Ale Street Nights: Belgian Night in NYC

Check out the review of the Ale Street: Belgian Night in NYC.

The Oregon Trail

On May 2nd I am leaving my New York and setting out on an adventure to find my future. The plan is simple: pack guitars, cooking supplies, bicycles, clothes, camera and girlfriend into car and go.

The end destination is Portland, Oregon and the end goal is to find a deliciously awesome place to live where I can work in a brewery and learn a few things. Although I have a bunch of stops planned (Various NY towns, my friend’s dairy farm, the Goat races in Phoenixville, PA, Portland, ME, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Big Bend National Park etc) I am still looking for suggestions from other interesting places to check out.

I plan on documenting my beer and food adventures here, so if you have any recommendations, please pass them on. I need all the help I can get in fulfilling my manifest destiny so pass on the wisdom!

Belgian Night in NYC and the World's Rarest Beer

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to host my first ever beer event with Ale Street News and CityDusk. Ale Street Nights: Belgian Night In NYC was a celebration of beer, friends, and more obnoxiously delicious beer.

The event consisted of a pair of beers at The Hop Devil Grill Lounge on St. Marks in the East Village followed by three pours, mussels and frites at the East Village Tavern on Ave C at 10th Street. Simple enough, right?

Wrong. I quickly found out that event planning in NYC is a huge pain in the ass. Besides booking venues and setting prices, there is that little aspect of advertising and getting people to go! Despite my best efforts I couldn’t convince many friends to shell out for fine beers and shellfish, so luckily Tony and Jack at Ale Street News decided the sponsor the event and we brought in a nice little crew of beer lovers.

Fast-forward past pitches, negotiations, write-ups and advertising and settle on last Saturday evening.

It was a beautiful day in NYC and I am settled into a bar stool at the Hop Devil sipping a Delirium Tremens. I’m taking my time with the ferocious pink elephant but getting nervous; I am expecting twelve people plus five or so friends of Ale Street and none have shown up yet; it is a quarter past the designated start date.

Waiting.

Drinking.

Waiting.

Drinking some more.

…Finally! An older couple shows up and I pounce, offering drink tickets, wristbands and some beer suggestions. The woman turns out to be the aunt of boss at CityDusk and we chat more about him than beer. Not a problem for me, at least people are showing up.

Fast-forward to twenty minutes later.

A whole slew of individuals show up including casual beer fans and Ale Street writers. I feel relieved, kill my beer and order a surprisingly thin tasting Victory Saison. People start chatting among themselves, Tony and Jack show up and the party is in full swing. Everyone is introduced and I start describing the evening. Tony gets up and gives a spiel about Belgium and Belgian beers and we round up the crew and head over to the East Village Tavern.

Before I get any further, I need to talk about EVT for a bit. I never got the chance to venture to this American craft brew haven before but I was speaking to the manager, Bill Mackin, on the phone constantly for the past several weeks. We started discussing the event, then got to just chatting about brewers, breweries and obscure and rare beers. I am nowhere near as knowledgeable about beers as Bill (or any of the people associated with Ale Street for that matter—I’m young, what can I say) but Bill took an immediate liking to me. We planned a stellar line-up for the evening—Goose Island’s Pere Jacques, Avery’s Salvation and Keegan’s Four Philosophers—and decided on a deliciously Belgian dinner of mussels and frites.

Once everyone got to EVT Jack handed out beer goggles and demanded, “We walk in there and own the place.” We snapped a few pictures as confused bar patrons sitting in the outdoor patio looked on and headed in to start the shenanigans.

Fast-forward to two hours and a few beers later.

I have beer goggles perched on my head, there is a plate of empty mollusk shells on the table and people are telling me anecdotes about Belgian café restrooms and beatnik cross country trips. I am in my glory; I have a glass of Four Philosophers in hand, a plate of Belgian chocolates and people are thanking me for a great evening. I’ve been chatting with the owner of EVT about hard-to-find beers and future NYC beer bars when Tony comes up to me and says brought the Holy Grail of beers; my jaw drops as he pulls out the nondescript, yellow-capped bottle of Westvleteren 12.

Just in case you have a life and don’t read about beer for fun, Westvelern 12 is the rarest beer in the world. Out of seven Trappist breweries, two (Chimay and Orval) are easily found in the US, three (Achel, Westmalle and Konningshoeven) can be found most times, one (Rochfort) is a much trickier to locate and the final brew (Westvleteren, also known as the Holy Grail of beer) is damn near impossible. Westvleteren is without a doubt the rarest of the Trappist brews. Garret Oliver, head brewer at Brooklyn Brewery says that “Westvleteren’s beers are available only from a drive-up hatch at the abbey gates or from the café In De Vrede, across the street. Even then, not all the beers are sold at any given time.”

