Hopewell Brewing - Monday Night Dinner with Flat and Point

 

I really like Hopewell Brewing.  They are good people that do some good and interesting beers.  Periodically, on a Monday night (when they are normally closed), they will invite a neighborhood restaurant who they are friends with and will host a Monday Night Dinner.  It gives them a chance to feature their beer with some different and interesting food served family-style, and it gives their friends a chance to try something that might not normally do.  For this Monday Night Dinner, they invited Flat & Point, a neighborhood restaurant that is similar to a barbecue restaurant.  The food is locally sourced and whole animals are used, though they feature things other than smoked meat.  The Hopewell Taproom is big and open with a bar on one side and three long communal tables in the center of the room.  Besides the large windows in the front, the space is lit with hanging light bulbs.  The walls also feature hanging art, which changes periodically.  The art that is now hanging was interesting and bright and if I were to add descriptors, I would say that it looked to me like Psychedelic and Robotic Aztec Art.  As in previous dinners, there was a Hopewell cooler sitting in the back of the room filled with beer to welcome us.  To be hospitable, I grabbed one, a Lil Buddy Lager, a light and crisp beer served in 8 oz cans and is very easy drinking.  Because I was dining solo, I was seated with another group which was fine because it made it easier to serve things family-style and it gave me a chance to socialize somewhat.

 

After everyone had arrived, was seated and had a beer, we started.  Our first beer was a favorite of mine, Table Salt Gose which is made with French Gray Sea Salt, Lemongrass, Lime Leaf, and Cardamom.  It's tart with a nice lemon-lime flavor and a salty finish.  This was paired with Charcuterie.  We were served Leberkase (literally Liver Cheese, it is a Sausage made with finely ground Corned Beef, Pork and Bacon), with Smoked Ricotta Cheese, and Pickled Radishes, on Sourdough Bread.  This was not what I expected as far as charcuterie was concerned, but it perfectly fit in with what Flat & Point does.  It was smoky and meaty, with the creamy ricotta, and dense and flavorful sourdough.

 

From the appetizer we went to the salad and what better beer to serve with salad then a Saison.  Great News Saison is a classic saison providing flavors of fruit, pepper, and citrus, and went very well with those things green.  Our salad wasn't completely colored green, but because it was all plant-based, I will use green as a generic descriptor instead of the color.  Our salad was a Winter Salad with Smoked Delicata Squash, Wilted Baby Kale, Carrots, Pumpkin Seeds, and Honey Dijon.  I really liked this salad because it had a lot of flavors and textures.  I am generally not a huge fan of Kale, because texturally, it's generally a bit stiff.  Wilting it, did soften it up, but with the squash and carrots, there was enough to chew on.

 

Our next course was lasagna, though it was lasagna with a definite twist.  It was a Veggie Lasagna with Parsnips, Sweet Potatoes, Kale, and a Truffle and Creamy Mushroom Sauce.  It was served with Off Black, Hopewell's Schwarzbier (Black Lager), which is both earthy and crisp.  The Lasagna was layered with Sweet Potatoes and Parsnips, sliced, laid on its side, and covered in the amazing Mushroom and Truffle Gravy.  It was tender and very flavorful, and the earthiness of the sweet potatoes and parsnips went well with the earthiness of the Schwarzbier.

 

 

After the excellent lasagna, many of us would have been happy to finish, but we still had our entree and dessert to go, so on we plowed.  Our final beer was a seasonal beer that they have made since the beginning, 24:37 Red IPA (24:37 is the length of a day on Mars, the red planet).  It's good and a bit unusual, being both malty and hoppy.  It was served with a Thuringer Porchetta (a spiced Pork Sausage made largely from Pork Shoulder) with Red Cabbage and 24:37 Red IPA Gravy, it was also served with a big bowl of Polenta.  This was really good, though it was tender and flavorful, it was also heavy and it was hard to get through after the rest of the food.

 

Happily we made it to the end and while dessert was nice and sweet, it wasn't exceptionally heavy.  Our beer was a Cold Brew Imperial Coffee Stout made with the coffee of a local roaster and featuring flavors of Dark Chocolate and Coffee.  What better to match a stout with than a Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookie which was made with Glazed and Made with Dark Chocolate.  It was sweet, bitter, and made for an excellent finish for a great meal.  I was happy to talk to both the owners of Hopewell and the Chef/Owner of Flat & Point.  I will continue to go to Hopewell's Monday Night Dinners and will definitely visit flat & Point for dinner some night. 

