A Review Of Autumn Brew Review

Jesus. What have I gotten myself into? I found myself surrounded by 3,000 craft-beer-crazed fans Saturday morning, all of them drinking like New Years Eve at 10 a.m. I am by no means an expert when it comes to beer, but I do love a great craft brew — and the Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild’s Autumn Brew Review was the place to taste them all.

Almost 90 breweries were represented this year as the event took over a parking lot near the old Grain Belt Brewery, just across the river from downtown Minneapolis. There was a chill in the air, and crispness nipping at your face. Maybe it was the temperature, maybe it was the hops, but either way, it made my mouth water.

How do you review a festival? To try and explain the feeling of a crowd, the English language fails me, or maybe it’s me that fails the English language.

The crowd was happy, overwhelmingly thirsty and modestly buzzed. I tried to taste all the beers (believe me, I really tried), but halfway through I had to sit down, eat some tasty food from one of the food trucks on hand and soak in the views.

The Surly Cult was well represented — they always had the longest line. Going to SurlyFest last weekend, I had already tasted most of the beers that they were offering up to the public for samples. Instead, I tried to focus on new and upcoming brewers.

Two of them spent an extended time with me, Fulton Beer and Steel Toe Brewing.

Fulton Beer was started by four guys in a garage in the Fulton neighborhood of Minneapolis in 2009, hence the name. I came to find out that I went to high school with Jim Diley, one of the co-founders, and so I talked with Jim — and Pete Grande, another co-founder — at length.

“We just started getting paid at the end of June, and we’re making some progress. We got the new brewery up and running, just got the last piece of licensing finished up this past week and we’re excited to start ripping out some beers,” Grande said.

Fulton had a nice spread of beers, including their Sweet Child of Vine IPA, and a cask dry hopped version of the Sweet Child, a Lonely Blond and the cask version of Lonely Blond infused with grapefruit. All of them great beers, but I particularly liked the cask version of Sweet Child of Vine. The beer had very little carbonation and allowed me to taste the flavors of strong hops delicately balanced with a sweet bready malt character.

After talking with Jim and Pete, I headed down the line, tasting beers upon beers until one made me stop in my tracks: Steel Toe Brewing. For me, food is my thing. Add wine to the list and create a pairing and life is as good as it gets.

Beer is making its way in there, too. But, to me, much of the craft beer movement involves huge flavors, hops, hops and more hops, and the wacky flavor culture that surrounds it.

I am slowly being educated that the movement may involve all of that, but it really has nothing to do with what the brewer is telling you you should drink. Pairing food and drink is a magical combination that brings flavors out of the food and beverage you may never had expected. Steel Toe Brewing is making beers that not only will pair well with food, but make you want to drink their beers all night, something not possible with the double and triple hopped beers that make your mouth fatigued after two or three bottles.

I have never tasted a hoppy beer that as soon as you swallow, it leaves your mouth feeling clean and refreshed — and all of Steel Toe Brewing’s beers are that drinkable. Jason Schoneman is the founder of Steel Toe, and has all the tell-tale signs of a rock-star brewer.

“We started the construction of the brewery in Feb of 2011, and we sold our first growlers in the middle of August, so this is our fifth week,” Schoneman said.

Though the brewery may have that new car smell, their beers are as refined as a beer from some of the hard hitters in the craft beer market, like Anchor Steam or Rogue Ales.

“I started home brewing back in 1997 due to not being able to buy the type of beer I like to drink. I’ve worked as a professional brewer for about six years before starting Steel Toe Brewing,” he said. “I was out in (a brewery in) Oregon and (on) one in Montana, and we just had a daughter and wanted to be closer to family, so we moved back to the Midwest and ended up in St. Louis Park and away we go.”

As I talk with Schoneman about his beers and start to taste each one with him, his eyes light up and he gets more excited with each sip. You can tell he has trained his chef-like-pallet to truly taste and manipulate, maybe even coax out flavors of his beers.

It’s like talking to a chef about their food and inspiration. There is nothing more a chef, or a brewer for that matter, wants to do more than talk about flavor.

“We have the Provider and it’s a golden ale. The Provider has a very light, bready malt character, so it’s a lot like fresh baked bread,” he said. “We added sprinkling of hops for a floral and slightly spicy aroma. Our Size 7 is a Northwest style IPA, bordering on a double IPA. Size 7 has a big, juicy, citrus hop aroma and flavor. It’s definitely all about the hops in this beer, with very low malt flavors, maybe a slight toasted malt flavor, but definitely a big, west-coast-style hoppy IPA.”

