BLACK EYE IPA

Black Eye IPA was a beer quaffed at the ‘Great Basin Brewing Company’ in Sparks Nevada. This beer, sometimes called an American Black Ale, was an interesting find. The beer is pitch black in color. The body and roast flavor is not as strong and heavy as a stout beer. The flavor has a slight roasted flavor complimenting the caramel malts and fruity hops. This beer has plenty of hop flavor and that is in the India Pale Ale style. This beer also has a high octane level of 7 percent alcohol volume. It was the perfect beer to whet our appetites for more ribs.

PLINY THE YOUNGER

‘Pliny the Younger’ not to be confused with ‘Pliny the Elder’ is a specialty beer brewed by the ‘Russian River Brewing Company”. This special elixir of yeast, grain and hops is a fresh food product that is made only once a year. The demand for this ‘American Double, Imperial India Pale Ale’ is huge. This last weekend hopheads stood in line up to five hours to gain entry to the restaurant/brewery. We did not have to wait in line but it was standing room only this last Wednesday at noon. This brew is planned to be served for 14 days. So many kegs will be allotted for each day.


“Pliny the Younger’ is served in a 10 ounce glass. It is a beautiful golden color with a white foam head. It is not very carbonated and the foam subsides quickly. It smells of caramel and citrus. It may even have a nuance of pine needles. The first sip was so very smooth. It has a great bitter taste from the hops. This is a hopheads hop/malt dream. I need to mention this beer is eleven percent alcohol. It is so smooth that you do not notice the big alcohol content. I now know why beer enthusiasts pine for this specialty beer.


This is the beginning of ‘San Francisco Beer Week”. There will be beer events scheduled through out the week celebrating craft brewers. We will try to attend them all. Well at least some.

San Francisco Beer Week February 10-19

ANCHOR CHRISTMAS ALE

Since 1975 'Anchor Steam Brewing Company" has produced a Christmas beer for the Holiday season. Every Thanksgiving we look forward to the years new release. The beer usually is a brown ale that is spiced. The label has a different tree every year to celebrate and symbolize the winter solstice when the earth and its seasons appear born anew. This years tree is a Bristlecone pine one of the oldest living things on our planet.

This beer poured a dark reddish brown with a thick head of foam. It smelled of chocolate, molasses and cloves. This years beer is a little on the sweet side. Malty, fruity with noticeable spice and hop finish made this for an interesting flavor sensation. A glass was poured and we savored it while waiting for our Willie Bird to cook.

Anchor Steam Brewing

CHILE PEPPER SPICY ALE

Beer and chile peppers are two of my favorite ingredients. “Six Rivers Brewery’ has combined chile peppers and wheat ale to create spicy ale. Will these two ingredients meld together and be complimentary? Is this just a gimmick to lure me to purchase said beer? There is one way to find out. ‘Six Rivers Brewery’ is located in Mckinnleyville, California. The peppers are grown locally and are fire roasted. On the bottle the peppers are only listed as an assortment so we will have to guess on their pedigree. Let’s pop the top.

The beer was poured into a chilled 16 ounce glass. The aroma that emerged was of roasted green chile. I love that smell. Visions of chile verde and salsa danced through my taste receptacles. Once the froth had subsided a generous swig was taken. I tasted high quality wheat ale with no pepper flavor for the moment. Wait a minute! It is hitting me now. There is a little afterburner pepper flavor that grabs your attention. It is not scorching hot and I could not identify any particular chile pepper. What a unique flavor sensation.


This beer is definitely not for everyone. I was glad to have experienced it. We served this beer with some barbeque. It did not really compliment our meal because it is so unique. Your senses are assaulted with chile aroma initially. The beer finishes with chili warmth. This is one unique spicy wheat ale that probably will not be purchased again.

Six Rivers Brewery

ELEVATION 66

A Microbrewery that has been open for the last several months has passed under the radar of The Mad Meat Genius. “Elevation 66” located in ‘El Cerrito, California has been open since September and we only found out about it last week. We jumped in the ‘Racing Honda’ and raced down to the latest contribution to the local microbrew scene. ‘Elevation 66 is located on the busy street, San Pablo Avenue. It is strategically located next to the Rialto movie theater. This will be a great place for refreshments before or after a flick. We got lucky and found parking and proceeded to belly up to the bar.

The interior is small with a very high ceilings. With just a few families and the T.V. blasting the noise level was very loud. The place is sparsely decorated with local art work hanging on the walls. So much for decorations, we were there for the beer. We met David Goodstal the head brewer/managing partner sort of. He was busy watching his college football team and only would speak to us during the time outs. We ordered some suds to give Elevation 66 a try.


