CHILI LASAGNA

After cooking no less than 4 turkeys over the holiday season I just couldn't face another fowl day; so I decided to create my own variation on this classic holiday dish to serve at the Official Sober Family Xmas gathering.
OK, so maybe lasagna isn't really a traditional holiday dish but since when was The Hop Hunter ever accused of being very traditional. An American Barbarian perhaps...but rarely traditional in any sense of the word.
I'm going to list the ingredients here in the opposite order that I layered them into my official sized non-stick 11"x14" lasagna pan.
The Chili I used was my own recipe but you could use whatever chili you happen to like. The fact that I had a large bowl of chili left over in my freezer from last month weighed heavy on my decision to create this new dish. New to me anyway. That and my continuing love of green Chile's, cilantro and all things cheesy.

TOP
Parmesan Cheese - covering the entire top, essentially sealing in all the other ingredients.
Chili and Mozzarella cheese
Lasagna noodles - solid across the entire pan, tight together
Chili and Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Lasagna noodles
The white layer - A mixture of ricotta/cream cheese/sour cream seasoned with Chipotle
Lasagna noodles
Chili, Mozzarella Cheese and Cilantro
Lasagna noodles
Green Chile's and Pepper jack Cheese
Lasagna noodles
Chili and Mozzarella Cheese
BOTTOM

That's it, five layers of noodles, or go six if they'll fit. Six types of cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or so...until you can see sauce bubbling up
or the top Parmesan cheese is starting to brown.
Let it rest a minimum of 40 minutes. Do NOT cheat on the resting time....have another beer or three and wait........it'll be worth it. You won't burn off the roof of your mouth and the layers will form back together and present properly on the plate. Serve it too soon and you'll have lasagna sliding soup.

As Alton Brown would say "It's just good Eats"

Wednesday night at the OWL CLUB

Although the Deschutes 'Abyss' keg was a thing of the past... Terri and I showed up at the Owl tonight prompted by the "Help Kill the Keg" email that Bianca and Ellia sent out midday. The keg they wanted to kill was the great Mexican beer 'Tecate' .....but the important part was the 2 free tacos that came with that pint of swill...er..I mean Tecate.
So...ya...we showed up ...and got our taco's....sucked down a urine sample pint of Tecate and fielded a few text messages from Rick who was at Manderas.
So ya life was good. Especially good when we downed 4 pints of Racer 5 to clear that god awful stench of a bitch roast that the Tecate left in it's wake.
OK ya..maybe it isn't THAT bad ....but not nearly the beer that I'm swilling at the moment.......

What?......I gotta tell you what it is?....OK OK....2008 Big Foot from...well you know where it's from ..and if you don't you truly have no business reading this lame blog.
Party on Garth........

Another fine Thanksgiving

Saturday November 29th we staged our fifth annual 'Turkey Saturday' Soberment Friends and family holiday gathering. As usual Jeff BBQ'd a 16 pound turkey (as well as a ham) and per tradition we also oven baked a 22 pound monster bird. My Mom Lola did her usual impeccable co-ordination of all the side dishes with considerable help from Terri, Trish and Oralia.

On the rear veranda Rick, Jim and assorted other folk constructed what appears to be a fine batch of Barleywine. Thanks to Rory, Jimbo, Todd for lending a hand there. Todd was especially instrumental in keeping Tracy occupied answering his questions. Or maybe I made that part up just now ......I dunno... because I was merely an innocent (or was that insolent?) bystander sneaking off to refill my seemingly always empty pint glass with that fine Auburn Ale House IPA that Brian Ford hooked us up with. And thanks to Lisa for the worlds greatest salsa and the always entertaining Beer Geek for keeping everyone tasting three more beer varieties than they ever imagined they could.

Thanks to all that showed up and contributed...once again it was one of those days where I just know it sucked to be anywhere else.

Time wounds all heals

Well...I just seen it and heard it...and I gotta tell ya....it rocks. Thanks John....We always loved ya. And Happy Birthday Ralphie.
Oh...OK...ya...tonight Deschutes Hop Trip was the pint night offering at the Owl Club and that just didn't suck at all. Fun times with Terri, Tracy, Dan Rae, The Beer Geek, The Frosts, Porno Brian, Bianca, Megaphone, Hoppy Brewing Terri, The Deschutes dude, the taco tart, Jeff Scammon and all those that shall remain unexposed.
No idea why we didn't end up going to the Toronado.

FIRESTONE WALKER IPA DOESN'T SUCK

Sitting around the campfire this evening at the Soberment....OK....well.... more accurately on the stools around the central dining and beer business structure next to the kitchen proper.... Terri and I delved into a few bottles of Firestone Walker IPA that Rick thoughtfully brought over last weekend. Or was it the weekend before?
I have been aware that FW has won several awards the past year or so with this Union Jack IPA but this is really the first time that I've sat down and hammered a few and really got into appreciating just how good this beer is.
For the record this is the beer that took home the gold metal at the 2008 GABF in the IPA category. A category that included no less than 104 bloody entries!
Or should I say the first time WE have fully enjoyed this beer. Terri really prompted this blog entry with her glowing account of this beer. Basically she says that the hop taste is really nice and hoppy and the dryness is exceptional in it's great hoppiness. Did she mention that she liked the hop in this beer?
I have heard vague comparative references to Vinnies Blind Pig with the FW IPA; and although I can relate to the similarities considering the unmistakable presence of my beloved Simco hops, but this is a beer that stands alone in it's greatness. So yes....go buy a case of it....buy it now...and ya ... bring some over...I still need another one.
And Terri?...well I hear her giggling in the living room so I'd say ya......she'd be up for another.
I'm already planning a trip to Paso Robles as we sip. Or in Terri's case...guzzle.

