Beer Wars

Hopheads take notice...Beer Wars, a documentary film, presents a snapshot of the important issues and obstacles facing the craft brewing industry. This is followed by a live discussion with beer cognoscenti moderated by the seriously funny Ben Stein. The one-night event is April 16, and it is showing in a few locations in Columbus. The Web site describes the evening as follows:

Fathom and Ducks In A Row Entertainment present Beer Wars LIVE with Ben Stein, a one night event taking you inside the boardrooms and back rooms of the American beer industry. The event will feature the exclusive never-before-seen documentary Beer Wars, followed by a riveting live discussion led by Ben Stein with America’s leading independent brewers and experts.

Playing in movie theaters nationwide on Thursday, April 16th at 8pm ET / 7pm CT / 6pm MT / 8pm PT (tape delay), beer industry insiders will take you behind-the-scenes of their quest for the American Dream. Don’t miss out on this entertaining journey that will reveal the truth behind the label of your favorite beer!

Limited seats available! Buy your tickets today.

Vino 100

I've driven past Vino 100 about 100 times. I finally decided to check it out today. It's a slightly different store that is geared toward the novice wine drinker rather than the well-trained sommelier, and I'll definitely be back after my first trip into the store.

The concept of the store is 100 wines priced at $25 or less. There are also a few carefully selected wines from a higher price bracket. The wines are arranged by body rather than by appellation or varietal. This mirrors a number of restaurant wine lists, which help sell fermented grape juice to people who could care less about whether a wine is a right or left bank Bordeaux and more so whether it is dry or sweet, or light or full bodied. I applaud the idea, and I hope it catches on elsewhere.

The staff was very helpful and friendly. They offer wine to taste (which is always a must do in my book). There are a wide variety of wines from all over the map, including the U.S., Italy, France, Australia, Austria and Germany.

There is also a limited selection of olive oli, pasta sauce and cheeses, including four cheeses from Sacramento area Pedrozo dairy, an artisinal cheesemaker that uses raw milk to produce cheeses that taste like Gouda, some of which are treated with rose sparkling wine, Cabernet Sauvignon and stout beer to give it a little extra flavor.

This is a chain, which probably gives the organization more buying power, allowing them to offer 100 wines for less than $25. There are two Columbus area locations, one in Westerville and one in the Short North. This isn't the kind of place you go to get trophy Bonnes Mares and Sauternes. It's more of a place you go to get a cool bottle of wine to share with your friends alongside pizza on a Tuesday night.

Check out the pictures below.

Vino 100

Tis the Seasonal

This is the season where beer gives to its drinkers a greater bounty than almost any other time of the year. I'll drink through a few of them so you don't have to waste your time drinking junk.

Ale Smith is a San Diego brewery that specializes in carefully crafted beers of mamoth flavor proportions. The Yulesmith Holiday ale is an Imperial red ale made with generous quantities of malt and hops. This brew is less spicy than many of the other holiday beers that are flavored with herbs and spices, but it has as much if not more character. Ale Smith is almost always a quality product, and the latest holiday brew is no exception.

Abita is a Louisiana brewery that also produces a Christmas beer. This year's batch stays true to the old form--a dark ale with a faint hops character. The beer is light in character, and doesn't posess the character of many of the other seasonal offerings. This is a Christmas beer for people who detest craft beer because it has too much flavor...and I'm not one of those people.

Lakewood, Ohio is home to Buckeye Brewing. Their holiday beer is also not a spiced holiday ale. Instead, it is a Belgian-styled dubbel ale with all of the sweet fruit notes and the yeasty complexity that can only come from bottle conditioning. This is a well made beer that has enough alcohol to keep you warm through the winter months.

Sammy Smith always makes one of the most widely available winter ales, and it's widely available for a reason--it's good as hell! The beer (called "Winter Welcome ale") continues to illustrate my misstep in identifying holiday beers as spice oriented (even though they typically are). This beer is medium bodied, with a rich malt character alongside a classic European hops aroma. The other cool colectible thing is that each year has a different label (the picture in the middle changes while everything else stays the same), making the beer easy to stockpile if difficult not to drink.

Every beer this time of year is not neccessarily seasonal. Victory has a few limited time offerings that were pretty tasty. Hop Wallop is the Pennsylvania brewery's uber-hopped beer, and it possesses a complex floral aroma with a hint of cotton candy and a trace of leather. My ghetto palate estimates that the beer has about 90+ ibus, and it will knock your palate out for the night. Enjoy this beer beside a giant bowl of chili and don't plan on drinking more than two because the bitterness will overwhelm you.

The other Victory beer that just came out was their barley wine Old Horizontal. The brew features toffee, apple, citrus and tar notes backed by a sneaky high alcohol content of 10.5 percent. The date on the bottle says drink before the end of 2012, and I bet this would be deliciously integrated by the next Presidential election.

If Jever isn't the finest pilsner on the planet, I challenge somebody to find a better European continental brew. The one shortcoming the beer has is that faint skunk character that is overpowered by an aggressive hops aroma and flavor as well as a surprisingly clean finish for a beer with this level of bitterness. The green bottle funk is more than superceded by the quality of the ingredients. This brew is a German classic that doesn't get as much recognition as it should for its stark individuality.

