GABF 2011: Sam Adam's LongShot Contest Brunch

One of the best parts of the Great American Beer Festival is the Saturday morning brunch with Sam Adams.  Each year, the brunch is in conjunction with the LongShot Contest.  The LongShot Contest, in short, is a homebrew contest that rewards the winner with a chance to brew the recipe at a distribution level.  The beer is then packaged and sold in the 2012 LongShot six-pack.  Here's the three finalists for the LongShot Competition.  We started the morning with tasting each of the beers and submitting our votes.  Derf's Secret Alt brewed by Joe Formanek was the winner this year.  Congrats to Joe! Round one of the brunch buffet.  Lobster hollandaise, little neck clams, stout ice cream, French toast, and some pumpkin stout.  Again, this is just round one.  Needless to say, I stuffed myself silly at this brunch.  Not only was the food extremely tasty, I thought it was presented in a really creative fashion.  The ice cream container was frozen into a block of ice.  Within that block of ice, there were tiny frozen pumpkins and buds.  A woman sitting close to me said it was a very traditional Swedish way of presenting food, and I thought it was cute (come on, tiny pumpkins?) and creative.  I couldn't help taking multiple photos of the ice.  I'm going to use this the next time I serve something appropriate.  I just need to find tiny pumpkins!  A big thanks to Sam Adams for having us at the LongShot Contest.  It is just about the perfect way to start the final day of the Great American Beer Festival.

GABF 2011: Farm to Table Pavilion's Tasty Bites

The popularity of food and beer pairings is still growing.  It was evidence by the swarm of people in the Farm to Table Pavilion at the Great American Beer Festival.  The food this year looked fantastic, but I had to run around quickly to take photos of it before the sun went down.  Lighting inside the building can be a problem for photos.  This year's pavilion was so crowded that I was unable to get any photos of the food next to their proper descriptions or next to the appropriately paired beer.  Nonetheless, the food I tasted was pretty darn good.  Next year, I shall try to arrive earlier and bust my way through the crowds like a hungry honey badger.  This came from a pig.  Enough said.  This was one of my favorite offerings.  A lamb burger on an incredibly soft bun.  Lamb belly.  Like pork belly, but with lamb.  This was also pretty fantastic.  I don't think I actually got to eat one of these.  Chorizo on a stick.  I remember it being tasty, and I remember it being served with some Dogfish beer.  This was really fantastic.  I grabbed one as during my first round of photos.  I'm sure it had a fancy proper name that I didn't remember.  I remember it being like a sweet cream custard with chocolate and brittle.  I didn't get to have one of these.  Or any of these.  I didn't get to try any of these either. Or this.  I'm one sad blogger. All photos, very little tasting.  However, the ones I did try were pretty fantastic.  This little guy gets the cutest boy at GABF award.  What a cutie pie! And here's a picture for Rich from New Holland Brewing.  We met at Tales of the Cocktail a few months prior.  Did you know that New Holland also makes spirits?  They have one called Hopquila that is made with hops!

GABF 2011: Media Lunch and Denver Tour

One of the best parts of attending the Great American Beer Festival is the media lunch and the bus tour.  It is a great opportunity to meet with other writers in a low-key environment.  The festival sessions themselves are too busy, crowded, and distracting to have a meaningful conversation with other people.  Unfortunately for me, this year, my nose has dried out completely to the point of suffering from nose bleeds.  It is a pretty common symptom during altitude changes.  I can't give you a very detailed description of the food and beer, but I'll try my best.   The first course was roasted carpaccio beet salad with fennel, green apples, goat cheese, and bacon served with a vinaigrette.  The next course was grains of paradise seared lamb loin and ginger forbidden rice with apricots and cranberries.  Despite having a non-functioning palate, I could taste the grains of paradise on the incredibly tender lamb.  It reminded me of some type of Asian spices.  For dessert, we had pumpkin bread pudding topped with Ska Ten Pin Porter Caramel sauce and Lefthand ESB Ice Cream.  One of my favorite parts about the lunch was the American Artisan Cheese Plate.  The cheese lover in me is very, very, happy.  The cheeses were Point Reyes Original Blue and Toma, the Beecher's Handmade Flagsheep, and Cowgirl Creamery's Mr. Tam. My favorite cheese was the Toma.  I wanted to eat everyone else's too.  Did I mention that I loved cheese?  The bus tour this year took us to Strange Brewing and Highland Taps.  Our stop at Strange Brewing was quite rushed, so I don't have any photos of it.  However, we had a few more minutes at Highland Taps.  We got to try some tasty appetizers, Oskar Blues beer, and Odell's beer.  We were told by someone to try to the duck fat fries.  So I asked for a basket to share with the other attendees, which was a fantastic decision on my part.  The fries were served with a truffled aoili.  I've had my fair share of duck fat fries, and they tend to be rather limp, though tasty. These fries were almost like a really good Belgium fry.  Light crispy outside, and light steaming inside.  They were pretty darn awesome, and they are so far my favorite duck fat fries.  Highland Taps is going to be on my list of places to visit again.  One of the lovely brews served was the Odell Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout.  It was dark, bold, sweet, and smooth with chocolately, caramely, and vanilla flavors.  This is a pretty fantastically executed oak aged beer.  I would love to have this beer on a cold winter night.  Thanks to GABF and the City of Denver for the lunch and tour of some local joints.