The last beer is the Dissent — a dark ale. Schoneman said it was modeled after an “export-style” stout.

“Then I added some oats to kind of smooth things out and give it this nice silky body,” he said. “But it’s really roasty with notes of cocoa and espresso. There’s also a moderate level of bitterness to balance out the sweetness, but it’s a 6.5 percent ABV (alcohol by volume) beer which makes a really nice luxurious stout.”

Keep an eye on Steel Toe Brewing, in my opinion — they will be huge with Minnesotans.

As the session wrapped up, with the smells of beer and food cooking in the food trucks, I couldn’t help but be proud of my state. People are screaming for great beer and Minnesota brewers are continually delivering what people want.

With the new laws passed this year in the state, allowing breweries to sell directly to the public, we are pioneers for great beer and getting it fresh. Now all we need are more restaurants that specifically pair their food with beer, and the end results will be out of this world.

Surly Explosion Hits With Brooklyn Center Festival

More and more people are getting into beer. Never before has the quality of beer been this high in our country, and it showed Saturday at the Surly Brewery in Brooklyn Center.

For the last four years, Surly has put on their version of Oktoberfest and wowed SurlyFest goers with their innovative and extremely tasty beers. I had a chance to go and partake in the festivities, soaking in the Surly suds and talking with “The Surly Cult,” or the die-hard fans of Surly.

To call the group a “cult” is a term of endearment for them, as Surly’s followers live, breath and drink Surly. I had a quick chance to talk to the very busy owner of Surly, Omar Ansari:

Tell us what’s going on here:

Ansari: We are kicking off our Surly fest celebration, so we got folks streaming on in here, it’s our version of an Oktoberfest. Being that my mom is German and I’m half German, it seemed incumbent upon us to have an Oktoberfest style party, so here we go.  I don’t think we were counting on it being 80 to 90 degrees, but it’s a great day, not raining and I think people are ready to go.

What beer are you most excited about now?

Ansari: Well, SurlyFest beer, that’s what we’re drinking here today. That’s the been the beer we’re tapping that we brewed for this time of year and we debut it every year at our SurlyFest parties, so its our interpretation of an Oktoberfest style beer, being that it’s a Surly beer it’s a little hoppier than most.

Tell us about the festival:

Ansari: Basically it’s in the style of Oktoberfest. The whole idea is we want to have a big party, just have people come on out and enjoy the camaraderie, enjoy the weather, enjoy being outside. We give a commemorative stein away to everyone from Germany, and folks get some beers and of course drink our beers, walk around the brewery and see what’s going on in there. We have three bands playing and our first ever polka band “The Bratwurst Brothers.” We have food here of course, because food and beer go really well together and then a little bit after 6 p.m., we kick them all out.

Why do you think you have been so successful with the Surly brand?

Ansari: I really think one of the reasons why we have grown so much in the last few years is that we are really mirroring what has been going on across the country in the craft beer scene. It has exploded, it has been going on for maybe a little longer in some other cities like Denver, San Diego, Portland, Washington and some other areas of the country and now it’s here. I’m president of the Minnesota Brewers Guild and we have six new breweries opening this year in the Twin Cities and the rest of the state, so there’s just a lot of excitement and a lot of people looking to drink a local beer as their eating local food, so I just think there’s a lot more interest in local beer going on right now and we got into it at the right time.

The day was hot and the beer was cold. Seven beers were on tap, the Hell, Furious, SurlyFest, Cynic Ale, Bender, Bitter Brewer and Coffee Bender, all quenching your thirst for an amazing craft beer. Food trucks were on hand to provide the food parings for all their beers, and music filled the air, thick with excitement.

Kramarczuk’s 2nd Annual Kielbasa Festival

I can feel it. The days are getting shorter, there seems to be a crispness in the air. I see school buses and kids waiting for them on my way to get a morning cup of coffee — their anticipation and eagerness all over their faces.

The state fair has ended, and so has summer. Though it may not officially be fall yet, I know it is right around the corner. The season is about to change — and I can’t wait for it to happen. The pomp and circumstance surrounding the festivities of the fall — the harvest festivals, pumpkins, squash, corn, and of course meats, only makes my love of this season grow.

To me, the fall is like Christmas. Farmers are sharing the wealth of a crop, butchers are carving the finest meats and stuffing sausages, and the smell of wood-fired spits is about to surround us.

Being a born-and-raised Minnesotan makes me two things. First, I love the outdoors and second I love all things eastern European/German/Norwegian. Nothing says that it is fall in Minnesota more than pierogis, cabbage rolls or sausages sizzling away, the smell filling the kitchen and spilling outside into the cool night air.

