Suburban Drum Circles or Farm-To-Table Bravado

The other day I was driving through my mother-in-law's neighborhood on my way to see her and I spied a new restaurant in the chain ridden stucco jungle that is South Orange County. Seeing that it had something to do with craft beer I was naturally interested, so I looked it up online.

“..we are independent and locally owned. We do things differently and believe in using only the freshest and highest quality ingredients. Our foods are largely organic, our brews and signature cocktails are all craft...Our Eats are farm to table, local, in-season, sustainable and organic. [Chef] visits the farmer’s markets and tours local farms weekly. Our meats are of exceptional quality and are all-natural, antibiotic and hormone free. Our [beers] are strictly craft and our [wine is] largely boutique. Our menu will change frequently as we transition seasons to provide for only the freshest and best products available. Like we said, we do it differently.”

Seems normal, right? Seems like a place I'd like to eat for sure. However, if they're a locally owned, sit down, non-chain restaurant, shouldn't they naturally be using only the freshest and highest quality ingredients? Where I grew up we have many family owned restaurants. They aren't chains, they're locally owned and run. Their menus note the like of “Covelo Beef” or “Roundman's Smoked Bacon” or “Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper” reflecting that the menu is indeed local and mostly organic. I have indeed been spoiled, however my spoilage has perhaps turned to the resentment of people I feel are trying to make a quick buck.

I'm at the point that when I see a restaurant boasting their organic, fresh, slow, sustainable, morning-greeted, tucked-in-at-night, holding-hands-sing-kum-bay-ya produce I immediately associate it with snobby beertenders, stingy portions and a wallet enema. The best example was the first episode of that show “Portlandia” when they want to know the name of the chicken they're going to eat! It's gotten ridiculous. No one expects Denny's or Coco's to be farm-to-table here, no one expects healthy food at Taco Bell, but it is not too much to expect your typical family owned restaurant to do it's best in the name of sustainability and health without trying to appeal to the thick framed hipster crowd.

So, what were they trying to accomplish here? Were the new owners scared of their potential customers' past experiences being tainted by the ubiquity of the TGIF's, Chilli's and Applebees which more or less bookend their new location? In all honesty, I've never eaten here. But I intend to. I can't wait to check out their beer selection. The food might even be sensational! What I'm curious about is why did the new owners feel the need to publish their mission statement and menu in such a grossly hipster fashion? Was it the the above-mentioned fear of customer ignorance? Was it a desire to cash in on a growing trend in urban/suburban cuisine culture? If so, I have to question their strategy. The suburbanites living around them who are content with BJ's and Sizzler's are likely not their target audience anyway. And the slightly more dialed in yoga mat toting crowd ,no doubt plugged in to Twitter and Yelp and those platforms, will have obviously come to expect a family owned restaurant that isn't pretentiously self congratulatory of the fact that they aren't using Sysco distributed foods!

I intend to eat here for my husbands birthday in May and I can't wait to pick the owner's brain about their philosophy behind all this bravado. And I will report back to you, gentle reader, on my investigation. I'm not ragging (too much at least) on the slow food movement here but it reminds me of a story: An investor was getting his shoes shined early in October of 1929 when the guy shining his shoes started giving him investment tips. The investor, quite worried, thought to himself, “If everyone is investing how long could this possibly last” and pulled out of the market before Black Tuesday hit later that month.

Living in urban San Diego this would be “so ten minutes ago.” A marketing pitch like this would have been eaten up and spit out in the blink of an eye. Hell you try this in North Park and I bet it would be less than a week before you were shaken down for some sort of holistic “protection” money with the understanding that if you did not pay up you would get worked over by a fixie chain. San Diego is beyond saturated with hipster rhetoric: farm-to-table, chicken's holding hands etc. (Yeah it's a love/hate thing.)

These guys are more than likely sincere in their love of real food, and I'll find out more about what motivated their angle when I eat there. But for the record, I can't wait to live in a world when the platitudes expressed in their menu are taken for granted by most restaurant goers, and such adjectives need not be thrown in my face. Instead I would get intrigued by a bold advertisement that reads “Cheap Sit Down Stoner/Gamer Food: Fast!” “Come to Joe's, I will deep fry your pre-packaged Sysco snacks and have them to your table in under seven minutes—and there's never a charge for extra ranch.”

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Beerfest is almost here!

Beautiful Copper Vats!

I am so excited about this Saturday! My favorite beerfest in the whole wide world is being held in Boonville this weekend and I can hardly wait to see all my friends. Literally all of them, it's where old friends from my home town collide with my awesome beer industry friends and get together for a common cause- Great craft beer!!! Every year Anderson Valley Brewing Company (@avbc) hosts dozens of breweries to come out to our beautiful county and enjoy what many of us were so fortunate to have been brought up in, fantastic friends and a scenery most people only see in car commercials.

