Pour Me: Austin Beerworks' Pearl Snap Pils

Ah, the pearl snap shirt. So classy, so refined. They look pretty cool, until the pearls start falling out. They are really nice looking when pressed, but often they are yanked from the dryer (or floor), so they rarely get to shine. Well, Austin Beerworks' Pearl Snap is cool and crisp, and is probably the best pilsner I have ever had.

Pearl Snap is a fantastic beer on a hot day, and to emphasize that, Austin Beerworks states: "When the temperature hits 100, this beer will be your best friend. When it hits 109, six of these will be your girlfriend." I have to agree. This beer is fantastic at 85, so I am sure the hotter it gets, the better this pils will taste. Not that I look forward to those hotter than hell days, by any means.

Pearl Snap is yet another can of beer that I like. Hey, maybe I should just say that I am totally convinced and get it over with. Anyway, yes, this is a canned beer, and it is fantastic, and there is no real reason to pour it out in a frosty glass. It is that easy drinking. However, if you do feel the need for a glass, grab one of your giant pilsner glasses, and pour 2 cans in, like I did. Pearl Snap pours a nice, light blond color, just like any other pils. The head is very light, white foam. The nose is light on both hops and malts. The taste is crisp, hoppy and clean. The hops are by no means overpowering, just present for a nice level of bitterness. The finish is very clean, and really seals the deal. Pearl Snap Pils is a great summer beer.

Surprisingly enough, if Austin Beerworks bottled beer, I probably would never have tried any of their beers. The cans, for some reason, just intrigued me. Also, Austin Beerworks website is very enjoyable. Check it out.

Pour Me: New Belgium's Shift

Canned beer is shifting the paradigm of at-home beer drinking. When I first saw Fat Tire in a can, I thought to myself "what the hell? NB totally sold out." Well, actually, they did not sell out, they were just starting (along with many other breweries) something very big.

A can of beer, it can be debated, is a totally different animal than a bottle of beer. A can is for piss-beer. A bottle of beer is sophisticated. Well, now with so many good breweries producing so many good canned beers, those arguments are thrown out the window. Seriously, there are some fantastic cans of beer available, and Shift is one of them.

Shift is a pale lager; a type of beer that I have never heard of before. Pale ales, for sure, but lager? It turns out that quite a bit of beers I have had are pale lagers: Name Tag, Kirin Ichiban, and Stella. Pale lager, according to Wikipedia is a pale golden beer with a "attenuated" body and generous amounts of Nobel hops. It was developed in the sixteenth century by, who else, Bavarian brewers. Interesting stuff, to be sure, and this is a variety I will actively seek out.

Shift is more of a rich golden color, with a pale, creamy head. There are hints of hops and flowers on the nose, but nothing truly perceptible. Shift drinks very easily, and is bright and crisp. It reminded me of Ranger, another New Belgium beer, on first sip, but as I polished off a can, it developed into something even tastier. It is very fresh, with a nice fruitiness from the hops. There is minimal malts, and at 5%ABV, it is really nice to drink on a warm afternoon. I truly enjoyed Shift, and plan on getting more this weekend.

The thing about canned beers is this: the whole package is totally recyclable, and the claim on the box is that in as little as 60 days, this empty Shift can will be a totally new, filled to the brim and ice cold Shift. That is impressive. Recycling bottles can be done, but the process does not turn around quite as fast as cans. I think I am becoming a true believer in canned beers. 

Rant: Alamo on Slaughter part III - Return of the Coupon

Personally, I prefer not to use coupons. I have had enough bad experiences with coupons being shoved back at me, saying that either the coupon is not longer valid, the coupon was never valid, the coupon was only good until 5 o'clock, the coupon is only for our "x" location, etc. I do appriciate anyone who does use coupons regulary, and really takes advantage of them to save small fortunes. That said, they are just not for me.

That is, unless there are coupons for places that I love, like The Alamo Drafthouse. Google Offers had a deal some time back, and the offer was to pay $10 for $20 towards the Alamo. I pounced on the deal, and was waiting to use the offer until there was something that I really wanted to watch. It had been a while since I printed the coupon, and, in all honesty, I should have looked it over much more closely (secretly, I believe that is the key to using coupons effectively). The coupon was toward movie tickets exclusively, not food and beverage. I did not realize this, and, imagine my embarisment when the waitress brought back my folded sheets of paper during the climax of the film.

