girl + beer

Indian + Coopers Red

Despite how I might make it look in my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds I don’t do all the cooking in the house. My partner has dished up some truly tasty meals and I felt it was about time I shared one of these with you (and yes, you can probably come around for dinner, just make sure you bring beer!).

Despite how I might make it look on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds I don’t do all the cooking in the house. My partner has dished up some truly tasty meals and I felt it was about time I shared one of his great dinners with you (and yes, you can come over for dinner, just make sure you bring beer!

This recipe was taken from a book simply called “India Cookbook” and the recipe is also known as Handiwala Murg. The “handi” part refers to the earthware pot used for slow cooking and “murg” I think refers to the chicken; aren’t my googling skills amazing?!

The recipe calls for the chicken thighs to be made into “lollipops”, think a little ball of meat on the end of the bone. My partner opted not to do this since a) it’s fiddly as hell and b) why take off meat when there’s so many awesome spices to coat them in! He hates waste.

The list of spices in this dish is incredible (a common theme throughout the book, who’d have thunk it!?) which meant that our random purchasing of spices proved very handy, in particular my recent discovery of 2 Brothers Foods for all our spice buying needs. The fun of online shopping from these guys is enhanced by the huge aromas that waft from the parcel before you’ve even opened it.

The chicken thighs are marinated in fresh coriander, ginger, garlic, yoghurt, lemon juice, black pepper, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. They are slow cooked in a frying pan (since we had no appropriate earthware pots) before having tomatoes (he used tinned chopped tomatoes which was way easier than dicing that many fresh ones!) with even more seasoning for simmering the chicken in.

The result is a complicated, heavily spiced but very balanced dish that’s rich and warming. We had Coopers Sparkling in the fridge, my partner is very fond of this beer, and it was a pretty good match to the meal. It was nice to have something cold, refreshing and lightly fruity to wash over the food.

Garage Project + Beer Bread Sticks

If you haven’t discovered The Beeroness aka Jackie Dodd then I suggest you make like Indiana Jones and discover her NOW! Well, maybe not right this instance, you’re here already so I hope you’ll keep reading. Besides, I’ve made it easy for you, here’s The Beeroness website and Twitter. Please feel free to click away furiously…

The Beeroness combines two things I love – beer and food. If she had lots of photos of a kelpie on her website I’d be looking into whether she was my twin sister; you know aside from me being Asian and stuff but you get my meaning. Oh and she’s a way better cook than me. Which brings me to how I found The Beeroness, it was a recipe for Stove Top Beer Mac & Cheese that I made with much excitement and enthusiasm; the result was delicious. Then there was the Garlic and Beer Butter Prawns. Oh be still my beating heart. Oh wait, the butter will probably do that for me! At least I’ll go out with a smile.

A week or so ago Jackie posted a recipe for Italian Beer Bread Sticks. I’m a sucker for beer and for bread so it was unsurprising that this caught my attention. I went for the Venusian Pale Ale from Kiwi lads Garage Project for my bread sticks to try give the sticks a some punchier flavours as I was serving it with a hearty beef and mushroom cannelloni.

I’m slowly drinking my local bottleshop out of the Venusian Pale Ale yet not doing myself any favours as I recommend it to people when I’m there. Rich, fruity, spicy and complicated, my kind of beer.

The bread sticks turned out beautifully (though a little overcooked on one side which I am going to blame on my awful, awful oven) and made a nice alternative to my default Italian side dish, garlic bread. Simple, easy and tasty, I’ll be doing this again. Next time I will try it with the wheat beer …

Great Beer Menus – Morrie’s Anytime

‘Great Beer Menus’ is basically just a fancy name for me going to venues I like and celebrating the fact they have great beer …

I love craft beer and going to venues who share my passion, pubs likes The Sail & Anchor and Clancy’s Fish Pub and bottle shops like the International Beer Shop are WA institutions for great craft beer. It’s what they love, it’s what they know, it’s what they do.

But just because you’re not a “craft beer venue” doesn’t mean you can’t have a kick ass beer list. I’m delighted to find more restaurants, small bars, local bottle shops and pubs whose fridges were previously filled with European lagers have been invaded by a few local and international craft beers.

It puts a big smile on my face to see venues paying equal attention to their beer list as they do their food, wine and cocktails. Those who don’t, those who have settled on a beer list that features Cascade Light, Crown Lager and Stella, are well and truly behind the eight ball. It’s kinda like getting all dressed up for an elegant night out, putting all that thought into your hair, dress, make up and jewelry and then wearing your muddy sneakers. Crown Lager is a muddy sneaker.

