Tag Archives: food

Baba Louie’s Pizza

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If you are ever traveling through the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and you are looking for a fun lunch you should seek out Baba Louie’s in Great Barrington.

Baba Louie’s serves up wood fired gourmet pizza and more. I love pizza but I am quite picky about it. It either has to be classic Jersey (NY) pizza, or gourmet – two completely different things, but both delicious in their own way.

One of the pizzas we tried here had parsnips, sweet potatoes, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and a balsamic reduction and it was amazing. You could tell that the crust is hand made which is crucial in my opinion.

Baba Louie’s also serves up some of Berkshire Brewing Company’s craft beers. We both had the Drayman’s Porter which was fantastic. It was not overly roasted and had a good thick barley mouth feel with a nice balance of hops. It matched well with our hearty pizzas, too.

Check it out and if you can swing it, do it in the fall like the last week in September when you can see the spectacular fall foliage.

Arizona Pizza Company

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So, what do I decide to do for lunch the day after a beer and wing festival? Of course go get some more! We tried out the Arizona Pizza Company in Clifton Park, New York.

First, the beer selection. They had Sam Adams Lager and the seasonal. They also had Red Hook Longhammer IPA and Kona Longboard. After that, they had a very limited selection of no less than two dozen crappy Bud’s and Amstel imports.

The wings, which came in several flavors, were excellent. We got classic hot Buffalo style and they were pretty hot. (My wife thought they were extremely hot.) They were crispy and meaty. They could easily have competed with the best from the festival.

Lastly, the pizza was pretty good for this small chain restaurant. We got the Kokopelli wood fired pizza and I thought the crust could have been better and the toppings distributed a little better but otherwise it was cheesy and tasty.

OK, I think I have had enough food for the entire weekend.

Leinenkugel Classic Amber Review

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I finally got around to sampling the new Leinenkugel  Classic Amber. Leinenkugel is not a beer I would normally pick up from the shelves at my local candy store. The name sounds so European that you would never guess that it is made in Wisconsin. (German in origin if you want to look it up)

leinenkugel-classic-amber

The beer pours a nice amber color with a white head and some head retention. While Leinenkugel  is a subsidiary of Miller/Coors, the linking of the two companies appears to be primarily for marketing reasons, not brewing technique. But, any beer marketing the fact that it is 100% malt tells me they normally add adjuncts… let’s see what it tastes like.
 
The beer does have some hop aroma and a light kick of hops on the tongue. Overall the beer is light and tasty. It does have a distinct flavor that I can’t quite put my hands on… something like an export; perhaps it is the water.

I have two bottles to review so I invited my lovely wife to have one and gave her a blind taste test directly against one of her favorite brands, Hook & Ladder.  In order to make this an apples-to-apples comparison I had to put Hook & Ladder’s Golden Ale up against it, not their Ember Amber because the Ember is a much richer beer. (my personal favorite from Hook & Ladder)

They matched up quite well, very close in style. I thought the Leinenkugel was a bit crisper with a slightly more hop bite. My wife agreed but didn’t like the lingering aftertaste as much. She enjoyed the “more rounded” (as she put it) Golden Ale better. We both agreed in the end that both beers are best served as a lighter refreshing beer paired with tangy, smoky or spicy fare. German potato salad comes to mind.

Leinenkugel has been brewing in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin since 1867 by the Leinenkugel Brewing Company. Their new Classic Amber is made from two and six row barley and four varieties of hops. (Cluster, Cascade, Mt. Hood & Hallertau) They have several other styles in their portfolio: Original, Light, Honey Weiss, Sunset Wheat, Red, Creamy Dark, Berry Weiss, Oktoberfest, Apple Spice, Big Butt Doppelbock and Summer Shandy.

2009: The year for cooking with beer?

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I apologize for the unintended poetry, but it’s already looking like “cooking with beer” is a definite trend for 2009.

Here’s my evidence:

  • My wife loves her Food Network, and she has noticed a pronounced increase in scenarios where beer is an ingredient
  • Some people who know a thing or three about beer have made it one of their key predictions (Brookston Beer Bulletin, The Brew Site)
  • Mainstream (i.e., non-beer-focused) publications are writing about it (Pottstown Mercury)
  • The National Beer Wholesalers Association have created a site, Taste of Beer, to focus attention on cooking with beer and pairing beer and food
  • My wife made a delicious beer bread over the weekend

All right, so that last isn’t exactly “evidence”. I have, however, used beer to cook the meat for chili for years. Which is also a good thing, since cooking with beer may help prevent cancer.

So, while I don’t normally go in for the whole “Resolution” thing at the beginning of the year, I think I’d like to try my hand at more cooking, especially using beer as an ingredient.

Got a favorite recipe? Share in the comments or send to al (at) hop-talk (dot) com.

Old Chub French Onion Soup

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From Ron’s kitchen, adapted from A.B. and others…

Old Chub French Onion Soup
Prep/cook time: All day (at least 3 hours)
Servings: 8

Ingredients

  • 4 lbs onions (yellow, sweet, red… whatever)
  • 3 TBSP butter
  • 12 oz Old Chub Scottish Ale (or any dark, robust, sweet beer)
  • 6 oz white wine
  • about 30-40 oz broth made up of:
    - 10 oz canned beef consume
    - 20 oz beef broth (or chicken)
    - 10 oz apple cider (A.B. recommends unfiltered)
    (amount depends on how thick you like it, and you can even do all beef broth if you like)
  • Bay leaf
  • 1 TBSP Parsley (or sprigs of fresh would be better)
  • 1 1/2 tsp thyme (or sprigs of fresh would be better)
  • kosher salt and pepper
  • splash of Cognac (optional)
  • 1 loaf bread (country style or french bread)
  • 1 cup cheese, shredded/grated (I prefer a combo 75% Mozzarella and 25% Gruyere)
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Trim off ends of onions then half lengthwise. Remove peel and slice into semi-circle strips
  3. Melt butter in dutch oven, add onions and kosher salt. (about 1 1/2 tsp salt) Stir to coat onions in butter. Cover and place in oven for 1 hour. After 1st hour, scrape & stir, return to oven with lid open a crack. After about 1/2 hour, scrape & stir again. Check every 15  minutes, scraping and stirring until onions are dark mahogany. Do not worry about burning.
  4. Remove from oven, add beer and wine (enough to cover) and turn heat to high reducing the liquid to a syrup. Add broth/consume/cider & herbs and simmer 15-20 mins, or put in crock pot on warm until you are ready to eat.
  5. Place oven rack in top 1/3 and heat broiler.
  6. Cut country bread in rounds to fit in mouth of oven safe soup crocks. Place bread slices on baking sheet and put under broiler for 1 minute.
  7. Season soup with salt & pepper (and Cognac). (remove herb sprigs). Ladle into each soup crock leaving about an inch then cover with bread toasted side down and then cover with cheese. Broil crock for about 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted and golden.