Akron brew pub the Hopping Frog offers a double IPA known as Mean Manalishi. I've never been wild about these beers, but this brew is restrained (for a double IPA), with pine flavors and aromas that create a dynamic brew that seperates itself from the other offerings from Hopping Frog.

Mikkeller offers a number of interesting brews, including the Black Hole coffee stout. This beer was so good, I'll let their PR practitioners describe the flavor for you. "An imperial stout brewed with: water, malt, roasted barley, flaked oats, dark cassanade, honey, hops, coffee, vanilla and ale yeast. Finally……! Black Hole is what Mikkeller is all about. Daring, vulgar and extreme. From the very beginning Mikkellers goal has been to push the limit and with this warming, intense imperial stout, a new chapter in the Danish beer history has been written. The high bitterness from the hops and the sweetness from the malt and alcohol, creates a good balance which makes Black Hole an explosion of nuances, but also leaves a feeling of a perfect and complex beer – in the heavyweight category." If you like coffee, you'll love this.

If the label says "Dogfish Head," you know it's f-ing good. (They can have that slogan for free if they need it for future marketing campaigns.) Pangaea is a beer brewed almost every year with ingredients from all seven continents. There is water from Antarctica, ginger from Australia, basmati rice from Asia, and malt, hops, yeast and something else from the other continents. This beer has a long finish that starts up front with ginger and floral hops before the malt lingers on the tongue. Buy this and drink in excess.

I'm not going to lie--I bought the Arcadia beer Big Dick's Old Ale because it had the word dick in the name. But the beer was surprisingly good, with flavors that show off tons of malt and a hint of smoke and brown sugar. This beer tasted like it needed about six to eight months more of bottle age before it was ready to be consumed. It should last for some time.

Thomas Hardy is a top-notch vintage ale with tons of fruit notes that lighten up as time goes on. This beer will age forever and a day, and the 2005 vintage is no different. With notes of nougat, figs and honey, this beer will be around long after these flavors fade and new ones emerge. Buy some, and save half of them for a rainy day.

I also tried Schneider Weisse, an organic German wheat beer with a citrus flavor along with a light, undistinguished finish. The beer is good, but not good enough to make me pass up the other more mainstream German weizen beers.

The Fort Collins brewery offers the Retro Red, which is an off-dry beer with a ruby tint and a clean finish. The beer is tasty if unspectacular. It is a good beer for a session of lawn mowing, but it lacks the complexity to make it a savoring brew. I like it but I don't love it, and you should do the same.

Enjoy the beer advice--I hope your evening with beer is better because of it!

Tis the Seasonal

Rosendale's

It was Dad's birthday the last weekend. I got him some cigars and booze as a present. He took me to Rosendale's as part of the celebration. I'm pretty sure I won that deal.

Rosendale's is pretty well recognized, both in Columbus and elsewhere. The place is the namesake establishment of star chef Richard Rosendale, he of the Team USA culinary squad.

His restaurant offers cutting edge cuisine in a similar vein as heralded chefs like Grant Achatz, Ferran Adria and Wylie Dufresne. More conveniently for me, it's also located in Columbus rather than Chicago, New York or Spain like the other darlings of the foodie circuit.

Rosendale's does a degustation, but I stuck to the standard a la carte menu, which offered multiple vegetarian options. I was also told that I could have ordered a vegetarian chef's menu (which I will have to keep in mind for later days).

The bread was served with plain and rosemary butter. Rosendale's prides itself on preparing specialty butters and ice cream on site (more on that later).

I started my meal with the spinach salad (pictured above), prepared with julienned green apples, goat cheese ravioli and Granny Smith sorbet in a thyme vinaigrette. The acidity of the apples and goat cheese was nicely contrasted by the vegetal character of the greens.

The second course was a Yukon Gold potato and chevre goat cheese terrine with marinated cherry tomato on top of a basil gelee drizzled with organic olive oil. The herbal basil compliments the rich terrine. The presentation was also excellent.

My main course was an artichoke heart stuffed tomato on a potato griddle cake with carrots, green beans and various foamed vegetables. The presentation of the tomato was an experience, as the tomato appears whole until cut into pieces, when it reveals its artichoke-laden interior.

My only minor complaint is that some of the bells and whistles science food tricks like foamed vegetables take me back to 2002, and this practice is actually a much older (and more tired) trick than that. It isn't a cutting edge deal when they feature it as part of a carefully narrated news segment. Despite my minor antipathy toward nitrogenated veggies, however, few items came close to falling flat.

My dessert was coconut ice cream with pineapple chips served in a pineapple and pomegranate relish. The ice cream was rich and delicately sweet, flavored with real coconut milk that gave it a luscious character that is unmatched by faux coconut.

