Febrewary Homebrew Crawl 2013 – preparations

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Events and tagged with beer, home brew, hops, Lancaster, pickles, soda, yeast February 22, 2013

A good bunch of my friends (including Me and Dan) like to brew our own beer.

The past two years in February, we had our own home brew competition. We all came together and set up a brew crawl across the town of Lancaster. A majority of the participants live in Lancaster city so it was pretty easy to hop from house to house. Brewers that don’t live in town just match up with someone who does, giving us a lot of brews to taste!

I’ll post some of the past years beers in a few days, but for now I just wanted to share some of this year’s preparations from Dan and Marisa’s House!

We tried to brew a brown ale this year. It turned out to be a not-quite-brown-ale. Brewing got a little interesting as we discovered we did not have a pot large enough to hold this all grain batch. We rigged something up and got it done… we steeped it in the cooler… monk was a little worried about it. I wrote a post about brewing this batch back in November – check it out for the dog biscuit recipe.

If you have been reading this blog you probably know that I love to make pickles. I’ve been playing with the idea of making pickles with hops in them for a while now. I tried several batches with different hops. I finally found one that is AWESOME! I used cascade hops steeped in the brine.

I believe they came out quite delicious. I can not wait for the home brew crawlers to try them!

I will even admit, the cascade hops were so good steeped in the pickle brine that I ate a few right out of the pot. I can not say the same for some of the other varieties of hops.

I also had this idea to pickle some carrots in the hop brine… it was a great idea.

I ended up with two pickle varieties for the brew crawl:

Cascade Garlic Hop Pickles

Centennial Dill and Garlic Hop Pickles

I haven’t tried the dill batch yet so I hope they are good!

I also made a new soda…

Wild Huckleberry Honey Ginger Ale

I used wild huckleberry creamed honey that I found at a beautiful winery in California and fresh ginger. I am fermenting it with champagne yeast so it’s nice and bubbly. I know it’s not beer but I really like to experiment and make new things like this… it is fermented so I think it fits… and when else am I going to get to test it out on this many tasters?

I’ll let you know how the 3rd annual home brew crawl goes. I am sure there will be some awesome home brews. There are two ribbons awarded: one chosen by the official judge and one chosen by the voting crawlers.

Walking around town in the crisp febreway air, tasting good beer, all in good company… I think everyone is a winner during this event!

Home Brewing and Spent Grain Dog Treats

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Recipes and tagged with brown ale, dog treats, home brew, peanut butter, spent grains November 26, 2012

We spent Sunday home brewing our next beer for an event that our friends put together called Fe-brew-ary – more on that event in a later post. I think this batch is going to come out good, but time will tell…

We brewed an all-grain batch of brown ale this time. We used a lot of grains… too many for our pot… so we ended up rigging up this cooler system. It was pretty funny, but it worked.

Throughout our brewing process, the dog seemed a little stressed out that we were rearranging the kitchen. He’s in the picture above looking distraught.

Making an all-grain batch of beer leaves you with A LOT of spent grains. It seems like such a waste to throw them out so I started making Monk some doggie treats out of them. Maybe if he knows treats come after beer he will relax a little.

A little FYI – Dog can not have hops!! It can really hurt them. You can read about it here. The spent grains come from the step in the beer making process BEFORE you add hops – so they are safe to use. If there are hops mixed in with your grains, do not use them for dog treats! Here is our boiling pot after we added hops… don’t let your doggie get into that!

For the dog treats:

Collect about 4 cups of the spent beer grains and drain them well. The more moisture they contain, the longer your biscuits will take to dry out.

In a stand mixer combine 2 1/2 cups flour, 4 cups of spent grains, two large eggs, and about 1 cup of peanut butter. Mix until everything is combined.

You can make the treats two ways: squares or roll them into small balls, just like mini meatballs! It is kind of difficult to make them into other shapes because the dough is super sticky, not really cookie cutter friendly.

To make the mini meatballs, just roll the dough out into small balls and place them on the tray. It’s ok if they touch a little bit because they will break apart. Bake the treats for 1 hour at 350 degrees F for about an hour. Break up any treats that have stuck together and turn the oven down to 200 degrees F. Let the treats bake for a few hours, or until they are hard. Make sure they dry out throughly or else you won’t be able to keep them for long… they will get moldy!

