I must confess, that as many times as I have frequented Aces and Ales, I have yet to attend either a dinner event, or Tuesday Night Tastings. This is not due to a lack of faith, as I have yet to enjoy a less than stellar dish during any eating experience at this establishment. Mainly, it’s simply due to life obligations sadly getting in the way of my palate’s enjoyment. Thankfully, both Luis and I were able to attend the recent Coronado Beer Dinner, and I must say, I can’t wait to attend the next!

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I originally posted this article last year, and I got a lot of great responses from many of you who used Belgian beers to pair with your Thanksgiving feasts, so since it’s that time of year again, I thought I’d repost it. (more…)

COCHON 555 was founded as a means to help raise the awareness of heritage breed pigs. These are pigs that are raised and grown naturally, providing a richer, more robust flavor when compared to their blue collar counterparts: factory raised industrial pigs. Naturally, the only way to preserve these upper class heritage pigs is to eat as many of them as possible!

COCHON events feature several whole heritage pigs, along with several chefs to prepare various dishes using every piece of the pig. Jokes aside, the idea is that through these nationwide events, consumer awareness will be raised, not just of heritage pigs, but also of sustainable food systems.

One of the event’s sponsors, Crispin Cider, was generous enough to provide us access to the Las Vegas COCHON event, located at Commonwealth downtown. To ensure that these pigs are getting the awareness that they deserve, Danny and I made sure to overindulge, and binge eat as many pork products as possible. That was the point of all this, right? (more…)

Raise your hand if you were at the beer and chocolate pairing event with Happy Ending Chocolates at Tenaya Creek Brewery. If you didn’t raise your hand just now, go ahead and slap yourself for missing out on an incredibly fun evening enjoying delicious beers and chocolates specially prepared for the event.

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It’s 11:30 AM, I’m hungover from drinking too much at The Trappist in Oakland, and I just scarfed down a Korean burrito for “breakfast”. I’m standing in a line about half a block long. There’s a guy asking people for money in line, but not for beer or drugs, god forbid, no it’s for arts materials for “the kids.” Everyone replies no, or so I would imagine. Welcome to the Tenderloin, home of Mikkeller Bar SF. (more…)

If you haven’t heard, Aces & Ales will be opening a second location on the west side of town. One thing that they are considering, to make it stand out from the original location, and most bars in Las Vegas, is to not serve any macro beers. They wouldn’t be the first bar to do this, Tenaya Creek comes to mind as bar that only serves craft beer, but I doubt there’s any others, outside of local breweries.

Looking through comments online, some people feel that this is outright beer snobbery at its finest, or that this is a poor business decision. Some things that I think about with this: (more…)

Taco Tuesday is one of Hooked on Hops’ favorite days of the week; tacos being a favorite dish amongst all of us. And of course we prefer to enjoy a craft beer with our tacos. So what better way to celebrate Taco Tuesday, then with a craft beer cocktail, appropriately named, ‘Taco Tuesday?’ The base beer for this drink is The Bruery’s Black Tuesday. An imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels, with a 19% alcohol content, that the brewery only releases once a year. This is not an easy beer to get your hands on, and it is surely worth the effort if you can get it!

As for the rest of the ingredients for the ‘Taco Tuesday,’ well… just take a look at this video for the details: (more…)

This past weekend, my wonderful wife decided to make brownies using a recipe she found on CraftBeer.com. The result was absolutely delicious, and I thought I’d share the results for you here.

She did deviate a little bit from that original recipe. We did not have any bourbon on hand to mix in, nor did we put any sort of nuts in the brownies. If nutty brownies are your thing, then have at it. Secondly, we decided to use a french press to essentially make stout coffee.

North Coast’s Old Rasputin was the beer used, as opposed to using a sweet stout mentioned in the recipe. Old Rasputin, to me, is the perfect blend of dark roasted flavors, but balanced with an adequate amount of residual sweetness from the unfermented sugars in the beer. The recipe requires 1/3 of a cup of beer, but I recommend just pouring half the bottle over about 2 tablespoons of ground coffee beans. After a few minutes you can measure out the amount needed for the recipe, and then drink the rest. The coffee and stout mixture is incredible decadent and rich. Almost makes the beer taste like it is a higher alcohol percentage than it actually is.

These don’t taste like any brownies I had ever eaten. I should clarify that it doesn’t really taste like Old Rasputin, or beer for that matter. As for the coffee, it imparts more so a coffee aroma, or flavor, as opposed to any coffee bitterness. These have the perfect balance of dark chocolate and sweetness. The coffee balances out the dark chocolate flavors, creating a smoothed out bitter, chocolate taste. The beer, along with both the white and brown sugar, create a very flavorful sweetness, without just tasting sugary.

This recipe is super easy to make, and definitely worth a try!

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to take part in a Lagunitas beer pairing dinner at Mandalay Bay’s Fleur. The event was organized by Certified Cicerone Sarah Johnson, Mandalay Bay’s director of food and beverage. The event was wonderfully executed, and featured not only great beer, but also very delicious food paired with it. Without further ado, let’s discuss the incredible dinner that took place!

Pils
Lagunitas’ pilsner was the first beer that we were given, to help whet our palates and prepare us for what was to come. This beer is extremely dry and crisp. It has the firm bitterness that pilsners should be known for, with a nice, grassy finish.

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Certified Cicerone Sarah Johnson, director of food and beverage for Mandalay Bay, is hosting a beer pairing dinner along with Lagunitas head brewer Jeremy Marshall.

In addition to the below pairings, dessert includes tastings of 2009 ,2010, and 2011 vintages of Brown Shugga!