IPA-flavored peanut brittle

IPA peanut brittle with Full Pint Chinookie. (Scott Beveridge photo)

By Scott Beveridge

As someone who loves peanut brittle, I prefer it to be chock-full of peanuts.

And, as an India Pale Ale beer snob, I was immediately attracted to brief in a magazine about a beer brittle sold by Sugar Knife, a small batch artisan candy company that blends whiskey and beer into its concoctions.

Then I bought some of its Stout Daddy peanut brittle and liked it, a lot, but concluded it was too expensive for my taste.

So I turned to Google, found a similar recipe at The Homebrew Chef website, tweaked it a bit in my kitchen and came away with some awesome candy.

Homebrew calls for a hoppy IPA.

The Chinookie label brewed by Full Pint Brewery in North Versailles, Pa., is my favorite local hoppy IPA, and that is my choice for this brittle. It's sold across Pennsylvania and in Ohio and Florida. Today, every craft brewer seems to have an IPA so you shouldn't have any difficulty finding something hoppy to your liking to use as a substitute.

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cups Planters Cocktail peanuts, shaken around in a colander to remove excess salt and peels. 
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup IPA
1/2 tsp Kosher sea salt
1/2 Cup unsalted butter

Directions,

Lightly grease a nonstick baking sheet and set aside.

Roast peanuts on a different baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes and set aside.

In a large saucepan, combine sugar, salt, butter and IPA and heat on a low flame until the sugar is completely dissolved, stirring often with a whisk.

Raise heat to medium low, insert a candy thermometer into the liquid and boil to hard crack stage (300-310 degrees) Remove from heat, stir in peanuts and pour onto greased baking sheet. Cool to room temperature, crack into pieces and store in an air tight container to prevent brittle from becoming sticky.

Yields 2 pounds of brittle

The rich dine while the poor suffer

By Scott Beveridge


WEBSTER, Pa. – The biggest surprise find when I purchased my century-old, 10-room house was that the former owner was willing to accept a $4,000 sale price.


People have always been shocked to hear that a house would sell so cheaply, and then some would follow that up with a question about what antiques came with the place in 1987.


The fixer-upper was somewhat rundown, but there was little else inside but three decades of dust crusting the floors and baseboards. The previous owner, who was well into his 80s, had sold the contents at auction prior to listing the property in Webster, Pa., with a Realtor.


The only real treasure discovered was a newspaper spreadsheet from a Sunday, Sept. 10, 1933, publication of The American Weekly, which boasted the greatest circulation in the world.


It was found, along with other pages from 1933 newspapers, underneath crumbling asphalt linoleum that I was throwing away from a bedroom. The back page boasts the ad, above, for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.


It seemed odd to me because the ad features a well-dressed couple relaxing at a restaurant during the heart of the Great Depression, when money was scarce. They were staged being served by a smiling black waiter, an obvious statement on racial inequality of the time.


It also made me wonder about how the steel mill boss who owned the house could have afforded new floor covering in a depression, while also adding an adjoining room to his house. The remodel was to create a second-floor apartment for his son, who had taken a wife.


Meanwhile, the front page of the newspaper was devoted to new publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York about the pastimes of the ancient Egyptians. The newspaper was distributed coast to coast in all Hearst Samily newspapers. Inside were printed adds for Royal Baking Powder, A-1 Sauce, Quick Elastic Starch, Pyrex nursing bottles, Lacross Nail Polish and Log Cabin Syrup.


The MOMA book were even made possible by a donation from Charlotte M. Tytus of Asheville, NC, in memory of her son.


So unlike the mental pictures we have today of the poverty of that era, some people in the United States were still spending money for newspapers, books and household supplies while others were suffering greatly. 

Credit the spoiled kids for better beer

The beer library at the new Bocktown Beer and Grill in Monaca, Pa., is testimony to America's expanding taste buds.

By Scott Beveridge

Theoretically speaking I credit the refined taste buds of a new generation of spoiled consumers for the craft beer market boom in the United States.

This is a group of younger elites that grew up with potato chips in myriad flavors ranging from ketchup or dill pepper to sweet onion or cracked sea salt and ground pepper.

In my youth during the 1960s chip flavors were limited to plain, barbecue or sour cream and onion at grocery stores.

