Thanks to Edible and Jimmy Carbone for putting on another terrific evening of the finest suds and grub. Go here for an Examiner slideshow by Clay Williams.

Burgers, Bridges and Beer steps just a little bit outside of their comfort zone and covers our chocolate and beer pairing, held in Vosges SoHo store last week. See for yourself.

Click here for more photos.

“For about eight years now, we’ve brewed a Brooklyn-style hop monster called BLAST! It’s a robust IPA using both British and Pacific Northwest hops. We haven’t had enough space to brew much of it, but we hear that people really enjoy BLAST! when it shows up. And it’s one of our favorite beers here at the brewery. Well, now we’d like more of you to see our hoppier side. Meet BLAST!’s big brother, Brooklyn Detonation Ale.

It’s a copper-colored pale ale with British malt character, American hop ebullience, Brooklyn attitude and disturbing drinkability. British caramel malts lend richness and depth, while a blend of American hops give the beer a minerally backbone and explosive aromatics (with a special guest appearance by our pal East Kent Golding as ‘The English Aristocrat’).

Brooklyn Detonation Ale is mighty tasty. It probably even gives you fresher breath And whiter teeth, but we can’t prove that part. Nor can we support the claim that it concentrates the mind on life’s better aspects. However, we can guarantee that it’s terrific with pork tacos, Thai food, Indian dishes, burgers, and sharp cheeses. So have yourself some Brooklyn Detonation Ale – after all, isn’t it about time you blew up?”

– Garrett Oliver

Beer Stats:

Malts: British floor malted Maris Otter, German pilsner malt, British crystal malt
Other sugars: First pressing Demerara sugar, Mauritius
Hops: Willamette, Amarillo, Palisade, Sorachi Ace, Simcoe, Cascade and East Kent Golding
O.G.: 21.5 Plato
ABV: 10.2%

The Avenue Pub in New Orleans has been serving up at least 8 Brooklyn taps since Wednesday. See below for even more events, hosted  by Garrett.

From TheAvenuePub.com

Friday July 23rd, 6:30 & 10 pm at the Pub

All the Brooklyn beers on draft PLUS 2007 Vintage Monster

6:30 pm Brooklyn Cask Ale made by Garrett Oliver just for us! East India Pale Ale.

10PM Garrett Oliver visits the Pub Meet the Brewer. We are pouring all 8  drafts, Cask Ale AND we are  breaking open the following bottles for tasting: Vintage  2007 Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Vintage Dark Matter, Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse, Sorachi Ace, Local 2 & Local 1.  Choose 5 of any of the Brooklyn beers for $12 (4 ounce Pours)

Saturday July 24th, 4pm At the Pub

Brooklyn cask made just for us by Garrett Oliver Brooklyn Best Bitter. This is a variation on the ‘English Bitter’ style which is less aggressive than an American or English IPA but a little punchier than an English Pale Ale. Come get a pint or two before heading off to the Boucherie Beer dinner with Garrett Oliver!

Saturday July 24, 8pm - Boucherie

Brooklyn Beer dinner at Boucherie click on link for details.

http://www.boucherie-nola.com

A note on the Brooklyn & Schneider beers: Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewery and Hans Peter Drexler from Schneider Brewery in Germany collaborated on two different versions of the same style. The Schneider version was brewed in Germany at the Centuries old Schneider brewery and was released in very limited quantities. The Brooklyn version was brewed in the NYC Brooklyn Brewery and was released in Bombers only, again on a very limited basis. As with all collaborations the brewery that brews it is the one that distributes it. We are lucky to have a great relationship with Schneider and their local distributor and we were able to get delivery on the last 6 kegs in the country. We’ve just recieved these kegs and when our supply runs out it’s gone forever. I may cellar a couple of kegs for Octoberfest so what we have won’t last long. The Brooklyn version will arrive with the Brooklyn truck designated for Garrett’s week here in New Orleans.

Garrett’s been in the UK for the past week, brought there by the Imbibe Festival which celebrates the obvious. Apparently, while there he’s been hanging out with Britain’s most famous beer advocate, Pete Brown again. If you’ve never read him before, Pete has a great way with words and a really nice perspective on the wonders of beer. In this blog post he says kind things about Mr Oliver and gives a play by play of a recent beer and cheese pairing.  See below the photo for Brown’s commentary on Garrett’s pairings.

BRILLAT SAVARIN WITH BROOKLYN LOCAL 1

Brillat Savarin is to my mind the best ever writer on food, famous for his aphorisms, my favourite of which is “A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.”  I don’t much care for the cheese that was named after him though.  It’s like eating solidified cream.  I hate cream.  It’s too cloying and sickly and I don’t understand why everyone thinks it’s a treat.

