Archive for June, 2010
Boonies Southern Soul Now Open
Saturday, June 26th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes, Review | 7 Comments
About a year ago I posted about a restaurant called Boonies BBQ & Soul Food that was located in the Cloverdale curling rink. Bonnie, the head chef and proprietor, quickly outgrew the curling rink as his reputation for delicious BBQ and comforting soul food grew larger than the curling rink could handle. Boonie has recently relocated to Langley and with a larger location and a full menu – including beer and southern classics such as Jambalaya, black-eyed peas, red beans and rice, cornbread and more. This new restaurant is aptly named Boonies Southern Soul.
Boonie and his wife Tina realized that Southern food and beer belong together and invited Chris and me to make a few food and bee paring recommendations. Chris had a hard time justifying a flight out to Vancouver just for this, so I went in solo. I helped put together a list of four different ales from local craft brewers that will all compliment different menu items.
Boonies Southern Soul is the real deal and I would encourage anyone with a passion for good food to go and check it out. Here is a sample of the current beer menu.
Amber Ale
The best match for this beer would be the pulled pork sandwich but it also pairs wonderfully with a good portion of the menu. Amber Ales tend to have a sweet malty flavour with a medium hop bit, which will work with the sweet and spicy flavours in many of the dishes.
Tree Brewing Thirsty Beaver Amber Ale
Pale Ale
Pale Ale is hoppier (citrusy, pleasant bitter flavour) than an amber ale and works well with spicy foods, but can also match earthier flavours, such as jambalaya. It would also work nicely with the BBQ Smoked Ribs, Cajun Chicken and the Hot Link Bites.
Tree Brewing Cutthroat Pale Ale
Nut Brown Ale
Nut Brown Ale is brown coloured ale with a mild hop flavour and a medium roasted malt flavour. This would work great with less spicy dishes such as BBQ Chicken or a Burger.
Dead Frog Brewing Nut Brown Ale
Stout
A Stout is a classic partner with smokey BBQ. A dark ale with mild hop flavour but tons of roasted malt flavour and has an almost sweet, smokey molasses flavour. This beer would work great with Burgers, Cheese Steak and would be wonderful with the BBQ Smoked Ribs!
Nelson Brewing Blackheart Stout
Cheers,
Erik
Strawberries and Cream, Beer at Wimbledon
Thursday, June 24th, 2010 | Beer | 2 Comments
One item on the to do list was always going to get done and that was to visit the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. We didn’t have tickets, but that didn’t stop the wife and I from heading down to Wimbledon from London to try our luck anyway. We waited 1.5 hours in a kilometer long line, but eventually made our way in. Entry to the grounds after 5PM cost us £14 and tickets to centre court after that were only £5 more. It was amazing to see centre court where so much tennis history has taken place, not to mention it’s where the Queen herself is sitting today. We saw Victoria Azarenka thrash Mirjana Lucic while making noises I felt would be more suitable in the bedroom than on a tennis court.
Start of the giant Wimbledon line
Centre Court at Wimbledon, across from the Royal Box
While at Wimbledon we obviously had to eat strawberries and cream. We brought our own strawberries (£2 for a large basket) and crème fraîche (£1), which we sprinkled brown sugar on. It was delightful. We also sampled the strawberries and cream sold at Wimbledon. For £2.50 we received eight strawberries sitting in what looked like unwhipped whipping cream sprinkled with sugar. It was not nearly as good and if you go to Wimbledon, I recommend bringing your own delightful concoction. We also brought our own bottle of champagne, which I found pretty crazy considering the attitudes in North American sports concerning outside alcohol. We were well equipped, but I still needed to check out what kind of beer was made available to patrons at the All England Club. Guinness and Grolsch for £4.40 a pint, not an English beer in sight. I was a bit surprised by that, but then we were in the chump area and not in one of the fancier clubs, chalets, restaurants or other gathering places of the privileged few.
Strawberries and Cream with Champagne at Wimbledon
Wimbledon was an amazing place to visit and I’m going to register for 2011 tickets when the lottery opens in September. We even caught the beginning of Isner vs Mahut on Court 18 in what we didn’t know would turn into the epic longest tennis match of all time. Turns out Boris Becker was watching too.