Haha, sucker! I pictured the couple next to me thinking. Thankfully, we were not totally banked on using the coupons, but it still stung. What was supposed to be a fun evening out for a bargain of a price turned out to be neither.

In addition to running out of beer, I have one last rant to make: Alamo, you had the best fish and chips in Austin. What happened?! Did the price of the fish go up so exponentially that it became to cost prohibitive to offer? Seriously, I really want to know. They were fantastic, and I would be willing to pony up a bit more for them.

The best part of our Alamo on Slaughter time was seeing this leaky DeLorean in the parking lot. As I pulled out my phone to take a photo, a couple and their acompaning kids saw me, walked up and were baffled. "Holy crap, is that a DeLorean?! I think that is a DeLorean! Oh man, is that a flux capacitor?" To be fair, the rug in the hatch did have some funky patterns on it, so one could possibly mistake it for a flux capacitor. Still, this made me smile. Though, I hope they didn't lose too much fluid or oil. 

In conclusion, I want to make it clear that I really, really like The Alamo Drafthouse. It is a really good chain of theaters that serve some pretty solid food, and have great beers (mostly) on tap. That said, I believe that by expanding the chain, the quality that I have come to appriciate is going out the window. This visit to the newest drafthouse was a terrible experience, and I will not be going back to that location again.

I do still need to use my coupon, however, so I will probably end up using them at my favorite location: Alamo S. Lamar.

(Photos: Top via katycouponers.blogspot.com, DeLorean via me)

Rant: Alamo on Slaughter part II - The Empire Runs Out of Beer

Beer: it really aids to the whole movie watching experience. I was amazed the first time we visited the Alamo, and had a beer straight from a tap. It was awesome, and it is seriously hard to have a theater experience without something delicious on tap. Well, on my last visit to the Alamo on Slaughter Lane, I had a bit of trouble with that.

The Alamo has a section of their beer and wine menu call "Badass Taps," which feature seasonal and local brews. Usually, there is quite a bit to choose from, so when I asked the waitress what the badass taps were that evening, she started listing beers, and they all sounded great. Then she looked back down her list, and told me there were out of every beer she listed! I was shocked, because usually they have more than enough choices, and being out of everything I was thinking sounded good was stunning.

Whoever does the buying for the beers seriously messed up. This was early on a Saturday night, and unless they were getting deliveries of replacement kegs that night, there was sure to be lots of disappointed people like myself that night, not to mention the Sunday brunch crowd. Seriously, who dropped the ball on that?!

Well, undeterred, I picked something off of the regular beer menu. When the waitress came back a few moments later, she said that they were out of that as well...

Okay. Maybe there was a terrible accident, and they lost half their kegs to a kitchen explosion or something. I really have no good way to rationalize how they could possibly be out of so many beers on a Saturday night. After our seating debacle, I was just fed up, so I glanced at the menu again, said a little prayer, and requested a Dogfish Head India Brown, thinking that would be a great draft beer.

Thankfully, they hadn't run out of the India Brown. The reason? It is bottled. Somehow I got suckered into paying $4.50 or whatever for a bottle of beer. I would gladly pay $6.50 for a tap beer because that is a completely different beast, but that much for a bottle is a fools game.

The India Brown was okay, but it really tasted more like disappointment than deliciousness. So, after I finished it, I crossed my fingers and ordered a Austin Beerworks Pearlsnap Pils.

Much to my surprise, this came in draft form! Finally, a winner!

Sure, I should count my blessings that I was able to have a beer at the theater, but when you get used to something as awesome as the Alamo Drafthouse was, you are really bummed out when shit takes a turn for the worse. I was just do disappointed that I really did not enjoy my evening out.

Stay tuned for Alamo on Slaughter part III - Return of the Coupon

(Img Via: KGSR.com)

Rant: Alamo on Slaughter Part I - The Seating Conundrum

Austin has some really oddly named streets, including Convict Hill, Bee Caves, and Slaughter Lane. Convict Hill is a personal favorite of mine because of the oatmeal stout that is named after it, though Slaughter has a new addition: The Alamo Drafthouse South.

This location is great for all the poor folks, like myself, that live on the south side of town, and do not enjoy the drive into downtown, or beyond. When this location was announced, I was really quite excited: it is a new build with an attached tequila bar! How could it not be awesome?!

