Posted in Beer on 22. Sep, 2011
You know you’re excited. Your mouth is salivating at the thought of tasty brews. Your knees are getting weak. You’re very, very thirsty. You need beer. Lots of it. And it’s coming. Yup, someone must have touched wood, tossed a dwarf or kissed their lucky stone because there’s another installment of the ridiculously popular craft beer festival and it’s only a week away. WE ♥ REAL BEER craft beer festival version 3.0 is on next Friday, 30th September. Put that in your diary. Do it now.
What’s it about? Same great venue. Same awesome breweries. But with some great new beers. Jack Black has a new pale ale out. The Brewers & Union boys have their Versus Goliath. Darling has their Bonecrusher Weiss. And there’s more – real artisan ciders from Eversons, Gone Fishing and Terra Madre. I’ve had the privilege of tasting the latter just once, and am really looking forward to more. There’s also music from the Dixie Swingers and rumour has it that there’ll be a home-brewing demonstration too.
Timing has also been cut back to the original 4pm – 11pm, which means 7 hours of pure unadulterated beer indulgence.
Get your tickets here at webtickets.co.za or at the door (best buy in advance and avoid the queue). Cost is R50 and includes a WE ♥ REAL BEER pint glass that you can keep by your bedside as a memento forever.
The Old Biscuit Mill.
September 30.
4pm -11pm.
It was bound to happen, with all the hype around beer being just as good a pairing with food these days. Tokara host a beer vs. wine dinner this Tuesday night, using the best of wine from Tokara and craft beer from Brewers & Union. Naturally chef Richard Carstens has spent the last few weeks thinking up the perfect four-course menu as a platform for this standoff.
Now if you think this is going to just be a seriously indulgent night with way too much booze, you’re wrong. It’s going to be a seriously indulgent night with way too much amazing food and booze. Guests will be elegantly stuffing their faces and taking generous sips of beer, then repeating the process but with wine. Then long discussions will follow about the merits of each. Possibly. Perhaps more likely is that guests will just sit back and submit to a flavour festival like no other. Either way, it’s going to be awesome fun.
Tickets are R450 per person, which for a double-pairing and four-course meal by one of South Africa’s top chefs is pretty damned good, if you ask me. Since I have a deep love for beer, wine and anything edible, I’ll be there, trying to maintain some sort of decent decorum amongst the feeding frenzy. Or is that maintaining a feeding frenzy amongst the decent decorum? Let’s see what happens…
She said wine, he said beer! Tokara Restaurant, 6 September 2011. Bookings +27 (0) 21 885 2550 or email reservations@tokara.com. More info here.
So yes, I downloaded the Hipstamatic app to my iPhone a few weeks ago and realized why everyone loves it: it makes bad photographs better. I don’t really care that it’s called Hipstamatic and that it probably pisses off those genuinely talented photographers out there, not to mention the poor few who are “holding onto film.” I actually had a Holga camera for a while which I loved, but Hipstamatic is just so damned easy. And it’s Hipstamatic, not Hipster-matic. If you want hipsters, go to hipsterorjesus.com. Or watch Charles Bronson ‘killing hipsters’ here. Or just go to the Biscuit Mill on Saturday. Whatevs, here are a few pics from the last week or so.
The “Joe’s Special” at Dias Tavern. So so so good.
If Franschhoek is Hollywood, his must be the Boulevard.
Making bacon, mint & pea risotto on request by a pregnant friend.
Hot diggidy dog at &UNION.
Hello. I am your rubber arm. I will make you drink margaritas with lunch at El Burro.
Mr Harry Reginald Haddon doing what he does second best. (He does wine best.)
Berne, baby Berne.
The start of what became a (surprisingly!) debaucherous evening at P&G.
One pack of eggs, one pack of bacon & potato rosti. The hangover-killer breakfast.
So I’m not really big on posting recipes. Why? Well, let’s be honest, there’s a ton of recipes out there already and I’m not exactly Marco Pierre White, even though I’m dying to read his autobiography. I just like to cook shit. Though I can’t even follow recipes myself, seriously. There are really two types of cooks: those that can cook ‘winging it,’ knowing how flavours work together and just trying things as they go along; and those that follow recipes. I’m definitely not the latter. I’m the guy with the blank look on his face staring at shelves in the supermarket, working out dishes in my head. I spend 20-minutes staring at the vegetable aisle figuring out what I’m going to cook. Actually, I spend 10-minutes in the meat aisle first, then once I’ve picked my meat I head to the veggie aisle for that decision process. The only thing that takes longer is picking a DVD on Sunday evening.