It’s time to put the spotlight on these great places …

At the top of the main drag in Margaret River is a particular spot that hasn’t been very kind to it’s previous inhabitants, the BoHo bar was short lived and I can’t even remember what was there before. I guess that’s the power of Morrie’s Anytime, since opening their doors in July last year they have not only claimed their territory but given their guests plenty of reasons to visit and love.

As the name suggests, Morrie’s Anytime welcomes you whether you’re looking for coffee and cake, lunch or dinner or just a few nibbles. The emphasis is on service, supporting locals and damn good food and drink. Sounds good to me.

Which brings us to their beer menu featuring loads of local favourites which is both a conscious direction for the venue and a requirement of their liquor license, applying not only to their beers but wines as well. Bootleg Brewery, Colonial Brewing, Eagle Bay Brewing, Duckstein Brewery and Cheeky Monkey Brewery & Cidery are all within an hours drive and appear on their beer menu. There’s also Feral Brewing and Little Creatures Brewing helping to round out the local flavour. Throw in a couple of internationals and that’s an extremely drinkable bunch of beers.

I recently sat down with Morrie’s Anytime general manager Billy Phillips to chat about the venue and their beers.

What's your inspiration for your beer list?

Well I guess a bad inspiration would be the law* but yeah (laughs) but sticking to the parameters we had it’s about going local and trying to get as many different styles as we can and showing off the local talent we have.

*Their liquor licence requires the venue to stock a minimum of 80% local beers and wines

What do you hope the beer list says about Morrie's Anytime?

That we are pushing sustainable and we want to support local just like we also do with our meat which is local produce from Margaret River Gourmet Meats. With pretty much everything we try to get it local but within reason of course, Tanqueray (gin) comes from England (laughs) . We also do specials where we’ll use the name of the person who has donated a batch of limes so you might see ‘using Kate’s limes for your mojito’ and things like that. It’s fun to keep the community involved.

How often will you update the beer list?

It’s on constant rotation. If someone puts a beer in a bottle that’s from here (WA) and tastes great then of course I’m going to put it on. Then you get great beers like Feral Hop Hog that you can’t go past. I want anything that’s great. We have a Spanish beer on at the moment and that fits in with the tapas – Alhambra Reserva which is a knock out beer and works well with the food. The beers all hopefully fit into our food and menu.

Margaret River is known predominately as a wine region,
how do you think Margaret River locals perceive beer?

It’s kinda cool cause we get a lot of winemakers in and winemakers drink beer (laughs). They’re super happy especially since because they’re a tight crew of people, they know who’s brewing the beers, they know all the breweries around here so they might say “oh yeah, let’s try Red’s (Jared Proudfoot, head brewer) beer from Cheeky Monkey” and things like that. The breweries are starting to really pick up; there was an article in the local paper a week ago about how Margaret River is now getting to be known for beer, it’s really booming.

What is your favourite beer on the list
and what Morrie's dish would you pair with it?

Ohhh (laughs) (pause) the Alhambra Reserva and the Feral Hop Hog are just top notch beers and I’ve been a Little Creatures Pale Ale fan for a decade now and they’re all on the list so yeah, it’s a tough one for me to nail down. The Colonial Kolsch is on tap which is also really, really good. (pause) I’m only supposed to pick one aren’t I? (laughs) I guess it depends on what kind of mood I’m in, if it’s late at night and I’m looking for a heartier meal I’ll match it with a heartier beer like Feral Hop Hog and actually that’d be really nice with the Twice Cooked Japanese Chicken, it’s finger licking good chicken! (laughs) That’s probably the best tapas to match with beer instead of wine. The pork belly [Master stock pork belly with thai caramel, coriander and lime] is more of an Asian style dish which would be good with the Colonial Kolsch.

What I love about beers at Morrie’s …

♥ Local love – with so many south west beers, coming from Dunsborough to Margaret River, it’s means they’re supporting local and it’s super-dooper fresh. Yay!

♥ The beers are on the website – I know that doesn’t sound like a huge thing but so many places list their wines, cocktails and even coffees on their website but totally overlook beer. Morrie’s doesn’t.

♥ High rotation – in the few weeks between my first and second visit to Morrie’s the bottled beer list had a few changes, keeping it fresh and interesting for the repeat offenders, of which I am confident there are many.