To make square biscuits, spread the mixture onto a sheet pan in a layer about 1/4 inch thick. Bake it at 350 degrees F for about an hour. Remove the pan from the oven and cut the sheet into smaller bite size squares. Separate the squares, turn down the oven to 200 degrees F and place them back in the oven for a few hours. Make sure they dry out, remember they won’t keep if they are still moist inside. If you use this method, make sure you cut the treats after an hour – If you bake it for too long and let the whole pan get hard it is really difficult to break apart.

Another variation is to add some beef flavoring to the treats instead of peanut butter. I recommend using these new concentrated broth packets made by Knorr. There’s a lot of flavor packed into the little packet and it won’t make your treats too wet like adding regular stock would.

I hope your doggie likes them… Monk does! He patiently waits for them to come out of the oven.

The Fridge

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants November 11, 2011

It’s Friday! I’m going to make a recommendation for a great place to grab a few drinks if you are in the Lancaster area.

If you like good beer, you should stop by The Fridge! I’ve been there a few times so far, and I’m headed there tonight…

They make some fancy pizzas and they have an excellent beer selection.

Here’s some of the pizza’s the have featured in the past two months:

Every pizza I’ve had there was great! If you want the best selection, get there early. They make pizzas until they run out of ingredients then they are gone for the evening. It’s worth making a trip in a little early to get some.

They have some great beers in the giant fridge that they have in the center of the place. You could drink any one you want while you are there or make a mixed 6-pack to take with you. They also have beers that are not refrigerated to take home. It’s a big selection.

Last month Dan and I shared this gem:

Duvel Triple Hop, excellent beer! perfect to share, it’s pretty strong but super smooth… It’s a little dangerous for the afternoon.

Last Friday I went in with Dan to have some drinks. We shared some of the daft beers. They always have great beers on tap that are constantly changing. You could also fill a growler to take home with you or drink while you are hanging out.

Here’s the beers we tried last weekend:

471 Small Batch Double IPA from Breckenridge

Autumnation from Sixpoint

Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Red Ale

Extreme Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout from Rock Art

All were good, I don’t have anything bad to say about any of them. My favorite was the Autumnnation from Sixpoint. It was kind of pumpkin flavored but not too strong, and a little hoppy, a great fall beer.

The draft beers are constantly changing. Check out the Fridge’s Facebook page for updates!

Beer Taste – Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer and tagged with Dogfish Head, fall, pumpkin, pumpkin beer October 30, 2011

Well there certainly has been a lack of pumpkin beers available this year. I have been looking every time I go to get beer. I guess it is so popular that distributors and stores can’t keep it on the shelves. The past few years I have been able to get a bunch of different kinds from breweries all over the place. This year I have had only a few!

I was very happy when my friend Janeen brought me some Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. This is my number 1 favorite pumpkin beer! I thought I was going to miss out on it this year because I could not find it anywhere.

We had a crazy snowstorm yesterday, so here’s the punkin ale next to my snowy pumpkins. Good thing it’s a really good beer to enjoy in the cooler weather.

Punkin ale is a brown ale with real pumpkins, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s much lighter in color than other brown ales but it has big bold flavors. It’s perfect to pair with fall comfort foods. It is really well-balanced and does not have that overly spicy pumpkin pie flavor. I think it is awesome! It definitely gets my pick as the best of the pumpkin beers every year.

I think they is my favorite punkin beer because it has nutmeg in it. I love nutmeg – It’s my secret ingredient in some of my pasta sauces, it is great with greens like kale, and I like to add a little into some of my treats when I bake. The brown sugar also adds a little something special to this brew.

Punkin Beer was originally made for the Punkin Chunkin event that takes place in Delaware every year. You can check out the event on the Discovery Channel website.

I hope you can find this pumpkin beer this year if you haven’t tried it yet. Good Luck!