Anyways, Sunday was a beautiful summer-like day, the Dad was in town and my sister texted me to see what we should make for lunch. I suddenly found myself sending the message back, “Braaied chicken marinated in Berne, chilli, ginger, garlic and tons of honey. Sides etc.” Maybe it was because I hadn’t had a beer in ages. Like two full days. Or whatever, I just felt like making that. And drinking Berne. There’s something satisfying about drinking and eating something made with the same beverage. As an amateur cook, the second best thing about having a professional cook sister is that she has everything in her kitchen (Obviously the best thing is when she cooks herself). She simply replied: “Just bring the beer.”
And so it happened. Chicken in Berne. With loads of garlic, chilli, ginger, harissa paste and other stuff thrown in too. What paste, huh? Harissa, there you go. It’s really freaking easy, so easy I figured I could post the recipe and even people from both camps (the recipe followers and the ‘winging it’ folk) could try it. It worked really well, the spices and beer flavours merging into one unified smack of deliciousness. Even more so when served alongside some grated fennel salad with vinaigrette and some baby potatoes drenched in olive oil, parsley and coriander.
Sunday lunch. With the family. And beer. And some good Silverthorn bubbly to kick things off. Winning, it’s really not hard.
Do try this at home, kids. You’ll need…
1 Elgin Free-Range chicken, spatchcocked (can someone Google that to find out where the hell that word came from?)
1 Brewers & Union Berne Amber Lager
Tbsp garlic
Tbsp ginger
Tbsp green chilli
3 Tbsp harissa paste
5 Tbsp honey
tsp paprika
tsp cumin
salt & pepper
1/2 handful fresh coriander, finely chopped
1/2 handful fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 lime & 1 lemon
Okay, it simple from here. Firstly, light your fire, ideally wood with some charcoal added.
While that’s burning down, make a mix from the garlic, ginger, chilli along with a good dose of salt and pepper in a bowl.
Cut your chicken in half, breasts joined in the middle, and press flat. Salt and pepper both sides all over, then take the above mix and spread it under the skin that covers the breasts & legs, saving a little bit of mix.
Put the chicken in a dish, breast-side up, and empty the Berne all over it. Then sprinkle the remaining garlic-etc mix over the top along with 1/2 the harissa paste, paprika and cumin. Let this sit for at least an hour or so. The longer the better.
Once the fire’s ready, separate the coals and add the chicken so it’s not on direct heat, then if it’s a Weber, put the lid on to smoke it nicely. Turn it a few times over 30 minutes, basting with the beer.
Leave the chicken to cook, head to the kitchen and reduce the beer mixture in a pan until it’s about 1/4 it’s original volume. Once it’s there, add the honey and remaining harissa paste and cook a few minutes longer then remove. Take this outside and baste the chicken a few times, turning, until it’s ready (i.e. nicely browned, cooked through).
Remove chicken and cut on a board into pieces. Pour reduced beer sauce over the top, squeeze lemon & lime and then sprinkle with coriander & parsley and serve, with some more Berne.*
There it is. Less yada yada. More happy eating.
-
* And if you didn’t finish two Berne’s yourself during the cooking process you’ve failed miserably!
If you hadn’t yet noticed the appearance of @andUnionwine on The Twitter Global Network of Misinformation & Nonsense and haven’t spotted her at Cape Town’s Favourite & Only Beer Bar, let me be the one to inform you that &UNION has appointed someone in a more wine-focused role. She’s Gemma Smith, a devout wine-lover and recovering sommelier from the fine-dining scene who sports an English accent. And yes, she’s a woman – they finally hired a woman. Since I’m partial to smashing a prego/pulled pork/hot dog with a Berne/Dark Lager/Touro Blonde at &UNION on a regular basis, and do love my wine in indecent quantities, I cornered her to ask some blunt questions…
What exactly are you doing at &UNION?
