Feta Burritos and Kelham Island Blonde

It's not often that I cook 100% vegetarian dishes - or indeed crave them -but a recent night out in Covent Garden which culminated in a fantastic (and incredibly reasonably-priced) meal at Wahaca ended with me declaring that my eating-buddy's meal was nicer than mine, Veggie or not. So a few weeks ago I caved and set about recreating something like it; and this is what I ended up with; Makes two large Burritos.

Pre-heat your oven to 175c. Firstly, you need to make your rice filling. Cook some rice according to packet instructions, drain, and set aside. In a large pan, soften one large white Onion in Olive oil and a knob of butter. Add some chopped Chestnut mushrooms, and one sliced Courgette. When the Courgette is soft, one clove of chopped Garlic. Add your rice and blend together. Season with freshly-ground black pepper as well as generous shakes of Smoked Paprika and finish off with mild Chili powder to your liking.

Spoon your filling onto the middle of a wheat Tortilla, and then add crumbled Feta Cheese on top of this. Roll, seal, and then roll inside another tortilla. Lay on a baking tray and repeat until your Burritos are made.

Cook in the oven for about ten minutes - you want the tops just crispy, and warmed through enough for the cheese to melt or soften.

Serve with a dollop of Sour Cream on top, and a fresh Mexican salad; Tomato, red onion and fresh coriander, doused in Lime Juice. If you wanted to 'meat this up', you could add chicken or Chorizo to the rice - even left over chili if you have it. To make things hotter, add chopped chillis (jalapenos would be nice and zippy) to the rice. I kept things simple, as for me, this dish is actually more about the melty, oozy cheese mixing with the rice.

I washed this down with a 'Island' from Kelham Island. This 4.0%abv Blonde doesn't look like much on the outside, but this deep Golden ale has a lovely, honey-sweet nose and body, but rounds things off nicely with a flinty, dry finish more reminiscent of a Pilsner than a Golden Ale. It's a lovely quaffing beer and chills down really well if you want something refreshing but with flavour to douse Mexican heat.

Do go to Wahaca; the food's lovely.

2008 Round-Up

Well it’s time for the 2008 review. Let’s get cracking. I’ve only put four or five stand-outs in this list; otherwise it’d be as long as your arm – I’m very good at being a beer bore. And I promise not to mention Neil frigging Morrisey either.

Local Pubs of the year – has to go to the Abbey Inn, Newlay, Leeds – proud to call it my local. Martin and staff have not only got a lovely, no-nonsense little pub with a real family atmosphere going, but a real love of ale means always a good selection on tap; not to mention the charity work they do. Every week seems to have a beer festival on, and they are always worth a visit. City-wise , Foley’s flies the flag for enthusiasm and choice; knowledgeable and friendly staff make it the automatic choice for a mid-week, post-work pint or three (when Champion’s League is on). Let’s hope the recent sale of York Brewery doesn’t mean Foley’s disappears. Mitchell’s would be fools if they did - and god knows there are enough of them in the beer trade. Finally, an honourable mention goes to The Owl in Rodley. It’s really been turned around this year, and best of luck to them in 2009 – keep up the good work.

Beers – bottled
Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA – this fresh, hoppy brew usurped Summer Lightning as my summer ‘go-to’ beer in 2008. Good stuff indeed; on the right side of hoppy and a great example of the style. Like an American new-wave IPA, but better balanced.
Rodhams – IPA and Wheat. From not even knowing they existed to top of the charts in 2008 – a fantastic micro, making fantastic beers. Gimme more.
Alhambra Reserva 1925 – one of the best, well-balanced bottled beers I have come across. Resiny, green, and fresh, a perfect accompaniment to food. Awesome stuff.
Cain’s Raisin Beer – fruity, but still light, this beer is not independent but man, is it tasty. I drank a lot of this in 2008. Complexity of flavours is the key to this one. In a similar vein, Sharp's Doom Bar remained awesome wherever it travelled.
Beers – Draught
Saltaire Brewery – and the ‘most improved’ award goes to Saltaire. Despite being previous underwhelmed by their stock, their Olympia Honey Ale was about the best-balanced honey beer I have come across, and their Hazelnut Coffee Porter was heaven itself. Well done, and keep up the good work.
Kelham Island Brooklyn Smoked Porter - if there’s one style I stay away from its smoked beers. Not this one. Awesomely balanced and poetry in a glass.
Thornbridge Jaipur IPA – ok, the bandwagon carries on here, but have you tasted this stuff? Jesus Christ, it’s good.
Wylam Northern Kite – a ruby red, malty treat, this is real northern ale. Wylam doing what they do best – making no-nonsense examples of the style, and hitting the nail on the head every time.