Boris Becker above Court 18
Cheers,
Chris
Father’s Day Beer Dinners
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 | Beer | No Comments
In case you’ve forgotten, it’s Father’s Day this Sunday! To celebrate the occasion a few BC breweries have got themselves involved in some Father’s Day beer dinners. If your Dad likes eating good food and drinking good beer, then I can’t thing of a better Fathery’s Day gift than a trip to one of these dinners:
- Central City in Surrey will be offering a three course meal, each course made with beer as an ingredient and paired with beer, for $35 anytime between 4PM and 8PM on Sunday, June 20th. I haven’t been to one of the Father’s Day dinners at Central City before, but I’ve seen pictures and heard Erik’s account of last year’s dinner. Without yet seeing the menu I can say, and trust me here, it’s worth the money.
- R&B Brewing is doing a Father’s Day dinner with DIVA at the Met in Vancouver. This dinner is a five course affair with each course paired with an R&B beer. On Saturday, June 19th from 7PM to 9:30PM this dinner can be yours for a mere $49. Again, I wasn’t there last year, but I heard the reviews and saw the pictures. It looked amazing, as does this year’s menu below.
Cheers,
Chris
Sockeye Salmon Season
Friday, June 11th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 2 Comments
Wild BC Sockeye Salmon is delicious. The good news for all of us on the west coast of Canada is that this wonderful fish is now in season. Fatty fish, such as sockeye salmon, is a perfect match for a number of ales, my choice tonight was Brasserie DuPont Moinette Blond.
A fish such as Sockeye deserves to be treated with a great deal of respect; this fish has been over fished and the fishery in BC has been closed or severely limited the past few years making sockeye a treat, as the scarcity of this fish does not allow it to become a staple food item as it may have been previously. In celebration of the Sockeye I cooked up a small feast for my Wife and me.
Pan fried Sockeye Salmon; ricotta gnocchi with a white wine, spinach and mussel broth reduction and cornmeal crusted mussels. Unfortunately the mussels were below par and tasted far to fishy. The Moinette Blond was a great pairing .
Please enjoy Sockeye Salmon with a great deal of Gusto while in season, but of course with a sense of measured moderation.
Cheers,
Erik
GIB Ginger Beer Seasonal Release
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 | Beer | 5 Comments
Granville Island Brewing recently released their latest seasonal special, ginger beer. I tried this beer last year and found it to be one of the better ginger beers. The ginger flavor is noticeable but not over the top and fiery. Here is the press release. Enjoy.
The Wait for the Warmth is Over – Granville Island Brewing Brings Back Limited Release Ginger Beer
Vancouver, BC – We know every season offers something unique in Vancouver, and Granville Island Brewing’s latest limited release is no exception. On June 4, 2010, it is time to heat things up as we roll out Ginger Beer.
“GIB’s version of a traditional ginger beer is the perfect combination of spicy Caribbean warmth and refreshing taste, making it the ideal summer refreshment,” says Vern Lambourne, Brew Master, Granville Island Brewing.
“This specialty brew has all the elements of a craft brew – including ginger chopped by hand!”
Ginger Beer combines water, malt, hops and yeast with fresh hand chopped ginger root to create that perfect taste. GIB recommends this premium beer with spicy Jamaican Jerk, or milder foods like sushi for a less adventurous palette. The incredible aroma of ginger and spice emulates a beach day in the Caribbean.
Ginger Beer is available in individual bottles for 6 weeks only, in select liquor and beer stores across Vancouver and in our retail store on Granville Island. Vancouver – stock up on this great tasting brew while you can.
About Granville Island Brewing (GIB)
Established is 1984, Granville Island Brewing (GIB) is Canada’s first microbrewery offering a variety of award-winning beers which are brewed and sold here in BC. GIB is dedicated to handcrafting only the finest premium beers that are 100 per cent all-natural and brewed in small batches to provide consumers with the ultimate tasting experience. In celebration of their West Coast heritage GIB names each beer after iconic Vancouver locations that embody the local lifestyle. From the original Island Lager and English Bay Pale Ale, to Cypress Honey Lager, and now their latest innovation; Brockton IPA, GIB continues to produce a diverse portfolio of beers inspired by life on the West Coast. For more information, visit www.gib.ca.
