Day Before Dark Lord Day 2010

I did it. I went and drove over 600 miles by myself for a beer. Sure, I drank more than one, but just one beer inspired this journey: Dark Lord Imperial Stout, brewed by 3 Floyds. You can call me crazy and I am ok with that.

Day 1. April 23, 2010...the drive to Chicago.

I loaded up the car with some PA beer, both homebrew and commercial and headed on my way. My first stop was slightly out of my way in Cleveland, OH. I had lunch at Great Lakes Brewing Company and tried some of their beers. The bartender gave me a taste of the pilsner, but it didnt really do anything for me. I went with two styles that I normally drink: irish red, and pale ale.

Conways Pale Ale: This beer made me a little nervous because something was a little weird in the nose. There was some grain aroma, but something else that I couldn't really put a finger (a nostril?) on. The flavor was all grain and malt flavors. Nice roasty/toasty notes.

Pulled pork sandwich: This (obviously) is not a beer, but drinking without eating is not recommended on a road trip... A good, but small bbq sandwich with coleslaw right there on the sandwich. I like cole slaw on the sandwich as does James from @basicbrewing...the reason I point this out is because it was a reoccurring theme on his podcasts I listened to on the way.

Burning River Pale Ale: Smells like a brewery with the mash and fermenters going full steam ahead. Nice amount of hops with some sticky/viscous bitterness in the finish. Nothing crazy or over the top, just a nice lunch beer.

Continuing on my way, I drove to Chicago where I was staying with my friend, Amanda. She took me out for some Chicago Deep Dish Pizza and then for a beer. This was really cool for 2 reasons: 1. I have been craving real chicago deep dish pizza ever since I knew what it was, but I had never been to Chicago. 2. Amanda is allergic to gluten, so she could not take part in consuming the wonderful pizza and beer of Chicago, but she came out with me to the pizza place and the bar anyway!

We went to Small Bar and I had 2 beers:

Metropolitan (Flywheel?) Lager: I am not sure if this was the flywheel or not because I didn't write it down and all I remember is that it was a pale lager and I think there was an M on the tap handle. It was good but not great (I didnt take any notes)

Two Brothers Cane and Ebel: This is a hoppy rye beer that was really good. I wish I could be more descriptive, but again no notes, just that I really liked it.

Stay tuned for part two...Dark Lord Day 2010!

Coffee and Pancakes

Java Head Stout Pancakes with Espresso Maple syrup

Sometime I feel that the beer flavor in my pancakes just isnt strong enough. I decided that I needed to use a beer with a bit more in your face flavor and I chose Troegs Java Head coffee stout. This is a great beer with nice coffee flavors and lots of roasted malts. Since it was just me eating the pancakes, I took my normal recipe (here, just replace with a beer of your choice) and just did 1/3 of each of the ingredients. It works out nicely, because you only use 1 cup of beer and that gives you a little left over for drinking.

For the pancakes
Dry:
1 Cups AP flour
1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 Tablespoon melted butter

Wet:
1 egg
1 cup beer (Troegs JavaHead)

You may (or not) notice that I switched the butter over to the dry side. I hoped that adding the butter to the flour would stop the butter from getting all lumpy like it does when you add it to the cool beer and egg, but it just makes the flour lumpy and the batter thin and lumpy. In the end, the pancakes were more like lumpy crepes, but they tasted GREAT!!!

To continue the coffee theme for the morning, I wanted to make a coffee syrup to put on the pancakes. I really dont know anything about making syrup, so I just took a shot of espresso and dumped it into my maple syrup. Delicious! (Ok, so the syrup was thin too, but it was still good)

I think that I will be experimenting more with dark beers in my pancakes. Today was a success.