The restaurant decor is sleek and modern, consisting of black and metallic tones throughout most of the restaurant offset by controlled lighting. The bar does a fairly brisk business. Judging from their great selection of cocktails like the Sugarplum martini and the Eggnog martini, as well as a carefully selected list of craft beers, a voluminous list of top shelf liquors and a wine list that spans much of the globe in many different price ranges. The bar also serves interesting food items like the white truffle popcorn which I am most definitely going to have to go back and try.

The service was outstanding. The server was very attentive and did a great job explaining what to order to suit my delicate vegetarian sensibilities. Thank you Molly--you're on my list of things to order off the menu next time I'm in Rosendale's.

I also got some great pictures of the chef's ice sculptures. The other positive aspect of photographic representations of Rosendale's is that since the place is so highly regarded, many others have also taken some stunning pictures of the food that will do a better job showing off the presentation of this great food than I did. Try this one and this one on for size.

This place is a must try. Enjoy my pictures below, and then get yourself to Rosendale's and enjoy something there even more.

Rosendales

Newest Brewest

There are no shortage of new beers in the holiday season. Winter is one of the best times of year to experience the widest range of malt beverages that most appropriately compliment the holiday fare.

My first experience with holiday beer comes from Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewery. This brewery is an institution not only in Ohio but also in the United States, operated by the Conway family. They are a pioneer in the craft brew movement, and the Christmas Ale showcases their talets. The strong brew highlights flavors of ginger, honey and pine with a surprisingly clean finish. Enjoy it with a stocking full of goodies.

If anybody would need winter warmer beers to make the nights fly by a little faster, Norway would probably be Ground Zero. Nogne O ("Naked Island") produces craft beer in the Scandinavian countryside, and God Jul ("Winter Ale") is their holiday offering. The beer is medium bodied, with sweet caramel/chocolate notes and a heavily roasted finish.

Tommyknocker Brewery achieved cocoa notes in their winter beer through another methodology...namely they added roasted cocoa beans to the brew kettle along with honey to give the brew a definite chocolate character. I've never been a huge fan of Tommyknocker beers, but the Cocoa Porter definitely separates itself from the rest of the portfolio.

Holiday beers allow brewers to show off their craft alongside artists whose naughty side shows through in clever Christmas packaging. British artisan Ridgeway produces a plethora of cleverly packaged holiday beers, including Santa's Butt, Lump of Coal and the Bad Elf series. Criminally Bad Elf is one of four different elven brews, and it is a thick, viscous beer with a vinous character and enough alcohol to remove nail polish. These are interesting beers in a free speech forum because the state of Connecticut banned the beers because they have Santa Claus on the label. Buy these beers to give the finger to the censor police.

Outside of holiday beers, winter is also a great time of year for Abbey style ales. The high alcohol content and aggressive flavors temper the winter chill nicely. Abbey ales are derivative of the Trappist ales, a series of beers developed by monks in Belgium. Konings Tripel is produced at the only Trappist brewery outside of Belgium, across the border in neighboring Holland. The beer displays a rich golden hue, and it has a more delicate yeast influence than its Belgian counterparts. When you finish this beer off, there should be about six more Trappist breweries left in order for you to sample your way across the Catholic beer palette.

Not all Abbey ale producers are Trappists. Some, like St. Bernardus, have Trappist roots that go back as far as any of the other breweries' Trappist affiliations. The Prior 8 is the double ale, and it has all of the bready notes, fruity flavors and herbal bitterness that mark this classic style.

St. Bernardus also crosses genre lines with their Christmas ale. The beer has a dark, rich, opaque appearance, and it displays a thick head, notes of clove, ginger, apples, figs, cinnamon and oatmeal. I don't know how to say "Merry Christmas" in Dutch, but I bet it sounds something like St. Bernardus Christmas ale.

Belgium produces other styles of beer apart from the Abbey ale style. Other brews from dynamic producers like Rodenbach make the nation the birthplace of some of the world's most exciting beers. The newest offering from this legend is the Redbach, a blend of nearly three parts sour ale mixed with one part cherry juice. The native yeasts and barrel aging give the beer an unmistakable character. The combination is a spicy, refreshing tart cherry cooler with hints of tree fruit that is absolutely divine.

Domestic producers don't shy away from Belgian character, either. Stoudt's Beer, from Pennsylvania, always tastes better to me because the brew master is a woman. I can't confirm or deny the influence the woman's touch has on the brewing process...I can only tell you that the ladies don't make bad beer. The Triple Ale (made in the classic Belgian style) has strong citrus flavors that punch through the complex malt and flowery hop aromas. I would like to check out the brew pub that is part of Stoudt's, although it has a limited vegetarian menu. I'm sure the beer more than makes up for it.

Avery Brewing also tries their hand at the Belgian style with the Beast. This is a Belgian grand cru style ale with a whopping 16.4% abv. The beer displays fantastic tastes of brown sugar, orange rind, maple syrup and spices. It will age as well as any others.

There are, of course, many other beers available that fall outside of the previously discussed categories. I'm a little behind the curve, but Weyerbacher released an Octoberfest styled beer in their Autumn Fest that was a great beer made in the classic style. This beer has the classic malt character that marks the brews from this time of the calendar year. Weyerbacher is another brewery that always makes great beer (including a number of Belgian-styled offerings), and they are well worth checking out.

