Beer bet for the NFC Championship

Just a friendly football rivalry between two great brewers:

http://brooklynbrewery.com/blog/2012/01/19/bi-coastal-brewers-bet-for-the-nfc-championship/

"A friendly wager has been placed between Brooklyn Brewery and Anchor Brewing Co. that our respective hometown teams will win the National Football Conference game this Sunday.

John Dannerbeck, president of Anchor Brewing Co. of San Francisco, and Steve Hindy, president of Brooklyn Brewery in New York, have agreed to pour the other brewery’s beer and outfit their brewery tour staff in jerseys from the opposing team for a week if their team loses the title game in San Francisco on Sunday. The brewery chiefs will wear the jerseys of shame as well.

“We are very confident that the 49ers will come through for us and we will not have to suffer this humiliation,” said Dannerbeck. “We beat the Giants earlier this year, and I am sure we will do it again.”

“The Giants have come together in an impressive way since the post-season commenced,” said Hindy. “We think Eli Manning and his team are going to avenge that earlier loss and move on to the Super Bowl.”

May the best team win!"

Beach Burger

“Well, well, well, look who decided to get off his lazy ass and write a blog post...”

Whoa. No need for name-calling, anonymous snarky reader. I happen to have been going through a lot of stressful and important st…okay, I’ve been lazy. Sorry about that. Please accept this post as my apology. 

 Suck it, Ansel Adams!
I know what you’re thinking. Why am I blogging a place called “Beach Burger” in January? I’ll tell you why. Burgers are not seasonal. I like burgers on the beach. I like burgers by the fireplace. It really doesn’t matter. It’s about the beef, not the motif. (I’m trademarking this.)

We walked into the joint and were immediately greeted by steel drum music – the unique island sound featured in “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid, and of course, all the Girls Gone Wild commercials. A good start.

The interior had a warm beach-town feel to it, like something out of LBI or Cape Cod, complete with buoys, nautical ropes, and starfish. My attention, however, was turned to the four or five flatscreen TVs mounted above the register, showcasing the various menu items.

I chose the Bynum Burger, named for Marc Anthony Bynum, the celebrity chef who worked with the owner to create Beach Burger’s menu. The burger consisted of a juicy, high-quality beef patty, tender pulled pork, crunchy onion strings and tangy BBQ sauce. In a word – awesome. One of the best burgers in the area and certainly worth the trip.

Fry ALL THE THINGS!
The fries, however, stole the show for me. They’re hand-cut in the kitchen, fried perfectly golden brown with just the right about of crispiness, and topped with the right amount of sea salt. Right up there with Five Guys (note: this is a very good thing).

Looking at the menu, there are a ton of reasons to come back. They have fried seafood (filling the void left behind by Overton’s seasonality), a unique selection of homemade milkshakes, and of course, more burgers (including one with fried oysters on it!)

If you’re in the area, stop by. If you’re not in the area, stop by anyway. It’s worth it.

Cheers,
Ryan

Little Buddha

http://littlethaikitchen.com/littlebuddha.htm

Stamford, CT

Menu

I must say that Little Buddha is one of my favorite places to eat out in Stamford. They serve up authentic Thai dishes that I simply can't get enough of. But on top of that they have every beer in the world available for consumption! You just have to go find it and bring it. Yes, that's right - It's a BYOB. For me, this is a huge plus. I'm sure that you've scoured the menus and bars of many Asian restaurant's in search of a tasty brew only to find Kiri Ichiban, Asahi, Bud Lite, and dragons. In my opinion, nothing accompanies spicy Thai cuisine better than nice bitter IPA, plus you can buy a 6-pack for only slightly more than most places will charge you for a single pint.

In the many times that I've visited Little Buddha I have never found a dish that I did not like. Go ahead, be adventurous. Among my favorites are the Pad Thai Noodles, Coriander Fish, Fish Choo Chee (lightly fried red snapper in a coconut curry). But what really keeps me coming back are the delicious curries! Praise Buddha these are tasty! I've had them all, but Green Curry is surely my favorite. It's outstanding and satisfies all of your taste buds with a rich coconut taste, cilantro, and lemony spices covering zucchini, broccoli, peppers, snow peas, onions, and the meat of your choice (if you choose). The Masaman Curry follows at a close second with a deeper spicier flavor, adding peanuts and potatoes to the mix while taking out some of the green vegetables.

