My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 31st.

Each July for the last 10 years some of New England’s best barbequers and grillers have descended upon tiny Windsor, VT for the New England Championships of BBQ, which is hosted on the grounds of the Harpoon Brewery. This New England Barbecue Society supervised event is attended by thousands of hungry BBQ fans all hoping to get a taste of some of the best BBQ this side of Kansas City and, of course, to sample some of Harpoon’s great beers.

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3. From the HopPress: The Vermont Brewers Festival

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 24th.

Last weekend was the 18^th annual Vermont Brewer’s Festival (VBF) in Burlington, Vermont. I had not taken this event in for a couple of years, so I was really looking forward to visiting with some of the new breweries that were to be there this year and to see if they had made any changes in the event to improve upon the experience of the festival attendees from years past.

Organized by the 21-member breweries of the Vermont Brewers Association, the VBF is held every year on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington’s Waterfront Park. It is a truly beautiful setting to hold such an event and last Saturday’s hot and sunny weather made it seem that much better. The proximity of the lake and a steady,cooling breeze coming off of the water made the day seem pleasant, in spite of the fact that the temperature reached 90F that afternoon.

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Last Sunday afternoon I was one of about 10 lucky people that attended the Three Penny Taproom’s Celebrate the Northern Forest: Craft Beer and Artisan Cheese tasting event.  The cheeses we sampled were specially selected for this event by Montpelier’s Jeff Roberts (author of The Atlus of American Artisan Cheese and an instructor at the New England Culinary Institute). Jeff’s cheese selections for this event were chosen as examples of relatively small production, very high quality cheeses produced in rural New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  Some of the cheeses selected are not readily available outside of their local marketplaces and three of them (the two from Maine and the one from NY) are not typically available in Vermont at all.  TPT’s Scott Kerner specially selected craft beer to compliment the flavors of each of these cheeses.  Chef Joey Nagy, TPT’s chef extrordinaire, added other simple food items to each tasting pair designed to enhance the flavor of both the cheeses and the beers; particularly when tasted all together.  The beer/cheese parings and my comments are as follows (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed below are solely my personal, very uneducated observations and are not a reflection of TPT, Jeff or the cheese manufacturers):

1. BreBis (from Appleton Creamery in Appleton, Me) – A soft ripened Brie-style cheese made from East Freisian and Dorset sheep’s milk.  Served with Allagash White beer and dry roasted hazelnuts.  The cheese was very mild and although the beer was also mild it seemed, to me, to overpower the very delicate flavor of the cheese.
2. Landaff (from Landaff Creamery in Landaff, NH) – A slightly aged (2-4 months), natural rind, semi-soft cheese made from raw Jersey cow’s milk.  Served with Smuttynose Old Brown Dog and dry roasted hazel nuts.  This was one of my favorite pairings of the afternoon.  I had no idea how well hazelnuts and a good brown ale tasted together.  The cheese was good, but sort of got lost in my event-induced “epiphany” surrounding the brown ale and the hazelnuts.
3. Sweet Emotions (from Lazy Lady Farm in Westfield, VT) – A certified organic, cave-aged (3 weeks), soft-ripened, double to triple cream cheese made from pasteurized goat’s milk and Jersey cow cream.  Served with Hill Farmstead Florence Wheat Saison and a dried whole fig.  I enjoyed this pairing quite a bit, especially the “all in” combination of a small bite of the fig along with the beer and cheese.  The flavors of the three just all seemed to blend together very nicely.
4. Pecorino Fresco (from Dancing Ewe Farms in Granville, NY) –  An aged (60 days), semi-firm, farmstead cheese made from East Friesian sheep milk from the farm.  Served with Southern Tier Double (2X) IPA and tomato jam.  The hoppy bitterness of the IPA was mellowed by the sharper flavor the aged cheese and the sweetness of the tomato jam enhanced the subtle malty understructure of the IPA.
5. Tarentaise (from Spring Brook Farm in Reading, VT) – A semi-form, farmstead, aged (5-12 months), washed rind cheese made from raw Jersey cow’s milk from the farm.  Served with Hill Farmstead Edward IPA and honeycomb.  The intense hoppiness of the IPA was a perfect match to the hardy flavor the cheese.  The honeycomb provided flavor contrast the stronger beer and cheese.  This is a favored beer and this was a great cheese to serve along side of it.
6. Blue Velvet (from Hahn’s End in Phillipsburg, ME) – A certified organic, aged (2-4 months), hand-pierced natural rind blue cheese.  Served with the the honeycomb along with the .  contrasting flavors of two different beers; Allagash Four and Allagash Odyssey.  Each beer provided its own experience with the cheese.  Several people in the session pointed to the fact that the Four’s hoppiness seemed to be enhanced by the cheese, whereas the subtle flavors of this quite strong cheese were enhanced by the Odyssey.

