Sunday, September 28, 2008

Homebrew Pumpkin Ale Part 1

Homebrew Pumpkin Ale - Part 1


This Pumpkin Ale is my first attempt at a flavored beer. After tasting a few popular brands, (Buffalo Bills, Shipyard, DFH) I decided my goal would be a drinkable winter ale with warm pumpkin flavors, rather than a full fledged pumpkin pie experience.


I roasted fresh pumpkin and used a small amount of cinnamon, fresh ginger, clove, allspice and molassas.


After brewing, the OG was higher than I expected. I think miscalculated the sugar I got from boiling all that pumpkin and will have a higher ABV than I targeted.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Kitchen, Boulder CO

The Kitchen

This is rapidly on the rise as one of my favorite restaurants both for its liberal use of burrata cheese (this kind, not this kind) and its extensive beer & wine list. Plus, any restaurant that prominently features a huge chalkboard listing each of their purveyors gets automatic extra credit.

Below are pictures from our latest visit to The Kitchen Upstairs, a lounge and convenient pit stop enroute to Galactic and Chali 2na at The Fox Theatre.

A long wood fired flat bread covered with warm quercia prosciutto, gioia burrata and fresh basil.

On the left, wood fired pizza with fresh mozzarella and kalamata olives. On tap and in the photo is one of my personal FtW's, Russian River Brewery's Damnation Ale.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Thanks Rob and Emily

This is what remains of the marinade gifted to all the guests at Rob and Emily's wedding.

We hickory smoked 2 chickens and some boneless pork ribs for 2 hours.  We marinated and basted liberally with the special sauce.

Yep...




Sunday, September 14, 2008

Breckenridge Octoberfest 2008

In an attempt to take a simple stroll through the quaint mountain town of Breckenridge, my parents and I unknowingly stumbled into their annual Octoberfest party.   It was festive, sunny, warm and, best of all, the mountains were showing a dusting above the treeline, a promise that ski season is on its way.  Without missing a beat, we shifted gears and jumped in line for a stein and beer tickets for some obligatory Paulener Octoberfests.  We also went on to enjoy bratts w/ kraut, smoked turkey legs, german sammy's, apple fritters, fresh made popcorn and my father even scored a bowl of his all time favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream. 










Monday, September 1, 2008

Labor (of love) Day

Beautiful!


Nothing like a good ol' fashioned clamussellobsterbake. I can honestly say that we outdid ourselves on this one. Every piece of seafood was perfectly cooked. Shop-Rite $5.99/lb. lobsters are the shit! See you next year Jonno & Koost.