Thursday, July 23, 2009

My First Time, Pt. 2

Now don't get the wrong idea. Jason is not some seat-of-his-pants, take-the-money-and-run thrill jockey. He is a trained French chef. That is, his training is French. And the next dish, our main course for the night, demonstrated his skill admirably. For the better part of an hour the aromas of bacon, various veggies, chicken, spices and wine filled the house while his Coq au Vin simmered. When the IPA had finally quenched the habañero fire, we plated up and sat down. Jason and I couldn't agree on one beer to pair with this dish, so we fought each other on land and sea had two:

Beer #6: Gulden Draak
The Gulden Draak is one of those singular Belgian beers that defies easy description, or at least refuses to fit easily into an established style category. It is dark, dark golden and strong; its sweet dark fruits (raisins, prunes etc) added dimension to the Coq, meeting the savory flavors on their own level and preventing a heavy, traditional French dish from dulling the palate after a couple of bites.

Beer #7: Allagash Double
This Double is the beer you would expect from the best Belgian-style brewers this side of the pond. No question that it is an American iteration, but certainly no worse for it. Although one could be forgiven for taking the Gulden Draak for a double, the differences are certainly distinguishable with these two beers side-by-side: the Allagash has lower alcohol and gravity, and includes substantially more roast to its malt. Some of the fruit is still there, but putting it together with the chicken emphasized its savory side in a way I had never previously experienced.

A bit of a break now. Simple spinach salad with some of Jason's homemade raspberry vinaigrette, fresh raspberries, and a bit more of the gorgonzola. To really make it pop? San Pellegrino. Perfect.

This is my favorite thing about events like this: after a while everyone gets into the act and you find things you never intended on the table or in a glass. Hannah, for her wedding, made and canned her own chocolate sauce as favors for her guests, and brought a couple of the extra cans up to share with me (chocolate sauce + pita chips. I said it.). Topped with gingham, they were so cute sitting there on the counter that we just had to open them up and dip fresh-picked strawberries in them. More San Pellegrino. Brilliant.

Finally it was dessert time. The sun had gone down and the fire was lit, we were cozy around a table filled with half-full glasses and covered in stray chocolate sauce, and Jason was ready to reveal his real triumph for the evening. The sorbet had been an amusing divertisement, but the real work had gone into perfecting a sweet custard version of a favorite cocktail of his and Matthew's: Ginger-Soy (on account of Matthew's lactardadness) custard with a gelée of lime, ginger, and Sailor Jerry's. Not one to skimp, Jason made sure we could taste every ingredient; it had a pleasant kick, too.

This was also my final chance to show off and I didn't want the opportunity to pass me by. I had all kinds of ideas for possible pairings, and decided that there was no reason at this point to start skimping, so I brought them all out:

Beer #8: Sam Smith's Imperial Stout
Thick and roasty, sweet and herbal, this beer is all one could possibly ask for at the end of a good meal. It is stout enough to stand up to an authentic Cubano, but nimble enough to dance with a delicate vanilla ice cream. It's almost too much for me to describe all of the competing flavor combinations - each one was as distinct and recognizable as an orchestra section, and just as easily melded into a balanced, symphonic fullness.

Beer #9: Unibroue Trois Pistoles
These Canadians make a mean Belgian - before Allagash came on the scene I would say that they outclassed any American brewery at Belgian inspired brews. Trois Pistoles is one of their darkest, and hits all the right notes: deep roasted pitted fruit edging towards chocolate, and the distinctive aroma of Unibroue's house yeast. While it didn't reach quite the same soaring heights achieved by the Imperial Stout, it elicited no complaints.

Beer #10: Tadcaster Porter
Better known by its nom de tasse, Taddy Porter, this beer is absolutely classic and definitive of the style. When poured it starts out a little sharp and light and surprisingly refreshing for being so dark, and as it warms all of the velvety roasts come out to romp with each other. Faint minerality in the well-water adds a characteristic that is very difficult to pin down if you don't know what you're looking for, but just that touch brought out enough differences in the custard to make the Taddy Porter something more than just a lightened version of the Imperial Stout.

Beer #11: Etienne Dupont Organic Cidre Bouche Brut de Normandie
Ok yes, it's a cider. But the people at Domaine Familial Etienne Dupont know what they're about, their family has tenderly tended the same orchards since 1837, and turn their fruit into some of the most complex beverages around. This particular style is dry and tart but wonderfully apple-y. The natural carbonation turned the custard into a kind of apple-ginger-rum-lime-mousse-in-your-mouth, and was my reach for the night. Like the evening as a whole, I was thrilled with how it turned out.