The best part about Little Buddha is that if you ask for it extra spicy, you get it extra spicy. There's no pussy-footing around here - they set you up right the first time. My dish was spicier than all 5 of the spice girls! The heat was relentless but I persisted, and the victory went to me, my taste buds, and my stomach although another unmentioned body part later admitted defeat.

Little Buddha, sitting across the street from the Ridgeway shopping center has a New York City feel to it. It's very small inside with an ordering window, and it seems like they do most of their business as take out. I'd guess that the place seats no more than 20 people. You could show up and find it empty. Or you could end up waiting 20 minutes for a table. The latter can be mitigated with a simple phone call. They won't take a formal reservation, but they will hold a table for 15 minutes. So just give them a call before you leave.

Don't let the atmosphere and seating deter you. Little Buddha is truly a hidden gem serving up tremendous Thai food at very reasonable prices, especially when you add in the BYOB benefit! Bring a growler for the table, order up some extra spicy curry, and you'll be smiling wider than that pudgy little Buddha on the shelf.

Newport Storm Brewery

Newport, Rhode Island is a pretty sweet place to spend a weekend. For one, it’s home to a series of mansions so opulent that you experience a strange mix of being simultaneously amazed and pissed off when you see them. (Awenger?)

Secondly, someone told us that Newport has the highest number of bars per capita in the United States. Am I going to verify that before I post it? Hell no! This isn’t the Times, buddy! Even if it’s a slight overstatement, there really are a ton of different places to eat and drink. Which works for us, because this blog is called Food Plus Beer.

And thirdly, there’s a brewery there! What’s a visit to an idyllic, coastal New England town without a good brewery tour?

There's beer in those!

We arrived at the brewery around 2 pm, which isn’t an important detail in the least. Upon entering the brewery, you pay 7 bucks, get a Newport Storm glass (which you get to keep), and you’re handed a card with the names of the 4 beers on tap which gets checked off as you drink.

The first was Rhode Island Blueberry – a Kolsch brewed with real blueberries from a local farm. As cool as that is, this beer wasn’t really our style. A bit too light-bodied for our taste and while the smell and taste of blueberry was ever-present, it wasn’t particularly appealing.

Then came their flagship, Hurricane Amber Ale. Another style that Kyle and I don’t really gravitate to, but this was actually fairly impressive. A good hop/malt balance and quite drinkable…an ideal boat beer, let’s put it that way.

Next came their Oktoberfest, which was nice and malty, refreshing, and taught me how to speak German. It was a good Oktoberfest, but in all fairness I’ve been spoiled by the excellent Brooklyn Oktoberfest this year and I’ve found that all others pale in comparison. But the star of the Newport Storm show was the last beer – an unnamed, “Experimental” Belgian beer.

You see, one of the brewery’s cooler gimmicks is their Cyclone series beers, which are one-off, single-batch brews named using the same system as we name hurricanes (i.e. running down the alphabet, alternating genders. Adam, Barbara, Carl, Denise…you get the picture).

The experimental Belgian was just something they were kicking around as a possibility for their next Cyclone beer, which will be a female “S” name (Susan? Sally? Sandra? Sasha?) and it was very impressive. It seemed like a Belgian Strong Dark Ale with a different yeast strain than you’d expect from the style, which added a bit of sweetness and removed some of the esters and “Belgian-ness” that you typically come across Delicious. We’d certainly buy a 6er of it. One more thing of note about the brewery is that it’s also a distillery. Besides being the brewers of Newport Storm, they are the distillers of Thomas Tew rum. So, we got to learn a bit about the rum-making process alongside all the science of brewing that we already knew.

There's rum in these!

All in all, Newport Storm is a nice stop in a town that has plenty of nice stops. Check it out next time you’re in the area, and tell them Food Plus Beer sent you. They’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, but tell them anyway.

Cheers,
Ryan

Sierra Nevada Tasting @ Ginger Man SoNo - Oct 19

10 Sierra Nevada Drafts? No Reservations?  Sounds good to us!

Harvest Ale, Estate Home Grown Ale, Beer Camp's Earth Day EPA, Ovila, Life & Limb and more!