REVIEW: Stone Smoked Porter w/ Vanilla Bean

Not really much interesting to say here for this one. I'm a big fan of Stone. I'm a big fan of smoked porters. I even tried to brew my own once, although I have a sneaking suspicion that this one here might just be a bit better than mine. Add real vanilla beans though? That's more than enough to get me to pull the trigger. To the beer!

Country Boy Jalapeno Smoked Porter Pork Tacos

So as you know from reading this blog, when we get together, my girlfriend, Meredith, and I enjoy cooking. Especially when it involves beer. She had texted me early last week about a recipe she had found that involved cooking meat in a crock pot with lager. Now that sounded pretty tasty, but I was a bit dubious as to what flavors might be imparted by a lager. I suggested we try it with something with a bit more oomph. After I grabbed the growler of Jalapeño Smoked Porter from Country Boy Brewing that I looked at on Monday, the decision as to what beer to cook with sort of made itself. Also the inclusion of the Jalapeño made making tacos out of all of this seem to be the logical choice. To the beer and food!

REVIEW: Country Boy Jalapeño Smoked Porter

If you follow me on Twitter you'll have no doubt seen me talking about Lexington's Country Boy Brewery. (If you don't follow me you really should. @QCBeerNerd) My girlfriend, Meredith, lives in Lexington and whenever I go down to visit we make it a point to check out Lexington's burgeoning craft beer scene. County Boy Brewery and West Sixth Brewing Company have both opened within the last year. This past weekend Meredith and I headed out to both. I looked at West Sixth's flagship IPA a few months ago, but have yet to look at a beer from Country Boy. So while we were at Country Boy I decided to take home a growler. There were a handful of delicious beers on tap but I had a feeling that this Jalapeño Smoked Porter would be something special. It was no easy choice though. Especially when they had beers like a habanero blonde and a peanut butter stout on tap. To the beer!

REVIEW: Homebrew Smoked Porter

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time you may be wondering what happened with my homebrew. You can read more about the brewing/ bottling process here. I haven't talked about my homebrew since I made the macaroni dish using the smoked porter and Stone Arrogant Bastard. There's a reason the homebrewing discussion has been back burnered. The first time I tried the beer, when it was used in the macaroni, it was very flat. The carbonation was almost nonexistent. I decided to let the beer sit for another few weeks to let the yeast build up a bit more carbonation. The second time I tried it the carbonation problem had been fixed but I had discovered a new problem. The beer had an overpowering yeasty flavor. I'm not sure if I was just too rough with the bottles, stirring up the yeast before drinking, or if I just poured too vigorously. I decided to put another bottle in the fridge, wait, and then when the time came to drink it, pour it extremely carefully, trying as best I could to keep all of the yeast at the bottom of the bottle. OK, let's see if my beer is any good. To the beer!

Cooking With Beer

Well, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that two weeks ago I bottled my homebrewed smoked porter. It’s been sitting in those bottles carbonating the past couple weeks and the day when I can enjoy it is almost here. That day is not here yet, but more on that later. Since I was planning on popping the top on the first homebrew this past weekend my girlfriend Meredith and I decided to cook up a dinner to pair with the beer. The pairing of beer and food is something that we are both very interested in yet really know perilous little about. So, the quest began to find something that would be fun to cook that would pair well with a smoked porter.

Homebrewing II - Bottling

If you're a faithful reader of my blog you will know that A few weeks ago, I got back into homebrewing. In the last post I wrote about my brew day. If you missed that one, you can check it out here. So, my fermenter full of wort has been sitting in the corner fermenting away for three weeks. The time has finally come to get that beer into bottles!

Homebrewing

This past weekend I decided to get back into homebrewing. Now I've brewed before. I made a batch of English style brown ale (think Newcastle) my senior year of college that turned out pretty tasty. For whatever reason, I kind of fell out of the hobby. I've been meaning to try my hand at it again for years and now that I have this blog and it's insatiable hunger for content. I decided to get back into it.