When Tony went to Belgium in March, Westvleteren was not available at the brewery. After his fruitless pleading with the monks, he managed to purchase a few bottles at a larger café somewhere else. Luckily for me, I was able to sample the ambrosia without buying a plane ticket to Belgium and begging the monks at the monastery.

To shortly sum up a night up delicious debauchery, the first ever Ale Street Night was a complete success. I got to meet a lot of very interesting and knowledgeable people and drink some great and rare beers. Best of all, there is a chance I can write for Ale Street while I make my way across the country in my quest to taste great beer, have a great time and fulfill my manifest destiny. Cheers to that!

Belgium, Boston and Beer Wars

Three Things to Mention:

1. Head out to Belgian Night in NYC this Saturday at 4pm. I am teaming up with CityDusk (www.citydusk.com) and Ale Street News (www.alestreetnews.com) to bring a night of mussels, chocolate and, of course, delicious brews. Many tasty and hard-to-find Belgian-style American beers will be poured and the fine folks at Ale Street will be on-hand to chat about the great nation of Belgium and, of course, great beers.

2. An article I wrote, Boston Kicks Cask, is featured in the Online Exclusives section of the Ale Street News website. Be a doll and check it out.

3. In case you missed out on this evening’s one time only showing of Beer Wars, there wasn’t much new information to ingest. The film was a well-done portrayal of the beer industry in this country (i.e. Big Beer, or InBev-AB and Miller-Coors-SAB own the lion’s share of the American beer market and the little guys are working hard to bring quality products to customers).

The film was written and directed by Anat Baron and portrays the war for consumer dollars with a David vs. Goliath spin. It gets a bit campy at times—showing Dogfish Head Sam Calagionebrewer with his wife and children while he laments about the possibility of losing everything—but overall is pretty thought provoking.

I feel that anything that gets people thinking about the beer they are buying is a definite positive. A big kudos goes to Ben Stein for running the Q-and-A session after the film. He definitely deserves credit for getting a distinct group of brewers, beer insiders and industry professionals to voice there strong opinions and not just happily agree with one another all the time. Beer geeks and evangelists often overlook the fact that craft beer is a business and at the end of the day, if money is not made then the beer will stop flowing.

Crack open a bottle, keep an open mind and know a bit about what you are drinking.

Who the hell wants to go to Delaware?

“Delaware!? What’s in Delaware?”

This is the typical response I received after inviting my friends on a four and a half hour trip to our nation’s first state. After their intrigue/astonishment/disgust would pass (most people I know have an innate distrust of states that are not New York) I would inform them that Rehoboth Delaware is home to the Dogfish Head Brewery, purveyor of the nation’s most unique and interesting beers. After months of trying to get anyone to join me on my beerventure, a good friend of mine agreed to make the trip.

Until recently I’ve been more curious about the exotic ingredients and obscure recipes used by head brewer Sam Calagione than actually drinking the stuff. I started to change my tune after I heard Sam speak during a beer and cheese pairing at last year’s American Craft Beer festival in Boston. More recently, a beer dinner at the Park Slope restaurant Palo Santo turned me on the amazing affinity Dogfish brews have for food. A trip to the source of all these unique flavors was unavoidable.

After sitting in three states worth of traffic, we arrived at Dogfish Head with twenty minutes to spare before the tour began. While my friend sought out the restrooms I settled down at the bar and was about to speak with a waitress when I saw Sam Calagione stomping around in a large barrel in a small back room.

“An Indian IPA,” the waitress told me. “Made with curry, cumin and all sorts of Indian spices.”

Whoa. Already my mind was blown. Dogfish really blurs the already indistinguishable line between food and beer. I made a mental note to keep track of this IPA and asked the waitress where the tour starts. She sadly informed me that I was seated at the Restaurant and Brewpub, not the brewery itself. Besides the distillery upstairs the only brews being made there were small batches of possible future styles. After scribbling down a few directions and waiting for my friend to finish relieving himself, we backtracked our way to the actual brewery located in Milton.

Following the shark signs into an industrial looking complex surrounded by townhouses, we found the entrance to the brewery. Dogfish is undergoing an extraordinary amount of renovation and expansion in order to better meet the demand for their beer. While they make it twenty-five of the fifty states, Dogfish is meeting only half of the demand for their brews. The renovations are intended to increase production and create a more welcoming environment for beer lovers that include an on-site restaurant and bocce courts.

Once the tour was finished and I stood in admiration of the 10,000 gallon palo santo tank, a loopy, bespectled fellow began pouring us beers and chatting. After a few samplings that included a delicious mix of 90-Minute IPA and Palo Santo, he poured me a Midus Touch (a mead/beer recreated from the remnants of a drinking vessel excavated from the tomb of Midus) and began describing his late night culinary creations and a skit he acts out with a buddy called “Whose Got the Munchies?” After listening in disbelief about a few of his “recipes” we finished up our samples and ventured back to the restaurant.