The beer though is something I’d be perfectly happy to receive as a birthday present.  And I mean a ‘proper’ present.  It’s recognizable as a Belgian Saison in style but it’s smoother, more elegant.  You want to say ‘dumbed down’ but that would be completely inaccurate.  Yes, it’s more accessible than some of the funkier farmyard Saisons, but the cheesy, musty, sweet and sour, spicy flavour journey of a Saison is all present and correct.

This is a match where the beer comes out best.  The cheese helps push its tartness to the fore, a brief spike of flavour emerging slowly and elegantly, like the spine of a humpback whale cresting the ocean surface before, submerging again.

On the other hand,  the cheese just tastes even creamier, which I could really do without.

HEREFORD HOP WITH BROOKLYN LAGER

The Brooklyn beer you can get fairly easily in the UK was the first they brewed, and is a faithful recreation of what beer used to be like in New York a hundred years ago, prompting Garrett to exclaim that the current craft beer boom is not a fad or a trend, but a return to normality after a the late twentieth century’s obsession with plastic and standardization.

I realize that we spend too much time thinking about beer in terms of ‘hoppy’ or ‘malty’.  Brooklyn lager is neither, or rather, both.  It’s toffee in a very expensive designer label suit that makes it shine and sparkle.

The cheese is sticky and cloying and glutinous in a good way, sweet and salty and slightly acidic.  Together I don’t find much alchemy – both are nice separately and nice together, but with nothing much added.

OSSAU IRATY WITH BROOKLYN BROWN ALE

This is an interesting one.  Ossau Iraty is made from sheep’s milk and has an aroma of lanolin or ‘wool fat’, the smell you get off a wet woollen jumper and, once it’s been pointed out, the sweet smell you get from roast lamb.

The beer is all about chocolate and caramel, with a slight grassiness towards the end.

Together, they are in total harmony – beer and cheese blend into each other around an axis of sweet caramel.  Just lovely.

SOME OTHER CHEESE WITH BROOKLYN DARK MATTER

This one wasn’t on the menu and I’m starting to lose track.  Dark Matter is an 8% version of the brown ale that’s been aged for four months in bourbon and wine barrels to give it a strong American oak character.  To me it smells initially of nail varnish, but that’s a smell I’ve always liked.  On the second whiff I can isolate the coconut that Garrett’s talking about, and then you can get the strong vanilla essence behind it, a hint of sherry, and then a faint molasses character on the tongue.

I hardly notice the cheese.  I’m all wrapped up in the beer, and the match doesn’t change much about it.

MONTGOMERY’S CHEDDAR WITH BROOKLYN EAST INDIA PALE ALE

IPA with strong mature cheddar has always been my favourite match of any beer with any food, and this one doesn’t disappoint. The dry saltiness of the cheese ands the fruitiness of the beer just body barge each other, exploding in a carnival of colour and partying on your tongue.  Weirdly, Garrett compares it to a forceful physical dance, like a tango, just after I’ve written in my notebook that they’re slam-dancing.  I just don’t have his class.

COLSTON-BASSET STILTON WITH BROOKLYN CHOCOLATE STOUT

This pairing was born by accident.  Garrett was at an event where he’d asked for either a barley wine to match with Stilton (which is another awesome match) or chocolate stout with truffles.  He turned up to find chocolate stout and Stilton, panicked, tried it, and found it worked wonderfully.

The dark chocolate character in the stout comes from chocolate malt only – no actual chocolate – and develops with a hint of sherry, followed by an inky Shiraz character on the palate with some bitter coffee grounds mixed in.

The Stilton is lovely.  “People who don’t like Stilton… well… they’re just bad people,” says Garrett.  “I’m serious.  If you don’t like Stilton you can’t come to my house.  You can’t pet my dog.”

The match is an elegant marriage which makes me think of high tea with a maiden aunt in a stately home.  Don’t ask me why.

For the past couple months, awesome daily menu generator NoTakeOut.com has been running a beer pairing recipe contest. The idea was this: create a full menu that compliments the flavor profile of the wildly popular Brooklyn Summer Ale (Summer sales are up 50% everybody! Let’s hear it for the sales persons!).

Lots of delightful entries were received. Several Asian items included. In the end our Brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, decided to go with, drum roll please…Nadine Mesch of Mt. Healthy, Ohio! (Yes, there is a place called Mt. Healthy. I guess if there’s a Death Valley it’s only fair.)

Congrats, Nadine. Your Summer Ale battered taco recipe clocked in on top! Check out the recipe here.  For your culinary savvy and application effort you will receive a Brooklyn Brewery gift pack, a NoTakeOut.com tote & apron, and lastly but certainly not leastly, a Togiharu Hammered Texture Damascus Gyutou 8.2” chefs knife from Korin (pictured below). Thanks Korin!

Also, be sure to check out the daily recipes from NoTakeOut.com. It’s pretty handy for busy folks who want to cook good meals without thinking about it. Thanks to everybody on the NoTakeOut.com for putting together this delicious contest.

We’re teaming up with foodie magazine Edible for a couple of great events in July: The 2nd annual Good Beer at BAM and Edible Pursuit.

