Craft Beer Week 2013

Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week has rolled through once again. Like last year there were a ton of possible events, too many to make it to all of them. I managed to make it out to a few events myself.  As always click on the pics to see them embiggened.

Like last year there were collaboration brews from the local breweries working together. I went out to Penn Brewery for their Collaboration Celebration to try and sample all of the brews.

Unfortunately I underestimated the attendance and overestimated the volume of the beers and by the time I showed up 3 out of 5 were tapped out.

One of the unique events was a chocolate and beer pairing. That by itself isn't that unusual, however the chocolates, made by Sinful Sweets actually featured Brooklyn Brewery beers as ingredients.

Tapping into my geek nature a little bit more I trekked out to Rivertowne Brewing to meet up with Pittsburgh's own superhero, Steelman. Thanks to the collaboration of Rivertowne and New Dimension Comics Steelman not only has his own comic book but his own beer, a smoked stout.

Of course East End Brewing once again announced that their Pedal Pale Ale was available by holding their Keg ride event. (As a side note, this may be the best group to ask for energy bar/beer pairing recommendations.)

This year the destination was Schenley Park, taking over the circle and partnering with the Porch. 

Once again the costumes were creative and plentiful as hundreds of bikers showed up to accompany the first  kegs of spring. 

This year they even had a portable soundtrack courtesy of DJ Zombo and Green Gears Pedicabs.

Once again if you couldn't find an event that caught your interest during Craft Beer Week you had to have been willfully ignoring it. 

Tends to Be

Most native Pittsburghers still have trouble with the idea of people moving to Pittsburgh intentionally. Fredrick Arnold is a perfect example of why Pittsburgh is becoming a cocktail destination though. After working in New York City Fredrick moved with his girlfriend to Kansas City where he managed the R Bar, one of Esquire's top bars in America. Deciding that neither New York nor Kansas City was right for them the pair decided to pick a new place to live. They Flew to New York and drove back to Kansas City stopping along the way and scoping out cities along the way. After just 6 hours they knew Pittsburgh was the place. Through a bit of serendipity on Craigslist, Fredrick found Tender just as they were hiring and developing their drinks menu. With that, another 'tender was found for Tender.

In Defense of Vodka

In general vodka is ignored or ridiculed by craft cocktail lovers. With brands bragging about how many times it's been distilled, creating flavors like cake, Swedish Fish, and Froot Loops, and purposefully having no taste it's easy to see why. However, it can be used in craft cocktails to good effect. Such cocktail authorities as Beachbum Berry and Ted Haigh have published recipes with no spirit other than vodka in them.

The important thing to remember with alcohol is that it is a solvent and thus causes some flavors to be heightened and better expressed. The obvious and most common use is in infusions, where any and every thing can be soaked in vodka to infuse that vodka with unusual flavors. But, you can do that same thing within the drink itself. Say you have yourself some locally made, cane sugar sweetened, spicy ginger beer  now you could make yourself a Dark n' Stormy but as we all know that's illegal if you happen to be out of Gosling's. But if the liquor fairy dropped off a nice, crisp vodka, (Platinum 7x in this case,) well then you have the makings of a Moscow Mule. The effect of drinking the ginger beer with vodka highlights some of the flavors from the ginger beer that are either not noticed if drinking it straight or lost if drinking with rum. Likewise if you have a nice vermouth some of the subtler flavors could be lost with a strong gin in a Martini. Perhaps the most important time for vodka in a drink is brunch. There are flavonoids in tomatoes that are only soluble in alcohol (which is why my spaghetti sauce recipe finishes with a shot of vodka,) so the vodka plus tomato juice mix for a Bloody Mary releases flavors that aren't there otherwise. This is why I will always have some vodka in my bar.

MxMo Invert

It's MxMo time again. And this week the theme is Inverted Drinks. While the prospect of renting out the Vomit Comet to take pictures of upside down drinks did have some appeal, it turns out that the idea is turn the recipes upside down somehow. In the announcement post over at Putney Farm Stewart threw out the challenge of making a clear Manhattan adding "good luck with that." Well that was enough of a challenge for me. And with that I immediately sprang into action, first mixing a clear Manhattan, (left,) and then a clear Sazerac (right) just for the added degree of difficulty. My secret weapon, Wigle Whiskey's white rye, the 95% rye in this case. Now on to the recipes:

Clear Manhattan
2 oz Wigle White Rye
1 oz Dry Vermouth
2 dashes Barrel Aged Bitters
Stir over ice, strain into a chilled glass.