GABF 2011: The Fantastic Oskar Blues Farm Tour

For the Great American Beer Festival this year, I had planned a very short visit to Denver so I could spend more time with my new puppy at home.  When I saw that there was a series of Oskar Blues tours, I decided to change my flight to allow for an extra day, and I have no regrets about it! This was the first year for Oskar Blues to host people at the Hop Farm, and it is brand new.  If Oskar Blues puts on bus tours again, I'd go again.  Tickets for the all day affair were a very affordable $25.  Best $25 you'll spend.  *I was invited to attend as a media guest.  This is not the bus that we took down to the farm, but I'm sure it would be equally as fun.  Woohoo! We arrived on the farm after a a lovely bus ride from the Falling Rock in Denver.  The entrance had beautiful flowers to welcome us.  This was a welcome sight as Texas's vegetation was and still is mostly dead.  On the walk to the hop fields, we passed by Ya Ya's (Dale's mother) Garden to see some GIANT pumpkins.  It is difficult to get a sense of the size.  However, Farmer Geoff estimated it at about 500 lbs or so.  It was probably the size of shopping cart. Farmer Geoff demonstrates just how big the pumpkins can get.  After a brief introduction at the farm, everyone loaded up onto a trailer and went for a ride behind the tractor.  Just a word of advice, do not wear panty hose and sit on bales of hay.  Just trust me on this one.  We were introduced to the crew, I mean herd.  These are black angus cattle who are know for being particularly friendly.  Farmer Geoff says that they don't use dogs for herding, but rather, the cattle are so friendly that they walk around and follow the food you.  I did pet some of the friendly heiffers, and they were hungry.  They kept looking at our bales of hay.  This wasn't just a brunch on a farm.  This was brunch with all the bells and whistles on it.  Coffee with your Oskar Blues Hot Sauce?  I could not have asked for a more perfect day.  The weather was beautiful, and the company was fantastic!  The plethora of beer samples was also quite nice.  Oskar Blues has some of the best brew pub food.  When I visited them at the Beer Bloggers Conference 2010, their mac and cheese inspired me to make many batches of mac and cheese at home.  The expanding girth of my rear end is proof.  For breakfast, we had sausage on grits, spinach frittata, pork belly, briskey, and a cheesecake blitz covered in blueberry compote.  All this was served with beermosas - orange juice and Mama's Little Yella Pils.  Food so good that even the insects came out for a snack.  One of the best parts about this tour was that Mama Ya Ya (Dale's mother) served us home tapped (get it?) maple syrup.  This farm is pretty amazing as much of the refuse from the brewery gets used on the farm.  Much of our meal came from the restaurant, and the farm where possible.  Having maple syrup that came from the farm was the cherry on top.  Also, Ya Ya was about the sweetest and cutest woman.  I told Dale I wanted to take her home and to be my mother.  Here's a photo of what we've been waiting for.  This beer is called HGH, as in home grown hops.  The hops used in this beer came right from the farm.  Is that not pretty awesome or what? After leaving the Hop Farm, we arrived at the brewery, only to be spoiled.  Here's a 4 oz pour of the Ten Fidy.  This is my favorite Oskar Blues beer.  It is a bold, unrelenting beer that makes you want to say, "DAMN IT, Thank GOD (whichever one you worship) for the freedom to make beer!"  If that wasn't enough, the tour bus took us to Liquids and Solids where they had a smoked porter called the Honey Badger on tap.  It is served with a meat stick make out of one of the heifers on the Hop Farm. This beer doesn't give a @^!*$.  This beer takes what it wants. I'm working hard on getting this beer to Texas.  Let's cross our fingers that it happens! A big thanks to Oskar Blues for inviting me out for such a wonderful time.  Cheers!