Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout

Tracy and I have posted or commented lately about some great chocolate stouts. But, I have to give props to another stout. One served in a can. WTF?? Yes, in a can! It is Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout. This is one great stout. Why? Because it is such a nice balance between the coffee and the chocolate. Really, one taste you get a nice coffee, then you wonder about the chocolate and take another sip ... and there it is. Here is the description from the Flying Saucer beer database:
The Buried Hatchet is a strong Foreign-export stout (stylistically speaking) with medium initial sweetness, medium body, and pervasive coffee and chocolate notes in the nose and in the taste. There is no hop aroma or flavor, but the hop bitterness is relatively high, although somewhat masked by the malt sweetness. 8.25%
I am so glad I just finished my 1st plate so I could enjoy this one again ... and get credit!!

Good Beer, Good Food...What's Not to Love??

'Tis the season for holiday dinners, and last Monday night Joe, the Reverend and I indulged in a delicious five-course food and beer adventure at our local Flying Saucer.  They brought in a rep from Boston Beer to present a Samuel Adams Holiday Beer Dinner.  (I sincerely want this person's job.)  Here's what we had:

We started off with a flute of Infinium, a collaboration between Boston Beer and Weihenstephan Brewery in Germany.  Infinium, 10.3 abv, is a "champagne-like" beer marketed as the first new beer style to be developed under the restrictions of the Reinheitsgebot in over a century.  Reinheitsgebot is the German purity law enacted in 1516 (although overturned in 1987) that required all beers be made with only water, barley, hops, and yeast.

Infinium comes in what looks like a champagne bottle and is sort of in between a champagne, a dessert wine, and a Pilsner. You get the body and mouthfeel of a beer, some of the hop character of a beer, but it's very dry like champagne.  But then, because of the processes and different types and ratios of only those four ingredients, I could taste peaches and apricots - reminicent of dessert wine.  Totally yummy, and probably what we'll toast with at our New Year's party.



So Cheers!  and on with dinner...

First Course: Samuel Adams White Ale (a Belgian-style wheat beer brewed with 10 unique spices.  This unfiltered brew has a hazy white appearance from the malt proteins which give this beer a crisp, malty, cereal finish and smooth mouthfeel) served with spring mix salad tossed with mandarin oranges, pomegranate seeds, spiced pecans and pomegranate vinaigrette. 

We could really taste the tamarind spice (sort of a sweet/sour flavor...it really hit me in the back of my upper palate - like where you feel a cough drop's vapor - right up the back of my nose.) and the citrus in the beer.  I didn't think it went with the sweetness of the salad ingredients, but the Reverend liked the contrasting flavors.  By the way, if you've never tackled a pomegranate - they're in season.  They're are a lot of work, but they are wonderful.  Don't wear a white shirt.

Second Course: Samuel Adams Winter Lager (a wheat bock brewed with cinnamon, ginger and orange peel) served with cilantro-jalapeno latkes and a tart sour cream.

This was a great food/beer pairing.  The sweet spiciness of the cinnamon/ginger combination launched the cilantro/jalapeno into another realm.  I was doin' a little chair dance of deliciousness.

Third Course: Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock (yeah, I know...a beer on the dark and malty end of the bock beer spectrum.  Instead of dry hopping, they added cocoa nibs to the storage tank.  This year the nibs are from Tcho Chocolate.  They are a blend of Columbian and Ecuadorian cocoa beans...I frankly didn't care where they came from, I was just happy they ended up in my beer) served with braised short ribs, hand rubbed with smoked paprika and spices, slow-cooked in Chocolate Bock, then glazed in a sweet chipotle sauce, served with a dollop of polenta.

Christ Almighty.  There is a God and He's come to earth in the form of a short rib and chocolate bock beer.  The beer was not as dark chocolately as the Harpoon we had the other night; it was more milk chocolately.  And combined with the spices from the rib, the bock's underlying flavors spread out across my tongue and I think I actually drooled a bit.  Undoubtedly THIS was my favorite pairing of the evening.  Well, so far.

Fourth Course: Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig Ale (a spiced brown ale that the SA folks like to call the Christmas Cookie beer) served with a small wedge of brie, apricot preserves, multi-grain crackers, dried cranberries and almonds.

