Recent Obsessions- Volume 3: MissFancyPants' Summer Beer List

Not sure how much you know about myself and my husband but we LOVE beer, good beer.
I am talking about craft beers not the mass market beers.  Not saying I am not into wines, because I am, I love a good Napa Cab or a fine Italian Barolo but beers have evolved so much over the past 5 years.  If you haven't tried a craft beer, I urge you to go to your local liquor/beer store and make yourself a 6pk.  Try some different beers.  And don't be alarmed when you see canned craft beers - like Oskar Blues and 21st Amendments - think of when you saw New Zealand and Australia start the twist-off caps of good wines. Not only are these beers amazing, but they are also party/beach friendly!!

At the end of April, Mike's um 36th birthday this year, I organized a Beer Bus Bar Tour that went to two great establishments that have excellent beer lists.

Mike, myself and my nephew (disclaimer:  he did not go to the bar)

Standard Tap
Kraftworks

If you are in the city - both have great craft beer lists and food.  We picked those two since there was so many of us but there are a ton of great bars in Philly if you are looking for somewhere to go.

Standard Tap only has only local micro-brews (NJ, NY, PA, and DE) and uses local ingredients for the food menu.  To top it off it is in a great location - Northern Liberties.

Kraftworks was okay in terms of service but they had a great beer list and they do growler fillings.  They are located in the Fishtown area in Philly which is almost like a gem in a bad area.

Another great resource if you are going to Philly is PhillyTapFinder.com.  This shows you who has what on tap!  Genius!

To prove our beer-loyalty even more...our basement was refinished once we purchased the house to include a sound-proofed band room (I helped design using inspired colors from Type O Negative - that was my only creative contribution the rest of was the artsy husband).  The rest of the basement includes a dry bar, entertainment room, bathroom, etc.

My other $$ contribution was a couple Christmas presents I bought Mike (with selfish intentions) - double tap beermeister one year and then a single tap beermeister a year later.  Therefore we can have 3 kegs on tap at all times - EXCELLENT!! 1 holds 2 sixtel kegs (skinny kegs which many craft beers come in) and 1 holds a 1/4 keg for some "everyday" drinking beer.

I will start off the list with the three on tap.  They are incredible beers, two of which I cooked with rather recently.

• Victory Headwater Ale - not only drinkable but also works when you simmer some fresh herbed chicken sausage.
• Oskar Blues TenFidy - see previous post for my Ten-fidy pot roast which I must say was awesome.
• Weyerbacher Double Simco which is a double IPA - it is very hoppy upfront but sweet as you drink it. 

I don't know what it is but I have been addicted to Saison beers lately.  Did you know the reason why they call it a Farmhouse Ale?  Saison's were given to farmhands to keep them happy and hydrated during the summer.  Maybe that is why I LOVE it after a long bike or a track run workout...I do say it keeps me happy!!  Two that I especially fell in love with this year:

• Yard's Saison (yup straight out of Philly!!) - excellent is all I had to say.
• Great Divide Collette - Farmhouse Ale - little different - I would say this is less sweet and more lemony and grassy flavored.

Some other yummy goodness....

•  Left Hand Good JuJu - Left Hand does NOT disappoint AGAIN!!  It is more of a light ale with hint of ginger - it tastes amazing with sushi!! 
• Oskar Blues - G'Knight - it's in a can (perfect for the beach) and a great Imperial Red - just great anytime beer.

Some IPAs that are super good:

• For the IPA Connoisseur:  Fegley's Hop'Solutely Triple IPA was also extremely good - too bad the keg is one of those short fat one's so we couldn't get it for the taps.
• For the Belgium Lover:  Terrapin's Monk's Revenge is a Belgium style IPA - DELISH!!

This May, American Craft Beer Week came and went.  I had some amazing beers that week when we went after a tri-club meeting to the Pourhouse in Colllingswood, NJ:

• Great Divide Hercules Double IPA - GR8 IPA!!!  Hoppy - yes please!!  I loved it.  

• Elysian Triacula - Strong Ale - it was pretty good, little bitter but sort of sweet with some grapefruit hint.
• Founder's Double Trouble- this is like crack candy. Good IPA - you can taste a little caramel and some fruit.  Christine had this at the bar. Yummy.

I have a couple darker beers for the stout and porter lovers.

North Coast Brewery Old Rasputin Imperial Stout - is really amazing.  Screw the cafe latte when you can have one of these.