You end up naming many locations as great epicenters of brewing before you come up with Quebec. But French Canada is home to great brewers like Unibroue and McAuslan, and these beers are so good you'd think everybody in Germany and Belgium was being inspired by the artisans in Quebec rather than the other way around. The St. Ambroise oatmeal stout is a former World Beer Championship gold medalist, and this beer is definitely a winner, with notes of molasses and charcoal that develop into a knockout beer.

Speaking of world classics, few names in British beer supersede Harviestoun. Old Engine Oil is the name of this producer's opaque brew, a mass of chocolate and coffee bitterness tempered by the English knack for creating some of the world's greatest beers. The latest offering is actually aged in old Scotch barrels, giving the beer a ripe peat character that makes this beer truly an experience. Enjoy it with a stinky piece of cheese as recommended by the brewers.

Much like beer with chocolate notes, beer can get coffee notes from a variety of sources. Bell's Java Stout accomplishes this task by combining their outstanding stout with the finest Sumatran coffee. The roasted coffee and malt notes create a marriage that is made in heaven (or Kalamazoo, Michigan).

Lagunita's takes a similar approach with their Capuccino Stout. Lagunita's relies on a local roaster to provide them with the best coffee, and this beer is slightly more delicate than the ebullient Bell's Java Stout. This taste is driven more by malt and less by coffee than the Bells counterpart. Both are excellent.

New Holland goes about adding character to their brews in a different manner...barrel aging. The dragon's milk is a strong ale with a support consisting of roasted oak underneath a midpalate of plums, licorice and caramel with a bright hop finish. This beer is considered their flagship, and as a result, it is very tasty.

And we'll finish the trip off with the progenitors of some of the world's biggest beers: Stone. The main offering from these loquacious craftsmen is the Arrogant Bastard. They do many different versions of the bastard, including October's Double Bastard, made from twice the malt and hops of its little brother. The marketing campaign behind Stone will tell you that you will not like this beer. If you think Budweiser is only acceptable for beer battering, I'd track down as many of these bottles as I could get my hands on and don't buy their clever ploy to keep the Bastard all to themselves.

Newest Brewest

New Brew Review

Beer, more so than wine, has a great variety of seasonal periods that bring forth a varied selection of brews at specific times of the year. On the heels of the release of Great Lakes Christmas Ale (my official mark for the beginning of the holiday beer season), here is a review of the latest and greatest seasonal (and other) beer offerings.

No matter what your nationality, if you drink beer, you think about Oktoberfest. Many breweries from Deutschland to Denver brew a seasonal marzen-style beer in honor of the festival celebrating the old wedding of King Ludwig. In Denver, the spirited Flying Dog Brewery features Dogtoberfest, a domestic beer made from Vienna malts, German hops and the freewheeling spirit of the gonzo brewery. The beer is amber in color, possesses a rich malt character with notes of cereal grain and citrus balanced out by a complimentary hop finish. As with most Oktoberfest brews, this beer is easy to drink in large quantities.

The other big-time beer event in the fall is the hop harvest. Many breweries release special ales to celebrate the freshest possible hop character in beers. Sierra Nevada marks the hop harvest with the release of Harvest Fresh Hop Ale. This brew is made with freshly picked "wet" hops and is redolent of the conical beer bittering agent in both flavor and aroma. The piney, floral scents and the drying finish showcase the 8,000 pounds of hops used in the limited release brew.

Warrenville, Ill.'s Two Brothers Brewing celebrates the hop harvest with the Heavy Handed I.P.A. This is a great operation tucked in the western suburbs of Chicago, and this uber-I.P.A. changes yearly (and even by batch) based upon the hops and the vintage. Most of what the Ebel brothers touch turns to liquid gold, and Heavy Handed is no different. This is a great beer. One of the other neat things about Two Brothers is the Brewer's Coop, which offers tons of home brewing materials, if you want to get beer directly from the source rather than from your corner liquor store.

Not all of the beer consumed in the fall needs to be seasonal in order to be interesting. Sometimes, being made to age makes a brew interesting. Few beers have the long history of cellar dwelling that accompanies Fuller's Vintage Ale. The recipe of the beer changes annually, and the beer is made to be aged for eons. This year's bottle conditioned beauty is made from Maris Otter malted barley, Fuggles, Target and Super Styrian hops and the specific Fuller's yeast strain. It definitely needs bottle age because the malt is tightly wound and massive. The beer is at least two years from being fully integrated, but it will drink magnificently from 2010 to 2020. Stash a few of these away and wait patiently for the rewards to come.

Another vintage brew in a crown colony made to be aged in the ale from Australia's finest brewery Coopers. The Extra Strong Vintage Ale is also bottle conditioned. This beer takes on yeast characteristics rapidly, and becomes lighter as time passes. It has a raisin and oatmeal flavor, and can be drunk with or without the substantial yeast deposits in the bottle. On the plus side, Coopers also comes in fantastic 12.7 ounce bottles. While it is a good quality beer, it is too expensive at $16 a six pack, so keep the cost in mind.