From EdibleManhattan.com

Last week we mentioned that Mayor Bloomberg, in his infinite wisdom, has once again declared July to be Good Beer Month in honor of the great work of The Good Beer Seal during that month to promote the best local, independently owned beer bars that sell the good stuff.

And we are especially relieved by that very official proclamation, seeing as how we’d planned two of our best events of the year around the concept. In fact, tickets are now available to both: Edible Pursuit at Brooklyn Brewery on July 8th and Good Beer at BAM on the 28th. (For both, if you buy tickets before June 15th, it’s buy two get one free!)

The first is the second installment in our Edible trivia nights, except this one is themed to alcohol. We’ll be taking over the tasting room of Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg to pose questions on potables provided by a panel of Brooklyn’s own liquid assets, like Garrett Oliver, the BB brewmaster. You can compete for prizes like limited-edition beers, cookbooks, restaurant gift certificates and other Edible desirables. It’s just $20 to play, and that buys you a Brooklyn Brewery brew made right on the premises, your own pint glass and a sausage sandwich grilled up by the butchers from The Meat Hook on the sidewalk outside.

The second is our second annual craft brew fest, which is co-hosted by The Good Beer Seal, Brooklyn Brewery and Stella Artois. What more can we say other than two full floors of the beautiful BAM opera house in downtown Brooklyn are filled with the country’s best craft brews and beer-friendly snacks from the city’s best restaurants. (Oh yeah, we just heard chopped liver from Sammy’s Roumanian will be in the house, as will beer bread from Orwasher’s.) Last year’s was insanity in a good way, and this year’s will be all that time’s two.  In fact we might have to take it easy for the next 21 days…..

From WashingtonCityPaper.com

Coca-Cola, the automobile, baseball–all important U.S. contributions to the world that were based on models from other countries. We think it’s about time to add beer to that list, and it is definitely a good week to celebrate American craft beer. What better validation could there be than the fact that American brewers’ innovative recipes and methods are shaping the kinds of beer that are being made all over the world?

Collaborative beers, like the Schneider & Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse pictured above, are a formal way that U.S. brewers are influencing beer beyond our shores. More and more brewers from other countries are attending the Craft Brewers Conference and entering their brews in the Wold Beer Cup each year as well. But anyone with some knowledge about the brewing community knows that brewers love to learn from each other and that a lot of this collaboration is happening informally and frequently.

Last month The Lagerheads spoke with Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver about the influence America is currently having on beer cultures in other countries. In preparation for Oliver’s seminar on the “New Beers of Scandinavia” at the National Geographic Society this Tuesday (sorry folks–it’s sold out), we are posting a series of blogs from our conversation with him.

(read interview)

Our Brewmaster tends to travel quite a bit — doing beer dinners around the country, collaborating with brewmasters at foreign breweries, etc. Below is a clip from a recent trip he took to Sweden. At about 8 minutes in, watch Garrett navigate the bi-lingual waters of the Swedish Today Show.

This afternoon, Brooklyn Brewery Receptionist Brian Dochney and Brewmaster Garrett Oliver sat down to discuss chicken purveyor KFC’s newest lab experiment The Double Down, which contains two pieces of bacon and two melted slices of cheese, slathered in mayonnaise and sandwiched between two slices of deep fried boneless chicken breasts.

Receptionist Brian Dochney: The double down is all the kids are talking about these days, have you tried it? Why or why not?

Brewmaster Garrett Oliver: Didn’t happen, isn’t going to happen. I’ve known Sam Sifton for more than 15 years, and he’s a better man than I am.

RBD: If this year’s Brewery Holiday party is held in a KFC (as we all wish it was) would you try it even then?

BGO: Ummm….no. The point, we hope, of the holidays, is for us to be happy and healthy. As opposed to unhealthy and suicidal. The Double Down reminds of that routine by Patton Oswalt where he describes a fast food dish as “a sadness pile in a failure bowl.” Only with the Double Down, you don’t even get to eat the failure bowl. It’s replaced by depression paper.

RBD: We’re going to a fine dining establishment, they have a specialty of the day, a Double Down is placed on your plate. Do you leave? Facebook about it? Re-examine your life choices?

BGO: I go talk to the chef, asking him plaintively “is this some ghastly new form of sous vide”?

RBD: The big one — What do we pair beer wise, with such a behemoth of taste and proportions?

BGO: Colt 45 with a dissolved Pepcid AC. It works every time.

RBD: Answer that last one wisely, oh sage of beerdom, if you knock it out of the park we’ll print it on a poster and mail it to the Beard Foundation.

BGO: Well, although I’d like my Susan Lucci-esque relationship with the James Beard Foundation to move in a different direction, “straight into the ground” was not the direction I’d had in mind.

RBD: Also of note, “Beard Foundation”, quite the misnomer if you leave off the “James”…

BGO: I’m not touching that with your breadstick.