Drink Matron

Tag: Beer

  • Summer time is a good time for drinking

    Summer time is a good time for drinking

    Tomorrow is the beginning of summer and I am excited! It’s been a great spring so far – a bit rainy, but perfectly mild – and I expect that summer will continue the same way. Great summers come with one of my favorite things – drinking outside. I love sitting outside at a bar, restaurant, or patio, sipping on beer, sangria, or a refreshing cocktail, and chatting with friends, or staying quiet and just enjoying the world around me. Life is just better with a drink and some sunshine.

    Along with drinking outside comes farm fresh brunches and day drinking. Bloodies Mary with just picked garnishes, mimosas with freshly squeezed orange juice, mint for your mojitos that the bartender sent you back to grab from the vine yourself – these are just a handful of reasons that summer day drinking is the best.

    Pool or beach side, summer brings us classic and new takes on margaritas, pina coladas, and daiquiris. These drinks bring us to a tropical state of mind and keep us their all day, weekend, or even summer long.

    And the beers! Oh, the beers of summer are the best, aren’t they? IPAs, wheats, kolsch, sour ales, and saisons make the summer nights so much more tolerable, bringing your spirits up and cooling your body down (and rocking your pallet all the while).

    No matter how you drink your summer, it’s going to be a good one. So fill up your cups, and go enjoy. I’ll be with you all the way.

    Cheers!

  • Superbowl Cocktails: Colorado vs Washington

    We’re coming up on Superbowl Sunday, and this year, the Denver Broncos will go up against the Seattle Seahawks for the coveted Lombardi Trophy. There will be plenty of beer drinking, punch swilling, and crowd screaming to go along with what will be a great night of football and expensive adverts.

    A great way to make your Superbowl party special is to serve drinks popular in Washington, Colorado, or both! No matter what, if you’re serving these, your party is sure to score all seven points.

    Colorado

    treeline-thumb-550x413The Tree Line

    This “signature cocktail” of Colorado was developed in 2011 to celebrate the state’s centennial. A contest held by the Colorado Distillers Guild and the Colorado Bartenders Guild pitted mixologists against one another to see who could come up with the best Colorado based cocktail, and Marnie Ward of Denver’s Avenue Grill came out on top with the Tree Line.

    Ingredients:
    2 Bing cherries
    2 oz Leopold’s Small Batch Whiskey
    .5 oz Leopold’s Three Pins Alpine Herbal Liqueur
    .5 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
    .5 oz simple syrup

    Muddle cherries, lemon juice and simple syrup; add whiskey and Three Pins; add ice and shake. Serve up. Garnish with round slice of lemon peel (to replicate the Colorado sun). Drink and enjoy!

    Beer

    The number one brewing state in the United States, Colorado is home to 139 breweries, including top craft brewers, Left Hand Brewing Company, New Belgium Brewing, and Oskar Blues Brewery.

    Washington

    washington appleWashington Apple Martini

    A popular drink in Washington due to its use of, and taste similar to, the Washington Apple. I may not be the official drink of Washington, but it’s certainly close enough.

    Ingredients:

    1 oz Crown Royal
    1 oz Sour apple liqueur
    1 oz Cranberry juice

    Combine ingredients in a shaker and shake well. Serve in a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with sugar and cinnamon. Garnish with a slice of Washington apple.

    Hawk Bomb

    Why not take shots for every touchdown? The folks of Seattle love to do so with this tasty blue and green bomber. In fact, it’s so popular it’s literally on the menu in some Seattle bars.

    Ingredients:

    1 part mandarin or orange vodka
    1 part blue curacao
    Red Bull

    In a cup, pour 3-4 oz of Redbull (depending on how much the drinker prefers). In a separate shot glass, combine vodka and blue curacao. Drop the shot glass into the cup and drink.

  • The Ultimate Independence Day Drink: Beer

    At this time of year, lots of blogs spend lots of time finding lots of drinks for you to choose from when celebrating Independence Day. Many mixologists mix up fantastic concoctions, both simple and complicated, some find the most red, white, and blue cocktails possible, which, are really a shot in the bucket on taste, and others just reiterate the same old summer cocktails you’d be drinking if it was any weekend spent barbecuing or hanging out with friends.

    And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with any of it.  Booze is fun. Playing around with recipes for different times of year is how we have many of our favorite cocktails. There wouldn’t be books or websites like this one if it weren’t for the creativity of mixologists and home experimenters.