Oregon is a hotbed of craft brewing, and Full Sail is one of the many greats in the Pacific Northwest. The newest limited release from the Mount Hood brewery is the Limited Edition Lager, a clean, refreshing golden beer made with bottom fermenting yeast and aged to a refreshingly perfect, clean continental pilsner. This is a beer that shows off the talents of this Oregon mainstay.

Further down the coast, Lagunitas brewed up the Lucky 13 Red Ale in honor of their anniversary. This is a ruby American strong ale with intense fruit notes and hints of caramel, mint and brown sugar. This 8.2 percent alcohol by volume beer is well made. While not the most showstopping offering from the Petaluma brewery, it is nonetheless interesting enough to sample once.

No offense to Germany, but in my humble opinion, Belgium is the beer capital of the world. Belgium is the only place where you can get Trappist ale, an ale prepared by monks from specifically licensed breweries. Orval, the original Trappist ale, was founded in the 11th century. This was the first bottle conditioned ale made in this style that still exists today. It is dry and yeasty, with a fat midpalate tasting of wheat, citrus and apples, and it has a long, complex finish. Try this beer, because it is the original example of a world classic.

Not all Belgian beers are Trappist ales. There are multiple beer styles in the country, and only the properly licensed producers are Trappist. Many other beers are made in this style are called Abbey ales. St. Bernardus is one of the best of these breweries. Although not officially a Trappist ale, the beer has monastic roots. They produce doubles, triples and quadruple ales. The Abt 12 has 10.5 percent alcohol, and it displays notes of plums, wheat bread, cinnamon, clove, citrus and leather. This beer has so much alcohol that it might put you down for the night, so drink this monster with care.

It's a little out of season, but anything with the words "Three Floyds" on the label, you know it's going to be good. Gumballhead is a summer wheat beer with Amarillo hops. Anything these guys make is great, so don't hesitate to try the Alpha King, the Black Sun Stout, the Behemoth Barley Wine, the Dreadnaught I.P.A., the Rabid Rabbit Saison, and the Dark Lord Imperial are all top notch offerings that are not to be missed.

Nogne O Brown Ale comes from a region not noted for great beer production--Norway. This is a craft brewer that makes interesting brews from Scandinavia. Most of their beers have solid reputations. The brown ale is interesting if unspectacular. It has notes of coffee, cherries and smoke, with a thin, hot finish. This is the second brewery I have sampled from Norway after Aass, and although Nogne's beers have more character than Aass, the brown ale was fair quality at best.

The fall season sees the release of Bell's Best Brown Ale, a characterful brew chock full of flavor. The beer has a deep color, with roasted Belgian malts producing flavors of chocolate, maple syrup, malt and toasty nuts. This is another brewery that makes nothing but great beer. Bell's on the label is a sure sign of a quality product.

New Holland Brewing also features a brown ale. Their offering is called Cabin Fever and it is made with rye malt that gives the beer a deep color and a rich flavor with an earthy finish. The beer is lighter than expected, but it is very good beer for when the temperature drops and alcohol provides a little extra warmth while sitting in front of the fire.

New Zealand's premiere beer is Steinlager, a continental pilsner from Aukland. It has that funky skunky character that accompanies all green bottle beers, and it would be generally indistinguishable from any other green bottle import. Drink with care, because the longer these beers sit around, the skunkier they get.

New York micro Southern Tier produces interesting year round and seasonal offerings. One of their limited release beers is the Unearthly Imperial Pale Ale. This beer uses too much hops, and for me to say a beer uses too much hops, it indeed has to use too much hops. There is no balance. A beer can be uber-bitter and still be pleasant. This brew has an assault of pine flavors that overwhelm the palate, disabling your ability to taste it. The hops are not the best choice to use in a beer of this style, because instead of overwhelming your palate in a positive way, they succeed in drowning your palate with an overload of unpleasant bitterness.

Located in rural Oregon, Siletz Brewery bottles many of the beers available at its pizzeria brewpub. I sampled the Lovin' Lager and was greatly underwhelmed. I don't know if the bottle was old, but the beer was flat...not in terms of carbonation, but in terms of flavor profile. It had a meandering finish that was too unfocused to make any kind of statement. I'll have to sample the rest of the line to see if there is anything worthwhile in the rest of the portfolio.

That's all for now. I'll be back with more next time I get a minute. Check out the pictures below.

New Brew Review

Barley's Ale House

Brew pubs offer you a choice. Instead of drinking one mass produced Continental pilsner, in a brew pub you have options ranging from pale ales to porters to weizens, and even additional seasonal options that pop up from time to time. Barley's is a brew pub that offers you that kind of choice in addition to choosing which Barley's outpost to drink and dine in.

Barley's has two locations. I went to the Ale House, which is a far more veggie-centric dining experience than the Smoke House, which offers barbecued animals of all shapes and sizes. Both establishments have vegetarian options--the Ale House just has many more options for the choosiest of veggie diners.

