The Beauty of Craft Beer Cans

Yummmm

I was running errands Friday evening and just happened to be passing by Tipsy’s in Merriam (or is that Mission?) and stopped in. I love that there are more can selections in the craft beer section every time I stop at a bottle shop these days. If anything, the choice is getting tougher, but that’s a good thing! We have a pool day/evening at our friend’s house on Saturday, so I needed a couple 6′ers or a 12 (there are always those good folks who come and like to “share” yet never bring anything with them…)

I was eyeing the Anderson Valley 6-packs… thinking long and hard about one of IPA and one of Barney Flatts stout (one of my favorite stouts… SO GOOD!), but the idea of stout, even from a can, at the pool on a humid day… nah, probably not a great idea.

Last summer I was a big fan of the Tallgrass Halcyon Wheat, which is a nice beer and was hard to pass up this time. The Avery cans looked great, but a little heavy for the pool, the Ska Brewing cans are nice but not that inspiring… then I spotted my friends in green!

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I know, either Pale Ale or Fat Tire is every beer geek’s gateway beer into obsession, but still. Great beer is great beer. I almost ALWAYS avoid this beer in the rare occurrences we go out these days because it’s so readily available. I never have it at home. It’s a great beer and it just seemed RIGHT when I saw it! The tallboys of Torpedo looked pretty inviting, too, but a 12-er of Pale Ale it is.

Hello, summer!

You Should Be Reading & Listening to FeedMeKC

Faithful Liquid Diet readers, some friends of mine have started what is turning out to be an absolutely fantastic blog and podcast on the Kansas City food and drink scene called Feed Me KC. It is exploring all aspects of what KC has to offer, not just the obvious (BBQ, as delicious as it is… but we all know KC has awesome BBQ, so FeedMeKC is helping you see what ELSE is around… and it’s a LOT!).

The podcast is well done, funny, entertaining and extremely informative. I’m impressed. The writing is good, everything is concise and the blog is professional and awesome-looking.

Check it out and enjoy! I have more beer reviews in the hopper for The Liquid Diet, so stay tuned!

Cuban Coffee Experiment #2

Yesterday’s attempt at cafecito (Cuban coffee… essentially very sweet espresso or strong coffee) using old hazelnut beans and the stovetop Moka pot didn’t go that great. The hazelnut really threw the whole thing off.

I bought some fresh espresso beans (roasted on May 10), from Broadway Café in Westport (Kansas City) and the results were a lot better. I think I need to use even more sugar to make my paste (if I was a REAL scientist I would be measuring all this out, but come on!). Tomorrow I’ll warm up the Gaggia espresso machine and see what the cafecito sugar-paste technique and espresso taste like together…

Cafecito (Cuban Coffee)

While I was in Mexico last month I went to Qubano’s on Isla Mujeres to pick up lunch for my wife (who stayed on the beach, “saving our place”) and while I waited I ordered a Cuban coffee (cafecito). I was blown away. I am usually an espresso or dark roast, no sugar or milk, kind of guy. The coffee was dark, rich and, of course, SWEET.

I’m on a quest to perfect the cafecito now! I have made two and neither one of them is correct yet. This morning’s was made with some old hazelnut flavored beans I had lying around. It’s decent, but the hazelnut is throwing the whole thing off. This afternoon I’ll make a run to Broadway Café in Westport for some good espresso beans.

I had some old Broadway beans sitting around last week and tried a cafecito with those, but I used Mexican sugar (the brown stuff with big crystals) and that doesn’t dissolve well. The white sugar I used this morning seems to be the key, as much as I’d like to use the Mexican stuff for more flavor.

The general idea of a cafecito is to use one spoonful of sugar per serving, as a rule (a serving being more than an espresso shot but a lot less than a standard cup of coffee). You put the sugar in a bowl, add a tiny bit of coffee, and stir the heck out of it until you have a brown-sugar colored paste. Add this to your cup and pour the coffee over and you have a cafecito. It’s supposed to look like an espresso with crema on top.