    This year, however, I’ve decided to promote another kind of drink for July 4th. It’s the one that most of you will probably be drinking anyway. It’s beer.

    Beer is easy. You go to the store, you pick out what you want, you buy it, you take it to where you’re drinking, and you drink it. No fancy ingredients, no over pouring. Sure, you need ice for keeping it cold, but even after that melts, it doesn’t water down your drink, and you can always get more, pretty cheaply too.

    What kind of beer, you say? It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want, drink it! That’s another beauty about beer – there’s something for everyone. Yes, there are summer beers that are perfect for 4th of July – Saison, Witbier, Kolsch, Lager, Wheat – but it’s what you prefer that’s going to make the day for you.

    So this July 4th, don’t let anyone make you feel bad about wanting a nice cold brew.  Just drink it, be safe, and have a great time celebrating.

     

  • Portrait Party Event Photos

  • Bushwick Portrait Party 2012

    This weekend we will be attending our amazing friend Justin’s annual Portrait Party in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

    Justin began this tradition when we had the fantastic honor of living with him for 5 months when we moved to NYC the first time in 2009.  He’s a photographer and wanted a chance to take some fun and interesting pictures.  The party went so well, that he turned it into an annual event.  It will be a night of cocktails, beer, beautiful people, and most of all, portraits. (Well, for me it will be mostly about cocktails and beer, but you know what I mean…)

    To attend you’re not required to get your portrait taken, but it is strongly advised. Adrian took a few interesting ones back in 2009, and I expect there will be plenty more where that came from this year.

  • Recipes: Irish Car Bombs

    The Irish Car Bomb is a staple of the St. Patrick’s Day diet.  This delightful bomb shot consists of Irish stout, Irish whiskey, and Irish cream, and is definitely a tasty addition to the line up of potent potables imbibed on this most auspicious of occasions.

    The Irish Car Bomb was invented in 1979 by Charles Burke Cronin Oat at Wilson’s Saloon in Norwich, CT.  Originally, Oat had crafted a shot he called “The Grandfather” which was two parts Baileys and one part Kahlua.  He felt something was missing from this and eventually added a splash of Irish whiskey on top of the shot.  Commenting on the bubbling explosion-like reaction the whiskey had on the shot, Oat proclaimed “the IRA just showed up!”  Thus, the Grandfather became the IRA.  Several years later, while Oat was drinking IRAs and Guinness, he impulsively dropped the explosive concoction into what was left of his beer and drank it.  It was a success with other patrons and now we have the Irish Car Bomb.

    In the time since then, Kahlua has been dropped from the recipe leaving only the Irish ingredients.  However, the original Irish Car Bomb is still around.  These days it’s called a Belfast Car Bomb.

    Irish Car Bomb

    • 1/2 pint Irish stout (typically Guinness)
    • 1/2 ounce Irish cream (typically Bailey’s)
    • 1/2 ounce Irish whiskey (typically Jameson)

    Mix the Irish cream with the Irish whiskey in a shot glass.  Pour the half-pint of stout into a pint glass.  Drop the shot glass into the pint glass and slam.

    Note: You should drink this as fast as possible because the way that the ingredients react to each other causes the Irish cream to curdle quickly.  The flavor isn’t affected but drinking a half-pint of curdled anything is just plain gross.

    Belfast Car Bomb

    • 1/2 pint Irish stout (typically Guinness)
    • 1/2 ounce Irish cream (typically Bailey’s)
    • 1/4 ounce coffee liqueur (typically Kahlua)
    • 1 splash Irish whiskey (typically Jameson)

    Mix the Irish cream with the coffee liqueur in a shot glass.  Add a splash of Irish whiskey on top of your shot.  Pour a half-pint of Irish stout into a pint glass.  Drop the shot glass into the pint glass and slam.

  • Anchor Steam Beer

    Steam beer is an interesting style of beer and, as far as I know, Anchor is the only company that still makes it.  This beer has a nice hazy, amber color that makes you think this beer is going to be a medium to full bodied beer.  But that’s the trick, it’s actually incredibly light bodied.  It has almost an airy quality to the taste that is surprisingly dry.  The taste also drops off very quickly leaving almost no finish at all.

    If you want a beer with a load of flavor, this is not the beer for you.  If you’re looking for a crisp, refreshing beer to quench your thirst on a hot summer day, this is definitely the beer for you.