Both locations brew some of Columbus' finest beers. The Spark of the Divine Barley Wine was the newest seasonal beer. At 10 percent alcohol, the house limit was two barley wines per customer. Three of them might put a huge smile on your face if it were so allowed, as the beer offers a rich, sweet toffee midpalate and a lingering hint of clove on the finish that doesn't even begin to hint at the alcohol content contained within.

The pale ale is American in style, with a clean malt character followed by a fragrant hoppy bitterness. There are three year-round beers and approximately five other seasonal offerings at one time on the drink menu, which also includes domestic beer, a limited wine selection and a cadre of flavored martinis. Their beers were featured at Skipper's in Athens during Ohio Brew Week, and were covered by this blog in a previous post (hint: check the pictures).

I started off with the onion strings. The appetizer came in a basket and was a pile of breaded onions washed in the pale ale. This is great pub grub, but be warned--you will be carrying the aroma of onions around with you for days.

The main course was a veggie burger made from black beans, portabella mushrooms, rice, garlic and fresh vegetables. It was served with a choice of sides, and being a Polish lad, how could I say no to a couple of cheddar cheese and potato pierogis served with onions in brown butter? The pierogis are available as a happy hour appetizer for $5, and Polish carnivores can get their fill of kielbasa as well in the form of a dinner entree. It's like a little slice of Krakow near the hockey arena. (Well, it's nothing like Krakow or Warsaw. But the pierogi is delicious wherever it's served.)

There was one minor hiccup during the night. The appetizers were served a little too close to the main courses for my liking. Of course they were brought a little too early by the lovely Rebecca, a server who was very friendly, great to speak with and pretty enough to have dumped a pot of hot coffee on my lap without making me too upset. So I'll let her slide on this one. The rest of her service was attentive and prompt, making for a wonderful evening.

Brew pubs give you choices, from beer to food. Vegetarian diners can make the better choice in Columbus by picking Barley's Ale House. It should only take a sip of barley wine and a bite of pierogi to make it worth the trip. Enjoy the pictures in the Picasa link below.

Barley's

Mad Mex

Vegetarian diners looking for an experience that resembles their last peyote trip should head over to the South Campus Gateway and check out Mad Mex. If they dig deep enough, they'll leave full of enough Nuevo Latino cuisine and strong drinks to make them think that they had come all the way through the looking glass (and I mean that in the best way possible. Please read on.).

The slogan on the back of the shirts is, "It isn't the size of the burrito; it's the strength of the margarita," and that statement is no lie. The Mexican libation comes in many shapes, sizes and flavors. It is available on the rocks or straight up with a selection of tequilas unparalleled in the Columbus area. The top of the line margarita is made with El Tesoro de Don Felipe, the crown jewel of aged tequila, and the VIP has an anejo Don Julio floated in a lime boat atop a Don Julio Silver margarita.

Mad Mex also offers a seasonal selection of about 20 micro brews on draft alongside an array of international and domestic bottled selections. The Great Lakes Octoberfest and Stone Arrogant Bastard drafts were delicious.

The Pickadippa appetizer offers a choice of three dips with chips. The cheese dip is very good, with a lingering spice. The habanero salsa is sweet upfront, with a tropical pineapple note followed by a blazing finish. The fire roasted tomato chipotle is milder and faintly smoky. The guacamole is pleasant, with big chunks of avocado smoothed out by onions and radishes with a citrus tang that makes you smile. The pepita hummus, made from toasted pumpkin seeds, is very herbal and markedly different from the stuff you pick up at the corner Middle Eastern eatery. The pico de gallo was the worst of the bunch, featuring a soggy mass of tomatoes and a noticeable lack of onions and jalepeno.

The main courses offer a range of burritos, enchiladas, tacos and other options to keep all makes and models of vegetarians happy. They also offer carnivorous selections, but I'm not here to write about that. Instead, I sampled a 3 cheese 3 pepper enchilada made from jack, cream and goat cheese spiced up by jalepeno, Anaheim and red bell peppers. The creamy goat cheese tempers the spicy peppers, and the rice and beans on the side are better than the main courses you can get at the other cookie cutter Mexican eateries that dot the landscape of Columbus.

Mad Mex's menu includes the Angry Hippie Burrito and the Veggie Burrito alongside other international creations that are clearly marked vegetarian by the Mad Mex logo, and special requests are easily and successfully executed.

You can enjoy the Mad Mex experience inside, outside, or at the bar, and they serve food very late. The bar also shows sports most nights with a random selection of other programming. You can enjoy the pictures of the food, drinks and psychedelic artwork in the Picasa link below.

Mad Mex

Ohio Brew Week -- Pt. 2

Part two of Ohio Brew Fest for me started at the Pub. The Athens institution features a full service menu with a limited vegetarian selection (warning: their beer cheese soup is NOT vegetarian) and drink specials that include enormous beers served in a glass referred to as an aquarium.

The Pub is hosting Rocky River Brewing Company from the Cleveland area. Rocky River marks their vegetarian selections on their menu. Their beers at the Pub include the Blueberry Trails Blueberry Ale and the Cabin Fever English style Sharp Ale. The Blueberry Ale had a rich, dark roasted flavor with hints of tart blueberries on the finish. The Sharp Ale is light and clean if uninspiring.