Forbidden Root - Southern-style Beer Dinner

 

 

I really like Forbidden Root Brewery.  Their base beers generally start out exploring Belgian styles, though they also do a lot of IPAs.  Having said that, comparing their finished beers to the starting beer is like comparing Vodka to Gin.  While gin starts as a basic clear liquor, the addition of botanicals makes it a completely different thing.  The same can be said of the beers of Forbidden Root.  They work with some very standard and recognizable styles, but the addition of different botanicals changes them significantly from where they start.  In addition to their creative beers, they have an interesting food menu in their brewpub and regularly host beer dinners where the kitchen can play and the brewery can pair their interesting beers more directly to the interesting food coming out of the kitchen.  Their last beer dinner of the year was a Southern-style Dinner where the chef could showcase the food that he grew up with.  The dining room has a large 4 sided bar in the center which is full service, but there are also tables on either side of the bar (the entrance is at the front and the brewing area/kitchen is at the rear of the space).  When I have dined (and drank) here, I have sat both at the bar and on either side.  There is a large communal table in a semi-private hall in the back of the space that sits in front of the brewery (and next to the kitchen) where the beer dinners take place.  I sat on one end of the table where I could see everything, though it did put me, at times, at a distance to the food that was being served.

 

We started out with an Amuse Bouche with its own beer pairing, Collaborade, a German-Style Wheat Beer that was served with a Shrimp Hush Puppy with Creole Remoulade and Chives.  The yeast in many wheat beers will give a beer the flavor of bananas.  While that was there, there was a lot of Lemongrass added which gave this beer a lemon flavor without being exceptionally sour.  The hush puppy was crisp and had a lot of shrimp flavor, which went well with the lemony flavor of the beer.  The remoulade, a French-made condiment with a mayonnaise base similar to tartar sauce, but with Stone Ground Mustard, spices and Red Pepper, added a nice spice and went well with the chopped shrimp in the hush puppy.

 

Our first official course started with the beer as did most of the courses.  We were served Atomic Child, a New England-style IPA which was actually less hazy than other NEIPAs that I've tried.  It also was brewed with White Grapes and had a definite grape finish.  Paired with this were the Fried Green Tomatoes with Black Eyed Peas, Pickled Shrimp, Buttermilk Vinaigrette, and Tobasco Vinaigrette.  It was crunchy on the outside, very juicy on the inside, and had a nice tart flavor and the two vinaigrettes added a nice sour and spicy flavor that went well with both the tart tomato and the grape flavor of the IPA.

 

The first entree was some Fried Chicken which has been popular in Chicago for the last few years, Nashville Hot Chicken, which was served with a Pullman Loaf, Slaw, and a Dill Pickle.  The chicken was paired with 200 Units Golden Ale, a good golden ale, but one of the most standard takes on a beer that they do.  The heat in Nashville Hot Chicken can vary widely.  Some is barely hot and some is so hot that you can barely eat it.  This was very hot.  The crust was very crispy and the meat was nicely juicy.  It was hot, but it wasn't so hot that I couldn't finish it, though I did have to eat it slowly.  The pickles and bread did help to cut the heat somewhat.

After what I had eaten so far, I was starting to get full.  The food at this point was very good and there were two courses left, so onward I went.  The second entree was essentially the signature course and it kind of blew the diners away. It started inauspiciously with their Hoodie Weather Oak Aged Vienna Lager.  Shortly after, they brought out a board with slices of Texas Toast and Grilled Lemon.  This was obviously not the entree, but it was good enough that the kitchen had to bring out another loaf.  The Vienna Lager had a nice oak flavor and was good enough that I forgot to take a picture of it until I was almost finished.  By that time, the star had arrived.  It was a Low Country Boil, a large pot of seafood and potatoes served in the broth made from the boil.  Included in the boil were, Mussels, Prawns, Andouille Sausage, Corn, Red Potatoes, more Grilled Lemons, and Fennel.  This was really good and while there were some people that had been getting boxes for previous dishes, this was not something that would have traveled well in a cardboard box.  It was really good and the pan sat on the table for a while while we worked on it.