The Fezziwig (Yes, Virginia, that IS a character in Dickens' A Christmas Carol) tasted like a malty, bready cookie - sweet-ish and savory.  And with the cheese and preserves, it was a great choice after the bock and rib flavors. 

Fifth Course: Samuel Adams Holiday Porter (a traditional, no frills porter.  Roasty, with a pronounced bitterness from traditional UK hops, it is a big beer for the colder months) served with coffee ice cream sundaes topped with caramel and chocolate sauce and honey roasted pecans. 

Do I even have to try to describe what we tasted here?  Melt in your mouth flavor, paired perfectly with the ice cream and toppings.  A great wallop of my favorite flavors.  Please, sir, may I have some more?

All of the beers were served in 5oz snifters (except for the Infinium) and the courses were small plates, sort of one of each.  Just enough beer with just enough food.  It was a fabulous dinner, and we begged them to do it again with other brewers.  I'll keep you posted.

Addison Flying Saucer Beer Dinner

This last Monday, the Addison Flying Saucer had a beer dinner. It was a collaboration between Samuel Adams and the Flying Saucer pairing food with beer. Rachelle Bose was the presenter from Samuel Adams. She was very knowledgeable and nice to watch :) If I remember right, there were about 24 people who attended the dinner. I would have bet that all of them were UFO members, but there were a couple of guys sitting next to our table who weren't.

It started off with a special treat. Samuel Adams and Germany's Weihenstephan got together and created a new beer called Infinium. It comes in a champagne bottle and it was served in champagne flutes.

1st course was White Ale with a salad.
2nd course was Winter Lager with Cilantro-Jalapeno Latkes with tart sour cream. I think the general consensus in the room was that the latkes should be added to the menu!
3rd course was Chocolate Bock with spicy braised short ribs. OMG! The chipotle spice rub on the short ribs was so freaking excellent with the chocolate bock. Sadly, the Chocolate Bock is only a seasonal beer. Get it while you can!!
4th course was Old Fezziwig Ale and some brie cheese, apricot preserves and almonds. If you are wondering if Old Fezziwig was named after a character in Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol", then pat yourself on the back.
5th and last course was Holiday Porter and coffee ice cream. I am a freak for porters and loved this one. I even sent an official request to have the coffee ice cream added as a regular on the menu for serving with Youngs Double Chocolate Stout as a float.

I would love to see this style of dinner done 3 or 4 times per year. Enough to enjoy, but not so often you wait for the next one. They could even work with different breweries, like a local called Franconia.

Here is the menu:

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...The Real Reason For This Post

Yay, the Reverend drank 200 beers.  Yay, he's gettin' a plate at the Saucer.  Yay, we partied on his tab last night.  But here's the real reason for this post: a new beer we discovered last night.  Harpoon Chocolate Stout.
 
Holy Crap!  If you like rich dark chocolate this is the beer for you.  It's described as having a hint of chocolate, but it's more like a hint of beer.  This is an amazing concoction.  Not forever after my favorite beer, and certainly not a session beer, but OMG you should not miss out on this seasonal from Harpoon. 

It pours almost black with very little head.  Immediately you can smell the chocolate, and WHAM it's in your face with the first sip.  Who cares about finish or mouthfeel?  This is one tasty beverage.  It's just under 6% abv, so it's not as stout-y as most.  But after a deep hearty quaff, you may feel the need to wipe the melted chocolate off your chin. 

So very good, I had two (even though only one counted toward my next plate).  Oh, and, thanks, Rev!

And Here's the Man Himself - Or What's Left of Him

Congrats, Rev!

Here's a better look at the plate.

They'll be nailin' it to the wall at the Saucer on Thursday.  We'll take pictures.

1st Plate ... Done!

Friday was a great day. I hit a milestone of 60 pounds lost. I then decided to make it a bifecta (trifecta minus one) and have my 198th, 199th & 200th beers to earn my first plate. We had a nice group of people there. I have to give HUGE kudos to my favorite server/part time manager at the Addison Flying Saucer. Christy is great. Once I had my 200th beer, she took my slips, had them entered and then cleared my count so I could enjoy more beer at The Lake Flying Saucer. It was kind of cool to run my card and see ZERO beers.

If you are curious, my 200th beer was Shiner Cheer. Seemed so apropos to finish with a Texas Christmas beer.