Just before we finished the custard, Benny pulled out a special treat he had saved for Hannah, but a whole bottle was too much for any of us at this point so she shared it out and we were treated to one more délice.

Beer #12: Boon Oude Kriek
This traditional Cherry Lambic is the perfect example of its style. While Cantillon holds the crown for pretty much every other kind of lambic, Boon's Oude Kriek is dry and tart but not astringent and has more cherry flavor than should be allowed in a bottle. When the barrels of lambic get stuffed with fruit, it all goes in: stems, fruit and pits. After the yeast works its way through the meat of the fruit, it breaks down any greenery and starts in on the pits. This is an almost militantly anachronistic technique that produces beautiful almond and woody flavors as it warms. The tartness of the cherry and the dryness of the lambic clear the palate, and are a fitting conclusion to any meal, especially one as adventurous as this.

It was only our first try, but this meal was an eye-opening experience for most of us. Beer dinners we've done before, but with just the resources available to each of us we managed to put together a meal, the quality if not the structure of which would challenge any restaurant on the planet. It's an idea we've all had had on occasion, and we finally made it happen.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

My First Time, Pt. 1

Twelve beers. Eight courses. Seven hours.

This is an idea we all have had on occasion, because it makes perfect sense and we all know just how much fun it would be, but it takes a certain someone to do what needs to be done to really make it happen. In our case, that person was Jason.

Our resident food arteest was finally tired of waiting around for everybody else to get their acts together, so one night a few weeks ago he had me over, all innocent-like. He poured a couple of his homebrews for me - I didn't realize that I was being softened up before he hit me with the body blow of his first menu for this as-yet-unnamed food 'n beer event! Reeling, I went for my notepad and we knocked noggins to come up with beer pairings that could go toe-to-toe with an adversary who's pedigree ranged from traditionally French to nouveaux Windward, experimental Meso-American to Californian potage. When the dust settled we had done it: a menu that made no excuses for its almost complete lack of cohesion, but each individual dish would be delicious and fresh at the least, and truly palate-expanding at the most. Their pairings were a smattering of complimentary and contrasting flavors and textures, each beer as adventurous in its own right as the dish with which it was paired.

Beer #1: Cantillon Grand Cru Bruocsella 1900

We were too excited to wait. We had to have it. My buddy Benny has been hip to lambics since he and his wife Hannah visited me last summer and enjoyed a touch of the Boon Oude Kriek; he was thrilled to find this brew at our local package store. The Bruoscella is extremely unusual to see in the US, and is the only beer of its style that is imported to our hither shores. An unblended lambic is more comparable to a single malt whiskey than anything else in these terms only: it is the rare single batch that is so finely crafted that it can be bottled and sold as-is rather than being mixed with other lambics or refermented with fruit to cover up its flaws. It is not for the faint or uninitiated, and we dove right in.

There is no need to belabor it. This beer is amazing - if you love lambics. It is dry, dry, sour, tart, pucker up and kiss the barnyard ground in the morning mist delicious. It has almost no carbonation and would be amazing if you have the fortitude to cellar it for a decade or so. I would imagine that the almost stinging citrus peel would mellow and become more like fresh-split cedar, but I don't really know. We were too excited to wait.

Beer #2: Krait Champagne Lager

OooOOOooo - Champagne Lager! Sounds fancy!

I'd been holding onto this beer for a couple of years waiting for a good opportunity to pull it out. I wanted to note and celebrate Benny and Hannah's visit as well as the first successful as-yet-unnamed beer dinner event, and what else would a bunch of Brewdies toast with?

The Krait was tasty, slightly toasty, and might be something that I'd buy again if I ever saw it, ever. It reminded me more than anything of the DeuS Brut des Flandres, an ale also made in the Champagne region using traditional techniques to ferment, settle, and remove the yeast. The Krait was even more clean and pure than the ale, no surprise really, and the Champagne carbonation was fine pinpricks on the tongue. The flavors this let through were a bit of a revelation for me: the beer was oh so subtle, but fruitier and more full-bodied than my favorite light lager, the Weihenstephan Original. Three cheers for cross-border collaboration.


By this time the food had started to come out, and no bad thing either. We were able to put Jason's home-candied walnuts & gorgonzola together with the Broucsella, to great effect. As one would imagine, it takes a certain kind of cheese to stand up to a real lambic. A real gorgonzola does it, and all kinds of fun, fermentation-related flavors follow. The walnuts were sweet enough to cut the bite of the beer just a bit, and added their own woody, nutty flavor to the mix.