Cheers,
Erik
The Best of the Pacific Northwest
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 4 Comments
I am completely and unhealthily obsessed with food and drink. I think about what I will make for dinner the next day while lying awake in bed. I couldn’t sleep for nearly three hours one night when I was trying to determine what Pacific Northwest cuisine is. I know we must have a unique food culture, but defining that culture is a challenge, especially when the clock reads 2:00 AM and your alarm wakes you at 6:00 AM.
I love where I live. This region of the world offers easy access to exceptional seafood, an abundance of local produce and some of the greatest brewers in the world live within a day’s drive of Vancouver.
I thought I would put together a list of my favourite local dishes, recipes included, paired with beer. I use local quite loosely as the 100 mile diet is too strict and is simply unreasonable. Growing wheat or barley in the Fraser Valley makes little to no sense.
Moules Frites
Some of the best mussels come from Salt Spring Island. My local fish monger, 1 Fish 2 Fish which is hands down the best food shop in Langley, offers these delicious bivalves when in season (year round excluding March and April). From my experience mussels need very little in the way of cooking – less is more. Here is what I consider to be the greatest way to prepare mussels:
Moules
- Finely dice one large shallot or two small shallots and sauté in a pan with olive oil until translucent
- Finely dice two ripe medium sized or one large tomato until almost a puree and add to the pan – cook for a minute or two
- Add white wine and reduce until it just begins to become syrupy (beer just doesn’t reduce as well as wine – sorry)
- Add mussels and cover the pan – one pound per person for a meal size portion works best.
- After 3-4 minutes (all cook books say 6-8 minutes, but I think they are wrong) uncover the pan, remove all mussels that have opened and put them aside, after one more minute throw away any unopened mussels.
- Reduce the mussel broth, with the mussels out of the pan. Once reduced toss the mussels back in the broth and finish with some roughly chopped parsley or any fresh tasting herb.
Frites
For the frites, I find Joel Robuchon’s method works quite well and is dead easy:
- Cut the fries - Yukon Gold is a good all around potato to use
- Place the fries in a pot with high sides
- Cover fries with frying oil
- Heat oil until 360 degrees F – the fries are now ready
- Remove fries and season with salt, enjoy.
Despite the reduced white wine in the broth, beer is still the ultimate partner for this dish. Any flavorful beer will work. An Oude Geuze is a traditional match, but any assertive Belgian ale will also do quite nicely.
Pizza
Pizza may not be local, but all of the toppings certainly are – it also happens to be one of my favourite things to eat.
Making a good pizza is not that difficult, but making a great pizza is a bit more of a challenge. There is no single recipe to follow to make great pizza. Pizza is more of a philosophy and set of rough guidelines than a recipe. I am nowhere near perfecting pizza, but here are a few tips I have learned along the way:
- Pizza toppings should always be local – fresh produce shipped long distances loses flavor fast.
- It is better to under top than over top.
- Pizza without tomato sauce is just fine
- Making tomato sauce from scratch is the best. Tomatoes from a grocery store are almost always picked when they are green and therefore taste a whole lot like water. Canned tomatoes on the other hand are picked when they are ripe and have more flavor. Use caned tomatoes. San Marzanos are the best, but they may be hard to find.
- Cheese does not have to be grated, it can be torn up by hand and tossed onto the pizza
- The faster a dough proofs, the worse it tastes - use a yeast that is slow rising, brewers yeast is my favourite
- Kneed the dough for more time than you may think is necessary, dough needs a lot of love.
- People who base the quality of the pizza by the thinness of the crust are fools -I was once one of these fools. Yes, a thin crust is delicious, but thinness is not the number one goal.
- Pizza needs to be cooked hot and fast. Many recipes say to put pizza on a stone in the bottom of an oven. I think this is wrong. The top of an oven is hotter – heat rises. I recently switch to the top of the oven approach and the results are superior.