Ms. Goofy had an ‘East Bay IPA’ and I a ‘Golden Age Ale’. They both were hoppy and fresh tasting. These beers had a lot of flavor and made us curious to try others. Today was only a pit stop and we will have to return to try the food and other beers. We did take a gander at the menu and noticed the most of the food is sourced from local farms and bakeries. We did see the house made pickles with onions and they looked very tempting.

Elevation 66 has 6 house crafted beers on tap with several guest brews for good measure. When we visited several of the house beers were out. I think Elevation 66 has great potential to be a destination stop. We will have to return to give it a fair shake. It would be great to have some refreshments before the movie.

Elevation 66 Brewing Company
10082 San Pablo Avenue

El Cerrito, CA 94530

510.525.4800

BREKLE’S

It is ‘San Francisco Beer Week’. I thought every week was beer week. ‘Anywho’ this is a week that celebrates micro-beers from around the Bay Area. “Anchor Steam”, is one of the original founders and supporters of the micro brewery movement. Fritz Maytag has been ‘Papa’ brewer for many years. Maytag has recently sold the brewery to another brew conglomerate. A new beer has been released from the new owners, and it is called “Brekle’s” A party was needed to release this new beer and it was a hot ticket to attend the release party. Chilebrown was very lucky to score a couple of these tickets. ‘WowOhmighty’ we are going to a beer release party.

We stood in line for a several seconds at the Anchor Steam entrance so that the official’s made sure that that the Chilebrown impostors did not crash on this very exclusive party. I was recognized instantly and made my way to the beer booth. A Breckle’s was poured and I immediately swooned. It was very hoppy, full flavored with a sweet/bitter taste. Full of flavors; chocolate, coffee, sweet molasses, and most predominately a green hippy chippy hoppy taste to arouse your palate made this one flavorful swill. This beer was definitely a hoppy brown ale, just as the Doctor ordered. This is one beautiful beer!!!!!

What would put this party over the top, besides being at Anchor Steam Brewery and trying a new release beer, but food? This event was catered with four beer ingredients as the theme; Water, Yeast, Hops, and Malt. Water was the ingredient in a ‘Steamed char pu pork bbq steamed pork bun from heaven’. The sauce had a soy chili sauce directly from “Gourmet Chinatown”. The Brewer’s yeast pretzel with gruyere cheese fondue sauce was doughy delicious.. (Malt) Breckle’s Brown beer battered Diver scallops with crisp potato rosti and malted vinegar alioi.was our favorite dish. (Hops) Dessert was ‘Citra Hop’ infused brown butter Finacier cake with caramel butter cream and hazel nut toffee.

How can you top an evening sampling the new brown ale called ‘Brekles’s’ from Anchor Steam with beer influenced appetizers? Oh my, am I one lucky dude!!!

Anchor Steam

SIERRA 30th ANNIVERSARY

So much for New Year's resolutions.

Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary

SIERRA NEVADA HARVEST ALE

Spring is our favorite time for Vegetables. Artichokes and Asparagus are our special guests on the dinner table. What beverage goes with these rewards of spring? The first answer is: “The best beer is the one in front of me”. If we have a choice, a nice ‘Sierra Nevada’ is always a treat. Today we have procured a “Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale”. This 6.7 percent alcohol by volume, top fermenting yeast, “Cascade and Centennial” wet hops from Yakima Washington, is a powerful tasting and very ‘Hoppy’ beer. It is a perfect pairing with some raw Asparagus and a piece of ‘Chicharon Compresado’.


You may ask what Chicharon Compresado is? You will have to stay tuned. I will give you a hint that it is a pork belly product made in heaven.

We have consumed our beer and snacks. We are ready to dance. We have a favorite tune at the Chilebrown house hold. Take a listen. I am not sure of all the words, but I can guess he is singing about Spring and Asparagus.

MAN V FOOD

It is kinda funny that our TV is usually on PBS or the Food Network. Most of our Boob Tube viewing revolves around food. Why is that funny? Because we are food FREAKS!!!! We like to watch a show called, "Man V Food". It is entertaining to us. We like to watch the Host consume a Trencherman's weight of food. He usually finds a local eating challenge and goes for it. He recently went to SmokeEaters and we followed. This challenge was to eat 12 chicken wings doused in a "Crazy Stupid" amount of pepper and Habanero powder. You have to eat the 12 wings in 10 minutes with no liquid refreshments, no napkins and no brains. After you consume this throne of pain, you have to lick your hands and wait five minutes. If you still have a pulse, You will receive a T-shirt and get your picture on the wall.

