineapple to go along with a small amount of classic grapefruit. Almost no malt aroma makes it through the hops, but what is evident has a very lightly toasted French bread quality. After further contemplation, some very light spicy hop notes are evident as well as a hint of pine forest. The hop aroma is the star here with many layers and a deep complexity. 12 / 12

Appearance: Near-crystal clarity with a hue that is only a couple shades deeper than a classic pilsner. Billowy off-white head forms sticky foam that resists until the last drop. 3 / 3

Flavor: Like the aroma, the flavor is dominated by hops. Grapefruit becomes more evident in the flavor, perhaps due to the fruitiness combining with the hops bittering qualities. There is a very light toasty malt component that needs to be searched for. Only the slightest hint of alcohol comes through; an impressive feat in a beer of this size. Personally, I love the flavor of this beer, but to better fit the style, it would require a little more malt complexity. 14 / 20

Mouth Feel: This beer is very dry and drinkable. The bitterness is firm, but on the low end of the style when compared to other commercial examples. I actually prefer this to the bracingly sharp bitterness of many IPAs. The body is medium, medium/light with a level of carbonation that is quenching but not harsh. 4 / 5

Overall Impression: A very well-balanced beer. The massive hop aroma and flavor is varied and intense while the relatively easy bitterness keeps the beer from being harsh and enhances its ability to be consumed one after another. I love this beer and hope to find a less-expensive source of it so it can become a routine drinker. It’s interesting that the label refers to this beer as an ‘Imperial Pale Ale’ rather than ‘India Pale Ale’–perhaps this is an allusion to the lean malt character and restrained bitterness? 8 / 10

Score: 41 / 50 (Outstanding)

Note: Evaluation done according to BJCP Scoring System. This beer was reviewed as a Category 14b. American IPA.

Founders Breakfast Stout Review

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Nick Ladd

Breakfast in a Glass

The Pacific Northwest is home to a rich craft brewing tradition, offering a wealth of world-class beers made both locally and available through distribution channels. While living there, I was spoiled. That being said, a beer geek cannot help but hear about beers available elsewhere and dream about the day he’ll get to try them. For myself, and I’m sure other west coasters, Founders Breakfast Stout is one of these forbidden fruits. As I drove across the country I had the chance to stop at Founders in Grand Rapids, MI and sample many of their fine beers. Alas, there was no Breakfast Stout to be had (at the time), but I knew once I hit NYC, I’d have ready access to this great brew.

Beer Data:

Purchased: 9/6/12 at Key Foods in Park Slope, Brooklyn. $12.99 / 12 oz. 4 pack
Availability: Now through February in NYC (according to Founders’ website)
Bottle Date: 8/2/12
Alcohol: 8.3% ABV

Commercial Description from Website:

The coffee lover’s consummate beer. Brewed with an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, and Sumatra and Kona coffee, this stout has an intense fresh-roasted java nose topped with a frothy, cinnamon-colored head that goes forever.

Tasting Notes:

Aroma: Sticking your nose into the glass is like walking through a great coffee roasting house. Strong aromas of cold pressed coffee leap from the glass. The coffee isn’t burnt or acrid, but rather smooth and nutty, with a light fruitiness (almost a tang), and a roast similar to a good dark chocolate. The oats come across toasted, almost like an oatmeal cookie. Cacao nibs meld nicely with the coffee, leaving an impression of chocolate covered espresso beans. Alcohol is present and becomes more so as the beer warms. 11 / 12

Appearance: Jet black with a slightly viscous pour. The head is composed of tiny bubbles which dissipate fairly quickly into a ring that alludes to the head that was once present. 2 / 3

Flavor: Bittersweet chocolate or cocoa is rounded out by a medium level of sweetness, which keeps it from being harsh. Some malt flavors of rich brown bread crust and toffee sit in the background, reminding you that this is still very much a beer. Coffee is apparent, but not nearly as heavy as the aroma would lead you to expect and is somewhat masked by the roasty chocolate notes. 17 / 20

