Hal and Al’s Columbus Bar

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Andrea

My absolute favorite bar in Columbus, is by far, Hal and Al’s. My friend John is responsible for introducing me to this fabulous place.

He kept saying to me, “Andrea, they have a great beer selection and I really think you would enjoy their stouts.”

These are the kinds of friends you need to have in your life. The ones that seriously look out for you and have your back.

John, totally has my back when it comes to beer.

So I finally made it down to Hal and Al’s and fell in love right away. They have an amazing beer selection. I’m not exaggerating here, the menu is three pages long and has the beers listed by type. Meaning the beers are listed as, Lagers, Ales, IPAs, Stouts, Porters and so on.

And there’s usually some stuff they have either in bottles or on tap that isn’t listed on the menu.

Heck yes!

The atmosphere is exactly what I’m looking for in a bar. There’s plenty of seating in a wide open space. The bathrooms are clean and updated. It’s quite, no super loud music and no super loud people.

Read more on Hal and Al’s Columbus Bar…

Review: Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Andrea

It’s the last pumpkin beer review for 2011! It’s been a month already and we are on our fourth pumpkin beer for October! Let’s get to it!

We had a hiccup with one of the pumpkin ales that we bought. It was skunky.

Ugh.

A skunky beer is never a good experience. So we were kind of scrambling to find a replacement beer. The thing with pumpkin beers, they don’t last long. When you see them in the store, you gotta jump on those quick because once they are gone, they’re gone.

Only so many of them get made and sometimes they are in limited release.

We stumbled across this Jolly Pumpkin , La Parcela No. 1 Pumpkin Ale and picked it up.

I have had Jolly Pumpkin’s La Roja which is a sour beer. It’s lovely for a very hot and humid summer day which means it’s great beer for an Ohio summer.

I decided to go with their Pumpkin Ale because if the brewery has pumpkin in the name, they should know what they’re doing, right?

Review: Heavy Seas The Greater Pumpkin

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrea

This week we are taking a look at Heavy Seas, The Greater Pumpkin. This is in the Mutiny Fleet series of ales.

I have to admit that I did a little happy dance when we spotted this beer because it’s got two of my very favorite things combined into one brew:

Pumpkin Ale
Bourbon Barrel Aged

Oh my pumpkins!

I was excited and a bit nervous to try this beer so I was putting it off and putting it off, tasting others first. Excited because barrel aged pumpkin! Nervous because what if I didn’t like it? Yikes!

Finally I put my foot down and said that we needed to taste this beer.

Smell: 3/5 :pumpkin:

The smell is more concentrated in the bottle. You get hints of spices in the background letting you know that you are about to drink a pumpkin inspired beer. The spices are not overwhelming and are toned down a bit from the bourbon in the background.

Cider and Beer Brined Chops

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Andrea

As promised, this post is all about my most recent experiment with brining; combining cider and beer.

First, you all know that I love to brine. And if you’re eating pork or poultry, my opinion is always to brine that baby first.

I’ve done cider brines and I’ve done beer brines, but I have not combined them.

Last Sunday I decided to do just that. I had some cider that needed used up and I had a fall inspired pecan beer that would pair well with the cider.

I used up the last of the cider so I don’t know exactly how much was left but I’m going to guess about two cups or thereabouts.

Andrea’s Cider and Beer Brined Chops

2 Thick cut, bone-in pork loin chops (Blues Creek)

2C Apple Cider (get fresh and local!)

1 12oz Bottle of Abita Pecan Harvest Ale + 1/4C (more if you make gravy)

1/4C Brown Sugar

Slightly more than 1/4C Kosher Salt

Review: Shipyard Brewing Smashed Pumpkin

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Andrea

One of the things that I love about Columbus is that we are not lacking for good beer and it’s not hard to find either. Even your local grocery store will have craft beer to offer!

However this does mean that it can be difficult when shopping for beers to review. So many options!

Up for review this week is Shipyard’s Smashed Pumpkin in the Pugsley’s Signature Series.

Smell: 4/5 :pumpkin:

Great pumpkin smell right outta the gate. While the pumpkin smell is subtle, the spices come through strong but not in an overpowering way.

When you smell this brew, it’s clear that it’s a pumpkin and fall inspired ale. This is exactly what you’re looking for with pumpkin ales.