And then came dessert.  Most of the table was very full by this time, but after what had been a very good dinner so far, no one was going to turn away before having it.  There was a small pause, which was actually kind of a good thing, so people's stomach could kind of reset.  The beer came out which was a Basil Raspberry Hefeweisen and the chef came out shortly thereafter to tell us that he had had to do some improvisation because the dessert wasn't coming together as he had hoped.  On the menu for dessert was Apple Pie with Cheddar Cheese Ice Cream.  Unfortunately, the Ice Cream Machine decided to die on that day, so they had to try other methods that ended up not working.  We were served Mini Apple Pies, which were very good with Vanilla Ice Cream, Cheddar Cheese Sauce, and a Brown Sugar Crumble.  While it wasn't what the chef had hoped to serve, it was still very good and served as a good finish to a very good meal.  I like both the beer and food at the Forbidden Root Brewpub and will definitely return for more of the same.   
  

Twisted Hippo - Saint Auggie's Day Feast

I had been to Twisted Hippo before and really liked it, so was excited to go to their St. Auggie's Day Feast.  Why would a brewery be celebrating the feat day of a Catholic Saint?  There are actually several reasons.  First, St. Augustine of Hippo is actually the patron saint of brewers.  Second, the mascot of Twisted Hippo, Pinky, is essentially a hippo, and third, Head Brewer and owner Karl Rutherford shares his birthday with the feast day of St.  Augustine.  The space is colorful and a little weird and we were seated at a couple of communal tables at the back of the main dining room.  That was decorated with a center planter full of tropical fruit.  There was a portable tap an infusion device set off to the side, which gave us the idea that they were going to do something special.  Things started out with Karl and his wife and partner, Marilee, telling the story of Twisted Hippo.  It started with Karl as a toddler running away on a pink plastic hippo, which became Pinky, next door to his grandmothers house.  It was here wear they also explained the connection to St. Augustine or St. Auggie.

 

We started out with a beer made for the feast, Ol' St. Auggie's Hoppy Farmhouse Ale with 3 variants: Hibiscus, which was very floral and surprisingly bitter, Mallorca Melon, which was very sweet, and Hop Infused, which was hoppy.  Of the four, I think that I preferred the Hibiscus variant.  Paired with the beer we were served Crispy Pig Ear Salad with Mixed and Microgreens, Green Olives, Crispy Pig Ears, and Hibiscus Ol' St. Auggie's Dressing.  This was served family-style and it was huge.  The greens were very fresh and the olives provided some saltiness.  The crispy pig ears were more tender than I would have expected.  There is a lot of cartilage in a pigs ear and they are frequently used as a dog's chew toy, so I would have it expected it to be leathery.  They were crunchy and chewy and had a nice pork flavor, but they were very edible and good.  

For our next course we were served an Okra Tagine with Okra, Tomatoes, Chermoula, Crispy Fried Onions, with a Crispy Baguette on the side.  Paired with this we had Wit Ever Man!  Belgian Wit.  Also served family-style and also huge, the tagine was another vegetarian dish originating in Morocco, which is important because St. Augustine was from North Africa.  Hippo was the ancient name of the Algerian City of Annaba.  This was a little spicy and very flavorful and despit the fact that there was a ton, I would have eaten more.

Our North African glutton fest continued with Beef Meatballs in a North African Tomato Sauce with Saffron Cous Cous and Cilantro Pesto served on the side.  This was paired with Ballooner Weisse Berliner Weisse.  This was also very tasty and flavorful, though with the saffron, it stained my beard.  With the amount of food we were being served, I was also getting kind of full.

Realistically, the last course could have been the main course, but the food kept on coming.  Our next course was another family-style feast in two parts.  We started out with Stoemp, a very rich, Belgian version of Mashed Potatoes combined with other root vegetables.  This version combined Mashed Potatoes with Leeks, Carrots, and Cabbage.  The stoemp was the side dish for the Braised Lamb Shanks braised with Pinky Toe Table Stout, Red Wine, and Herbs.  Paired with the Stoemp and the lamb shanks was the Chubby Monk Belgian Stout.  It was all good and very filling, but I had to limit my lamb intake if I was going to get to dessert.  The stoemp, though, I may have to make myself.

With many beer dinners, the heaviest beer is saved for last, and in many cases, that would be the stout.  As I noted, the stout was actually served with the main entree, so they came back a little and went with Run-AMZ Double Dry Hopped IPA.  This was served with a crazy Pavlova.  A Pavlova is a Meringue Dessert topped in Whipped Cream and topped with fruit.  It's like a neater version of an Eton Mess.  With this Pavlova, it had the typical Meringue and Whipped Cream and was topped with Figs, Spiced Mango Jam, Fresh Papaya, and Pomegranate, and garnished with fresh Mint.  While I was very full, by this point, I really enjoyed it.  I like both the beer and food at Twisted Hippo, whether it's on the regular menu or if it's part of a special dinner.  I will definitely return for some good food and drink, but I will especially return for a special dinner.