A seat at the bar of the Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats Pub is probably the best way to really understand what Dogfish Head is all about. I have gotten a sense of Sam’s personality from hearing him speak and seeing him personally pour beers on several occasions, but the atmosphere of camaraderie and fun that permeates the restaurant and his beers is unmatched by any other brewery I have visited. Over the course of a long, indulgent evening of eating and drinking, I was able to speak at length with current Dogfish brewers who rebuked my remarks about their homemade spirits looking “sketchy”, local homebrewers who helped Sam and company found the brewery and a couple of out-of-towners who just came to check out the beers. Every single person I met had nothing but good things to say about Dogfish and the sense of community the brewery has brought together. The first Thursday of the month brings together a Brew Club that has been meeting for over fifteen years and the individuals with whom I chatted gave me insight into the heart and soul of Dogfish Head: delicious and drinkable fun. It really is a motley crew of creative professional brewers, casual drinkers and locals who want to enjoy a fresh pint, mingle and joke around. After a bottle of beer based on an ancient Chinese recipe, a couple of free rounds and one too many pizzas, we closed down the bar and went to walk off the lasting effects of 120-Minutes IPA.

Looking for a night out?

Belgian Night in NYC Saturday,April 18, 2009 05:00pm - 08:00pm Price: $55

Join CityDusk and Ale Street News for a little taste of Belgium without leaving the city! Who: CityDusk and Ale Street News When: Saturday, April 18, 2009 5-8pm Where: Meet at Hop Devil Grill/Belgian Room: 129 St. Marks Place Our night begins at 5pm at the Hop Devil Grill/Belgian Room on St. Marks. We will meet up with Justin Lloyd, our host for the evening, and cozy up to the bar, relax and enjoy the tastes of Antwerp and Brussels via a couple of Belgian and Belgian-American beers. After we whet our appetites from one of the 30 top-notch brews on tap, we'll head over to East Village Tavern on Avenue C at 6pm. Once inside, the fine folks from Ale Street News will fill our heads with stories from their annual trips to Belgium and fill our glasses with more delicious suds. While we discuss the finer points of our ales, the chef at East Village Tavern will prepare us Belgium's most famous dish-mussels and frites. We can wile away the time like true Walloons, sipping beer after beer and digging into heaping bowls of mussels. Once the last glass has been emptied, we will end the night with one of Belgium's ridiculously delicious chocolates and venture into the streets of New York City, stuffed, happy and pretty tipsy. Ticket Price: $55 Total Value at Hop Devil/Belgian Room w/tax+tip = $20 Total Value at East Village Tavern w/tax+tip = $50 Ale Street News tales & tutorials = CityDusk original

APRIL 18th!

April 18 is Belgian Night in NYC!!

Screw K-Rod! Which Way to Shake Shack?

Being a Mets fan, you can imagine how excited I am for Citi Field to open. Unlike the diehard Shea Stadium fans that constantly pummel me with anti-Citi Field diatribes, I am looking forward to the new ballpark. After weeks of articles describing every nook and cranny of Citi Field and its cuisine, I came across this article investigating the food economics of the park.

Whether or not the Mets will give me another miserable season, I can be happy knowing that the price for a beer will be significantly less. A can of Bud is down from $7.50 to $6, a drop 20%.

Thankfully, there will be more than Bud available. In fact, there will be many beers exclusive to Citi Field. Most notably represented will be Brooklyn Brewery. In addition to the Brooklyn-made Shackmeister beer available at Shake Shack, Garret and his boys have created special brews for Blue Smoke (Blue Smoke’s Original Ale), El Verano Taqueria (Sabroso Ale) and from what I hear there will be a Witbier for the Frites stand.

At least if the Mets blow it again I can drown my sorrows on sight.

Viejito Old Ale

Once I start brewing again I am going to create an Old Ale or Barleywine called Viejito Old Ale. It will be big, hairy and delicious, just like my grandfather’s current beard.


Hopefully Viejito will be able to induce that glasses-falling-off-face look.

For One Second...Put Down the Fork

After work today I cracked open a bottle of Oatmeal stout and started chomping down a few oatmeal chocolate chips cookies that were sent my way as a gift. I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma lately and came across a line that I find very poignant:

“The pleasures of the table begin with eating…but they can end up anywhere human talk cares to go. In the same way the raw becomes cooked, eating becomes dining.”

There is a very distinct difference between eating and dining; one satisfies a physical need while the other satisfies a social one. Although eating—and being full—can be understood rather easily, there is no scale to measure the pleasure that a good meal and good company can bring.

Perhaps it was because I was dining on my cookies and beer alone, but this line really hit home. I see far too many people shoveling down food just to satisfy their bodily cravings without enjoying the presence of the person sitting across the table. Enjoy your company, people. Take a second to think about feeding more than your stomach.