Well, I did not have an awesome time last Saturday, and never plan on going back (to that location). Let me abridge this by saying that my family really, REALLY loves the Alamo. The first time we went, we were amazed and stupefied by a theater that also served food and alcohol. I mean, coming from podunk New Mexico where the largest theater was a smelly quad-plex, this was another world. The Alamo Drafthouse pioneered the restaurant/theater, and they have been quite successful at it. The variety of food served is great, prices are comparably low, and the service is pretty great. Well, that is what I thought until our most recent visit.

The Alamo on Slaughter Lane opened a little over a month ago, so all of these problems could be kinks in the system, but even still, it was a terrible experience the whole way around. Buying tickets online is terrifically easy. Just go online, pick the showtime, pick the quantity, have yourself revived with sticker-shock from the Ticketmaster-like "convenience surcharge," decide if you want to pay an extra $2USD for "priority" seating, and bang, you are done. Easy peasy. Well, the tickets for our show were $14, plus the $2 convenience fee, so we decided to skip the "priority" seating. Well, that was a mistake.

Priority seating is the Alamo's new seating policy. Basically, they don't want you to wait in long lines, so you just need to pony up 12.5% of your total ticket cost so you can get a seat where your eyes do not bleed. Sure, in the very grand scheme of things, that $2 is worth very little of my time when compared to waiting for 45 minutes in line. I agree with the time/value proposition, but sitting in line, I can catch up with my friends, play some Infinity Blade, and enjoy the ambiance of The Alamo. As a good friend of mine once said while in the line for Team America: World Police (replete with aviator sunglasses on) - "Hi, I am Johnny Knoxville, and this is The Line Ride." Good times. This new system basically reserves 20 of the best seats in the house, and relegates everyone else to coach.

The basic take away from this is: do not be on time for your show. Be very, very early. And wait in line. Unless you say, "okay, okay, I will pay more to get good seats." If you say this, what is to stop them from charging more in the future?

Okay, sorry for seating rant (no, I am not).

Coming soon: Alamo on Slaughter part II - The Empire Runs Out of Beer

(Img via: littlehelpinghands.org)

Pour Me: Bloody Mary

This Bloody Mary from Jsix in San Diego was damn impressive. It was made "in-house" and had a huge slice of bacon plunged into the depths. It was a beast!

Bloody Mary's are one drink that I am too hesitant to try at home, but this would be how I would make it. The spiciness level was high which was perfect for me. Compared to the rest of the meal, this was top-notch.

Jeez, just looking at this thing has me salivating. Paging Pavlov. Pavlov to the front, please.

Pour Me: Simpler Times Lager

Recently I took a little trip to the promised land (California). I visited Trader Joe's at least 3 times during my visit, and picked up something new each time. This Simpler Times Lager was one of them. Previously I purchased TJ's Name Tag Lager, but I was unable to blog about it (thankfully?), so I decided to give this the good old college try.

The college try is about the only way to undertake something so reminiscent of beer bongs. Simpler Times is, in a word, foul. That said, if I was to put a price on taste, this would be acceptable. For $3.99 for a six-pack (SIX! PACK!) you can enjoy this "Bud on steroids." At that price, I can overlook the general impression of how foul it is, and just sit back and enjoy the easy-drinking nature of it. Sure, it tastes pretty bad for those of us with fancy-pants pallets, but usually cost trumps any other factor, and it surely does in this case. Plus, at 6.2% ABV, it will get the job done.

The only regret I have is not also getting a pack of Name Tag as well. It is only $2.99 per six-pack, and, hell, that is a bargain.

Simpler Times: sure, things were cheaper back then, but the quality was not nearly there. So, which is more important?

Dip: Mango Pico de Gallo

Right behind guac, mango pico is my favorite dip. The flavors are bright and crisp, with lots of heat and a savory sweetness. It is complex, to be sure, but surprisingly easy to put together, especially if you know how to cut up a mango.

There are a million different mango pico's out there, but I have yet to find one like this. Also, I have no idea how my lovely assistant found this recipe oh-so-many years ago, but it was a great hit the first time, and is usually always fantastic. This dip is really dependent on the qualities of the mangoes. Again, I have no real guidelines for picking them, I just squeeze them, smell them, and look at them. They should have a slight give, smell ripe, and have equal parts red and green. That said, I have done this and ended up with very mealy mangoes. Your best bet? Get a loved one to pick them out, then blame them if they suck.

