Tag Archives: Central City Brewing

Central City New Limited Edition Collection

Central City Brewing has been one of British Columbia’s top breweries since they first opened.  Gary Lohin, Central City’s brewmaster, makes great beer and has proven that great products sell – its that simple.  Red Racer IPA, a mainstay amongst westcoast hopheads, consistently wins top awards when entered into competition and is a shinning example of how great a hop forward West Coast IPA can be.

Central City is growing rapidly and is expanding their brewing operations to keep up with demand.  This means more great beer will soon hit store shelves.  This is great news as availabitliy of some of Central City’s greatest beers has been limited to select beer-centric establishments and at their Surrey based brewpub. But this is about to change.

May 31st marked the launch of Central City’s limited edition collection.  The first of a three part offering (on store shelves as of May 31) is a well hopped Imperial IPA.  Thor’s Hammer Barley Wine and a Bourbon Barrel aged version of Thor’s Hammer is also planned for release shortly.  All three of these new releases are top quality beers.  An aged Thor’s Hammer was my first barley wine and it has remained a prefference since.

I look forward to all three releases, even though it may not be the best time to release a big barley wine (its more of a winter seasonal).  But the only rule that truly matters in the craft beer industy is make good beer – Central City has no problem with this.

Cheers,

Erik

Bad BC Beer News

A couple of my favorite BC breweries are going through some turmoil. Old Yale Brewing from Chilliwack is a very small brewery that brews really good beer. Their beer is available direct from the brewery, in some BC Liquor stores, and in the better beer stores. Canadian Beer News is reporting that the brewery is up for sale. I’m hoping that whoever buys Old Yale preserves their recipes and quality standards. I imagine that anyone purchasing the brand would move the brewery from their tiny strip mall location and I can only hope that such changes wouldn’t tarnish the beer.  I can imagine why the two man team at Old Yale would want to sell; they are likely over worked and underpaid.  I really hope Old Yale stays alive.

Central City Brewing, my favorite local brewery from Surrey BC, is being sued by California’s Bear Republic Brewing for trademark infringement.  Bear Republic brews beers with the names Racer 5 and Red Rocket, which they claim are being confused with Central City’s Red Racer brand.  The dispute arose when Central City began distributing its highly acclaimed beer (for good reason, it is wonderful) in the USA.  Bear Republic likely views Central City as a threat now that they’ve moved into some of their markets, but Bear Republic can be purchased here and you don’t see Central City complaining (FYI Bear Republic, I won’t be buying your beer anymore).  Both breweries brew wonderful beers and it is a shame to see small time craft brewers like these fighting each other.  I hope the dispute is quickly and cheaply resolved, but I have a feeling that Central City will either have to re-brand or pull out of US markets.  To support Central City, start buying their delicious beer from BC Liquor Stores.  Not only are the Red Racer beers delicious, but they are one of BC’s cheapest beer options.  Both Canadian Beer News and BeerNews.org have more coverage of the lawsuit.

Cheers,

Chris

Beer Battered Fries

On to round three of what is now a world renowned beer dinner, Beer Battered Fries.  We considered baking our beer battered fries, but then what’s the fun in that?  We lost our deep frying virginity that night and it was good.

Our beer battered potatoes in the deep fryer

Our beer battered potatoes in the deep fryer

We didn’t exactly make fries so much as we cut little potatoes in half.  We (again, we more refers to the talented cooks in the kitchen) first baked our potatoes drizzled with oil in the oven for 15 minutes to mostly cook the potatoes.  We then prepared out batter and put the pot of canola oil on the stove to heat up.  To tell when your oil is hot enough, drop a little piece of bread in and see if it quickly starts sizzling and turns brown.  If you get that good sizzle and your bread fries up nicely, you are good to go (eat the bread, it’ll be tasty).  Our beer batter recipe was originally meant for fish and came from here.  We used Central City’s Red Racer Pale Ale again, mostly because we bought a six pack.  Here are the ingredients we mixed together for our batter:

  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup Central City Red Racer Pale Ale
  • 1 1/8 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 c. flour
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 tsp. pepper
  • 1 tsp. garlic salt

We battered our mostly cooked potatoes and dropped them into the pool.  Watch out, the oil is freaking hot!  I splashed myself and it hurt a lot.  Cook until the batter turns a nice golden brown and looks crispy.  Remove the potatoes with a small collinder of sorts and let the potatoes dry on a paper towel.

Scoop them out with a small collinder and be careful!