Most people use a stovetop Moka pot for this, which is what I’ve been using. Once I have fresh beans I’m going to try it again with the Moka pot, then with my Gaggia espresso machine. I’m guessing the espresso machine will be the way to go… caffeine poured over sugar? Don’t mind if I do! LOL

Northern California Series #2:

The second beer I enjoyed on my April trip to Eureka, California was from hometown brewer, Lost Coast Brewery. A fruit beer sounded right up my alley that weekend, and I didn’t recall seeing this particular beer in stores here in KC, although they may sell it here and I’ve just never noticed.

Lost Coast’s website is pretty limited on the info it has on Raspberry Brown, stating only that it clocks in an 5%ABV. I bought a 22 oz. bomber at Eureka Natural Foods and I think it priced in under $4, but I didn’t keep notes on that.

The few ounces I poured into my awesome hotel glass tumbler came out a dark tea/brown with amber highlights and very little head (although I may have poured it a little too carefully to develop a good foam). The aroma was all raspberry, like a raspberry soda, with maybe a tiny undercurrent of hops way off in the background. It smelled sweet and yummy.

My first sip was pure raspberry. Subsequent sips yielded a more complex malt/raspberry interplay, but even the aftertaste was like I’d just eaten a bowl of raspberries. I thought the raspberry flavor seemed a little synthetic on the first couple sips, but as the beer rounded out this effect wore off. Although the beer was malt forward and definitely raspberry heavy it had nice balance and was very drinkable. Hops were there almost exclusively for balance and this was a great vehicle for the main attraction. This would be great with chicken, fish or a salad with raspberry dressing. I enjoyed this beer a lot, very drinkable!

Northern California Series #1: Eel River California Blonde Ale

I had some business up in Northern California… WAY north… in mid-April and got to have some pretty good beers. I’ll be posting them when time allows, but I have been BUSY! Thanks for your patience, as always!

Work took me to Eureka, which is in the legendary “Emerald Triangle,” the tri-county, rural region of northern California where some 90% of the marijuana in the state is grown. People are nice, but conservative, private and just looking to make a living when the logging industry shut down in the ’70′s. People who are weed-obsessed tend to like MJ’s close cousin, hops, but I found the beers from this region to be, by and large, balanced.

Lost Coast and Eel River are the two best known breweries from this area, and Lost Coast beers are readily available in KC, so I went for some beers that I would generally not be able to get otherwise.

Eel River is cool because all their beers are 100% certified organic. For some reason organic beers tend to fall short of the mark in their styles and I have no idea why, but Eel River has a great reputation in the microbrew world. I was excited to try some out.

The first beer I sampled was a 22oz bomber of their California Blonde Ale that I bought from the nice selection at Eureka Natural Foods (GREAT people watching here). I think I paid $3.79, a great price! It comes in at 5.8%ABV and luckily the Red Lion Inn in Eureka has real glass tumblers in the rooms. The Eel River website lists the IBU’s at only 10, not hoppy at all.

The beer poured a slightly hazy yellow-gold color with a pure white head. If not for the haziness, it would look like a common American lager lawnmower beer. The aroma was very Pilsner-like to me, with a floral hop character and sweet maltiness that was still crisp and clean smelling.

The flavor was also Pilsner-like, reminding me of my dad’s beers from the 1970′s (before American lagers lost all their character). The aftertaste was definitely malty, but not cloying and the very small amount of hops actually provided a lot of balance. The beer had decent carbonation but a slightly watery mouthfeel. I found tumbler after tumbler to be very consistent with a perfect balance between the crisp hops and sweet malt. There was maybe a little vegetable-y DMS flavor somewhere in there, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

I found this to be a great lawnmower beer/thirst quencher. REALLY easy to drink, not terribly complex, well-balanced, crisp and clean… all the hallmarks of a beer you could drink several of and not have any palate fatigue. The 5.8%ABV makes it a little high to be a true session beer, but I was very happy with this selection from Eel River.