I’m focusing on artisanal wines, finding the weird and the wonderful, then promoting them, and getting only the best onto the wine list.
So when do people taste these wines if they’re not on the wine list?
We’re doing winemakers evenings to promote them. Saturday nights where we’ll showcase wines that are either very boutique, one-offs or old vintages. That sort of thing.
What’s on the agenda?
There’s going to be lots, all with unforgettable wines, wines people don’t know about. We’ve got a great ‘golden oldie’ evening with winemaker Peter Finlayson from Bouchard Finlayson where we’re drinking vintage Chardonnay, going back to the early 1990′s.
And I’ve noticed you’ve started tastings on certain evenings during the week?
Yup, these are wines that I get to taste as either options for the featured winemaker evenings or potentially taking on the list. A good bottle of wine going to waste is a terrible thing, so we share it out with you guys, the plebs, people who know nothing about wine. (this last bit is directed at me, personally)
What sort of wines?
There are some gems, but I get sworn to secrecy on some, especially when there’s 200 or so bottles left and we don’t want someone else snapping them up.
How do you find these wines?
I spent three years as a sommelier so connected with loads of winemakers. Winemakers get bored easily – they’ve all got a barrel of sneaky something on the side. That’s what we want.
What’s the most interesting you’ve tasted so far?
A wine made from litchis, definitely the strangest wine. (I happened to taste it and found it sweet ‘n nasty!) The most interesting, probably the Elemental Bob wines. They’ve got a Barbera and Shiraz blend. Also a Barbera and Gewurztraminer blend called “The Turkish.” The winemaker, Craig Sheard, is here for our first winemaker evening actually.
So there are some cool vinous benefits to the customer?
Well, we’re doing 3 free tastings of wine per week., including the Saturday winemaker evenings. We’ll be introducing them to new wines they wouldn’t find, the wine list will expand with some more intriguing wines, listing around 40 wines eventually
Traditionally, the public is scared to ask about wine, which is wrong. But, that said, what is the worst thing you’re asked by people?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Okay, fine. German riesling. The JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese ’94.
What does “Wehlener Sonnenuhr” mean to the layman, aka almost everybody else but you in Cape Town?
It’s just the name of the wine. It’s the sundial at the vineyard the wine is named after. And ’94 is a year all South Aficans know pretty well.
What are drinking a lot of at the moment?
Beer actually!
Which of the beers you drinking the most of?
Berne probably.
What do you make of Versus Goliath?
A lunchtime wine – I mean lunchtime beer! People see it as smaller, but then they end up having two. Go figure. It’s the little brother. Everyone needs a little brother.
What are you eating mostly here?
A lot of soup. With bacon, of course.
What’s your middle name?
Elspithelia Horriblis*
I call you ‘The Beer Secretary,’ but what’s your official title?
I haven’t got one yet. I drink beer and wine for a living now, so I guess i’m just a beverage specialist.
Mmm, that title sounds like you need a lab coat.
Well, the initials are also ‘B.S.’
Ah, that makes more sense then.
Find out more about the upcoming wine evenings and other fun happenings at &UNION via their website www.andunion.com.
–
* I might have changed this from the more acceptable and truthful ‘Anne’ for editorial interest reasons.
I get asked the ‘where to go for what’ question a helluva lot. Regular text messages like: “Restaurant recommendation please, bud. First date, somewhere cosy. Oh, drinks after? Thanks.” Phone calls where I end up discussing the merits of how important atmosphere is versus food. Emails from people saying they’re going to Paris and want to know where to eat. It’s cool to help out, and people generally seem happy with my suggestions.