- Hand tossing pizza is fun, but usually results in a mess. I try to hand toss all my pizza, despite how terrible I am at it.
Depending on the toppings, pizza pairs excellently with a spicy pilsner, pale ale, or even an IPA if the toppings are assertive enough. I find dark beers aren’t the best choice with pizza, but I could easily be proven wrong.
Fish & Chips
Our ocean is filled with wonderful fish, but don’t be fooled into buying the most expensive fish. Halibut may be delicious, but it is twice the price of snapper and is an inferior fish when it comes to battering and frying.
In my humble opinion the best batters are thin and crispy – I am not a fan of a thick eggy batter. Mixing cornstarch and flour together in a one to one ratio with a pinch of salt and enough beer to bring the mixture to the consistency of heavy cream has always work excellently for me.
For the chips, I wouldn’t suggest Joel Robuchon’s method – chips are a different beast than frites. I am not a fry master, but the best results have come with an initial poach/fry in oil around 260 – 300 F for 5-6 minutes. Remove the chips and bring the oil to 360 F and fry the chips again in the hot oil until golden.
The key to frying is managing oil temperate, too hot and food will burn, t0o cool and food will become soggy with grease. 360 F is a good frying temperate.
A good ESB works wonderfully with fish and chips – cask ale would be ideal. Any beer with caramel malt included in the grain bill would work well.
Wild Game Ragu
One of my close friends is a hunter and regularly provides me with quality venison. I believe beer is truly at its best when matched with the intensity of wild game. Ragu is nothing more than an Italian stew served with pasta, gnocchi or polenta and is the perfect meal to ejoy in the fall when hunting season begins
Here is the general recipe I tend to follow when making a venison ragu:
- Sauté lardons (French for bacon chopped into match stick sizes) in a pan until crisp and all the fat is rendered out of the bacon.
- Remove the bacon and leave the fat in the pan – don’t even think about removing any of this glorious animal fat, game has almost no fat and needs a bit of pork fat for lubrication. The bacon can be added back to the ragu at the end of cooking.
- Cube 1 pound of venison into one inch pieces and brown aggressively, remove all venison once browned
- Finely dice one large onion, one celery stock and one carrot and add to the pan, this should deglaze the pan a bit
- Add around a ¼ cup of tomato paste, more if you like tomatoes, less if you don’t.
- Add about a cup of stock (chicken, beef, vegetable)
- Add about a cup of red wine. If the venison is not completely covered by liquid add more wine.
- Cover with a lid and simmer for 3-4 hours or place in the oven for 3-4 hours at around 250 F.
- The venison should now be tender.
- If sauce hasn’t reduced enough, reduce stock on the stove top.
- Cool the ragu and place in the fridge overnight – ragu is best the next day, trust me.
- Before reheating on a stove top, shred the venison with a fork
- Once heated through serve the ragu with your starch of choice, pappardelle is my choice.
A Brown Belgian Ale would work nicely with this ragu. A Dubbel or even Biere de Garde would also work. A big tasting beer with some spicy yeast flavour is ideal for this meal. A big Cabernet Sauvignon would also be delicious.
Cheers,
Erik
Biergarten, doner, currywurst, oh my! Beer in Berlin
Sunday, June 6th, 2010 | Beer | 7 Comments
I previously mentioned that I would be meeting up with Erik in Berlin during the last leg of his European vacation. While we didn’t make a point of visiting specific beer locations, since most of our party of seven wanted to make some wall a higher priority, we did do our fair share of beer related activities, mostly drinking. Berlin wasn’t super high on my list of cities to visit, but you can’t argue that the place isn’t chock full of recent history. First there were these Nazi people (bunch of jerks) that got the whole city destroyed, then these communists (also jerks) that didn’t take very good care of one half. The city is now made up of recently built modern buildings and bland eastern bloc leftovers with fragments of the past scattered amongst them, which doesn’t make for the most charming of settings. And since I’m not particularly interested in modern art and the new music scene (or erotic sex clubs), I wasn’t particularly taken with Berlin as a whole. What did strike me about Berlin was the local food and beer culture.
