For the Love of Craft Beer!

For those who know me, I am a lover of craft beers! I love everything about them from the craftsmanship, the tastes, the cool designs on the bottles, its origin or where they are brewed, the stories that sometime appear on the bottles, the recipes that are created with the beers, the ingredients used in making them, and the dishes they pair well with.

 I may sound snobby or snooty like I don’t appreciate a domestic lager, or don’t invite me over for a drink because I only like those weird beers, but that’s not the case, I believe there is a time and place for everything.

What I am a fan of is culture and lifestyle. It seems the craft beer scene has that and more. I have drank craft beers in the east coast of Canada, Chicago but mostly here in Ontario where we have a very vast and diverse scene. Toronto/GTA seems like every burrow has its own brew shop.

Just North of home, in Barrie, there is Flying Monkeys, Barnstromer Brewpub, Gravenhurst has Sawdust City, Bracebridge has Muskoka Brewery, Baysville has Lake of Bays, South River has Highlander Brew Co., and that’s just to name a few.

You would think all these craft brew makers would be in a constant cutthroat competition, but they all work together. They help each other, they all share the same goal and passion, and they are also the small guys fighting for a bigger cause; to give us the consumer a choice. It is good to know as a consumer where our spent beer monies go, and it’s great to see that it goes to these hardworking individuals that make it all happen.

Enjoying a craft beer is one thing, but brewing one is a whole new experience all together.

This week, I decided I wanted to brew my own batch from scratch. I have had homebrew before, usually in Newfoundland leading up to Christmas time, to save a bit off money homebrew is the way to go. Usually it’s a kit, add water to some kind of premixed base boil it let cool, add some yeast then let it ferment, bottle, then done! I wasn’t a fan. I wanted it to do it all.

I remember when I was a teen and my dad brought home a case of Steamwhistle.  When I started enjoying beers, all I saw was regular domestic brown bottle beers, Molson or Labbatts, and when he came home with this green suit case style box, I was intrigued. The bottles were unique, a different shape altogether, and the caps popped off. It was so interesting to me! It just looked good! It looked like someone took a lot of care in putting this together. The packaging, the visual imagery was very appealing. My eyes had me sold before I could even drink it (legally as well). Needless to say, it only contained 4 ingredients: water, hops, grain, yeast. Wow! I never knew then what seed had just been planted in my brain. I was attracted to craftsmanship before I knew what it even meant!

Once I was legal drinking age, I went on a tour of the Steamwhistle Brewery. That was the first of many tours that it got to the point where I almost knew the tour word for word. It was funny when the guide got tired of me finishing off his sentences, smartass!  

My love for craft beer started when I was in culinary school doing the in-class portion of my apprenticeship, and we had to do a wine program. It was a bunch of us hooligans getting our buzz-on first thing in the morning, and of course I always swallowed never spat. We always filled our glasses more than we were suppose too for tastings (cooks)! My final project was a written review of 3 different bottles of wines from different grape growing regions in the world, and I stated my case to the instructor that I am a beer guy! I am interested only in craft beers. I wasn’t passionate about it, and that’s the first line of the paper. To this day, I have that paper buried in a box somewhere. The instructor, who was also in the wine business appreciated my honesty, and thought it was cool because the craft beer scene was on the verge of exploding!

So now, here I am, 12 years later of legally drinking beer, about to brew my first batch of all grain beer. All I have ever known about brewing was that it is a very precise and complicated scientific procedure. It requires skill and knowledge, and most of what I learned is thanks to Brian Wilson, who is the 'Brewmaster' at Highlander Brew Co. (South River, Ontario), he is a perfectionist and this is his life!

 I then looked up some Youtube videos, the subject they was even more intimidating. It also seemed like a huge financial investment for me to try my hand out in something that might not even work. As luck would have it a Facebook ad popped up on my news feed for an all grain beer kit, a little one. It’s called Brooklyn Brew Shop and I had to investigate. With further research I just had to try it so I went out and got the kit. The kit included a one-gallon recipe that would give me 8 pints of beer, which was perfect!

Basically, it’s a scaled down brew kit suitable for people who live in small spaces such as apartments! It amazing to find out that the company was founded by a couple in Brooklyn who were trying to save a few bucks, but also loved craft beer and wanted to be creative at the same time, and created this kit. They released 2 books on recipes for the kit as well! Not only that it's super easy to use, none of the intimidating jargon, just the simple terms to teach the fundamentals to making a great batch of beer, from scratch. It’s also a great gateway kit for people new to home brewing and want to try it out, without breaking the bank! I haven’t been able to put down the books either. They have great recipes and stories from around the beer world and all can be done over a stove-top!

Now we wait to see how my batch turns out and I really cannot wait to try it.

Thanks again for keeping up with Vinyl, Food and Beer. 