Sports bar Pigskin has huge televisions tuned to the game, and they often have a few good beer choices in bottle and draft alongside a voluminous menu of shots. The menu is pretty veggie unfriendly...pretty much limited to a grilled cheese sandwich. The main attraction to Pigskin is the sports and the drinks. At this point in the evening, I realized that most every bar in the brew week was offering sample glasses for about $1.

The $1 sample allows me to sample every beer from Willoughby Brewing, a brew pub and cigar bar in Willoughby, Ohio. The menu at Willoughby features a few vegetarian appetizers with entrees that include Asian portabello sandwiches and pizzas that are meatless. They feature eight beers in the brew pub, and four of those beers are available at Pigskin.

The Pride of Willoughby is a porter that shows loads of dark chocolate and grilled notes with a long, tapered finish. The Daisy Cutter IPA is made to accent high alpha hops content, with an IBU rating of 75 that bursts through the floral aromas and explodes out of the glass. The Northern Trail Nut Brown was clean but lacked the punch of the porter. The Rapier Wit (one of my favorite names) has the refreshing citrus zing of the traditional summer favorite.

The bar staff was exceptionally helpful, and the shot of pineapple upside down cake that somebody sent over was much appreciated.

Lucky's is also a sports bar participating in Ohio Brew Week. Lucky's is Athens' local Pittsburgh Steelers bar. Browns and Bengals fans can, however, enjoy beer there without the threat of being ridiculed too badly.

Contrary to the Web site, Lucky's features beer from Columbus' Elevator Brewing, a restaurant profiled in the last Ohio Brew Week post. The food at Elevator is absolutely outstanding, at least a step and a half above most of the rest of the brew pub grub crowd. The pub offers nine beers year round in addition to a cadre of seasonal offerings.

The beer I tried at Lucky's was the Vienna Lager Hubris. The beer was ruby hued with a medium body and a smooth finish. Lucky's also has the Belgian Wit and the Buckeye Red, also by Elevator Brewing.

I could continue watching the games at Red Brick Tavern, another stop on the Brew Week train. Red Brick has the classic, vegetarian-hating bar menu. Luckily for me, they also feature beer from Cincinnati's Barrel House Brewing. Barrel House lists five beers, and although they were included on the menu at Red Brick, some of the beers were not in yet. I don't know if they will have the full line of Barrel House products this week or not.

The Boss Cox Double Dark IPA is well hopped and slightly sweet, with a full-bodied malt character. The Duveneck's Dortmunder Style Lager was a medium bodied golden beer that makes for a pleasant quaff. I was a little disappointed that the RedLegg Ale was not on hand, because I'm guessing that this year's batch of RedLegg Ale is probably much better than this year's batch of the Cincinnati Redlegs.

There are a few other spots that are worth checking out. Great Lakes Brewing Company, probably Ohio's greatest brewer, is featured in many locations around Athens. Luckily, my favorite vegetarian Tex Mex spot Casa Nueva (formerly reviewed in this very blog) features Great Lakes beers along with a few others. The Dortmunder Gold is the classic beer from Great Lakes, and the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter is another winner. They also feature products from Marietta Brewing, Jackie O's and the Shade Winery.

Further down the street is Broney's, a bar with tons of drink specials and a pretty decent collection of high-end liquors. They also feature two breweries on tap for the brew week.

They have many of the same Great Lakes beers, as well as the seasonal Prohibition Pilsner, which is a beer with real character made in the style of the European macro-brews. It is very good, and it is served alongside Burning River Pale Ale, Commodore Perry IPA, Elliot Ness Amber Lager and Holy Moses White Ale.

Mt. Carmel Brewing from Cincinnati is also featured at Broney's. The Nut Brown is round, sweet and fairly one-dimensional. The Blonde is light and balanced. The Copper is probably the most distinctive of the three beers.

My final goal is to make it by the Oak Room Sunday because they have a pretty wide selection of beers that should provide a great night cap for the Ohio Brew Week festivities. Enjoy the photographs available below.

Ohio Brew Week 2

Ohio Brew Week -- Pt. 1

Beer has been credited with playing a vital role in civilization. It has also been blamed for creating mayhem in sports in addition to a host of other social maladies. With the college kids about to head out of town until the next school year, brewers will get a chance to show off the positive culture associated with their wares as part of Ohio Brew Week. I will get a chance to enjoy the benefits of civilization by walking from bar to bar to bar enjoying the character of Ohio's finest beers.

I started the night out at Skipper's. Skipper's is Athens' equivalent of Fridays, offering a wide selection of faux-bistro cuisine with tons of drink specials. They feature a wide selection of vegetarian dining options, as well as 42-ounce margaritas for two (or one heavy drinker).

They also offer a good selection of bottled and draft beer. Their brew week selections come from all over Ohio, and they can be sampled in $4 pints or $1 5-ounce pours. I met the brewer from Black Box Brewery in Lakewood. The operation makes both wine and beer, and the beer was very distinctive and interesting.