Color: 5/5 :pumpkin:

Shipyard has done the perfect color for this beer! It’s a great bright orange color and also very cloudy. I personally don’t like a beer that has been super filtered, allowing you to see through it. I want some heft to my beer and I’ll take a cloudy beer any day.

Review: Southern Tier Pumpking

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Andrea

Alright gang, it’s October which means it’s time to review a whole new set of pumpkin beers!

Are you excited? Because over here at the HQ we are estatic!

You can take a quick glance at the beers that we reviewed last year.

Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

New Holland Ichabod

O’Fallon’s Pumpkin Ale

For a brief tutorial, we will be looking at several qualities of the beer:

Smell
Color
Head
Taste

Rating the beers in pumpkins :pumpkin: , from 1 to 5, 1 being the poorest and 5 being the best score.

First up is Southern Tier’s Pumpking. This beer comes highly recommended from just about everyone. The minute you mention pumpkin beers, most people will ask if you’ve had Pumpking.

Since it’s so highly recommended, it’s going to be the beer that kicks off the month!

So let’s see how it did!

Smell: 4/5 :pumpkin:

It has a strong pumpkin smell to it that immediately hits you as soon as you pour the beer. There’s another scent in the background and I almost want to say it’s reminiscent of melted butter. Like the way a graham cracker crust would smell.

Beer Season

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Andrea

For some reason fall and winter seem to be my “beer season”. It’s when I crave beer the most. I don’t know if that’s because the stores get flooded with seasonal ales or maybe because stouts are perfect for those cold winter nights.

Regardless, beer is on my mind more and tends to be the only thing I want.

Last year we had fun talking about and reviewing some of the different pumpkin ales that are out.

Pumpkin and harvest ales seem to be starting to come into their own more. I am noticing a lot more pumpkin and fall type beers out in the stores and some breweries even have several different styles available.

Because I’m a sucker for seasonal stuff, this makes me extremely happy! Also because I personally think that the fall and winter seasonals happen to be the best stuff. Summer brews are nice but fall and winter is where the good stuff is!

Three Years Strong

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Andrea

Yesterday was my 3 year blogversary! While I know that this year has seen a name change with the blog, that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been blogging about food and wellness for three years now.

Whooo!

In three years so many things have changed in my life but real food and eating well is always a constant.

Okay, so is wine, beer, and cheese. But you know what I mean!

I appreciate all of my readers, old and new, who keep coming back to talk about food and all of the many things we like to chat about.

Since I had a dream last night where I was talking about my favorite stout, I’ll post a few links to some of my favorite things on the blog.

Starting off with Buried Hatchet Stout since I brought it up.

Back when I used to post our daily eats, this is my favorite post.

This is our favorite event in Columbus, The Food and Wine Affair.

Weekend Grilling Recipes

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Andrea

Are you grilling this weekend? Looking for something a little different to the standard hot dogs and burgers? Want to shake up the summer grilling season for 2011?

Let Food Embrace help! Here’s a few recipes that you can try out this grilling season:

Chardonnay Chicken Burgers

Cranapple Turkey Burgers

Grilling steaks? Try giving those babies a little rub down.

Rather have pork? Beer Brined Pork Chops can be grilled.

Get funky with some chicken, yogurt curry chicken or cocoa-chili rubbed chicken will do the trick nicely.

Then you can wash it down with some super special iced tea.

Have fun this summer and get your grill on!

Review: Buried Hatchet Stout by Southern Star Brewery

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Andrea

If you’ve been around here long enough, then you’ll know that I love the dark beers. I love them a ridiculous amount and I tend to stay away from lighter beers. IPAs are my Nemesis.

Recently while I was having a meeting with a twitter friend, Scott was off purchasing some beers and other necessities. He came back with several beers, some favorites and some new ones.

This Buried Hatchet Stout was a new one and I was skeptical.

I’m not a huge beer from a can girl. Yes it sounds snotty but cans of beer just seem so cheap. And yes I realize that even cheap beer can come in bottles (You know who you are!) but still, the stigma is there.

Even though Monk’s Blood, which is a great beer that also comes in a can, has taken my fears down a notch, they are still there.

Scott bought this beer for me and I wasn’t even the first one to drink it, he was. One night when I was still getting over my cold, he popped open a can and plopped down on the couch.