Sunday Dinner Club - "Made Wrong" Burgers at Half Acre Brewery

 

I like Sunday Dinner Club, the underground dinner club that hosts dinners with many various themes and I try to go several times a year.  Their main location is above their restaurant, Honey Butter Fried Chicken, which itself started as a Sunday Dinner Club dinner, but several times a year they will partner with Half Acre Brewery for a dinner at one of their tap rooms (mostly the Lincoln Tap Room).  These dinners are similar to the dinners in their home space in that when people are checked in and seated, they will come out and introduce themselves.  With the dinners at Half Acre, a Half Acre rep will first introduce themselves and welcome everyone before introducing the SDC crew who will then introduce themselves, tell the story of Sunday Dinner Club, and tell everyone about the dinner they will be having.  The dinners at SDC Headquarters are BYOB, but the ones at Half Acre come with four beers.  This dinner also came with a sample of Camchi's Kimchi, a product from one of their crew that they plan on commercializing.  The beers that I started with were Eat Shop Apricot Milkshake IPA with Lactose and Apricot and Deep Space Double IPA, both IPAs, but very diffwewnt from one another.  Eat Shop Apricot was creamy and hazy with a nice soft mouthfeel and apricot and tropical flavors.  Deep Space was decidedly heavier with grapefruit and pine flavors and a nice dry finish.  

Their former sous chef Becca, had an enormously popular Cubano sandwich which they used as a theme for a pop up at Revival Food Hall.  It was also very successful, so there is now thought of opening another restaurant under the Sunday Dinner Club umbrella.  While the Cubano Sandwich is good, it's hard to build a restaurant on one item, so this dinner was sort of a try out to expand the menu.  For this dinner, they did a spin on the Maid-Rite Burger, a spiced loose meat sandwich similar to a sloppy joe without sauce, they called a "Made Wrong" Burger.  It was also a spiced loose meat sandwich on a bun, but it also had Camchi's Kimchi made with Cucumbers and Carrots, Spicy Aioli, and Muenster Cheese.  It was served with a very good Potato Salad made with Mustard and Spices.

For my beers to drink with dinner and finish off, I went with Shrub Tundra Coffee Brown Ale and another IPA, Half Acre makes a lot of IPAs, Fluorescent IPA.  Shrub Tundra is a collaboration with a local coffee roaster, Dark Matter Coffee, uses 5% liquid coffee by volume, the variety of which varies every year.  This years blend had a nice head, light carbonation, and a thin mouthfeel.  The coffee aroma and flavor were good and while there was a hop flavor, it was light.  Fluorescent IPA poured light yellow with a light haze.  It has a medium body and tropical flavors and was pretty good.

To finish our dinner, we were served Brownies.  I really like brownies in general, but these brownies were pretty fantastic.  The Brownie was Dark Chocolate topped with Peppermint Cream Cheese and Fueilletine Flakes.  Fueilletine, meaning leaves, is a very light pastry that tastes like a very light and crispy sugar cone and provided a nice crunch to the brownie.  The brownie had a great flavor and provided a great finish to a great dinner.  While Sunday Dinner Club does not do just one thing, there style is very homey and a lot of what they do is to elevate comfort foods.  I have liked the dinners that I have had with SDC, and I will continue going to their dinners.

Bixi Brewery

 