Meanwhile, America’s Industrial Age turned out steelworkers and other factory workers then who patronized the products of local breweries for no other reason than union workers produced their beer. Here in the Mon Valley, Pa., Iron City once enjoyed brisk sales in the bars outside the mill gates even though it tasted terrible.

Today’s young adults don’t seem to understand this fierce loyalty to brand. They prefer beer with flavor, whether it’s infused with pumpkin spice, chocolate and raspberry or coffee, over those sissy ultra lights or recognizable name-brand drafts typically poured at the smoky local joints where their grandparents once bellied up the bar. This I have been told in random polls of my younger colleagues in the newspaper business.

As for the older crowd, many of whom have been paying the college loans of these finicky beer snobs, it, too, has been gravitating toward this exciting new beer market.

Graying hipsters, like myself, are discovering unusual new beers brewed with cloves, flowers, hard cider or cucumbers.

Maybe this trend also is happening because of the "buy local" movement, which has been fueled by consumer concerns about where food is produced, and big corporations hurting small companies while draining the energy supply.

Or maybe it’s because the youngsters are onto something.

Take six home to the wives

Polygamy Porter, originally uploaded by Rainer Ebert.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Among the hottest-selling local beers in Utah is Polygamy Porter, so it seems tonight.


"People who don't even like porter will have just one so they can say, 'I had a Polygamy Porter,'" said the bartender tonight at a hotel where I am staying near the Salt Lake City Airport.

Those tourists often ask him if they can buy a six pack of this beer to take home.

"I tell them, that's between you and the airline," he says.

It's a brilliant and hilarious beer gimmick in this region. Enough said.

The brewer of the label, Wasatch of Park City, advertises it with the phrase, "Why have just one."

Meanwhile, this hotel sells T-shirts bearing the label in its gift shop. I want one of them.

The color red means the beer is waiting

GREENSBURG, Pa. – Red Star Brewery & Grille’s name spells great beer in more than one way.

In old Bavaria, a barkeep would hang a red star outside his business when the beer was done brewing and ready to tap. And, at Red Star in Greensburg, Pa., the large beer tanks inside the glass enclosed foyer serve as another reminder to those in the know about that tradition that this establishment takes brewing seriously.

I won’t pretend to be a beer snob because, once at the bar, I order a glass of India Pale Ale, thinking it will be on the light side. It arrives dark yet mellow enough to not qualify it as Guinness, one of the few beers that I hate more than Iron City.

So then I decide on the New England lobster salad arranged on a bed of thin-sliced tomatoes with mayonnaise dressing. It comes with a small loaf of bread and honey-flavored butter. The sweetness of the butter, combined with the beer and lobster, make for a palate pleaser unique to this fantastic bar and restaurant.

Suddenly convinced that this is my new favorite beer, I turn to the drink menu to read its description. It turns out that India Pale Ale was developed to preserve beer for long voyages from England to British troops stationed in India. To survive the three-month trip, it had to have a lot of hops and extra alcohol.

“Ours has enough hops so you can’t really tell how malty it is and enough malt so you can’t tell how hoppy it is and an extra dash at the end of hops to push the balance right over the edge,” the menu reads.

The extra hops cannot be in the mix to preserve the beer because this is one busy restaurant in a 98-year-old beautifully restored train station at 101 Ehalt St. The last two times that I stopped by this year there wasn’t a seat to be found.

The business has survived the test of time, though, because it is celebrating it 10th anniversary in a Victorian ticket room beside a rail line where trains still stop to pick up passengers.

This hotel bar is zapper in Canada

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Canada – The abundance of summer flowers along the street give rise to a grand early Victorian redbrick hotel in Canada, and they immediately draw me to the door.

It gives way to a richly appointed English-style room with intricately carved mahogany covering every inch of the walls and ceiling in the Prince of Wales Hotel pub in downtown Niagara-on-the-Lake.


I grab a stool, its seat upholstered in maroon leather, before hearing a loud zap, pop and fizzle behind the bar. From the corner of my right eye, a bright light flashes from a stainless steel wine and beer cooler.

“I’m not touching that,” exclaims the beautiful young female bartender while maintaining an infectious smile. “There is a fire in there.”

A waitress afraid of a shock emerges holding a white linen napkin and uses it to open the refrigerator door, releasing a putrid cloud of smoke and gases. The fire is out but, the room now stinks like burning wire and car tires. She calls for maintenance. A few minutes later, a manager comes to the rescue with a can of air freshener that she sprays around the back bar.