Adjusting this recipe is pretty easy: 2+ jalapenos = damn spicy. Personally, I like mine spicy, though some do not. So I just let them sort it out by digging though the pico and tossing the jalapenos. If you are making this for a crowd that does not like spice, drop one of the peppers. The pico will have just enough spice, but will swing sweeter on the sweet-spicy scale.

Lastly, this dip does not last too long: about 2 days. The lemon in the dip starts to break down the mango rather quickly, and after 2 days, you have a mealy mango mush. One thing that you can do to prolong the dip is to seal it in plastic wrap very tightly. It will last a bit longer with limited exposure to the air.

Mango Pico de Gallo

2 ripe mangoes
1/2 red onion
2 jalapenos
1 small bunch cilantro
2 lemons
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Start off by chopping up the mango. I learned a tip from a friend who said that she cuts the mango first, then peals it. This makes the mango easier to handle while chopping. So, try that out! Toss the mango into the bowl.

Finely chop the red onion and jalapeno. Roughly chop up the cilantro to about a 1/4 cup, and add everything to the bowl.

Squeeze one of the lemons over the bowl, and give it a good stir, and taste. If it tastes like it could use some more acidity, add the other lemon. If not, add the brown sugar. Give it another good stir, and taste again.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve cold.

Mango Pico de Gallo is great on grilled fish and chicken, and great at parties.

Cutting Class: Mangoes

There is a rather hilarious episode of Seinfeld called The Mango. Kramer buys a peach, and it is terrible, and he tries to take it back. "Return fruit?!" Jerry exclaims. Kramer is expelled from the grocery store, and gets Jerry to do his fruit shopping. The shop keeper is on to Jerry, and poor Jerry gets banned as well. So, Jerry and Kramer convince George to buy their fruit. George's trip goes off without a hitch. He tries one of Kramer's mangoes and is, uh, invigorated by it.

A great mango can have that effect. A bad mango, well, not so much.

Picking out a mango is tough. Thankfully I have an assistant who is quite adept at picking out very, very good mangoes. So, sadly, I have no tips for you on picking out mangoes, aside from finding one that is more green than red (barely) and gives gently to a firm touch.

What I can show you is how to cut a mango into small pieces, perfect for turning out a delicious mango pico de gallo.

A mango has an odd seed: it is oblong, and in the center of the fruit. The seed clings to the fruit in a way that makes taking it out nearly impossible. In order to get all that good fruit out, you have to cut the seed out.

Step 1: Start off buy peeling the fruit. The skin should come off easily, revealing a nice golden-yellow flesh. Be careful, as the mango gets quite slippery.

Step 2: The mango should have a wide side and narrow side. You are going to cut the narrow side just off center. In these pictures, I cut a little too much toward the center, and encountered the seed, so I had to shift outward about a quarter of an inch. The knife went straight through, and left me with a nice piece of mango.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2. You should be left with 2 nice hunks of mango, and a flat seed with mango still clinging to the top and diagonals. Lay the seed flat for step 4.

Step 4: With the mango laying flat, with the top facing forward, cut at a 45 degree angle from the top-right to bottom left in quarter inch intervals. Turn the mango 180 degrees, and repeat. This should leave you with a fair amount more mango pieces. Repeat for the other side.

Step 5: Suck on the seed. There is still plenty of great mango on there, but it is just hard to cut off. Enjoy!

Step 6: Slice the big hunks of mango to your desired thickness. In these pictures, I cut the hunks in half, then cut length ways, then chopped.

You should have some nice mango bits for your enjoyment. Stay tuned for Mango Pico De Gallo shortly.

Fish & Chips: McCormick & Schmick's

Perhaps it is time to hang up my quest for the best fish and chips in Austin. Yes, I do believe I have found them. Sadly, I had to have many, many mediocre baskets of fish and chips to get there, and McCormick & Schmick's is one of them.

M&S is a really nice joint with locations all over the US. The oysters we had were very good, right up there with Pearla's. I was really impressed because I thought it would be just another steak and seafood joint. Well, that was only half accurate. I am sure that it is easy to find a similar formula in every metro area in the US: fresh fish and several types of steaks, all with fancy sides at a dear price. While there were much better sounding entrees, I decided to pull the trigger on the Fish & Chips. Everyone else I was dinning with sounded professional, and high class, but me? "I will do the fish and chips" A solid choice, sir.

Solid? Well, I guess that didn't bode too well.