Beer #3: Fantôme Saison Printemps 2009

I love this brewery, and I love this beer. Benny had kindly served me up a bottle during a recent visit to Los Angeles, and it reminded me just how extraordinarily well they make 'em. This one is perfect for a spring afternoon in Flanders, terribly refreshing but obviously chockablock with good stuff - nutrients that will sustain you 'till eveningtime. A faint sweetness with Fantôme's characteristic spicy funk made it a match for my own addition to the menu: baby portobellas with the stems pulled cruelly from the caps, chopped up and mixed with goat cheese and basil, the mixture then stuffed unfeelingly back into the caps, rolled around a bit in some sourdough crumbs and quickly fried in very hot olive oil until the crumbs are browned but the cheese isn't runny, while muttering unintelligibly to one's self. The secret to this dish? telling the mushrooms just before they go into the pan that you're going to "destroy them all." Fried mushrooms & cheese with beer under any circumstances is good - with beer of this quality one really feels lucky.

So why not have another?

Beer #4: Fantôme Saison

Their year-round flagship ale, this Saison is a bit of an iconoclast. Saisons, like most Belgian beers, are more of a concession to the inherently human need to name things than a strict style, but on the whole they tend to be dryerish, can be a little spicy with some pepper esters, but ultimately are a showcase for truly excellent barley malts and endemic Belgian yeasts which produce slightly tart and citric but mainly bready beers. Fantôme, in all fairness, is all over the place. Sometimes french-bready, sometimes San Francisco sourdough, the only real certainty from batch to batch is that, if you close your eyes and try, you can actually see Belgian farmhands in the field popping a bottle in the heat of the mid-afternoon and quaffing deeply before finishing the day's harvest.


With these four beers open we were able to do some experimenting with our next appetizer. Jason and his missus Missy throw this one together when they have apricots and nothing better to do: Apricots. Split 'em, pit 'em, & stuff 'em with chevre. Wrap 'em in prosciutto and then into the oven just until they're warmed through and as messy to eat as possible. Served with a drizzle of syrupy real balsamic vinegar and a pinch of shredded basil.

This treat has something for each of the beers: tangy apricot skin and sweet meat for the lambic, herbal basil and creamy cheese for the lager, and a full rounding-out of the saisons. Oh, and prosciutto. If a beer doesn't go with pork, pour it out and start over.

But all of this was a prelude. Appetizers were all well and good, but Jason's goal with this nascent group is to push his own boundaries as a chef; we were about to find out what that really meant. From the freezer he pulled a container filled with a bright orange concoction, flecks of green here and there. Into the conspicuous corn-chip cups he had brought went a tablespoon of mystery, and out from the kitchen it came. "All at once," he said, and all at once we popped the entire construction into our mouths. Sorbet, obviously, said my tongue. Cold and sweet, but what's that bit of tang... and suddenly my mouth erupted into a firestorm of delicate spice and fine frutiness that I was unable to parse - and the unmistakable peppery bite of cilantro. I don't think I have ever fully appreciated the true depth of flavor hidden behind the heavy-handed heat of the habañero pepper. Beer #5 was Big Sky's IPA, and it did just what it was supposed to do: popped those peppery esthers right to the top of our mouths where we could taste them again, and then washed them away, preparing us for our second bite of Habañero sorbet - if we dared.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Ol' Factory

Go to the Ol’ Factory Café. If there is one thing you take from this, go to the Ol’ Factory Café. The OFC is the newest, best out-of-the-way locals joint Monterey has hosted since Morgan’s Coffee and Tea saw the back of its founder (incidentally, his best side). No surprise, then, to find Morgan here and up to his old tricks.

Coffee and tea rule the daytime at the OFC. Verve Coffee Roasters of Santa Cruz sends out a constant stream of organic, fair trade beans who chose to be there, guaranteeing that what you see lining the shelves is always less than ten days old, and at the peak of their flavor. Dependable blends and a rotating selection of estate varietals and auction lots are always ready, fresh, and if there’s a roast you prost the most they’ll happily grind it out for you while you watch, and brew it at the drip bar. Most days you’ll find that gangly guru of the grouphead, the crown-prince of crema, tall, tattooed Matt Talley behind the coffee bar, slinging latte art for the masses and dispensing Arabica wisdom. You will not get a better latte between San Fran and Santa Barbara. Tip him.

They bake their own scones, muffins, Morning Glory bread, apple pie, cookies, and granola. They serve breakfast, they serve lunch, they serve dinner. But the remarkable thing is that they do pretty much all of it with pretty much all local and organic ingredients, and manage to keep it affordable enough for students from CSUMB, MIIS, MPC, NPS, DLI, um… MBARI! wait… well, you get the idea. Entrees stay under $10 (unless you want steak and frites, weighing in at a totally reasonable $14). This exemplifies Morgan, Matt, and their team’s dedication to sustainability. Low VOC paints, the bamboo bar, non-toxic cleaners, counters made of pressed waste paper – no signs pointing it out, no one with their nose in the air, and most of all, no one asking you to pay for it. This place is affordable by any standard; they don’t charge a premium for their beliefs.