Harvest

Harvest Season

What a beautiful time of year, especially to all the Green Thumbs out their reaping the benefits of their bounty! I’m sure they’re enjoying the beautiful fruits or vegetables they grew in their small gardens at home.  For some of apartment dwellers, or city folk who don’t have the time or space, what does this season even mean?

As tourists, we flock to rural fall fairs, enjoy the vendors, beer tents and it’s a time that is so important to the history of Ontario farming culture. There once was a time when 4 out of 5 people in Ontario were farmers, but now these fall fairs are more about the games and fun times rather than reward the farmers celebrating the hard work of their summers, from watching crops flourish.

It is also the time of year to start getting preserves ready. It is time to cellar hearty root vegetables for the long winter months ahead. For my generation, or anyone who grew up in the city, these festivals are another event to visit on the weekend. Personally, I feel that it’s important to understand the existence and meaning behind why they happen every year, so we don’t lose that part of our pioneer heritage!

What’s on the menu this week? During the past weekend, I catered an event for some awesome ladies called ‘The Roxettes!’ They are a former all-girl ball team, who get together every year for a week to do some fun thing like shop, eat and indulge in the finer things in life: like hire me as a personal chef to cook a nice dinner and breakfast for them at a rental mansion in Port Stanley, Ontario. I swear it was the house from the board game ‘Clue.’ I was lucky enough to crash in the old-school games room, which had the vintage blood red carpet with the cigar smoking and brandy sippin’ appeal you’d expect. Let me tell you it was freaky.

 The menu was as follows:

 Cocktail Hour 6pm-7pm, I did up some Caesars, the Motts Clamato, celery spice rimmed, and celery garnish you would expect! (But I love a good Caesar). I also love to get creative with the garnish, so on route to Port Stanley, I pulled off and hit up St. Jacobs, Market just to grab some provisions. I picked up some smoked back bacon, side bacon, pepperettes and produce (I jus love going to St. Jacobs Market). Basically, I did the straight up Caesar and garnished it with a pepperette, bread butter pickle and celery stick! It was awesome.

             Next I did up some sausage rolls. Having puff pastry on hand in the freezer is always a great play when it comes to home entertaining, (so what if it’s the president’s choice stuff) I didn’t make my own puff pastry dough, guilty as charged. I’m sure any chefs reading this, also have some ‘convenience product’ skeletons in their closet. Plus I am one-man show! I did get creative with the filling. I had some medium ground pork and I seasoned it up with a spice mix of toasted fennel, chili, oregano, dill, basil, garlic, salt and cracked pepper. I precooked this filling let it cool and began to proceed with filling the puff pastry. I rolled out, cut into 3 inch in diameter squares, added some cheese to the filling, and once I had them rolled nicely, I brushed them with beaten egg and into the oven 350 until brown. It was some golden sausage roll goodness.

Next item on the cocktail menu was my fiancées family’s grilled pork skewers. I take no credit for but all I know they marinade them for 2 days in their own secret recipe! And they are absolutely delicious.

The main course started with a roasted squash soup, I love harvest season in Ontario for squash are a plenty. I did this soup a day before the catering because soup needs at least 24 hours of resting before the full flavors of the ingredients develop. In the oven, I roasted a mixture of different squash, with a few bulbs of garlic, turnip and onion. Once the vegetables were soft and caramelized I added them to a pot of chicken broth, brought it up to a boil, let it cool and tossed it all in a blender to puree it. I garnished the soup with crushed plantain chips. (I love plantain chips).

Next, was the salad course, on route to Port Stanley, I stopped into the St. Thomas Golf and Country club. I met up with the executive chef who was also a competitor on Chopped Canada, and he took me on a tour of the area and the golf course and hooked me up with some local greens (salad greens that is). For the dressing, I tossed the salad in 3 parts canola oil, 1 part white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and honey to taste. Then I added fresh mint and the juice and 2 halved limes.  I put it all in a mason jar and let it sit for 2 days prior. It was a most delicious Mojito lime dressing!

 The main course consisted of a fresh herb marinated grilled chicken, roasted brussel sprouts tossed with crisp bacon, sea salt boiled baby potatoes tossed with parsley and butter, curried spice roasted cauliflower, and stew tomatoes with garlic and fresh basil. Let me tell you the aroma that filled the room was amazing.

Dessert was grilled peaches tossed in a bourbon caramel sauce on top of a lemon pound cake with vanilla ice cream (which I didn’t make and also forgot to even bring). There’s nothing like having some peaches grilled and smothered in caramel sauce.

I said earlier this old mansion reminded me of the house from the game clue, in the dining room there was a grand piano, I thought it would be cool to plate the dessert on the grand piano and light them up individually flambé style, but of course it didn’t work. It was still cool and worth on a shot on my end. On the bright side, I could have potentially burned the place down, talk about showmanship!

Overall, it was an awesome catering event.  I had a blast, the ladies had a blast, and it was so much fun. We all shared in a good drink, surrounded by good friends, good food and at the end of the day its what its all about! Creating memories.