Beer Taste – Wolaver’s Organic Pumpkin Ale

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer and tagged with beer, otter creek brewing company, pumpkin, wolaver's fine organic ales October 6, 2011

It’s pumpkin season! And with pumpkins… you get pumpkin beers! One of my favorite things about fall. But all pumpkin ales are not created equal…some are good and some are not. I have taste tested a lot of pumpkin ales over the past few years and I have picked out my favorites. I’ll be sharing some of my top picks this month.

Wolaver’s Fine Organic Ales are made in Vermont by Otter Creek Brewing Company. Dan and I went on vacation to Vermont a few years ago and visited the brewery. It’s a great stop if you’re in the area and it’s also pretty close to Magic Hat, so you can check out both breweries in one afternoon.

Wolaver’s is a great pumpkin beer. It’s made with plenty of organic Vermont pumpkins and a few spices reminiscent of pumpkin pie. It’s not loaded with spices (as some of them are) making it easy to drink. Sometimes flavored beers are a little over powering and I often think “it’s good, I could drink one, but I wouldn’t want to drink it all night.” The Wolaver’s is NOT like that, it doesn’t have the overly-spiced problem. I would definitely have more than one!

I think this brewery just changed the look of their labels and the names of some of the beers. I have had Wolaver’s pumpkin ale before but it was called Wolaver’s Will Steven’s Pumpkin Ale. It had a darker label with some retro writing on it. I don’t remember it being as good as the current ale so they may have changed the recipe as well. I’m not totally sure about this change but I haven’t seen the old brew around at all and this pumpkin ale seems totally new to me.

I actually decided to try to use this ale in a recipe tonight. I was making braised red cabbage with apples. I thought it needed a little something extra so I decided to add some of the pumpkin beer in the pot as the braising liquid. It came out really good! It was a great fall side dish… look for the recipe tomorrow.

A few weeks ago I commented on the Braaaiiins pumpkin beer from Spring House Brewery. While their version is good, it has a little of that overly-spiced problem. I don’t think I really realized it that much until now that I have had the Wolaver’s. I think this is my second favorite pumpkin beer that I have taste tested… stay tuned for my number one pick.

In case you were wondering… that little birdie in the photo is my new bottle opener. It’s tail is the lever to pop your bottle top. You can find one of your own little birdies here.

Vacation Eats – Morro Bay Adventure

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, Travel and tagged with beer, california, fish, french fries, morro bay, resturants, travel August 19, 2011

Vacation Eats – Tar Pits and Hitting the Road

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, dessert, Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with beer, california, dessert, gelato, hot dogs, La Brea, Los Angeles, Montecito, Pink's Hot Dogs, places, restaurants, sandwiches, Santa Barbra, travel, vacation August 18, 2011

Back to the California trip… It’s about time for a famous eatery stop. So on Wednesday (August 3rd) we had hot dogs for breakfast.

We choose Pink’s Famous Hot Dog Stand on LaBrea Avenue in Hollywood. Pinks has dozens of condiments and topping combinations on their famous dogs. The specials are named after famous stars, chefs, TV personalities and landmarks.

I chose the Emeril BAM! Dog. Emeril has a new show called The Originals that featured Pinks on one of the episodes about LA. It airs on the Cooking channel if you’re interested in finding it.

This special dog had cheese, jalapenos, mustard, onions, bacon, and cole slaw. I had to take a lot of the jalapenos off because there were so many they were falling out of the bun. I also am not a huge fan of pickled jalapenos, or bacon for that matter, but the cole slaw pulled me into picking this dog. The combination overall was BAM good, I would get it again!

Janeen got the Pastrami Reuben Dog, not named after any celebrity but I think it was famous all by itself. it was loaded with sauerkraut, pastrami, swiss cheese, and mustard. I tried it and it was a mouthful of meat. there was so much pastrami on it, it was falling all over the place. It was a fine dog.

With our bellies full of hot dogs we drove through Miracle Mile and into the La Brea Tar Pits. I’m kind of a science nerd so I thought this stop was great. The Page Museum held a lot of the fossils they excavated from the tar pits. There are also open sites that they are working on that you could observe.