After dark the OFC really comes into its own. Most nights something is up: Game Night on Mondays, Wii Wednesday, Thursday is the Grate Sand Sity Spelling Bee – one of the area’s best homegrown events, and live music on the weekends. It is a cozy pleasure when you take the turn off of Del Monte onto Contra Costa (by Ichi Riki), knowing that when you reach that first stop sign the Ol’ Factory will be glowing merrily from under its tin eaves. For the evening, at least, you bless the small-town atmosphere that usually seems to hem you in.

But the shining circlet floating above these evenings is their totally unexpected beer selection. Let me tell you, whoever came up with this menu really knew his stuff, and was probably really good looking too. Of the twelve taps, there are four that keep the regulars coming back:


  • The Konig Pils is one of the beer world’s greats. The Pilsner style has been trodden on, over, and down since the end of Prohibition and the rise of the American brewing giants, who watered it down with fillers like rice and corn to make it the tasteless fizz we know today. Konig, on the other hand, is constrained by the German Beer Purity Law to use only barley malt, yeast, hops, and water. Light bready notes, tight carbonation, and substantial hopping (by European standards) make it a light and refreshing but remarkably full-flavored brew that will change the way you look at America’s favorite style.

  • North Coast’s Red Seal Ale is a quintessential California Amber Ale. The remarkable hop varieties of the West Coast meet North Coast’s proprietary yeast strain and solid malt roast to produce a robust but balanced beer that will satisfy any Sierra Nevada fan. Red Seal’s distinctive funkiness separates it from the crowd of competing Ambers. Day or night, winter or summer, Red Seal can be sipped slowly or greedily gulped – it will do you right.

  • Erdinger Weisse-Dunkel, or Dark Wheat, is an unusual style to find on tap in the States. Smooth like a wheat, it has surprisingly roasty flavors most Americans associate with porters and stouts. Traditional German wheat beer yeast produces a characteristic scent of bananas and cloves, which blends in your nose with the caramelized malts – when was the last time you drank a beer that smells distinctly of the legendary dessert of Bourbon Street, the Bananas Foster?
  • Green Flash is a relative newcomer on the California microbrew scene, and has only been available in Monterey County for about a year. These brewers from outside San Diego are enjoying remarkable success, due in no small part to their India Pale Ale. West Coast beer drinkers are inundated with IPAs taking advantage of our region’s endemic hop varieties, but few – none, in my opinion – have the balance of Green Flash. A nose of pine, spruce tips, and grapefruit belies the potency of the hopping, and indeed this beer has remarkable bitterness, but the malts backing them up are confident, and keep the bitterness from stripping your throat by the end of your first pint. But beware your second – this beer’s got bite!

The other taps rotate with a remarkable selection of brews representing all kinds of regions, styles, and seasons. When I was in the bar, doing ahem research for this article, I was privileged to enjoy one of my absolute favorite beers in the world on tap for the first time.

Delirium Tremens is a classic Belgian Strong Golden Ale (a distinction shared with Duvel) that, from the bottle, sports bright carbonation and a beautiful floral nose indicative of its Belgian heritage. I was suspicious of the relatively flat head on my draft DT, usually so pillowy and voluminous, and its seemingly deeper golden hue – more golden hay than the usual pale sunlight – but the first trip down the palate allayed my fears. Floral and light citrus flavors that the bottle only hints at are brought into full relief from the keg, and the lower carbonation makes it remarkably smooth in a way I previously could only have imagined.

The 35-or-so bottle menu ranges from the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout to the Boon Oude Kriek Cherry Lambic (if you think this is going to be sweet, go and try it, I dare you), Fuller’s 1845 to Hitachino’s Red Rice Ale (lactic sweetness and a nose of green Spanish olives), from Allagash’s bourbon-barrel brewed Curieux to the Samichlaus (14% ABV, served with Dagoba 73% Organic Dark Chocolate – lookout, ladies). A beer lover’s dream destination, a novice’s Aedificum, the bar at the Ol’ Factory Café is something for which Monterey has been waiting.

A quiet morning cup of West African and a Man Scone (I’m not telling – go see for yourself) over the New York Times. Sipping Silver Tips / Simple salad, small sandwich / Ensemble, Solo – a lunchtime haiku. Slouched in front of the fireplace, Notes from the Underground and a steaming hot mug of Unibroue’s Quelque Chose Cherry Ale while the rain drumrolls daytime's dirge.

Go to the Ol’ Factory Café.