A few notes on this one: first my somewhat unconventional recipe comes straight off the glass that I mix it in. I was given a "vintage" portable bar set for Christmas a couple years back and the glass has drink recipes on it.  The Manhattan Recipe calls for that 2:1 whiskey to vermouth ratio, and that's what I've always used. Also key in maintaining it as a clear drink is to make it a Dry Manhattan, rather than a more traditional sweet version. To further invert this drink one can use aged bitters with an unaged whiskey.

Clear Sazearc
1.5 oz Wigle White Rye
.5 oz simple syrup
Herbsaint
3d Bittermen's Burlesque bitters

Rinse a chilled old fashioned glass with a small amount of Herbsaint, (Pernod, or Absinthe,) in another glass stir the rye, simple and bitters. Discard the excess Herbsaint, (I usually read this as drink it straight,) and pour in the chilled whiskey/simple/bitters into the glass. While the traditional recipe calls for Peychaud's bitters, I really love the Bittermen's bitters in this drink.

(Bonus points to anyone who clicked on the photo for a bigger view and noticed that the globe has North at the bottom.)

It's Traditional

The first thing that Wes Shonk did when he learned he was going to be behind the stick at 1947 Tavern was start learning. He hadn't been anything more than a bar back prior to then, so he threw himself into learning the classics, both how to make them and why they are the way they are. He also devoted himself to learning all that he could about bourbon, the tavern's signature spirit. This devotion to the classics and bourbon led him to Camp Runamok where he learned even more.

MxMo: Fortified Wines

It's Mixology Monday time again, unfortunately I've had to skip the last couple of them but we are back with 

a new drink. This month's theme is fortified wines.  My entry this month is the Puerto Anticado.  Lately I've been playing around with mixing up variations on the old fashioned. I've been using my Christmas presents to play with different bitters, different spirits and different sweeteners.This has been everything from using rum, rye, or even some aged Wigle Whiskey.  I've really enjoyed that so long as you stick to a pretty straight forward recipe and use quality ingredients you are reasonably assured of coming up with a satisfying after dinner drink. I was trying out using some resposado tequila, Maestro Dobel Diamond to be precise, with some of the jalapeno syrup from the B'ak'tun, and Bittermen's Xocolatl Mole bitters. Just as I was finishing up, my ship's decanter full of tawny port caught my eye. On a whim I decided to add some of that to the drink. It turned out a lovely color and the flavors melded well with some very nice depth to it. For once my luck worked out in such a way that it was the next day that the MxMo theme for the month was announced and my drink fit nicely. 

Puerto Anticado

1.5 oz Resposado Tequila (Maestro Dobel Diamond)

1 oz tawny port

.5 oz jalapeno syrup 

4d mole bitters (Bittermen's)

stir with ice strain into a rocks glass with service ice. 

Lovecraft Cocktails

As you can see above I was part of the Horror in Clay Kickstarter campaign to get a Cthulhu Tiki Mug. (You can get yours here.) In the photo above we have my Santa Cthulhu off of my Christmas Tree in my Cthulhu tiki mug, he's so cute and yet so evil. This kickstarter/mug was right in my wheelhouse H. P. Lovecraft has been one of my favorite authors for quite some time now, and my love of tiki drinks is well documented. Inspired by the Lovecraft/tiki crossover I set out to develop a series of Lovecraft themed drinks for my forthcoming mug. The first was the Cocktail of Cthulhu, (already posted here.) The others are Pickman's Punch and Haunter of the Dark and Stormy.

Pickman's Punch

2 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Grenadine

1 oz Silver Rum

1 oz Gold Rum

.5 oz Lemon Hart 151

.75 oz Orgeat 

.75 Passion Fruit Syrup

blend with 6 oz ice

Haunter of the Dark and Stormy

2 oz Dark Jamaican Rum

1 oz orange juice

.5 oz key lime juice

1 teaspoon grenadine

roll with ice

top with ~6 oz ginger beer.

These are hardly the only Lovecraft inspired cocktails out there. For instance Kaiser Penguin has the Cthulhu Punch recipe.  If you have some other cocktails recipes from the eldritch blackness or cyclopean halls please feel free to share in the comments.