“There, now it smells like apples,” she says, leaving the room with more obnoxious chemicals in the air.

I wonder if I should gulp down a beer and find somewhere else to eat, even though the vegetarian sandwich advertised on the outdoor menu is calling my name.


The air clears so I order the grilled asparagus with Monteforte feta off the Churchill Lounge menu from the still-bubbly bartender. It arrives with roasted red peppers in two wedges of rosemary focaccia spread with basil mayo. A plain salad of just mixed greens equally covered in a white balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil dressing also springs from the plate. Together, they make for a great light lunch on a hot, breezy day in Upper Canada’s wine country, costing $14 in Canadian cash.

This town is understandably where dark-tanned, wealthy white boaters come to play at the juncture of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. Niagara-on-the-Lake is commonly called one of the prettiest towns in Canada because of its quaint residential streets and small downtown lined with restaurants, shops and galleries. A half-hour’s drive from Niagara Falls, it’s a fantastic tourist destination filled with pristinely restored Colonial- and Federal-style buildings. The town dates to the 1700s, having been the first capital of Upper Canada, now known as the province of Ontario. But, the village had to be rebuilt after being leveled by American troops during the War of 1812, when the United States tried unsuccessfully to expand its territory into Canada.

The Prince of Wales, with more than 100 luxury rooms, dates to 1864. Leisurely guests can enjoy a traditional afternoon British tea in the frilly drawing room or relax at a spa. Instead, I sample a cold glass of Niagara Pale Ale, a product of the Niagara Falls Brewing Co., before taking a stroll through the downtown, where horse-drawn white carriages compete with slow-moving cars along narrow streets.

“You came at the most exciting time of the day,” the bartender says, giving a nod in the direction of the dead beer cooler.

“It was the highlight of my day,” I tell her.

This place is a gas

ROSTRAVER TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The Fairway Inn is off the beaten track, and mostly seen by people who pass their time across the street at the popular Cedarbrook Golf Course.

The bar owners obviously are ticked about the record-high price of gasoline and have a sense of humor, judging by this sign outside the business along Route 981, just off Route 51.

Truth be told, the food they serve is pretty good, better than can be found at most restaurants in the Mid Mon Valley. And the beer is served cold at this inn in Rostraver Township.

(Hey, e-mail us a photo of your favorite "signz" with a description of them and we might post them...)

A pilsner is born

Te brewery at Plzen (Pilsen), Czech Republic, above, is where the locals invented pilsner beer in the 1840s.

By Harry Funk

PLZEN, Czech Republic – They take their beer seriously in Europe.

Back in 1838, for example, a near riot erupted in the city of Plzen when residents became so dismayed at the poor quality of the local brew that they emptied gallon upon gallon into the gutter in front of the town hall.

Their loss is our gain.

Town leaders acted swiftly to consolidate Plzen's brewing operations, culminating four years later in the first batch of what would become Pilsner Urquell.

Nations have come and gone in Plzen. At various stages, it has been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czechoslovakia, under German occupation, and now is one of the major cities of the Ceská republika (Czech Republic).

But no matter who's been in charge, the golden beverage has flowed out of Plzen and all over the earth for more than 160 years.

"It's the pride of the whole Czech Republic and of each Czech person," explained Helena Emmerová, client service coordinator for Pilsner Urquell Svet Piva (Beer World), the combination brewery, museum and entertainment complex in the heart of Plzen.

She may be a bit biased considering her job, but the typical Czech seems to agree. First-time visitors to the republic, for example, often are whisked straight to a friendly pub and presented with a tall glass of the cold stuff.

"Our national drink," they'll be told.



As well it should be, according to beer connoisseurs who have tried the best of what the world has to offer. Writing for Brewing Techniques magazine, Peter A. Ensminger summarizes the impact made by Pilsner Urquell:

"No sooner had shipments of this new beer reached American shores than brewers set to work duplicating the style. ... No imitator, whoever, can hope to match the true character of this Czech original. Brewed with a combination of soft Plzen water, home-malted barley, superb native Saaz hops and a lager yeast originally smuggled out of Bavaria more than 150 years ago, Pilsner Urquell is to this day a true king of beers."