Anyways, these days, you don’t need a black book, you just need a smartphone and The Google Machine. But I thought it’d be fun to throw down four or five spots I recommend a lot and for what. I ended up throwing down a few more. So here they are, 40 rather useful places to know about. Yes, there’s a lot that would overlap and plenty more to add, but this is just how I first thought of them…
- First morning coffee: Deluxe Coffeeworks
- Coffee & croissant: Jason (ex-Jardine Bakery)
- Hangover breakfast: Sidewalk Cafe
- Classy breakfast: Table Thirteen
- Brunch: Bistro 1682
- Saturday morning beer: Neighbourgoods Market
- Healthy lunch: Cookshop
- Lunch and the paper: Mozzarella Bar
- Quick sandwich: Jason (ex-Jardine Bakery)
- Unfussy lunch with a mate: Mano’s
- Classy lunch with a mate: Dear Me
- Power lunch: Caveau
- Long boozy lunch: The Foodbarn
- Very low-key lunch: Dias Tavern
- Hipster lunch: Superette*
- Sunday lunch: Woodlands Eatery
- Winelands lunch: Bar Bar Black Sheep
- Early afternoon espresso: The Power & The Glory
- Drinks by the pool: Sandy B’s
- Early afternoon beer: &UNION
- Vegetarian meal: Masala Dosa
- Second best vegetarian: Lola’s
- After work drinks: &UNION
- Martini’s: Planet Bar
- Rooftop bar: The Grand Daddy
- Dinner with a mate: Hudsons
- Dinner with the family: Massimo’s
- Dinner with a view: The Roundhouse
- Romantic dinner: Kitima
- Tapas dinner: La Boheme
- Business dinner: Bizerca
- Gourmet experience dinner: Test Kitchen
- Low-key dinner: Nonna Lina
- Zen dinner: Kyoto Garden Sushi
- Tequila-fueled dinner: El Burro
- Classy nightcap: Fatback Soul
- Messy nightcap: Black Ram
- 4am on brandy: The Shack
- 4am on cocktails: Julep
- 5am toasted chicken mayo: Restaurant L’Orange aka Engen
Feel free to add your own suggestions as comments…
* okay, so there’s more to the Superette crowd than hipsters
Last year the first We ♥ Real Beer Craft Beer festival at the Old Biscuit Mill was a huge success. The follow-up happens this Sunday. Yes, the Summer Craft Beer Festival. The 2nd Coming. The Best Sunday Ever. Whatever you want to call it, it’s going to be awesome.
The gist is simple: R30 gets you entry, your own We ♥ Real Beer pint glass, plenty of beer stands, food vendors and some kickass live music entertainment. Beers from &UNION, Jack Black Beer, Camelthorn, Darling Brew and more. And on the food side, I know Jason “Wheat-at-the-Knees” Lilly from Jardine Bakery is making porchetta (rolled whole pig slow-roasted over a fire), plus there’ll be lots more on offer.
What the Angela Lansbury could be better than that?
Well, this: buy ten pre-sale tickets and bonus, you get them for the price of 9. And buying pre-sale tickets means you skip the queue, which was nasty last time. Purchase tickets at &UNION, Superette or contact @weloverealbeer on Twitter or email shaunfrancbond@me.com.
Easy, yes. Great, yes. But, wait, I have something even better than that… (okay, this post sounds like a Verimark infomercial at this point)
Free tickets!! Yup, I have five tickets to give away for this Sunday’s event. How to get them? Simply post a tweet with both #RealBeer and @foodie_za in it before 5pm this Wednesay. Five most interesting/obscure/creative/whacky/funny tweets get a ticket. Done.
We ♥ Real Beer Summer Craft Beer Festival
Sunday, March 20. Old Biscuit Mill. Noon – late.
There it is. The reason you’ve been getting drinking fit since December (apart from that week of gym in January). The next We ♥ Real Beer craft beer fest is on a Sunday in March, from noon till late. As if the last one wasn’t fun enough (I think I called it “the greatest event I’ve ever been to!” at the time), this one promises more beers, more food and more music.
And with these beers, you won’t wake up the next day feeling like someone Chuck Norris’d you in the head. In fact, the hangover is rarely noticeable, so you should still be able to make productive use of that public holiday Monday.
Oh, and an early bird ticket deal: buy 10 tickets before the event and pay for 9. R30 per ticket. Available at &UNION, Superette or from @weloverealbeer.
Do it folks. Support the little guys. You know you want to…
I cracked an invite to the first edition of Meat ‘n Beer this past weekend. What exactly is this? Well, if drinking beer with a bunch of other guys inside a working butchery filled with sharp knives, saws and various hunks of meat isn’t your ideal Saturday morning, then don’t watch the blurry 8mm video below, because that’s what we did.