That is no problem for Ms. Goofy. She was game and was ready to rumble. We were on a Meat Adventure to Dittmers anyway. This place was right around the corner. Well it was 12 minutes away by the Shinken Speck.

GPS. We arrived to a full house. SmokeEaters is right next to the campus of San Jose State University. This is the perfect location for Wings , Big Screens, Beer and Chicken Wings. There were so many T.V. screens that you actually had to pay attention sort of. There were no monitors on the Food Network.

We had to focus on the Wings. We were not ready for the challenge that SmokeEaters offered. We tried the 'Most Hottest' that they offered on their menu. These wings had crazy names such as "Inferno", "4 Alarm", "Traditional Death". "Nuclear", "Atomic". "Traditional".and"Mild".

Our choice of wings was Inferno and Atomic. The Atomic wings were syrupy sweet. Ms. Goofy did not like them. They were too full of honey with a little hint of Tabasco. They should be classified maybe as gateway wings. We were a little hesitant to try the Inferno Wings.

The Inferno Wings looked like the Atomic wings. Were these wings the promise of their name.? Would we be gasping for air? I took a bite. They were not as sweet as the Atomic wings. Whoops, the back of throat needed a cough to be cleared. Is this the End ? Yes, at first bite the Inferno wings do grab your attention. This burn did not last. It was tasty. I think maybe I tasted some Habanero. Ms. Goofy was able to stomach the Inferno, and actually did enjoy these wings. If you happened to watch this episode of 'Man V Food', Adam looked like he was ready to meet the Grim Reaper. This was not our experience.

We later found out that the Wings for the Hellfire Challenge have a ton of habanero powder added.They have to be specially ordered. You do not need to take the challenge to order this death warrant of wings. We had fun visiting and tasting the wings and refreshments offered at 'SmokeEaters'. You need to take the Challenge. Your taste buds and sanity will be aroused. I will leave that up to You!

THE TRAPPIST

Ms. Goofy and I had a beer date with Dylan (Sourdough Monkey Wrangler) at "The Trappist" Belgian & Specialty Beer Bar. Dylan was on his way to an Oakland A's game. We were on our way to Dinner at 'Mexicali Rose'. We arrived at the bar a little before Dylan. Let me first tell you about my beer knowledge. Way back in the day, I was a beer aficionado. I hung out at one of the original Brew Pubs. This was Buffalo Bills in Hayward. Bill Owen's poured me a few beers. We made trips to Judy Ashworths "Lyons Pub in Sunol. We actually planned vacations around visiting Brew Pubs before we started having Meat Adventures.I brewed for a brief moment. I am no stranger to good beer. I know what I like and I know about different styles of beer. I do not know a lot about Belgian beers. I have tried my share of Trappist Beers. We were looking forward to visiting the Trappist. We have heard a lot of good things about this place. It has only been open for a short while. It is located in Downtown Oakland.



It is a very nice looking place. The actual bar is fairly small. There are a couple of tables in a small back room. There are about a dozen seats at the bar. We arrived shortly after they opened a little after 2 pm. We bellied up to the bar and looked over the beer list. The beer list was massive. There is 15 taps and 140 different bottles of beer. We needed some help. Ms. Goofy, Myself and one other customer were the only people at the bar. We started to quiz the bartender about what we should order. The bartender knew right off that our knowledge of Belgian Beers was lacking. We made no claims that we knew different. We were asking for his help. Well he was not much help. He read the beers on tap that were listed on the chalkboard. He recommended a beer from Lagunitas Brewing. It was a Witbiere. Witbiere is a barley/wheat top fermented beer brewed mainly in Belgium. My eyes lit up. I have always liked Lagunitas products. Bingo! I will have one of those. Ms. Goofy settled on Val Dieu Triple Beer. Fortunately Dylan walked in the door. He asked us what we ordered. He right away corrected the Bartender about my beer. It was not made by Lagunitas but Russian River Brewing. Dylan steered us to ordering a sampler. Well why didn't the bartender suggest that? Dylan knows his Belgian Beers. He rattled off a list of beers that were good. All of a sudden the Bartender became more helpful. He could match Dylan with Belgian Beer knowledge. He did not have time or inclination to help us newbies. We ordered a sample of 4 different Belgian style beers. They were most enjoyable!

That is enough of my Rant. The beer was great. The place is small and way cool. I am glad Dylan was there to help us out. The list of beers is a little overwhelming Our experience could of been a lot more enjoyable if the bartender would have had a little more patience with customers that were not Belgian Beer Experts. We defiantly will return. I still have 150 more beers to try.

The Trappist
460 8th St.
Oakland, Ca. 94607
510 238-8900