Currywurst in Berlin, bratwurst in ketchup and curry powder, with fries and mayo
We made a point of sampling Berlin’s two fast food staples, currywurst and doner kebab. Currywurst is fried bratwurst sliced up then covered in ketchup and curry powder, often served with fries and mayonnaise. It may sound like a disgusting heart attack on a paper plate, but it’s actually a tasty heart attack on a paper plate. You can’t argue with the price either, just 1.50 euros. Next up was doner kebabs, which are similar to a gyro, schawarma or donair. The added Berlin twist is the crispy toasted pita or flat bread, versus the usual soft variety. Doner kebab was also delicious and also affordable at 2 euros for a substantial portion. We didn’t just eat fast food, we also managed to track down some braised pork knuckle, a traditional Berlin dish that goes by the name of eisbein. While pork knuckle might sound a bit unappetizing, it’s actually just the foot end of a ham hock and I highly recommend it.
Erik and his Doner Kebab
Of course we had to drink some delicious German beer to go with our local gastronomic treats. We managed to drink many local Berlin beers, including the ubiquitous Berliner Pilsner and the wares of local Brauhaus Lemke. By far our favorite Berlin beer experiences were found in the biergartens, two of which we visited were located in leafy public parks. On a dreary Friday afternoon we visited Golgatha in West Kreuzberg and found ourselves the only people there. No bother, we brought our own party and thoroughly enjoyed our delicious maibock in the park. You could tell that Golgatha can get pretty crazy because of 0.50 euro deposit they demand per glass, which you get back when you return your vessel unshattered. They also list their closing ours as 6AM that, judging by the big screens being built for the world cup, might actually need to be enforced in the coming weeks.
Erik and friends in Golgatha Biergarten Berlin
Our second biergarten experience came on a beautiful Saturday afternoon at the packed out Cafe am Neuen See in the Tiergarten. Nestled in the massive park and fronting a lovely pond, this treed in biergarten offered one of the most delightful beer drinking settings I’ve experienced. The cold, smooth, and delicious helles lager I was drinking went down so blissfully that I never wanted it to end. I wish Vancouver had something like this (London does, London is one big BYOB biergarten). It’s not like the place was full of smashed youth up to no good (like London is), but Cafe am Neuen See actually had multiple playgrounds for kids to play in. There were people of all ages and walks of life there just behaving themselves and enjoying a beer in a lovely setting. I’m jealous of Germany and their biergartens.
Cafe Am Neuen See Biergartin in Berlin Tiergarten
Us at Cafe Am Neuen See Biergartin in Berlin Tiergarten
The icing on Berlin cake came when, during the fleeing hours of our last day, we came across Das Boot in a touristy store. If you’ve seen the movie Beerfest then you’ll know all about Das Boot and how the toe holds an air bubble that causes beer to splash you in the face if you don’t turn it at the right time. If you haven’t seen Beerfest, know that it doesn’t have much to do with beer and is so ridiculously stupid that it becomes funny. I had to buy Das Boot and make good use of it. It holds one litre, or three standard bottles, of Berliner Pilsner and the toe is indeed as tricky as I was lead to believe. However, there’s no need to turn the boot at a critical moment if you just turn it from the start. Das Boot and I had the first of many more fun nights to come.
Chris finding Das Boot in Berlin
Chris drinking Berliner Pilsner from Das Boot
Erik drinking Berliner Pilsner from Das Boot
Cheers,
Chris
LoveGoodBeer on Beer and Butter Tarts
Sunday, June 6th, 2010 | Beer | 7 Comments
Greg Clow, a Taps Magazine contributor and author of the Canadian Beer News blog, has started a Canadian food and beer blog aggregator called Beer and Butter Tarts. For those of you that don’t know what an aggregator is, it is basically a blog made up of a collection of sources brought together on one site. I learned of Beer and Butter Tarts on Canadian Beer News and noticed they were looking for more sources. I figured why not get LoveGoodBeer on there? So I applied, and as of yesterday we’ll be a source on Beer and Butter Tarts, meaning you can read our posts over there amongst other great Canadian food and beer articles. Now that we’re spreading through the internet like wild fire, fame and fortune can clearly be seen on our horizion.
Cheers,
Chris
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