Blanche de Bruxelles - Refreshing in a way I didn't know beers could be.

Rooster’s Wrangler – it wouldn’t be a TGS list without something from Sean Franklin! Creamy, sessionable, golden...always quality, no mater where served. Get me to Blind Jacks!!

Villain of the year – Who other than our esteemed Al Darling? If he’s looking to make a name for himself he’s certainly done that in 2008 – by becoming the man who nails the English pub trade to the wall. Missing the point spectacularly, he tightens the screws on publicans whilst supermarkets continue to sell spirits for home consumption at ridiculously low prices. Change is needed, fast. Never before has dealing with the scourge of ‘Binge-Drinking (TM)’ been so elegantly mishandled.

Hero of the year – well, I guess every publican who struggles on in this kind of market. Everyone who organises beer festivals. Everyone who tries something new at the bar. Everyone who stocks good beer in their shops or online. Everyone who forsakes a pint of pop for a pint of something good. Everyone who supports real ale, its consumption and production.

I think that’s you. Here’s to 2009 – mine’s a pint.

Mr Foley's Beer Festival

I dropped into Mr Foley's over the weekend to see how the Beer Festival was going. With a second bar rigged up in the back room, this gave us interested drinkers a chance to enjoy some different ales to the norm in decent surroundings (I really didn't miss the sports-hall vibe)!!

Despite missing the 'Meet the Brewer' event, Andy Whalley (York Brewery), was more than happy to spend an hour or with myself discussing many topics from the USA craft beer scene to how the beer industry are coping with the (temporary, we hope) hop shortage. And a very nice bloke he was too, showing the enthusiasm one would expect from one of the main men at York.

Dean, the manager of Foley's, explained that the festival was going very well, and hopefully we should see more of the same in the upcoming year. Ale sales are going strong too, as evidenced by the addition (at the expense of Lager taps) of yet more pumps dedicated to beer. And the beer itself? Well, of the many sampled over the weekend, Dean recommended Vale Breweries Black Swan - an excellent mild; full of big roasted-malt flavour and a dry hoppiness. Despite being perfectly happy to have stayed on this all evening, I jumped over to the Red Squirrell London Porter; another excellent example of the style - big red fruit and chocolate character with a sharp dryness coming through. Dark Side of the Moose was as excellent as ever, and Kelham's pale and fruity Golden Eagle made the 'Friday after-work pint' slot all its own.

The festival runs all week, so get yourself down there and try something different.

Kelham Island Brewery

A few weeks back, I posted this article waxing lyrical about The Hunter's Inn, a pub that truly made my day. More particularly, a certain beer that I enjoyed there made my day.
Kelham Island's Brooklyn Smoked Porter really knocked me for six. I have tasted beers with the word 'smoked' in the title before and found the majority of them to be shocking. If you're going to accentuate a smoked aspect of a beer, then it's got to be balanced; I find this small, yet vital, point is missed all too often,. There's nothing worse than a pint that tastes likes a packet of Bacon Fries.
But this is balanced. Wonderfully so, in fact. The smoke comes through the initial bone-dry coffee and bitter chocolate hit - not on top of it. As you would expect form a porter, it packs a hefty 6.5 abv - although you would never know from the taste. Give me a pint of this and a slice of Chocolate Brownie on a cold day ( a strange thought to have on a summer's day but bear with me) and I'm laughing.
I know taste is subjective, but this truly was a gorgeous pint - and surely a flagship for this well-known Sheffield Brewery. Seek it out.

* By the way, any brewery that has a couple of beers named after Springsteen songs are OK with me. Whoops, just outed myself as a fan of The Boss.