It has been 3 years in the making, but I was very happy to see Bixi Brewery (pronounced Be-She) open recently, so I invited a couple of friends to try things out, which we did a few weeks ago.  Named for Bixi, a Dragon god with a tortoise shell, that supports great weights (like buildings and bridges), and images of which are rubbed for good luck.  The space is a two floor operation with very different designs on each floor.  The first floor has a bar on the left side and looks more typically like a bar.  There is an image of Bixi in front of the Chicago skyline done in black and white behind the long bar, which was done by a former Marvel comic artist.  There is also much table seating with the furniture also white with chrome legs.  The brewing area is in a glassed off area at the front of the bar, near the front.  Going up the stairs, the second floor also has a large bar off to one side, but the space looks more like a restaurant dining area than the first floor with a high ceilings, a large skylight, a rooftop dining area, green walls, and an area that looks like a salon, for a more intimate experiencce.  Having said this, you can eat and drink on both floors.  The bar has a large shelf with liquor on several shelves, with the high ceilings, I have to imagine that a ladder is necessary to get to the higher shelves, though I didn't notice one when we were there.  The tables, walls, and shelves on the second floor were also white, though there was a variation upstairs in that there were more colors involved than black and white (with some chrome).  There was some plant life as well as the green walls, which, although they did look very good, were artificial.  The salon area used green wallpaper with a plant-like design, the furniture looked like vintage 20th century salon furniture, i.e. upholstered couches and chairs with dark upholstery.  While the salon did look comfortable, the portraiture hanging on the walls, like the ape in the robe and flowered headdress were a bit odd.

Owned by Bo Fowler, who also owns and runs, and Owen and Engine, an English-Style Gastropub, and Fat Willy's, a barbecue joint, she decided to go in yet another direction with the food served, that being Asian.  Fowler, who was born in Korea, decided to work on a menu that was closer to her heart when creating this brewery and restaurant.  Most people don't think of beer when eating Asian food, the issue was to create a menu that would pair well with beer and to make beer that invokes the ideas and flavors of Asian fare.  While the menu looked really good and we discussed what we wanted to order, ordering the beer was much easier, between us, we all ordered flights which covered everything.  They had flights of three four and five.  I wanted to try as many as I could, so I had a flight of five.  I was able to try all of the beers, but I only ordered five.  Bixi covers many of the most common ale styles, with a lager also on draft, and augmenting many of their beers with Asian flavors.  The major styles that were missing was the Stout or Porter.  Though the first beer on their menu was a dark ale, it was a dark ale and not a stout or porter, and while it was good and was actually a favorite, it was definitely not a stout or porter.  It used Roasted Wheat, Caramel, Smoked Malt and was augmented with Szechuan Peppercorns.  Unspoken Rule was a Lagered Farmhouse Ale with Pearled Jasmine Tea.  Sanchez Therapy, another Farmhouse Ale was spiced with Cucumber, and had Melon forward aromas.  Against the Cross was probably the most mainstream and undifferentiated beer.  It was a classic American-Style IPA, which really reminded me of Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  My other favorite beer that I ordered for myself was surprisingly a Lager, which I normally find pretty boring.  This was augmented with rice like many American Macro Lagers, and at the front it really reminded me of Miller High Life, but the rice that was used was Jasmine Rice, which gave it a very distinctive flowery rice flavor.  The other beers served were a Summer Pale Ale, a Wit, and a Wheat beer, which were all pretty good.

The food menu (as well as the mural going up the stairs) was created by Kimski chef Won Kim.  While Chef Fowler and Chef Kim are both Korean, and the menu does include Korean food, it also includes, Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese, as well as American with Asian influences.  We started out with Oysters, which can't really be put into one menu except for seafood.  They served two different types of oysters each from East and West Coast.  We all ordered different Oysters, I ordered a Beausoleil Oyster, which is an East Coast raised in New Bruinswick.  I normally like raw oysters, and my dining partners liked theirs, but I apparently picked wrong, because I found it a little on the strong side.  For our other appetizers, we went with Kimchi Mandu with Mushrooms and Leeks, Momo with Chicken and Curry Spices, and a Chicago Beef Bao, which were all served at the same time.  All were very good with a lot of good flavors, though I think that I favored the Kimchi Mandu best.

Our main course was a Ssam Plate.  It was offered as a half or full size.  Because three of us would be sharing, We decided to get a full order and were still surprised by the size. Ssam means wrapped and it is generally meat wrapped in leafy vegetables.  For this plate we were served a lot of Leafy Vegetables, Scallion Pancakes, Char Siu (Korean Barbecued Pork), Asian Pears, Carrots, Peppers, and Bao.  It reminded me of the Korean version of Fajitas.  It was fun combining different things and tasting the different flavors.  There were several different types of greens with different flavors and it was fun to try different combinations.  I was generally taking a piece of char siu, a piece of pancake, some greens, some vegetables, and pile it all into the bao.  While I probably wasn't eating Ssam correctly, I was able to try the different flavors and textures, together and individually, and it was all good.

Bixi is a very nice looking space, and while they don't do groundbreaking beer, it is good, and it goes well with the food that they serve.  I will have to return to try more of the menu.