We drove back across Hollywood into Echo Park to eat a late lunch at The Park restaurant, which the wonderful Erin caters to the lunch time crowd. Janeen and I had an identical lunch today. We both got Lucifer Ale, a nice light Belgian with hints of apple.

The Park has sandwich specials that all looked so good it made it really hard to choose just one. I went with some thing kind of light because I ate the hotdog for breakfast… I enjoyed the avocado and Gruyère sandwich piled high with avocado, Gruyère cheese, tomato, and lettuce. I added crispy onions, as per Erin’s recomendtion and spread some Dijon on the grilled whole wheat sourdough bread.

It was nice light and delicious, perfect after a morning of looking at gas bubble out of pits of black asphalt smelling pits.

So we headed out late that afternoon to drive up the coast. We had one perfect stop as we made our way North. I was reading “taste of Santa Barbara” magazine in the car and telling Janeen about this amazing looking Gelato in Montecito. A little bit later she noticed that we were passing Montecito on the highway and said “wasn’t something in Montecito? oh yea, isn’t the Gelato place there?” So I checked the magazine and yes! So we pulled off the exit and 2 minutes down the road we were stopping at Here’s the Scoop for a Gelato dinner.

This place it definitely worth the stop! They let you try any flavor you want and they make everything with local ingredients. Yes, I realize I keep writing about these places using local, organic ingredients, but I am drawn to that so I am either a sucker for people writing local on everything or I just pick really awesome places… probably a little bit of both. Anyway… The gelato and sorbet are out of this world awesome at this place.

I tasted the lavender lemon flavor which was crisp and refreshing but I ultimately decided on one scoop coconut, one scoop chocolate strawberry in a waffle cone. Janeen got Italian chocolate chip (which tasted like cannoli filling) and espresso in a chocolate waffle cone. All flavors got my stamp of approval and left me wanting more.

Vacation Eats – Los Olivos Wine Adventure

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with beef, burritos, california, Los Angeles, mexican, sandwiches, travel, wine August 1, 2011

Today we woke up bright and early and decided to go north to wine country. Our pick was the tiny town of Los Olivos, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

We began the morning eating Mexican Breakfast at Tacos Delta in Silver Lake. We split two burritos between the three of us because they were pretty big. We got a bacon-potato-egg-rice-bean burrito and a potato-cheese-egg-rice-bean burrito. The salsa at this place was great! It was not too spicy and it had cilantro in it, a good addition to the burritos.

We grabbed a coffee at Casbah Cafe. I had an iced coffee (which was excellent). The shop was really colorful inside and all of the pastries and foods were carefully set up with care to look beautiful. I loved that they had nice brown hard boiled eggs on the counter top and fresh figs.

We got our coffees to-go and we started our journey north. We made it pretty far before we had to make a pit stop…

We stopped in a small beach town called Summerland and walked into a cafe with lots of lawn ornaments and a nice front porch called Cafe Luna. I am mentioning this place because I thought it was really cool that they had home-brewed Kombucha tea. There’s only one girl that knows how to brew it that works there. Unfortunately, she was on her own vacation and their Kombucha supply ran dry until she gets back. We all got their standard black iced tea. It had a nice clean and slightly sweet flavor (it was unsweetened though) and you didn’t have to add anything to it. It was perfect just how it was.

Next stop, Los Olivos. The drive up was mostly highway that ran through beautiful hills next to the coast then we had to turn inland. We drove amongst golden grassy hills with wiry oak trees that looked like they grew slightly tilted from the wind.

Los Olivos was quaint. It had one market, one coffee shop, and numerous wine tasting rooms from the surrounding vineyards and farms.

We stopped at Andrew Murray Vineyards, Blair Fox, and Kaena wine tasting rooms. I can’t even pretend to know exactly what I am talking about when it comes to wine. I do love tasting them though and I think I learned a lot about wine just in one day!

Andrew Murray wines were my favorite. I realized here that I actually like white wine. We tried a Viognier (which I have never had) that was delicious and fruity and seemed perfect for a hot day. I learned pretty quick that I really like the blended wines. I ended up getting one from here called Eleven, a blend of grenache, cabernet and syrah. It is a reference to Spinal Tap and the amplifier that can crank the volume to Eleven.