Kolsch + Goat’s Cheese

A trip to Swan Valley’s The Cheese Barrel inspires a great beer and cheese match back home in the south west …

The Cheese Barrel is a magical place in the Swan Valley that serves, almost exclusively and probably unsurprisingly, cheese. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. If you were to throw in beer and some prosciutto The Cheese Barrel would be my promised land, my Mecca, my own “if I could open a bar” fantasy of a beer/cheese/cured meat bar.

Sadly The Cheese Barrel doesn’t serve beer but their wines, from their winery partner-in-crime, Olive Farm Wines are quite tasty.

But I’m getting a little sidetracked … Between five of us we devoured over 1/2kg of assorted cheese across three platter selections, the Spanish Board, the Blue Lovers Paradise and Affineur’s Choice.

Indulging in piece after piece of cheese I couldn’t help but think about what beers I’d try to pair with them – in the middle of the blue cheese board I made a wish to the beer gods for an imperial stout to magically appear, sadly it was not granted.

One cheese that jumped out at me was the Meredith Ashed Chevre which came out on the Affineur’s Choice board, three cheeses that The Cheese Barrel recommend you try before you die.

The Meredith Ashed Chevre is from Victorian dairy Meredith Dairy and run by a husband a wife team who are the “largest on farm producer of sheep and goat milk in Australia”. You can read more about Meredith Dairy and their philosophy around sustainable productivity at their website here

Tasting the Meredith Ashed Chevre I thought it was beautifully delicate and citrusy with a nice tang to remind your palate to keep its wits about it. Then DING!, like when the coyote gets a new idea about catching the road runner, it hit me … my god, that cheese would be fan-freakin-tastic with a Kolsch.

And I was right …

I now had a very short shopping list – 1 x ashed goat’s milk cheese and 1 x growler of Kolsch. I found some WA goat’s milk cheese from IGA Margaret River produced by Kytren in Gidgegannup. I fetched myself a growler of Kolsch from Colonial Brewing. Yippee!

The ashed goat’s milk cheese from Kytren was citrusy, creamy and a little fruity and a wicked pairing to the lemony, bready and soft bitterness of the Colonial Kolsch. I reckon I’ll be adding this pairing to my regular line up!

#temptingtuesday – August

What the heck is #temptingtuesday I hear you say? (well, in my head you do). It’s combining my love affair with Twitter, the fun of chatting with great people and my eternal affection for beer. The mechanics are simple, just like its author, where on the first Tuesday of each month I ask the big wide world of the Twitterverse a beer related question. I get inspired and blog the results.

It kicked off in June with – What’s your favourite beer and cheese pairing in recent memory? July was – Which beers have changed your life and totally rocked your world? It resulted in a hell of a beer wish list which you can check out here.

Which brings us to August, on the first Tuesday of August I asked –

For me it all started with Hoegaarden, that’s the beer that changed everything for me. Until then I’d been drinking mainstream lager stuff and enjoyed it enough but Hoegaarden was something else entirely. It was low on bitterness and tasted like banana and spices and what do you mean it’s made with coriander and orange peel?! So I went exploring … and that’s how it all started.

For others the beers that sparked true beery love range from Emu Bitter, that I fondly remember drinking at The Grosvenor Hotel back when they were a dirty live music pub, to Spaten Optimator which appears to be only available in the United States and Germany. It was so much fun reading through people’s replies and in no particular order here is the list for your viewing pleasure …

Spaten Optimator | German double bock | @SBbrew

Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale | Pumpkin Ale | @maria_fulmer

Chimay Blue | Trappist Ale | @JustBeer_NoBull

Redback Original | Weizen | @chefdebeersine

New Belgium Fat Tire | Amber Ale | @JessShaverPhoto

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale | Pale Ale | @JessShaver Photo (I know, I know, that’s two answers but sometimes it’s hard to narrow it down!)

Little Creatures Pale Ale | Pale Ale | @ruskijp

Emu Bitter | Lager | @DrRiggsy and @buckets74 – no other beer got two mentions except good ol’ EB

Toohey’s Extra Dry | Lager | @buckets74

Eagle Bay Pale Ale | Pale Ale | @buckets74

James Squire Amber Ale | Amber Ale | @frozensummers

Naked Ned Pale Ale (Bridge Road Brewers) | Pale Ale | @mpbrew

Brew Works Blueberry Belch | Fruit Beer | @beergirlbites

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout (in a nitro can) | Stout | @beergirlbites

Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter | Porter | @MelbDave

Rooster’s Cream | Strong Pale Ale (seasonal) | @MelissaCole

Kelham Island Pale Rider | Pale Ale | @MelissaCole

Fustenberg | Lager | @BrewinLex

Le Fin De Monde | Tripel Golden Ale | @RafflesLiquor

Hope to see you all for September’s #temptingtuesday …

girl + hopfweizenbock

This was my Untappd check in as I got stuck into the latest Mountain Goat Cross Breed, a Hopfweizenbock made with American beer royalty Brooklyn Brewery.