Southern Tier Raspberry Porter - this was like having a chocolate raspberry dessert.  Mike asked me to taste a bite of some yellow cake (which I am not a cake fan unless it is carrot or some sort of fruit) and then have a sip of the raspberry porter.  This was pure heaven!

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter - another dessert like beer - it is just a nice hint of vanilla and chocolate but not overpowering or too sweet.

 My last suggestion if you can STILL get it is the 14th Anniversary by Firestone.  Check out the website here for the ingredients!

It is made of about 5 different beers (think of a California blend - syrah/cab/zin) most of it aged in bourbon.  One of the beers that is 27% of the Anniversary is the Parabola Oatmeal Stout which will be out this summer (we have a beer guy working on this for a keg).
It's a strong beer but it is a great sipping beer, you don't want to chug down this fine beverage.  You want to get all the flavors, check out their sheet and see if you taste everything.  It's about $20 a bottle.

Firestone makes a lot of great beers, we got our growler recently filled with Double Jack Imperial Pale Ale (excellent).

There is so much more great beers that we tried so I am sure there will be a late summer addendum to the list!

If you want to check out my other beer list posts or just follow my cloud with beer - I'm always posting about something!
How to Keep Sane During a Northeast Winter
Off-Season - Stockholm's Hidden Treasure

Lastly, hold into to your hats!!  I am going to venture into the "making beer" realm, because I NEED another hobby...
HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

The Ten-FIDY Pot Roast

Last week, I completed week 3 of my half-ironman training. As of right now I am following last year's plan and have found it easier than last year. Could be because I am "less green" in the triathlon area, or maybe because I just finished a half-marathon in February, meaning I had less "off" time in running. Last year, if I remember correctly, I did not complete my third swim a week (for many weeks) whereas, I am really making sure it is incorporated and followed as planned.

I do need to do a couple things....sleep better and eat better. I had a great week with the detox but quickly fell off during the second week. Week 2 was very difficult. We lost a really good friend so it was a hard week to get through training/eating/sleeping. You don't realize how much emotional stress can play on your body, how tired you can be. I got about 3/4 of the workouts in but was just going through the motions and almost felt I should have taken a week off. On the plus side, it really helped relieve some stress. The silver lining was spending an incredible amount of time with my friends, especially my girlfriends.

This Monday was a crappy day, it was rainy and blah. The night before I took out a seasoned pot roast I bought at Whole Foods. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it was a beautiful piece of meat. Anyway, I wanted to cook it with beer instead of wine. I had a meeting on Monday so I wanted to put it in early so that meant what was in the house by way of beer? Ummm, for those that don't know Mike and I, you can be damn sure there will be a selection....So on tap we had Scaldis (not a good choice), Victory Headwater Pale Ale (nah, too light) and Oskar Blues Ten-FIDY (an Imperial stout). I really wanted to use a smoked porter but we didn't have a bottle in the house just a random assortment of beers that we would probably rather drink than use for cooking purposes. So I went with the Imperial Stout. If you haven't already had Ten-FIDY, you really should try it. It has a nice chocolate caramel flavor, which I thought would go nice with the roast. It has a slight bitterness but smooth at the end.


Ten-FIDY Pot Roast
3.5 lb roast (already seasoned with parsely, lots of black peppercorns)
1 large shallot
8 garlic cloves
A couple swirls of vegetable oil

Heat oil over med-high heat, add garlic, shallot and simmer for 5 min. Add beef using tongs, sear on each side about 1 min per side.

In the crockpot add the following:

4 potatoes (peeled or unpeeled) - chopped
1 onion chopped
4 carrots - chopped
1 box of beef broth
1 large pint of Ten-fidy

Take meat, and scraping of garlic/shallots and throw in crockpot - put on high until up to a boil and then turn to low and simmer all day (1-2 hours per pound - I had it in for about 8 hours total).

Ten-FIDY Gravy
Take 3 cups of the juice of final product in crockpot. Pour through a sieve and heat in a saucepan on medium. Add 3 tbspn of flour - slowly while whisking. Add 1 tspn of sugar and 1/4 cup of Ten-fidy, bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper and let simmer for 15-20 min till thick. You can add more flour depending on the level of thickness and you may want to taste to add more or less salt.

We served this over German egg noodles, my dad bought us from some little German store at Peddler's Village in PA.
I have to say - BEST ROAST EVER!!!!!