Why oh why.....

.....Do I go day to day, week to week and now seemingly month to month without writing about my great hop hunting adventures. Sadly the economy has somewhat stranded this hop slut and left him without much to report lately.

Although...yesterday we PacificBrewNews types got together and braved the furthest back reaches of my fridge and managed to unearth a few interesting nuggets.

We started out with a couple of brews Mark The Beer Geek brought over, a can of IPA from 21st Amendment and a bottle of Irish Red from Sam Adams.

After that Terri insisted on un-screwing the top to a growler of Auburn Ale House IPA AND a growler of Sac Brewing IPA. Now we were talking.

I also brought forth an old growler of Beermann's 'Green Acres' IPA...but I'd waited too long on that one and it was without much carbonation or pleasant features.

After awhile Rick went digging through the fridge and came up with a 2005 bottle of Moylan's Hopsickle that he'd given me a few months prior. It was still in pretty good shape..typically gaining sweetness and losing a lot of the hop character.

Mark went in again and came out with a bottle each of Mad River Double IPA and El Toro Deuce. I had no idea I had a couple of those in there.

Not to be outdone I rummaged through the rutabagas (well not really but it was fun to type) and found the first bottle of Blue Frog double IPA I ever purchased. I believe it was from their original batch a couple years ago. It's a corked beer and Tracy noticed that the cork was barely in the bottle. But no worries ...the beer was fine..as fine as that Double ever is.

Suddenly I noticed that it was getting tougher and tougher to come up with many more hop monsters so I did what any honest beer drinker would do under the circumstances......I drug out some Sierra Nevada Big Foots from the drawer archives.

Fortunately there were still some bottles from 2001, 2003 and 2005 that Brewer Steve had given us back in 2006 (or was it 2005?) when we took the tour at the Chico plant.

All the samples were well received and enjoyed..... but the consensus was that the 2003 was in the best drinking shape. Or was it the 2005? The 2001 showed signs of it's age...it was obvious from it's great mellowness.

This led us to grab out a bottle of the 2008....just for historic comparisons mind you. It had to be done..... Frankly all the Big Foot samples aged like you would expect them too...picking up smoothness and sweet character with ever passing year while surrendering some of it's bountiful hop backbone in the process.

I'm already looking forward to the 2009 batch, which Rick tells me is due out in late January this year. Indeed I am ready, although first I must hustle on down to one of the local beer marts and grab me some of the 2008 Celebration which hit town recently.

A couple of Vegas Breweries

If you are forced to go to Vegas for a wedding (although I'm told no one ever doesn't want to go to Vegas for any reason) it is a really nice to discover some decent hops in places that you least expect.

Having family members in the Vegas area means that I visit the town typically once a year or so. In years past I have made the effort to visit as many Breweries I could in the greater Las Vegas area, but with the exception of Triple 777 at the train depot downtown near Fremont Street I have been pretty disappointed with the generally mild offerings.

My latest trip in mid September happily changed all that. Traveling South into town on Interstate 95 we opted to stop at one of Big Dog Brewing Company's locations on Rancho Drive in North Western Las Vegas. With fermentors visible from the street I immediately experienced a minor wave of excitement at perhaps finding a hop beverage worthy of washing away the 550 mile road dust I had accumulated that day. Turns out my instincts were pretty good.....their Dirty Dog IPA was infused with a bit of Simco hops and was simply outstanding. A session IPA in the Blind Pig tradition. They also serve an outstandingly refreshing Bavarian style Hefeweizen just bursting with banana and clove. I bought a growler full of the IPA but by the time we left town it was already empty. Big Dog has three locations in town. I highly recommend checking them out.

Our second night in town we found Chicago

Brewing Company near our hotel and made a

point to try it out for dinner. We were not disappointed. We sat in their outdoor beer garden

that's next to Fort Apache Road but doesn't really suffer from the big roads proximity.

Once again pleased to see that they offered a very nice and hoppy west coast style IPA. Light in body and straw colored the Hardway IPA was very drinkable and well balanced. The menu was full of other styles as well....several wheat beers, a brown Ale and an amber. Our very friendly and knowledgeable server brought us out an interesting sample of a seasonal beer that wasn't quite ready for prime time. He claimed it was 12% or more and was eventually going to be served in 8 oz glasses. It appeared to be a Belgian style honey flavored beer with huge sweetness and an undeniable alcohol warmth. Very huge beer.

Nice to see that some of the Vegas brewers are ramping up their styles. I look forward to my next trip to that desert oasis... I might even find time to visit some relatives.