Mouth Feel: Medium body that is considerably less heavy than many commercial imperial stouts. Oats give an almost oily impression in the mouth. There is a very firm hop bitterness that combines with roast to clean up the finish and give the impression of dryness. Bitterness leaves you wanting a little more body or residual sweetness for balance. 3 / 5

Overall Impression: As a coffee lover, I really enjoyed this beer. The coffee and chocolate components are well-integrated and meld nicely with the malt’s light toffee and toasty flavors. The bitterness could be dialed back a touch to leave the impression of a richer beer. The alcohol is very smooth with a hint of warming that reminds you you’re drinking a big beer. 8 / 10

Score: 41 / 50 (Outstanding)

Note: Evaluation done according to BJCP Scoring System. This beer was reviewed as a Category 21A Spice / Herb / Vegetable Beer (Imperial Stout with Coffee).

Victory Wild Devil Review

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Nick Ladd

Victory Wild Devil

Having been in Brooklyn for over a month now, I find myself frequently traveling around scoping out what is available on local shelves peppered with brands not available on the West Coast. From what I can tell, bottle shops come in two flavors. The high-end boutique shops (like Bierkraft) that I’ve become accustomed to in Seattle and the more utilitarian beer distributors whose storefronts are the public face of their broader distribution business. This bottle was purchased at the latter, New Beer Distributors in Manhattan. These distributors tend to have warm, dark warehouses with massive variety and minimal service. Because of this, things sometimes get lost on the shelves or simply forgotten in the back somewhere.

Browsing through the cavernous interior at New Beer Distributors, this bottle of Victory Wild Devil caught my eye. Somehow I had remembered that this particular beer hadn’t been produced for a least a couple years. How it ended up on this shelf at the bargain price of $6 is a mystery, but with so little invested, it was worth a shot.

Beer Data:

Purchased: 8/29/12 at New Beer Distributors for $6.
Format: 750ml corked and caged bottle
Bottle Date: 4/22/2009
Alcohol: 6.7% ABV

Commercial Description from Bottle:

It’s arguable that our menacingly delicious HopDevil has always been ‘wild’. Though the India Pale Ale style that he represents was born in Great Britain, we approached the style with German malts and whole flower American hops, making a unique ale of him, indeed. But what has made him truly wild is change of yeast. Brettanomyces yeast has given many a Belgian ale its soulful character of sharp tang and deep funk. Fermented completely with brettanomyces, WildDevil features the greatest flavors of Europe and America combined. Floral, aromatic hops still leap from this amber ale, but a whole host of new flavors are intertwined with the citrus and pine flavors of these hops, making WildDevil a sensation that is wild, worldly and wonderful!

Tasting Notes:

Aroma: Earthy notes of Brett are the initial impression with strong components of leather and tobacco. After the first punch of Brett additional aromas of prune and light tart cherry become evident. There also appears to be some piney hop notes which seem a little out of place. 10 / 12

Appearance: Hazy copper hues become muddied by obvious floating particles that were kicked up by a very active level of carbonation. A dramatic head forms with even the gentlest pour resulting in large bubbles that settle into a billowy latte colored head. 2 / 3

Flavor: There are some initial flavors of light caramel and light toasty crackers. There is a big bitterness bordering on astringency that beats up on the subtle malt flavors. Peppery phenolics are evident and seem a bit harsh. Very light paper notes from oxidation. 10 / 20

Mouthfeel: In-spite of a very high level of carbonation this beer manages to retain a nice medium body. The peppery phenolic notes are drying on the palate and tend to linger. Slightly boozy finish. 3 / 5

Overall Impression: This beer is amazing on the nose with the oxidized malt aromas of prunes combining nicely with some of the more earthy Brett flavors. Unfortunately, the flavors is dominated by a harsh phenol which really make the experience less than optimal. I would have loved to taste this beer with less age as it seems like it probably was an outstanding beer earlier in its life. 6 / 10

Score: 31/50 (Very Good)

Note: Evaluation done according to BJCP Scoring System. This beer was reviewed as a Category 16 Belgian Specialty Ale (Belgian IPA with Brett).