The beer's reputation preceded it, as Matt Lawrence, bar manager at the Union Grill in Washington, Pa., learned this summer when his tavern started serving Pilsner Urquell on tap.

"I didn't know how many people were familiar with the beer," he said. "As soon as people see it, they want it. It's been a huge success."

For the curious who don't know about it, the bar often pours a small sample.

"After that, nine out of 10 people say, 'Pour me a draft,'" said Lawrence. "It's a good-tasting Pilsner beer for someone who's not real familiar with a Pilsner. It's not overpowering."

Pilsner beer – the name is derived from Pilsen, the German name for Plzen – is made with bottom-fermenting lager yeast and usually has the slightly bitter taste of malt and hops. The golden color represents a change of pace from the dark, cloudy beers available before the brewers of Plzen developed their heralded recipe.

That recipe starts with barley that is soaked in water for five days, then heated to convert malt starches into sugars, a process repeated three times (known as "triple mashing").

"That's a specialty to Pilsner," Emmerová said. "Of course, it's time- and money-consuming, but the product is better."

The solution is filtered into conical, stainless-steel kettles, where hops are added and boiled, then cooled to 5 degrees Centigrade. Yeast and oxygen are added for fermentation, which takes seven days, then the brew is aged for 29 days.

Until recent modernization of the brewery, the final process took place in oak barrels stored in the spilka, or fermenting cellar. Today, visitors can walk through sections of the 9 kilometers (5 1/2 miles) of corridors constituting the cellar, where they can sample the beer poured directly from a traditional wooden fermenting barrel.

The taste is described on the realbeer.com Web site: "a very slight but benign sulfury flavor, where the rich hops dominate the flavor with a very smooth bitterness. This version has yeasty notes and fermentation byproducts evident in the final flavor that you'll never find in any of the 50,000 bottles that leave the bottling line each hour."

More of those bottles are finding their way to the United States following the recent merger between Miller Brewing Co. and SAB, the South African conglomerate with a majority interest in Pilsner Urquell.

"The regulars are very loyal to it," said Matt Talerico, assistant manager of the Beer Store in South Strabane Township. The distributor is owned by Beverage Distribution Inc., the regional wholesaler for Pilsner Urquell (and the folks who recommended it to the Union Grill).

The beer could be more popular among U.S. beer drinkers, in Talerico's opinion.

"I believe that its biggest obstacle is a lack of advertising," he said. "Comparable imports, like Corona and Heineken, they have those great commercials. Even Foster's, for that matter."

But while Pilsner Urquell may be a relatively well-kept American secret, it's ubiquitous in taverns throughout the Czech Republic and neighboring countries, especially Slovakia. Plzensky Prazdroj s.a., the corporation that runs the brewery, now accounts for nearly 50 percent of the Czech beer market, and sales abroad totaled 1.2 million hectoliters (31.7 million gallons) last year.

After all, Europeans take their beer seriously. Especially when it comes to the original Pilsner.

Thai cuisine brewed right

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The delicate blend of flavors that gives Thai food its appeal can be found in the country’s most-popular brand of beer.
Singha
is a barley malt that has the right amount of cinnamon, flower and lemon additives that have helped to crown it the No. 1 beer of Thailand. It’s a product of Boon Rawd Brewery of Bangkok and brought to the United States by the Paleewong Trading Co. It’s a great compliment to Thai cuisine wherever it is served, especially in Pittsburgh, which seems to have more Asian restaurants per capita than any other city in the United States.

Tapas, or small plates of food, continue to draw me to the Silk Elephant in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill district. On my last stop there, I had Tom Kah, a delicious coconut broth with shrimp, mushrooms and peppers, and roasted leg of lamb swimming in green curry sauce with steamed vegetables.



Thai food has a perfect balance of aromatic ingredients that are spicy, sweet, salty, bitter and sour, my server said while offering her reasons for loving the food.
“You taste it and think, ‘Oh. What is that?’” she said. Often it’s the fresh, rather than dried, basil and lime leaf that give the food its distinctive character, she added.
The Silk Elephant is casual and intimate yet classy with its high-back, upholstered chairs and silk draperies. The servers are young and hip. The soup, which came with three large shrimp, cost $4.65, while the lamb had a price of $7.95. The bottle of Singha was well worth $5.50.

The restaurant is located at 1712 Murray Ave. For information call 412-421-8801.