    On a 100-point scale, I give this beer 90 points.  I like the beer, but having no finish is kind of off putting to me.  I can see why people might rate this higher than me, I just like fuller bodied beers more than the lighter beers.

  • Spent Grain Bread Recipe

    Last weekend I started home brewing again.  Being that I brewed an all-grain batch, I had a concern early on about what to do with the spent grain.  When you brew all-grain beer, all that grain you used in the process ends up being a waste product after all the starches are washed out.  So what can you do with that grain once its spent?  You could throw it on a compost heap to add some nutrients to the dirt, or you could make some seriously kick ass bread!

    I looked around online and found a recipe for it.

    • 3 cups all-purpose flour
    • 1 cup whole wheat flour
    • 1/4 cup sugar
    • 2 tsp baker’s yeast
    • 2 tsp salt
    • 3 cups spent grain (ground up)
    • 1 egg (beaten)
    • 1 cup milk
    • 1/4 cup butter or olive oil

    Mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, knead, put in an oiled bowl and let it rise for ~90 minutes, punch down and put in an oiled bread pan, let rise until doubled, bake for 40 minutes at 350F, let cool for 30 minutes.

    This recipe makes 3 loaves, which is WAY more than we here at DM Labs will eat in a week and if you do the math, 3 cups of spent grain isn’t nearly all the spent grain you will have after a batch of brew.  Thankfully, bread dough freezes well for later baking.  I used up all the flour I had in my house and almost used up all of my spent grain making dough for 12 loaves of bread (all frozen now), and I froze the remaining cup or so of spent grain I have for when I restock my ingredients.

    I was expecting this bread to be run of the mill, home-baked bread, but it turned out far greater than I imagined.  This is seriously some of the best bread, commercial or homemade, that I’ve ever had.  We devoured the first loaf in just under 24 hours.

  • Drinkmatron Labs: Get Off My Lawn (version 1) Brew Day

    This week marks a special occasion in the history of drinkmatron.prjct.info.  We finally got Drink Matron Labs off the ground with our first experimental batch of beer: Get Off My Lawn Old Ale.

    So we sat down on Saturday evening, cracked open some tasty beers and got started brewing.  GOML is an all-grain beer, so we had to mash the grains.  This was the first time I’ve ever done an all-grain beer and didn’t have anything remotely resembling a mash tun to mash the grains in.

    Enter the Australians

    I style of mashing has become hugely popular on the Australian homebrew scene called Boil In A Bag (or BIAB) where you essentially steep the grains in 150ish degree water for around an hour to activate your enzymes.  This is convenient because you don’t need a separate vessel from your boil kettle and the grain is enclosed in a big bag that you can easily pull out of the kettle and do as you please with.

    Unfortunately, you need to keep a constant eye on your temperature and wrap your kettle several blankets to keep your mash at the appropriate temperature.  By the end of my mash schedule, my mash had cooled down to 140 degrees, which is not terrible, but not ideal either.

    In the end, we locked it away inside Mr. Beer and let that yeast get to fermenting.  Stay tuned to hear how it turned out.

  • What is Oktoberfest Beer?

    When people refer to Oktoberfest beer, they are referring to one of two things. In the first case, they refer to any beer that is brewed within the city limits of Munich, Germany.  After the Club of Munich Brewers have decided to deem it as such, the beer is referred to from that point forward as an Oktoberfest Beer.  The important point of distinction here is that it is a beer that is authorized to be sold at Oktoberfest, the single largest beer festival in the world (serving over seven million liters of beer in roughly 16 days).

    The second reference is actually a misnomer for a beer style called Märzen.  Märzen is a bavarian lager that is commonly served at Oktoberfest (hence the confusion), but all Märzens are not Oktoberfest beers, nor are all Oktoberfest beers Märzens.  There is an interesting story behind Märzenbier.  Back in 1536, the Bavarian government outlawed beer brewing between 23 April and 29 September because there was an increased risk of starting the countryside on fire during the warm, dry summer months.  So brewers had to develop a beer style that they could make large quantities of that would keep through the summer.  They came up with Märzen and would work overtime in late March and April brewing as much of the stuff as they could, then barreling it and storing it in caves to keep it cool and out of the sun.  Whatever was left at the end of the summer was generally taken to Munich and served at Oktoberfest (or just drank as if the imbibers were at Oktoberfest).  It is usually amber in color and has an alcohol content of 5 to 6.2% with a mild hop profile.