I have to say that I was very inspired by this tasting session.  I was very impressed by the knowledge and understanding of cheese, beer and food that each of the three session leaders brought into the session.  As I continue to build my own knowledge of the fun, exciting and exceptionally deep topic of beer/food pairings, I can only hope to aspire to a tiny portion of the skills that these people showed to me on Sunday.  But, then again, half of the fun in such an endeavor is in the learning… for it is not every of life’s challenges where you can eat, drink and savor such an adventure along the way!

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2. Three Penny Taproom “MontBeerlier” Festival
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It has become a summer tradition over the last several years for us to attend this wonderfully fun event in Windsor, VT.  For details you can visit the Harpoon Brewery site at http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/index.cfm?pid=28568.

• What:
  • Celebrating our 10th year in 2010
  • A celebration of the best of Summer—Fresh beer, great BBQ, & live music
  • The Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vermont offers an ideal setting for the event
  • 40 BBQ Teams from all over will be competing for prize money & trophies
  • A select few teams will be selling their award winning BBQ to the public
  • Great live music provided by the hottest local bands from Vermont
  • Come sit back, relax and enjoy the summer with friends at Harpoon Brewery

  • Brewery tours offered through out the weekend

• When:
  • Saturday, July 24th, 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM (Entrance closes at 6:30 pm)

  • Sunday, July 25th, 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM (Entrance closes at 3:30 pm)

• Where:
  • At the Harpoon Brewery, 336 Ruth Carney Drive, Windsor, VT. Map/Directions
  • Off Route 5, next door to Simon Pearce, exit 9 off Interstate 91
  • Free parking available in the fields surrounding the event site

  • Camping at the event is for competing teams only.

• How Much:
  • Door charge is $15.00 per person. This admission fee includes 2 Harpoon beer tickets or non-alcholic beverage tickets. It does not include food. Children under 12 are admitted free, but must be accompanied by an adult.
  • Cash bars serving a selection of Vermont-brewed fresh Harpoon and UFO beer for $4.25 a pint
  • Various BBQ teams will be selling a wide variety of hot delicious BBQ
  • The event will be held rain or shine. Tickets not sold in advance.

• Pets:
  • Dogs are allowed, but must be leashed at all times. Dog owners are responsible for the actions of their dogs and must clean up after their dogs. Harpoon reserves the right at any time to ask that a dog and its owner leave the event if the dog in not leashed, cleaned up after, or is misbehaving in our opinion. No refunds will be issued if a dog owner and dog are expelled.

See y’all there!

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On Sunday (July 18) I will be attending a beer & cheese pairing event at the Three Penny Taproom here in Montpelier.

From Their Web site: This one is called Celebrate the Northern Forest: Craft Beer and Artisan Cheese and will feature specially selected craft beers courtesy of TPT’s Scott Kerner, paired perfectly with six artisan cheeses hand-picked by Central Vermont’s own Jeff Roberts (author of The Atlus of American Artisan Cheese).  In addition, chef Joey Nagy will be providing some incredible accouterments for your enjoyment.  The event runs from 1:00 to 3:00 and costs $40/person.  Sign-up and pre-pay in person here at Three Penny- but do so soon, these events always fill-up quick!

Tickets still available as of 7/15/2010…

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2. American Craft Beer Fest in Boston This Weekend
3. From the HopPress: ACBF 2010 – First Impressions

Location: Burlington Waterfront Park, 1 College Street.

Time: Friday, 6 – 10 p.m.; Saturday sessions, noon – 4 p.m and 6 – 10 p.m.

Cost: $25 per tasting session.

Information: 802-760-8535 or visit www.vermontbrewers.com.

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My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, June 26th.

Thanks to the benevolence of the folks at Beer Advocate, I was fortunate to be able to attend all three sessions of this year’s American Craft Beer Fest held at the Seaport World Trade center in Boston. This is, in my opinion, a perfect setting for this event. This large conference center sits right on Boston’s waterfront with easy access to mass transit with plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby. The weather last weekend was also perfect; sunny and warm.

Read more…

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My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, June 19th.

I was one of about 3,000 people that attended the first session of the American Craft Beer Fest (ACBF) in Boston last night. This annual event, the East Coast’s largest beer festival, is being held at the Seaport World Trade Center. Today there will be two additional sessions and each of these session is likely to draw around 5,000 craft beer seekers.

Read more…

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My last week’s featured article for RateBeer’s The Hop Press… posted on Saturday, May 15th.

This is a story of two successes at once, sort of like a piece of tasty candy with a yummy center. The first of these, the “tasty candy”, has to do with an event which occurred recently in my home town of Montpelier, VT. On May 1^st of this year the Three Penny Taproom (TPT), located right on Main Street downtown, celebrated its first year anniversary in truly GRAND style… with Montpelier’s very first beer festival… a Montbeerlier Festival.

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