After a few hours of moving furniture up and down steps and in and out of a truck, a long hot shower and a couple Sudafeds (allergy alert EVERYWHERE!) later, Chef Joe brought us a bottle of Mendocino Brewing’s Imperial IPA. After 30 years living in London, Joe is more a malt than hop guy so we were curious.

courtesy of beerohbeer.com

It poured a slightly orange amber, presenting a nice slighly off white head, with good lacing. Allergies prevent me from speaking to any subtle notes in the nose, but it was strong enough to identify itself, with no confusion, as an IPA. Very sweet and hoppy in that respect.

We’ve had mixed experiences with Mendocino’s offerings. I had an unfortunate bottle of their Blackhawk Select Stout recently, while Dave enjoyed his sampling of their Imperial Barley Wine.

As for this Imperial IPA, from the first step on, a complete, well-balanced and layered IPA was on display.

A sweetness hits from the outset in lockstep with a solid piney, bracing bitter. The malty sweetness, more present here than in a lot of IPAs, gently but noticeably rises to fill in as the first bitter recedes. As we start down the gentle curve of this tasty sweetness, yet another smooth crossfade leaves the mouth with, again, a bitter, slightly citrusy, yet still sweet end game.  All this came with no real sense of the higher 8% ABV.

As a flavorful quencher, this worked great and continued perfectly into the beginning of a meal of Balsamic Pulled Pork (with a great and spicy Carolina Vinegar BBQ sauce ladled on), and a spicy Jambalaya.

In this case, just as every restaurant has menu items we learn to avoid, others we find to be strengths of their kitchen, we found one here in Mendocino’s Imperial IPA we’ll, without question, feel comfortable in ordering again.

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Saturday afternoon on the West Side. Staying in Chelsea last weekend, we took a walk west on 23rd to the High Line, the fabulous and fun walkway following the old High Line elevated freight line in Manhattan. Turned into a creative walkway and public space, as it wends along, sometimes through and under buildings, the High Line displays lovely created spaces for plantings, a few installations, such as the very cool bird house/feeder constructs (all seemingly small enough that the “flying rats,” AKA the NYC pigeon cartel can’t take over), and wooden lounging chair/benches, some of them capable of rolling together to create different furniture configurations placed along the route. Better yet, many apartments and lofts, windows looking out on the walkway, offer up aesthetic statements, little art shows out on fire escapes, paintings, clever “graffiti,” and even a High Line Zoo.

The Highline Zoo

A really lovely creation (when the temp is reasonable and the wind coming off the Hudson isn’t at hurricane speeds), we walked it all.

Not yet hungry, but a little leg weary and thirsty, we went down the steps and hit The Drunken Horse at 225 10th Avenue, between 23rd and 24th. Offering a good-looking light food menu: hot and cold appetizers, a nice list of more than 10 cheeses, charcuterie, a half dozen sandwiches and a single dessert—a chocolate merengue cake—we viewed it, this afternoon, as a watering hole.   I went with a Delirium Tremens, that Belgian Strong with the cool bottle from Brouwerij Huyghe. At 8.5% ABV it is, indeed, strong, and tasty. The Belgian yeasts and malts gave off some banana and spice that I read as cloves and allspice, in a nice bready stew of flavors. A consistently tasty beverage, one distinguishing note here was the visual beauty and intensity of the carbonation. It was as if it was a living creature. (Creature? Well maybe not. Living? Absolutely!)

After hydrating and getting a nice tired little buzz, we decided eating was in order. As we had , the day before, driven through the Indian enclave of Jersey City on our way in, I had a hankering, and my fellow revelers were happy to oblige, so we headed over to Bombay Talkie at 189 9th Avenue, between 21st and 22nd. We’ve been there before and find a nice combination of Indian street food and style in the prep and presentation. We started with their Beggar’s Purses. I’m embarassed to say I can’t find it on their online menu, but served cold, it’s a little flour purse (or crunchy crepe), sometimes stuffed with potatoes, a little caviar in some cases, a crème fraîche, or here, what seemed like a yogurt based sauce. Chilly and yummy little poppers they are. I followed with a Garlic Naan and the Pork Vindaloo. Our waiter kindly warned us this was a very spicy dish, one he could make hotter, but not milder. We went with it, along with an order of the cooling Raita, a cucumber and yogurt sauce we customarily order with Biriani, but seemed like a prudent idea if the Vindaloo needed a bit of extinguishing.

courtesy of http://www.hoppsy.com

To drink I ordered a 22 of Flying Horse “Royal Lager,” from India, described as an American Adjunct Lager, with a standard issue 4.7% ABV. I have to say, the nose of the Delirium Tremens must have really altered my senses, because my first thought as I sniffed was that I was smelling something lighter but similar. My poor feeble brain’s mistake. As I sipped, I found it to be sweeter than I would have expected, with a slight presence of bitter at the end. Still, the bready, yeasty component of this was NOT Belgian, by any means, and the bitter didn’t really ring out with enough vengeance to be useful in the taming of the spicy, tasty Vindaloo. I wouldn’t call it a bad beer, by any means, but it’s not the style I tend to like in the first place, and it simply didn’t have enough going on to keep me interested, either as a stand alone or in such a pairing. But the Indian comfort food was great and ended our day in fine fashion.