New touchscreen technology meets old

First 10 barrel system among giants

Today, I went to the brewery to celebrate my fathers birthday with an intense round of disc golf and beer. Founded in 1987 Anderson Valley Brewing Company was started in the cellar of their pub back when they served food. They started out with a little 10 barrel system that you can still find today in their fermentation hall along with their original “Coming Soon” sign posted on the outside. AVBC has stayed true to their small town roots (even though recently changing hands to new owner Trey White) and really is living up to the Mendocino County spirit. A significant amount of their power is produced through solar energy and they are expanding their personal hop crop of Cascades and Goldens to the front and back of the property. Boasting 38 acres I'm sure we'll see more peak-a-boo crops in the near future. Currently they produce 10 beers and produce a rotating “Bahl Hornin'” series that comes out only to their visitor center and some local restaurants every 4 months and have beers available in 6 different countries including Australia and China. While I was there I got to try their fantastic brandy barrel aged barleywine which brought up an important question, will we see more experimentation in barrel aged beers and sours?! Yes, we will! Rumor has it that today they brewed a Weiss that may or may not have something to do with the Chardonnay Barrels that I spied on my way out. Rumor also has it that this years Winter Solstice may or may not be spending some time being aged in bourbon barrels! I guess we'll have to see! I'm super excited and can't wait to see all the wonderful brewers, industry personnel and friends this Saturday. Cheers and have a Bahl Branchin' n Hornin'!!!

Things to come

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Karl Strauss San Diego Beer Week Snippet

After a fun filled weekend in Colorado I managed to recuperate in time to take in some of the festivities in San Diego, of which there were many! At the Bloggers Conference there was one local brewery from San Diego that had truly piqued my interests and they had for a couple days leading up to the conference, and that was Karl Strauss.

A few days before the conference I was speaking to Steve Goto, a brewery rep, regarding his ideas of the three tier system (Brewer, Distributor, Retailer) and he had mentioned that Karl Strauss was indeed a mini-micro brewery. While I had through that Karl Strauss was reaching the size of Samuel Adams they have been building their fan base in San Diego, Orange, and LA counties almost exclusively.

I took a tour of their original brewery where I learned all about their “fast fermentation techniques” of using oxygen stones and medical grade oxygen to make the little yeast ferment at warp speed! After the tour of their “down town” brewery I got a chance to speak with Chris Cramer the CEO of Karl Strauss. He passionately discussed Uncle Karl's influence in the making of Karl Strauss beer, especially the origin of the Red Trolly recipe which was one of Uncle Karl's own. Uncle Karl had bases in Germany as a brewer and brought much of that influence into the recipes.

The greatest thing that interested me about Karl Strauss was the size. They seemed so big from an outside standpoint and yet were so small. In Disney's California Adventure, Karl Strauss is the only beer that is served! I was curious as to how that effected demand? Cramer calmly said they have looked into distributing farther but they're very comfortable with their size and exclusivity that they have now and maybe might look into distributing to northern California in the near future.

I participated in their Cask Night as they popped open a special San Diego Beer Week special Stout, which was fantastic. I truly recommend that if you are in the San Diego area to visit their down town location, they have so many more beers there than they distribute and the food is simply outstanding!

Karl Strauss

1157 Colombia St.

San Diego, CA 92101

(619) 234-2739 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (619) 234-2739      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

@Karl_Strauss

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Oskar Blues Brewery and Beer Swapping

The wonderful people at Oskar Blue Brewery opened the doors of their brew pub, The Tasty Weasel, to the herd of weasels (or cats) that is the BBC blogger crowd. Hungry bloggers poured in to find Dale's Pale Ale and Old Chub taps at the back to pour at your leisure and a meal fit for several members of the royal family (The Boudin Balls were the best, and no, for those of you out there that were asking me if I was going to get rocky mountain oysters, I did not). Pulled pork, chicken wings, home-make bleu cheese dressing, gumbo....needless to say I thoroughly hurt myself.

After dinner and a fun game of Foosball with The Beer Wench, we were given a tour of the brewery to see all the wonderful gadgets that they were playing with, including a new kegging machine that they had just purchased from Sierra Nevada! They explained the importance of canning and how they truly avoid oxidization with “co2 knives” to cut the head off the beer and place the caps on and seal them oxygen free. We also got a glimpse of things to come packed away in oak barrels but they insisted that I was hallucinating, they weren't the barrels I was looking for apparently...

We left Oskar Blues with heavy hearts however this quickly changed to euphoria because we had a bottle share to get to back at the conference site. There was so much beer that I had never tasted before, so naturally I had no other choice but to tackle the task of making sure at least a drop hit my pallet. I feel that this part of the night is best explained visually so I have made a montage of the evening as I remember it. Enjoy!

Coverage of the the Beer Bloggers Conference brought to you by




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An Afternoon of Fates Perfection: Tustin Brewing Co.

Living behind the Orange Curtain often makes it difficult for one to look past the peroxide and silicone, which is why it came to such a surprise to me that there is a brewery in Tustin, CA. At the 14th Annual Boonville Beerfest, situated by Pizza Port's booth, was a sign that read “Tustin”. I looked at the gentlemen running the booth, who happened to be the owner, and said something along the lines of "No way! Tustin?!" Yes, Tustin. So I decided to go seek them out, little did I know I was soon to be standing in the presence of a true artisan and the creator of the one of the most unique beers in the world.