The one thing that really stuck out at Blair Fox vineyard is that their wine was very earthy. It was like you could taste the differences in the dirt the grapes were grown in. It made me notice different flavors and definitely remember them.

There was one white wine at Kaena that had a creamy, smooth, fruity flavor to it. It is called Hapa Blanc, a blend of grenache blanc and roussanne. I like it so much that I bought a bottle to take home with me. One thing that I will take away from this wine experience is that I learned I like good white wine. White wine (any kind) isn’t my favorite, but I now realize I was probably just drinking some very low quality ones.

Before we left the town center, we went to Global Gardens for an olive oil tasting! This was my favorite part of this little adventure. Yes, I like wine, but I love olive oil! We tasted a few olive oils from first pressings, blood orange infused olive oil, spice blends, olive spread, and infused vinegars. They gave you a really nice little bread roll to soak up all of the flavors and the woman that poured all of our tastings told you all about each one so it was really informative. Of course… I ended up joining the Olive Oil club (with some gentle pushing from Janeen and Erin). You get a shipment of their products four times a year for a pretty good price. I can’t wait to go home and try them out… my first one will be waiting for me when I get back! Here’s our tasting palate…

We also went to Buttonwood winery, a few miles down from all of the wine tasting rooms in Los Olivos center. Their wine was good but maybe not as good as some of the other places. This winery stop was all about the farm. They had chickens, pigs, goats, a horse, flower gardens, a peach orchard, and all kinds of places outside to sit and take it all in. It was beautiful. We had a really fun time taking pictures here…

We had to start heading back to LA after Buttonwood and we had to get some dinner. Tasting all that wine made us work up an appetite….

We tried to find this place called Cold Spring Tavern… and what a find it was! We took a winding desolate road for a while and just as we thought we went the wrong way, we see all cars lining the skinny roadway on both sides. This place was an oasis in the dry hills, and it was packed! It was part dining room, part biker bar, part BBQ pit, with shacks in the woods from the stage coach era. We went for the beef tri-tip sandwiches. You had to go in to the bar to purchase a ticket, then go outside to the BBQ pit to get your giant sandwiches from a big burly Mexican guy.

He took a giant hunk of meat off the grill and sliced it up for the three of us, placed it on grilled bread, handed over the sandwiches and told us to squish it all together. Erin asked him how he eats it and his reply was “horseradish and salsa.” I chose the barbeque sauce and horseradish sauce on mine.

It was so big, I couldn’t eat it all. I am definitely not used to eating that much meat all in one sitting. It filled me up for the rest of the night.

We made our way back to Los Angeles through stretches of traffic. We stopped in at a party at The Park restaurant, where Erin works. Then we headed into Hollywood for a comedy show. All-in-all a great day in CA!

Vacation Eats- Silver Lake and Hollywood, CA

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, soup, Travel and tagged with beer, brunch, california, food trucks, market, mexican, Pho, restaurants, tacos, travel, vacation, Vegetables, vietnamese July 31, 2011

Janeen and I made it to California! We came out here to see our really great friend Erin (Hollywood comedy star). We are starting our vacation in Los Angeles. Erin lives in Silver Lake not far from Hollywood, an awesome part of town.

The first thing we did when we got to LA was hit up a food truck! It was late but we just got off the plane and into Erin’s neighborhood.

This one was called Gus’s Lunch Box. It had standard Mexican food like burritos and tacos. I had the Taco Pastor, which was pork in red sauce. It did not have pineapple, which I was expecting because of how the Mexican place back home makes them.

The tacos hit the spot. I chose the mild sauce because I can’t eat very hot spices anymore… I’m not sure why, but I have developed an allergy to one of the chemicals in hot red peppers. The mild sauce was great though and the corn tortillas were really good.

In the morning, Janeen and I set out on a mini-walking adventure that turned into an all day affair. We walked through Silver Lake and stopped at Local for brunch. As you can see by the menu, it was right up my alley. Everything was fresh and well made.

Even though this menu looks bangin’ and I wanted all of the dishes on it, we chose to eat off the special whole wheat crepe menu.