Luckily for us here in the Twin Cities, there is but one festival that celebrates and revels in all things eastern European. They serve potato and cheese pierogis, stuffed cabbage rolls with a tomato cream sauce, deserts and oh yes, sausages. The Kramarczuk’s Kielbasa Fest continues Sunday, after two days of an amazing time. I had the great opportunity to talk with Nick Kramarczuk about the festival right as they were preparing to open the doors to hundreds of drooling customers.

Nick is a quiet, unassuming guy, younger than I expected, yet confident in everything he says.

“We did October fest for a few years,” he said. “We were just talking one day, and we thought, why don’t we do our own festival? And then it just kind of went from there, like where are we going to have it, are we going to hire somebody to do it, what are we going to call it, what are we going to celebrate. So, we decided, since we are kind of like the Eastern European destination in the Twin Cities, why don’t we celebrate eastern European heritage?”

And a party it was. All sorts of different sausages and ethnic dishes filled my nose walking blocks to get to the parking lot next to Kramarczuk’s store.

“We’ve got the Kielbasa, the original, that’s garlic and pepper sausage, real traditional,” Kramarczuk said. “We have the Moroccan Lamb that’s a sweeter sausage made with lamb and currents and the new one this year is a bratwurst with a local Gouda cheese and apples in it. Andouille Cajun sausage, chicken apple sausage, the contest winner this year, the bacon jalapeno cream cheese sausage, and then the beef hot dog.”

As Kramarczuk explains all the sausages to me, I can feel my mouth salivating, trying to hold back a stream of drool and keeping my mouth shut to be polite. But I can’t help myself when it comes to meats over a fire.

Walking into the Kielbasa Fest is like walking into what the rest of the country dreams of when thinking about Minnesota. Polka music playing, hundreds of people sitting around community tables, enjoying the food and company. Random people striking up conversations with each other, all speaking a common language.

I got to try two of the sausages, the contest winner, a bacon jalapeno cream cheese sausage and the Moroccan Lamb sausage. The Contest winner had great flavor when it wasn’t smothered with sauerkraut. I could really taste the flavor of the jalapeños, but without the heat. This is Minnesota after all, and to many, ketchup is spicy.

There was a slight saltiness and smoky flavor from the little bacon chunks hiding inside and a garlic kick that hits you after you swallow. The Moroccan lamb was by far my favorite. It has an interesting combination of flavors that reminded me of a Greek gyro. It was served on a grilled pita with tomatoes, lettuce, and what I think was a tzatziki-style or cucumber cream sauce. The currents in the sausage provided the mild sweetness and the lamb was a dense flaky texture that left you wanting seconds.

Sitting and eating with the Northeast Minneapolis locals made me feel part of the community. Little kids playing next to me, while mom and dad and extended families gathered like a holiday.

I am not sure if it was the goal of the Kramarczuk family to provide such a nostalgic event, but if you don’t have a family, attending this event made you feel like you were apart of the Kramarczuk family. 

Minnesota Cooks Day At The State Fair

It was a rock-star feeling Sunday at the Minnesota State Fair, but not the usual musical rock stars that are becoming so synonymous with the Grandstand lineup. No, I’m talking about food rock stars.

Sunday was Minnesota Cooks Day at the fair and there was no shortage of celebrity awe at Carousel Park as local celebrity chefs from around Minnesota came to cook local food and prepare some amazing eats that normally would not be here, nor be found on a stick.

A foodie paradise was created for fairgoers and tastings that extend far beyond pronto pups and cheese curds. Local chefs like Truman Olson (Chowgirls Killer Catering), Jeffrey Lundmark (Domacin Restaurant & Winebar), James Winberg & Mike Brown (Travail), Lucia Watson (Lucia’s Restaurant, Wine Bar & To Go), Tom Hanson (Duluth Grill) and Ian Pierce (128 Café) just to name a few.

The event is surprisingly in its ninth year, and in talking with the director of the event Bruce Miller, he has never seen a turn out like the one on Sunday.

“The seats are full, people are staying to see all the demonstrations, and the enthusiasm is like nothing we’ve seen in years past,” Miller said.

Maybe this is a sign that regular people, not just foodies, are taking notice of great local food. I had the privilege of hanging around for three of the demonstrations and round table discussions. With each chef demonstration, a group of local food producers, from local bean farmers to local cheese makers, discussed things from sustainable farming to food politics. The conversation was lively, but not to be out done by the cooking.