The fish is beer battered in ZiegenBock Amber, a beer that I am not overly fond of, though the beer used in the batter usually doesn't influence the fish in the least. When the platter came, it was piled high with fries, with 4 fillets of cod resting on top. There was ketchup and tartar sauce, in addition to the standard coleslaw. Why, oh why, do places still serve coleslaw. Can you remember the last slaw that you had and actually ate all of it? I have never had good coleslaw anywhere. I would have asked not to have my fish and chips with slaw only if I saw that it was included. It was just bland, fatty and flavorless. Thankfully the french fries were crisp and very well seasoned. Hand-cut fries are fantastic, and these had nice dashes of Old Bay (or the equivalent) seasoning, and were terrific. The only reason why I stopped eating them was the fish was so greasy, it made the french fries limp. Yes, the fish was pretty greasy, and I think that is what brought this platter of fish and chips down a rung. The fish fillets were remarkably small and battered fairly well. The problem was the amount of grease that was retained from the frying. A bit of lemon juice, and a bit of the tasty tartar sauce go a long way, mostly because the fish was quite bland. Perhaps that is the reason why it was so greasy.

Now, this was a solid platter of fish and chips, and I would recommend it, if only it was not $14.95. For that amount, you are paying for for ambiance and service over quality of the food. McCormick and Schmick's is a very cool place, but for fish and chips there are better options in Austin. Plus, c'mon, if you are going to a high-falutin' joint like that, you need to order a nice piece of fish or a great steak, not some deep fried cod.

Oh, as to the best fish and chips? Well, The Alamo Drafthouse Opal Divines has them. 

Image Via: videocityguide.com

Idea: Dream Fridge

Recently, I heard a story about how the modern refrigerator is able to communicate with your smartphone to let you know when you need to get milk. That sounds pretty damn fancy. I also imagine that in the not-to-distant future (2020), the fridge will just email the grocery store what you need, the grocery store will have your food delivered, and you will receive a "grocery bill" at the end of the month. Perhaps they will use rockets for deliveries? Lasers will probably be involved too. Now THAT is really fancy, and yeah, that is exciting, but I think the very-near-future holds the most promise.

This is the refrigerator that I picture becoming a reality very soon: this fridge will be evolutionary from current ones, insofar as it will have a display on front, have an ice maker, and room for a rapid beer chiller that chills beer in a matter of moments. The fridge will have scales mounted throughout, and will be able to communicate with your smartphone to alert you when you are running low on something, so you can pick it up if you deem it necessary.

Here is where it is different: In addition to those alerts on what items you are running low on, you can program your favorite recipes into the fridge. Not only can you access these recipes while you are cooking, but you will be able to set up a menu for the week. Select the recipes you would like to have throughout the week, and the fridge will judge what supplies you may need to get from the grocery store, and it will email you a list of all the items you should pick up to satisfy all the recipes. I also imagine that the fridge would be able to access current pricing for the items, and give you an estimated cost of what your grocery bill will be for the week so you wont have stickershock when you check out. Oh, and you can pull those recipes from your favorite food-related websites, like, oh, I don't know, proofnpudding.

Say I plan on making Rolled Lasagna, Parmesan Chicken with Roasted Caesar Romaine, Shiitakes and Brown Rice En Papillotes, Pork Pillards with Ginger Marmalade Vinaigrette, Pumpkin Turkey Chili, and Steaks with Sweet Potatoes this week. The refrigerator will detect what stuff I need to satisfy all those recipes. I have plenty of frozen chicken, pasta sauce, parmesan cheese, pork chops, but I will need to get sausage and mozzarella for the lasagna, romaine for the parmesan chicken, shiitakes for the papillotes, nothing for the pork pillards, ground turkey for the chili and both steaks and sweet potatoes for date steaks. I get those prices, and decide that I cannot afford to have steaks this week, so I put in that I will have a Chicago Dog from Sonic instead. It emails or texts (actually, it would probably be an app that I could access, also) me those items, in addition to the rest of stuff I may need (milk, butter, oranges) and offer suggestions based on previous grocery store runs. Once you get to the store, you have your list all set up, and can adjust it on the fly, if say the grocery store is out of something. Using an app, you can select a different recipe to replace whatever one the grocery store is out of, and the fridge will automatically update your grocery list. Sure, rockets full of groceries shooting to your house would be much, much cooler, but this would still be pretty awesome.

This is the refrigerator of my dreams, so, someone at LG, Samsung, or Kitchenaid get on this.