The Plumber's Crack Ale was medium-bodied, with a fresh, clean malt finish. The beer is described as an ale that finishes like a lager, and it is built for summer consumption.

Also from the north end of the state comes Berea's Cornerstone Brewing Company. I have never been there, but the menu does feature a few vegetarian options. One of their standout beers was the Angry Gorilla hefeweizen. The beer picks up banana notes from the esters formed in the fermentation process. The fruity character straddles the line between traditional wheat beer and bottle-conditioned Belgian flavors.

Skipper's also offers selections from Columbus' two-headed brewpub monster Barley's. Interestingly, the beers and menus are different at both locations. The Alehouse offers more vegetarian selections than the Smokehouse does. These brews are available in growlers at some of the area's higher end bodegas.

There is also beer from Great Lakes, Marietta Brewing and Brew Kettle on tap at Skipper's during brew week. The Commodore Perry IPA by Great Lakes is probably left over from before brew week, but it is a hop lovers delight (80 IBU) all the same. Marietta Brewing has their Raspberry Wheat featured in multiple locations around Southeastern Ohio during the school year, and most of their beers are solidly made. The Brew Kettle 4C's Pale Ale is an American style pale ale that is a pleasant contrast to their more ostentatious Imperial IPA.

Right next door to Skipper's is Athens' contribution to brewpub culture Jackie O's. Jackie O's used to be called O'Hooley's. The name of the establishment refers to the mother of the pub's owner, a woman who died of cancer shortly before the name change, as well as the wife of John Kennedy. The bar is often crowded with people listening to the live music that includes weekly performances of Irish tunes in addition to other folk and jam band formats.

The bar debuted a few new beers in addition to a few beers that are offered year round. The featured beer is the Sparbock, a beer brewed in tribute to the late owner of the Oak Room and Toscano's Jon Sparhawk. Sparhawk was also the founder of Ohio Brew Fest. The dark beer had a rich flavor and a medium- to full-bodied character.

The brewpub also offers fruit-infused beers most of the year. The newest beer is a Dark Cherry Wheat, which is relatively dark in color with bing cherry and citrus aromas. It is actually very different from the Razz Wheat, which seems to be offered all year. The ChomoLungMa Organic Honey Nut Brown is very sweet and smoky. The Magic Mama IPA is rich and bracingly bitter.

The bar also offers food during the day. There are many vegetarian selections including the pizza, which is made from leftover spent grain used in the brewing process. Jackie O's has other special food offerings during Ohio Brew Week. Jackie O's had a bluegrass band playing during the evening. They often feature live music during the week, although it is probably less frequent when school is out.

The Athens local biker bar the Smiling Skull is also participating in the event. They always have a few options in decent beer. This week they have beer from the Arena District brewpub Elevator. The Xtra Kolsch is a pale beer brewed in the style of the German classic. This is the kind of beer for people who typically order Bud Light at the bar but want to experience craft beers that are compatible with the macro-beers that they started drinking. Elevator also features outstanding food that pairs well with the wide array of beers.

I heard high recommendations for the Calamity Jane Pale Ale from the Brown Derby Roadhouse. There will always be another chance to try that and a couple others later this week. You can check out the other odds and ends of everything from the first night in the Picasa photo album below.

Ohio Brew Week 1

Smile When You're Down

No matter how bad the circumstances (being arrested), nor how atrocious the haircut (killer mullet, dude), it's always good to be able to smile in times of adversity. Smile on while the blog dishes out the skinny on a world full of adversity.

Slate leads with deeper analysis of testimony by Monica Goodling. The Slate take is that Goodling handled herself well in testimony in front of a mob of bloodthirsty lawyers and made both parties look like buffoons. It's amazing when an inexperienced young lawyer does a better job in a legal quandary than does Alberto "Convenient Amnesia" Gonzales, the highest ranking attorney in the land.

Despite all the wrangling in Congress, Americans are strongly behind the proposed immigration reform that currently sits before your local Representatives and Senator. Based upon the waning (if non-existent) support for the war in Iraq coupled with continuing government incompetence, expect the legislation to be shot down.

Every college and high school kid on the planet should be excited by the new customizable options that are expected to be allowed for inclusion at the social networking site Facebook. Now, instead of wasting 14 hours a day blathering on about how they hate their economics teacher, discussing how sweet their significant other is and announcing their weekend plans in a static, pre-determined social network, users will be able to blather on about how they hate their economics teacher, discuss how sweet their significant other is and announce their weekend plans in a user-generated social network. How refreshing!

One of the stranger stories of the day hands down is the Village Voice story about eco-bar Habana Outpost. Apparently, according to the pictures and the story, people help save the environment by wearing nipple slips and smoking cigarettes. NYC is trend-setting in the love of fads that are so ironic that few people realize how ridiculous they really are. I'd go at least once.

I'll finish with another piece in Slate that detailed how federal prosecutors estimated the value of an enormous drug bust. This tool may also be valuable in calculating the price of Jason Giambi's speed habit.