We ordered the La Razza and a dessert crepe (the one with sweet lemon ricotta) and split them between the two of us.

Here’s the La Razza, cut in half with sour cream, avocado, and some awesome home fries. It also came with a smokey (but not hot) pepper sauce that was really good spread on the home fries.The whole wheat crepes added a new texture that went really well with all of the fillings.

The dessert crepe had lemon ricotta stuffing the crisp whole wheat crepe, topped with cooked fresh strawberries and creme fraiche. Excellent, I still ate a lot of it even though I was a little full from the breakfast crepe.

Sharing the two crepes was a great idea. I was comfortably full after the half of breakfast crepe and stuffed after half the dessert crepe. This place also had excellent iced coffee. They even had soy milk out on the fixins table. I really appreciate this because I always have to ask and usually pay extra for soy milk.

After our excellent brunch, we headed onward to the Silver Lake Farmers Market. Here we found super fresh fruits, veggies, and taste-tested many delightful treats. We got a ginger lime juice to share with cane syrup and found some pretty styling LA hats. Here’s some veggie eye candy from the market…

We started walking down Sunset Blvd. and just kept on going until we hit Hollywood Blvd. We actually walked the whole way to the Chinese Theater. Sightseeing, penny squishing, and stopping for a frozen margarita along the way. We had to call Erin to come pick us up because we had walked 5 miles to get all the way over to the most touristy part of Hollywood. On our way home we stopped at the Griffith Park Observatory for some spectacular views of the city.

After some freshening up it was dinner time! We went to Erin’s favorite place Pho Cafe for Vietnamese.

We shared the #3, spring rolls with shrimp and beef inside and a large Sapporo beer.

I got the Pho Ga #13 – rice noodle soup with free range chicken, ginger sauce, and herbs.

Both dishes are highly recommended. They use really good meat here, the beef and shrimp in the spring rolls and the chicken in the soup were all really good.

After dinner we went to a wine and beer bar. My drink of choice was Russian River Damnation. A smooth Belgian ale with an apple/pear taste to it. Perfect for sipping after a late dinner.

Beer Taste: Summer Love

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Places and tagged with beer, hops, summer July 23, 2011

Dan really loves beer, which is probably why I really love beer. We are always on the look out to try something new. I am all about tasting new things- so I never get too disappointed when Dan wants to find local breweries or restaurants with extensive beer lists when we go places. I’m not a beer expert or anything, but I do like what tastes good and I’ll try anything. I’ll be giving you my opinion and some basic info about the beers I feature on here.

Let’s get started…

I’m starting my beer reviews with one of my favorites beers appropriate for the season: Summer Love from Victory Brewing Company. Summer Love was once only available at the brewery in the summer, but it is now conviently available in bottles this year… and often served in my backyard.

I first tried this beer during a brewery visit with a few of my girlfriends. I am pretty lucky because the brewery and brew pub aren’t too far from where I live. It’s a great spot to catch up with some of my college buddies that live scattered over central PA. I am also pretty lucky that my college girlfriends like great beer.

Summer Love is a light ale with bright and clean flavors. Grassy and Lemony, it’s everything a summer beer should be. It looks like a pilsner when you pour it but it definitely has the bolder flavors of an ale. It’s lightly hopped with American and German whole flower hops. It starts off light and finishes with a little hop kick you can taste at the back of your tongue. The ABV is 5.2%, not terribly high- making it a good beer to choose if you are going to be barbecuing all afternoon.

This beer is part of the “With Love, Philadelphia XOXO” campaign. So if you are from afar and you are visiting Philadelphia, you’ll be able to find it all over the city this summer. Or you can pick up a case! It’s Perfect for summer outdoor gatherings, packing in a cooler, tailgating, baseball games, and beach going.

I am currently planning my wedding right now and I am always on the lookout for food, drinks, and fun things that I could include in the party. I would love to feature this beer at the bar. How often is there a local beer with love in the name that I love to drink? I know it’s a little bit kitschy or cute… but I think this beer will make the cut.

marisa eats

Category Archives: Beer