Scoop them out with a small collinder and be careful!

We were probably the most skeptical of how successful we would be with our beer battered fries, but they were delicious!  They were perfectly cooked and wonderfully crispy.  Combined with the soup, it was a very heavy meal.  The salad provided a very refreshing contrast to the rest of the dishes.  Despite the heaviness, dinner was excellent.  I recommend deep frying to you adventurous sorts.

The salad balanced out the fries and the soup

The salad balanced out the fries and the soup

Cheers,

Chris

Beer Cheddar Soup

Dish number two in my famed beer dinner series is Beer Cheddar Soup.  I hadn’t had too many, if any, Beer Cheddar Soups before, but I was excited to give it a try because beer and cheese are two of my favorite things.  The combination sounded mouth wateringly magical to me.

Our soup simmering on the stove

Our soup simmering on the stove

We used a five year old sharp cheddar and, again, Central City’s Red Racer Pale Ale.  The recipe we started with was found online here, but we (those actually cooking, not me) made some alterations.  We meant to add bacon, but ended up forgetting it.  We also left out the leeks, mostly because we didn’t have any.  Here is the recipe that we used:

Ingredients

  • 2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 cup)
  • 2 celery ribs, cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 cup)
  • 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
  • 1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
  • 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 3/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (14 fl oz)
  • 1 (12-oz) can of Central City Red Racer Pale Ale
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 lb 5 year aged Cheddar, grated (4 cups)

Preparation

Cook carrots, celery, garlic, and bay leaf in butter in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to moderately low and sprinkle flour over vegetables, then cook, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Add milk, broth, and beer in a stream, whisking, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt, and pepper.

Add cheese by handfuls, stirring constantly, and cook until cheese is melted, 3 to 4 minutes (do not boil). Discard bay leaf.

Our soup was very delicious, you could really pickup the sharpness of the aged cheddar, which balanced out the richness of all the added fats.  The flavor of the beer was also apparent, contributing positively to the soup.  Our gracious host thought our soup compared favorably to the one he regularly orders from Big Ridge, success!

Cheers,

Chris

Beer Can Chicken

Some friends and I conglomerated on a beer themed dinner last weekend.  We made beer can chicken, beer cheddar soup, beer battered fries, salad (lame), and beer floats.  By “we made”, I mean that I mostly stood around and watched while others with more skill actually cooked, although I did get the token easy job here and there.

This week I’m going to blog about each dish (except for the salad) and share with you the recipe we used.  First up, Beer Can Chicken…

Beer Butt Chicken

Our cooked beer butt chicken, so tasty...

Personally, I prefer the name Beer Butt Chicken over Beer Can Chicken, but that isn’t really very important.  I’ve previously blogged about beer and chickens, so we used the same recipe I’d previously posted.  Why mess with success, right?  If executed correctly, this recipe produces a wonderfully moist chicken that almost falls off the bone; the skin will also be delightfully crisp and tasty.  This is a very easy recipe, but be careful not to miss the crucial step of drinking one and half beers before getting started.  We used Central City’s Red Racer Pale Ale as our beer stuffing/stand because it is both cheap and delicious.  One pitfall to avoid would be dumping the beer into the drippings when attempting to remove the beer can from the chicken.  I did this and the gravy we made from the drippings ended up being more bitter than the beer itself.  Luckily, our chicken was so good that we didn’t need the ruined gravy.

As for the recipe itself, you should try it because it is really easy, very tasty, and it seems impressive.  Here it is:

  1. Season the whole chicken (skin on) with salt and pepper.  Chop some rosemary and thyme and rub it on the dry chicken.  Take a few rosemary springs and shove it under the breast skin.
  2. Drink one and a half beers (minimum) – leave half of one beer in the can and put some of the fresh herbs used in the rub into the can.
  3. Get a chicken stand and put the beer can into it.  Shove the stand with the can in it into the chicken’s butt.
  4. Turn one side of your BBQ on and leave the other side off – you want a convection oven effect. Once up to 350F put the bird on the off side of the grill.  Cook for one and a half hours or when you hit 165F internal temperature.  Rotate the bird once or twice during the cooking process.
  5. Once done, wrap the chicken in foil and let is rest for 2o minutes or so before carving.

It should be noted that we didn’t use a chicken stand.  We stood the can holding the chicken on a pan to catch the drippings for gravy purposes, which worked just fine.  I wouldn’t put a can right onto the BBQ for stability reasons.

Cheers,

Chris