Located in possibly the cutest shopping center I've laid my eyes on, full of towers and cute shops, lies one of Orange County's best kept secrets. You walk in and there is an eating area to your right and to your left is a very long bar facing all the brewing equipment where on any given day you will find Tustin's brewmaster, John Porter, working away at his craft. As usual my husband and I asked what was being brewed and the bar tender told us “6 beers” and brought out a 5 taster board with an extra taster on the side. Included in this taster were the following: Golden Spike Light Ale, Lemon Heights Hefeweizen, American Pale Ale(5.6%), Old Town IPA(6.4%) and Red Hill Red. The extra taster was their Thunder Horse Nitro Stout. I was definitely not prepared for the slow play they were throwing me and the sand bag that came following the taster.

I worked through the taster as planned, starting with the Golden Spike Light Ale. I thought it was like a hayride in August minus the hay fever. It was very wheaty, pleasantly so, with a quick finish.

Lemon Heights Hefe (served with a lemon) was next I didn't feel that this was their strongest beer tasted rather bitter and yeasty but after I squeezed some lemon into it the bitterness turned to a slight citrus rind flavor, again pleasant but not their best.

Third up was the American Pale Ale. It was light with a slight nutty flavor and the bitterness was fair definitely not as bitter as their Old Town IPA which was next in line, that had a burnt malt, crisp hops and I thought a bit of a java flavor to it but Glenn disagreed with me on that point. The thing that I thought most enjoyable about the Pale Ale and the IPA was how pure it tasted, I didn't feel the same way about the Hefe or the Light Ale.

I like the Red Hill Red, very malty brown and sugary, but it finished dry.

Then the Thunder Horse Nitro Stout I felt at this point was my favorite, it tasted like a smoky porter but much more fluid, it wasn't as thick as you would assume by looking at it.

You're probably leaning back in your chair and yawning right now at my review, wondering why I sped through those so quickly- well I'll tell you: Im far from done! I am definitely far too excited about what happened next to delay it any longer.

Glenn and I had our noses stuck in our iPhones typing furiously about the beers when the brewmaster walked by and said “Well aren't you guys the most antisocial couple at the bar! What did you think of the beer?” We discussed the 6 beers that we had tasted and apparently they had more that the bartender hadn't mentioned. So Mr. Porter handed us a couple splashes of the Happy Pillz and Jason Four-Oh and essentially told us to stick that in our pipe and smoke it- and we did.

Happy Pillz was such an awesome mix of Mexican Yeast, Czech Hops and Rice- I was blown away by this fun with a slightly sweet after taste Pils. It was pure early summer joy in a glass! I could see this going well with fish or shrimp (and it went quite nicely with the Tabbouleh that was on the side of my Sausage Sampler).

The Jason Four-Oh blew me right off my stool. Forty different kinds of malts!!!!! It smelled like scotch and tasted like love, pure—yet without any booziness. It had notes of Passion Fruit, Lychee nut and did I say love? Forty different kinds of malts, and no tipping out an ounce for your fallen homies required! I know, you must try it to believe me!!! At this point I hate to say it but I had completely forgotten about the original tasters. Why weren't these on the taster? I was very impressed with these last two highly creative beers.

Jotting down notes about these last two and enjoying them thoroughly, the brewmaster returned with what must have been a 2cc splash of this amber liquid in a shot glass and asked, “Tell me what you think of this?”

I closed my eyes and took the scent in, it smelled of warm honey dripping off the hot buttery comb, or a maple tree bleeding in the dusky sunshine of a primordial forest in June. I slowly took a sip, and I was transported to the top of Mount Olympus drinking ambrosia with the gods. It was akin to a liquid Belgian waffle! It was all the greatest things in the world—liquified in a glass! It was John Porter's personal project, a 3.5 year old Barleywine. Now as I mentioned in the Boonville post, I had heard about their Blizzard of Oz Barleywine, but had not tasted it, I just want you to know that this amber perfection I am raving about is not Blizzard of Oz. Apparently BoO was made by their previous brewmaster. My husband looked at me and said “I think almost every architect in the world has locked away somewhere in their bottom desk drawer plans to the tallest building in the world. It is their master piece. It is their secret desire. It is all their creativity and passion channeled into one vision and joyously unleashed from the restrictions of the mundane world.” That day we tasted a brewers' masterpiece. Mr. Porter then did me and my husband the unequivocal honor of pouring out a half pint of this near religious nectar. As I write this I hope and pray with everything I have that he is able to replicate this wonderful piece of art because there is not enough left to release publicly. I know, shoot me now for building it up and dropping that one on you faster than an Warner Brothers ACME Piano.

Tustin Brewery thus far is my favorite brewery in Orange County. I think they are very lucky to have such a talented and hard working brewer such as John Porter and I can't wait to see what kind of beers he will be creating this year. I truly hope that he will be able to replicate his Barleywine of ambrosial epicness, but until then every one needs to discover their Happy Pillz and Jason Four-Oh. Thank you for giving me a peek into your deepest barrel, and allowing me a sip of such other-worldly perfection!

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