Rob Riley of Riley’s Meats took us through the in’s and out’s of beef, what a good forequarter and hindquarter looks like (it should be lighter coloured, not dark) versus a polony-grade piece of flesh and how to spot bad meat. He mentioned how people are asking more questions about where their meat comes from, which is very good thing. He also slapped the butt of a hindquarter, saying good meat should be firm, like a nice girl’s ass. Yes, this was very much boys’ club, and well, boys will be boys.
We cracked some &UNION beers. We made some jokes. And we watched Rob’s team of butchers expertly turn half a free-range cow into a table covered in beautiful cuts of beef. Fillet, sirloin, ribs, topside, silverside, kidneys, T-bone all had starring roles. Thankfully none of us were given a knife to use, since we might have disobeyed the sign that showed two hands and the subtle message: “Your ten best tools – no spares in stock.”
Being the son of a butcher, I asked Matt Riley whether he ate abnormal amounts of meat. “No, but obviously I do come here to get meat though, ” he answered, “Buying meat from a supermarket for me is a bit like having a girlfriend and paying for sex.” Well said.
We ended with a good-natured braai outside, maybe a few more beers and okay, a small stockpiling of meat purchased over the counter before leaving.
Thanks to Maketh Man (read his great writeup here) and Bondy for the invite.
Aside from the general debauchery and gluttony an average week presents, there are a few other things on the schedule this week…
Tues: Tequila Tuesday
That’s right. And if you’re in Cape Town today, it’s especially right, because it’s only 10AM and people are sweating bullets out there. This is one of those days that you need to er, schedule a client meeting at 3PM to get out the office, then make it really snappy so you’re on a beach by 4pm. Or alternatively, head somewhere and order “margarita, on the rocks, in a tumbler” repetitively. Or have it frozen. Whatever. Just get some tequila in you, it’s Tuesday and it’s hot out there. I highly recommend El Burro (18 Main Rd, Greenpoint) as your destination. They have loads of tequilas and a balcony, so if you go at lunch you can shout down to the citizens on the street and show them your prize-winning margarita with a big smirk.
Wed: Andy Lund & The Greg Donnelly Orchestra.
The boys at &UNION know how to book good talent on their Wednesday night sets. Last week saw the Balkan Beat Box play a warm up, and it kicked butt. Actually, after a 4-hour lunch and several Weiss beers it kicked massive butt. This week they’ve got talented guitarists Andy Lund and Greg Donnelly. Think folk rockabilly-style grooves and of course, ice cold beers. Life could be worse. From 8pm at &UNION.
Thurs: TAJ Wine Tasting.
The problem with a lot of wine tastings is there are too many wines to taste. You scramble like mad to taste everything, savour nothing and the place ends up filled with swazzled adults acting like first year students during orientation week. The Taj folk are doing it differently. They’ve picked a few top producers to show their wines. Just a few wines. Not hundreds. And they’re good wines. Bubbly from Silverthorn. Sauv Blanc from Seven Steps. Syrah from Vins d’Orrance. Zinfandel from Idiom. And more. Complete list and details here. Thursday 27th January. R100 entry includes canapes.
Fri/Sat: Tattoo Parties.
The Cape Tattoo Convention runs Thursday – Sunday this week at the V&A Pavilion (ex BMW pavilion). No, this isn’t a blog on tattoos, but let’s be honest folks, people with tattoos generally know how to party. At least my friends do. Massively. Naturally then, aside from the actual convention which is a showcase of local and international ink talent, there are some after parties. And Sailor Jerry is involved as a sponsor, and being my favourite rum, I’m pretty keen to get my ass down there to drink me some. Checkout after party details on the convention site here.
Sun: Market on Main.
It was brandslut who tipped me off about this happening. It’s basically a food and design market at the Arts on Main hub in downtown Joburg every Sunday from 10am – 3pm. If it sounds similar to what happens at the Biscuit Mill on Saturdays here in Cape Town, well, that’s probably because it is. I’m going to be in Jozi this weekend, so keen to check it out. Full report soon… www.marketonmain.co.za
Who is the Foodie? It doesn’t really matter. Bacon is god. Wine cures anything. If you believe those two facts, then we’re going to get on fine. This means you have discovered the power of food to make life better. This knowledge is imperative to the art of living well.