Olson prepared some amazing local roasted vegetables, using local sunflower oil with three kinds of dipping sauces, showcasing different infused sunflower oils. Lundmark made the crowd drool cooking a Croque Monsieur, a fancy sounding version of a grilled ham and cheese.

“Basically my philosophy is to find the best local ingredients and let them stand on their own,” Lundmark said.

His Croque Monsieur involved two different kinds of cheese from Shepherd’s Way Farms, which was drizzled with a mornay sauce. The cheese provided that little zing needed to cut through the saltiness of the prosciutto inside the sandwich, which enveloped your mouth with a creamy sweetness only found when every ingredient sings together.

The next pair of chefs that rocked the stage was Chef Nina Wong from ChinDian Café and chefs Winberg and Brown from Travail Kitchen and Amusements. Nina cooked a very simple but extremely flavorful Asian-infused dish of chicken with mixed vegetables and noodles, which she said she chose because “the dish represents the Chinese New Year, longevity and wealth.” The dish was light, but full of organic flavors that did not compete with each other.

Brown and Winberg represent and embody the new rock star chef persona, but somehow keep the approachability, humor and humility of line cook, which could be one of the reasons that Bon Appétit Magazine just listed Travail as No. 4 in a list of top 10 best new restaurants in the country.

Their dish featured local foie gras produced by Christian Gasset of Au Bon Canard, a local (and the only local privately held) duck farm. The banter between Brown and Gasset made the discussion a pleasure to listen to. Brown, while describing his love for Gasset’s Foie Gras told a story of how Gasset knows every single duck on his farm, even saying that he has a “man crush” when talking about Gasset and his friendship.

With Winberg working feverishly behind the scenes and Brown being the personality, they had the crowd laughing all the way through the dish. The Travail pair cooked an amazing concoction that takes a genius boarding crazy to come up with. Foie gras seared with salt and pepper (sounds simple enough?), served with root beer grits and local corn nuts with watermelon, lime and cilantro. Sound crazy? It was — crazy good.

The foie melted in the mouth while the corn nuts provided a salty crunch that was indescribable. And yes, the root beer grits were rolled into little balls and deep fried, and had an amazing subtle sweetness with a big root beer flavor.

No local food event would be complete without the mother of the Minnesota local food movement, Chef Lucia Watson of Lucia’s Restaurant, Wine Bar & To Go. In her own quiet and humble style known so well to the Twin Cities, she showcased local beans and vegetables while Tom Hanson of the Duluth Grill (who was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times) cooked wild rice meatloaf with beef-stuffed squash.

Times are changing here for the Minnesota food scene. People are stopping and enjoying local food. Chefs are lining up to cook and talk about food and their enthusiasm is rubbing off on the public. Now, if only we could eat foie gras every day of the fair.

Farmers Markets vs CSA

With the farmer's market season upon us, I find myself getting more and more anxious to get out early on Saturday mornings and visit my happy place.  For some, beaches and sun or sitting by the pool on a hot summer’s day with an umbrella drink is their solace from a grueling and mostly cruel work week.  But for me, walking down rows and rows of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese and meaty goodness, provides a certain serenity that one can only get from food.  But wait, what’s this?  Your produce is not from here?  You didn’t grow this yourself?  Yes, this is an unfortunate trend in some farmer’s markets.  You have to be careful these days in what you buy as “local” produce.  Sellers and purveyors of (fine tasting I’m sure) vegetables, are not always upfront with you on where they have sourced their goods.  One obvious giveaway is what they are actually selling.  Yes, those bananas and mangos look delicious, but I can guarantee you they did not grow them here in Minnesota.  And it’s not always the obvious items either.  I am not here to bash these food stands, but I can tell you there is hope in a grim situation.

If you haven’t heard of CSAs before, you are missing the boat.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  This is the way, my foodie friends; these are the holy grail for localvores.  These little gem farms, in a field dominated by blandness, provide you weekly with a box of produce locally grown and sometimes picked within hours of being delivered to your kitchen.  This is the new farmer’s market.  You can be absolutely positive that the vegetables you are getting were grown here, and only here, and most of the time organically.  This is a great option for foodies like me, who A. sucks at gardening, and B. lives in an apartment and can’t garden (although I am trying to grow broccoli and sweet peas indoors this year…).  Best of all, you only get food that is in season.  Meaning, you are eating the way you were supposed to eat.  Don’t get me wrong, I love pineapples in January, but realize that 100 years ago Minnesotan’s would have to travel many hundreds miles to even taste a tropical fruit.