Sunday, the menu started with a Peak Organic IPA pulled from the tap at Pianos, a nice and friendly watering hole on Ludlow St. named as such based on the still-hanging sign dating back to when it was, in fact, a piano store. Nice in the afternoon, probably much fun at night when there’s lots of live music in the back room, they also have a reasonably priced extended bar food menu. The beer came after working up a thirst out walking, relentlessly in search of proper Lady Fingers, finally found at La Bella Ferrara on Mulberry (God bless them for simply being), and while it seemed the bitter (76 IBUs) was pretty much the whole story of this particular draw on this particular day, the Peak(7.2% ABV), handily quenched my thirst. I’d try it again in a minute to further investigate the nose and flavor notes.

R.I.P with a Joyous Noise!

An hour later we found ourselves on Avenue B at the Lakeside Lounge, saying adieu to this longstanding Alphabet City watering hole. Here we enjoyed an always tasty Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap, followed by a couple Laphroaig 10s, neat. Sadly, this grand old fun factory closed after April 30th, 2012. There was much camaraderie—this place the embodiment of what makes a proper tavern a real asset to a neighborhood, but the legendary photo booth wasn’t working, so we resorted to the iPhone to prove we “were there.”

Finished up the night with a lovely (it’s been too long) Lagavulin 16 as a nightcap sitting at the bar at Café Loup. We missed the set by the wonderful Junior Mance, but hope to hit him up next time. If you follow the link to the cafe, you can hear a little of this talented  musician.

A great weekend back in the City.

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I recently wrote, refering to offerings from Thirsty Dog and Hoppin’ Frog, that it’s not so often we run into a really different IPA… something they have both, notably, accomplished!

Victory’s Hop Wallop isn’t one of them, but is a terrific brew in that it joins the not-as-long-as-we’d-all-like list of big Imperial IPAs that really do the trick, IPAs that are FAR more than just a lot of hops, despite what those crazy yet humble Victory brewmasters say below!

A nice pour, rich amber with a substantial cream head, the nose, huge and floral, leading to that first sip. This is smooth, flavorful, with a lovely mid tongue sweetness, the bitter balanced throughout, as opposed to spiking the sip at the end. But it’s a solid and present bitter that worked it’s magic with the spicy meal we had:

Beef dogs on the grill slathered with the DolliMama’s simple, faithful, and totally tasty Coney Sauce, a heap of onions and just under a gallon Zydeco Gator Garlic Fire Sauce.

Victory Hop Wallop is a finely crafted brew offering more than just a bucketload of hops and an 8.5% ABV, joining such YBN faves as Bell’s Hopslam, Avery’s Maharaja , Buckeye’s Aquarius (RIP), Founders’ Double Trouble, Hoppin’ Frog’s Mean Manalishi, and Widmer Brothers Nelson Imperial as big bad and delicious Double/Imperial IPAs. Well done.

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This isn’t to say Stouts are only for cold weather, but they DO represent something big and warming to be drunk in front of a fire, and as we head towards our YBN’s Top 19 x 2 Spring roll out in the next week, we see this as a fond adieu, not to stout, but to the fire in the hearth for a few months…. hopefully.

The same friend who recently brought over a bottle of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter for me to talk to him about (I drank it!! Nya ha ha), came over with a four pack containing 4 different stouts. Three of us shared, talked  and, much as I love the sound of my fingers hitting keys, here are our notes in the form of bullet points, in order of tasting:

Black Rat Imperial Stout from Cellar Rats Brewery – nice start, not so nice finish
-Malty, sweet nose
-Good Bitter Component
-Sweet mid tongue
-Gritty, leaving a not so good feel on the back of the tongue
-Last sip was almost vinegary

Blackhawk Select from Mendocino Brewing – not good
-Sour malty nose
-A little bitter but sitting on top of a flat taste, with almost no flavor notes, the ones detectable, also sour
-From Chef Joe “ Excellent spillability.”

Black Chocolate Stout from Brooklyn Brewery – pretty good
-Nose a little soy saucy
-Big Chocolate, to be sure
-High ABV well integrated. Nice balance

Milk Stout from Left Hand – best of the bunch
-High drinkability
-Great lacing
-Milk and mild sweetness THEN delicious chocolate milk.

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OK, this has NOTHING to do with beer and food. The closest we come is having an Aberlour 10 on the table. But this is kind of sticky, funny stuff that not too many people have seen thus far and we thought we might share. We at YBN had nothing to do with the production, but again, find it to be kind of creepy funny. Let us know if you like it, hate it, hate us for posting it, and/or now consider us, as a result, your new cultural “go-to” site. There are more of these.

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