Though I can’t remember the first time I tried a Brooklyn Brewery beer they are now a firm favourite in my ever growing list of favourite brewers. Not only are their beers kick ass but their brewmaster Garrett Oliver edited The Oxford Companion to Beer, the only book to have permanent residency on my bedside table.

It won’t surprise anyone who knows me, even a little, that I’m a huge fan of Melbourne brewery Mountain Goat. Each goat beer that’s touched my lips has been brilliant. Their beers have been a big part of my continuing beer journey in the last two years, from first discovering Hightail Ale to now frothing at the mouth with each Cross Breed (limited release collaboration brews) and Rare Breed (limited release) that comes my way.

Mountain Goat collaborated with Brooklyn Brewery during Good Beer Week in Melbourne earlier this year, you might have read one or seventy tweets and Facebook posts from my time there. The brew day was held the morning of the amazing The Apple and The Goat degustation lunch, a lunch that was my first visit to Mountain Goat Brewery and my first Good Beer Week event, you can check it out here if you want to drool all over your screen. Fifteen eager beavers joined the Goat and Brooklyn brewers to create the Hopfweizenbock and here is the end result.

In this collaboration Brooklyn Brewery brings the German yeast strain and grain bill used in their Brooklyner Weisse whilst Mountain Goat contributes big Australian hops in the form of Galaxy from Tasmania. Basically it’s the bastard child of a German wheat beer and an Australian pale ale resulting in an unashamedly complex 6.5% abv gem of a beer.

I served it up with salmon risotto with big squeeze of fresh lemon, button mushrooms and leek. It was a decent pairing, the lemony citrus bringing a nice freshness to the ‘weizen’ part of the beer. Next time I’ll try for something a bit bolder in flavour to go head to head with the ‘hop’ and ‘bock’ (strong) elements.

If you’re keen on some more reading, here’s a few good articles I found on the Hopfweizenbock –

The Crafty Pint – as always my first stop for beery information and again offers up a great run down of the beer, if you don’t subscribe to Crafty already you’re a damn fool!
The Oz Beer Baron – one of the lucky 15 to be part of the brew day
From the mouths of the Goats themselves

Porter versus Porter + Roast Lamb

I spent my Friday working / day dreaming about cooking a lamb roast for dinner. Yup, I know, I’m so rock n’ roll.

I spent my Friday working / day dreaming about cooking a lamb roast for dinner. Yup, I know, I’m so rock n’ roll. Oh and I posted it on Facebook …

Most of the suggestions screamed Porter, including this great idea. Thanks Chris!

I was now a woman with a plan, it was time to go shopping. Well, after work anyway.

Nine long, mouth drying hours later I was finally at the bottle shop. Fifteen minutes later I was out the door with a case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a six pack of Sierra Nevada Porter and a bottle of Nøgne Ø Porter. Not a bad haul for a Friday afternoon from my local bottle shop.

I got home, opened a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and started in the kitchen.

With a title such as “Best Roast Leg of Lamb” it was hard to go past Jamie Oliver’s recipe and I love idea of a big whack of lemon rind in the marinade.

I found this great little recipe for homemade gravy here which was simple and tasty though perhaps a little salty. I threw in a dash of white wine vinegar which seemed to ease the saltiness a fraction. The Porter also proved an excellent rich and bitter feature in the gravy.

And here is the end result … Roast leg of lamb with roast onion, pumpkin, garlic, potato and carrot with Yorkshire Puddings.

Porter versus Porter

Both the Nøgne Ø Porter and Sierra Nevada Porter matched nicely to dinner, both having soft roasty characters that didn’t overwhelm the beer and food.

The Nøgne Ø Porter boasted brown sugar, red fruit and raisin flavours all wrapped up in a decent bit of booziness. Its predominately sweet-ish flavours went so nicely with the roasted veg.

Sierra Nevada’s Porter provided more floral and stone fruit flavours that acted as a refreshing cut through the oils from the lamb and Yorkshire pud.