This year I signed up for a CSA share with Featherstone Farm.  It is a lot of food, so I am splitting the share with two other people.  If you are interested in CSAs check out the links below. 


http://featherstonefarm.com
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/csa.html

Clancy's Meat and Fish

Clancy’s Meat & Fish is a quaint little meat market nestled in the heart of the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis.  The unassuming front gives no secrets away about the extremely fresh, and more importantly, local foods tucked away in this no frills meat shop.  The shop is simple, no fancy decorations or signs needed.  “The food sells itself,” says owner Kristin Tombers.  She sources as many ingredients as possible from local farmers, and businesses.  
Tombers got her start in the restaurant business, not in the kitchen, but as a server and hostess in various restaurants..  Because of her extensive background in the service part of food, her customer service is impeccable.  As I walked in, the line to get food was almost out the door.  She has a presence about her, this warm and welcoming persona that rarely comes from the often times, “rough around the edges” attitude of butchers these days.  She knew people by name and it was obvious that the local neighborhood treated as a member of their own family as well.
Considering this mecca of meat has been open for seven years now, it is amazing that it is not elbow to elbow with people clamoring to get something tasty that Kristin and her modest crew has whipped up.
Though the shop is fairly small, they seem to carry everything the discriminating foodie needs or wants.  From local meats and house-made sausages, to rendered pork fat and various pickled treats.  They even carry local milk, eggs and cheeses.  
“Consistency is the biggest challenge running this meat shop,” says Tombers.  “Many of the farms and vendors only deliver once a week, so if we run out of something, we are out.”  Tombers went on to stress that, though it seems to aggravate the customer that is used to shopping at the mega mart grocery stores, most people would rather have the slight inconvenience of having to deal with inconsistency, than not knowing where their food came from.
The meat market is just one of their fronts.  Tombers also serves up some of the best gourmet sandwiches I have ever tasted, all the ingredients coming from the shop, except the bread.  She knows what her specialties are and let’s the bakers and bread shops excel at what they do best.  But, Clancy’s doesn’t cheat on the bread either.  They get daily deliveries from Rustica, another local bakery and coffee shop, once again keeping it local.
As we wrap up our little chat, I can’t help but notice Allison Kraus and Union Station playing bluegrass over the speakers and having a sense of serenity wash over me.  This is truly a farm to shop experience.  “Someday,” Tombers says, “we would like to start making our own cheeses, like mozzarella and cream cheeses, but that is down the road.”  Whatever is down the road for Clancy’s Meat & Fish Shop, you can bet that it will be local, artisanal and delicious.      

A Fall Evening

Sometimes, an impromptu, informal gathering knocks even the most well thought out party off it's feet.  Add grilled meat, vegetables, bread, wine and great friends, and it seems that the whole world is standing still, waiting for you to take the first bite.  As I walked up my friend's driveway, with a couple of bags of farmer's market vegetables, some sirloin steak, and various sausages, the smell of fall in the air made me love drunk.  The nights are getting shorter here in Minneapolis, the air was stinging my nose with the smell of falling leaves and the slight aroma of someone burning a fire in their back yard, the smells that bring you back to your childhood, playing outside for the last few times before it was too cold to bare.
I could already hear the staccato beats of laughter and silence that comes from a party whose life had taken on that of it's own.  The faint sounds of jazz music was playing over the radio as the light of the last sunbeams of the day danced across the now wilting garden that once flourished with another season's vegetables and herbs.  There were barely six of us foodies, but all were ready for an impromptu grilling session.
As I started the wood burning, readying the coals, I heard the sound of a cork pop.  It was a Spanish red night.  The deep, rich, almost jammy flavors of the wine, seemed to compliment the fire burning in the corner.  I marinated our steak in a simple olive oil, garlic and fennel frawn marinade.  I feel that simple, less complicated things always end up tasting better, then a fussed over dish that has fifty ingredients.  The simple and fresh flavors of garlic and fennel accentuate the grassy flavor of the beef.  Along with our beef, we grilled many fresh vegetables.  Eggplant, onions, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, fennel and tomatoes to name a few, all fresh, and un-marinated.  "Not even olive oil?" you may ask?  No, olive oil must go on AFTER the vegetables are done, with the thought that people want to taste the fresh and fruity olive oil splashed over the crisp grilled veg, again keeping it simple.  Along with grilled bread, rubbed with a clove of garlic, this was the fall meal of the year.  Simplicity at it's best.  Sadly there are only a few more evenings left like this in Minneapolis.  Soon, we will all take to the indoors, and tuck into slow roasted meats and stews.  Maybe I am looking forward to that.  But being outside by a fire, eating an amazing meal with friends is hard to beat in my book of life.  My only regret?  Not bringing my camera...