We have attended this event the last several years and have always seemed to luck out with the weather on the day that we chose to attend. This year was no different and the weather was perfect… sunny and VERY hot… with the temperature hovering near 90F and the dewpoint well over 70F by mid-afternoon. Based on my observations from years past, I would have to say that the event was far better attended than in previous years. By late afternoon, in spite of the oppressive heat, the area in front of the beer tent as well as all of the aisles/roads around the venue had turned into a hot seething mass of humanity.

This year’s event saw 42 teams compete for the title of “The Harpoon New England Grand Champion”. Because this is a KCBS (Kansas City Barbecue Society) sanctioned event judged by KCBS-certified judges, this event’s Grand Champion qualifies for the nation’s ultimate barbecue competition, the American Royal Barbecue held at the end of September in Kansas City. The American Royal Barbecue is the season finale for the grueling competitive BBQ circuit. Spreading over 20 acres in Kansas City’s historic Stockyards District, with nearly 500 teams competing in four culinary contests, The Royal is the largest barbecue contest in the world and can truly be called the “World Series of Barbecue.”

The Harpoon BBQ event is actually two competitions in one weekend… one for BBQ (Saturday) and the other for Grilling (Sunday). The combined scores from both of these contests is used to determine the event Grand Champion. We attended only on Saturday and were able to sample BBQ’d products from several of the event’s competitors. To be very honest, I am both extremely envious and incredibly in awe of the people that try to (and apparently can) distinguish the subtle differences between each competitor’s offerings. We sampled BBQ from several competitors and all of the BBQ that I tasted was outstanding. I would find it very difficult to name a “winner” from those few competitors and can’t imagine trying to select the best from all 42. As we have learned in previous years, it is always a bit of a crap shoot in trying to select your samples carefully in hopes of correctly choosing to taste BBQ from the eventual winner. We were not that fortunate this year, but the all competitors that we did eat from finished in the top 10 overall. The team named the event Grand Champion must have had one of those incredibly rare weekends where everything seemed to come together for them. The team “Feeding Friendz” was named the top team on both days (BBQ and Grilling) and will be headed to Kansas City in September to compete against the BBQ world’s best.

There are other things going on at this event besides just BBQ eating and beer drinking; though I am sure those would be enough for many people. The New England Barbecue Society in cooperation with the Harpoon folks have a tent set up for something called the “Beer and Barbecue University”. Here they conduct informational seminars throughout the day on many topics surrounding, not surprisingly, beer and barbecue. I did not attend any of these session this year, which I have found very interesting in past years, but the tent was packed full of people all afternoon.

The event is also host to the Vermont “Strongman” competition every year. Men and women compete to see who can lift, carry or drag the heaviest objects in several different categories. Though not quite on par with similar, world-class competitions seen on television, it is fairly impressive to watch these folks compete against each other and themselves; feats particularly challenging on such a warm day.

As a final note, I would like to digress a bit from the Barbecue and Beer theme of this article to talk about another of my passions… hot peppers! I have been a chili-head for many years and truly love the “endorphin rush” that comes from obsessively scorching your insides with peppery foods. As you might expect at events like these, there are always a few vendors offering hot pepper products (rubs, powders, sauces, relishes, etc.) for sale. These vendors usually always provide small samples of their products. While I have a very high tolerance for capsiacin (the “active” ingredient in chili peppers) compared to most people, I had a bit of a life altering experience at the hands of one of these vendors. I was “treated” to a very small sample of a hot sauce with the catchy name of “East Armageddon Post Apocalyptic”. This sauce contains elements of the Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia), which according to Guinness is the world’s hottest pepper, and just a touch of pure capsiacin oleoresin. As a result, the sauce is rated at over 1,000,000 Scoville Units. Honestly… this pepper sauce significantly and forever changed my definition of *HOT*. There is not any real flavor to a product such as this, despite what others might say; it is all about the heat, the burn and the “rush” that they produce. Without experiencing that level of heat for yourself, you cannot really imagine how hot that sauce really is. There are many products on the market that are rated even hotter than this one and I can’t imagine what they would be used for, but I am sure that “ego” might play a part in their selection and consumption. While my experience was not worthy of a video on YouTube (fortunately), I did feel the effects of that tiny sample for quite a while afterwards.

I am fairly certain that Harpoon will host this excellent event again next year and I would hope to attend it again. It is a great opportunity for Harpoon to not only showcase their beer, which included their WBC medal winning UFO Hefe, but it also shows their support of the greater New England community. This is a family and pet friendly event that will continue to draw large crowds because of the great food as well as the fun and novelty of watching teams of people compete to claim title as the “best” at producing some of America’s favorite summertime foods.

With the nice weather on tap, we will plan to spend a fair amount of time outside enjoying the sunshine and warmth. It stands to reason that we will choose the food that we eat to fit this great weather. To my family, that means cooking food on the grill. My wife is a great cook and she has been working over the last couple of days to plan out and prepare for our weekend meals. As the food picture has come into focus, I have been thinking about what beer I will choose to have with each meal. I am not that fanatical about food/beer pairing, but have been exposed to enough of it by people that are to recognize that there is, definitely, a synergy between certain types of beers and foods. You need to understand that I really like hoppy beer, so there is a certain part of me that believes that a good IPA or Imperial IPA could go with anything. I do like many other types of beer, of course, and I am beginning to broaden my views a little bit as to which type of beer goes best with particular types of food. I’ll run down the potential menu for the weekend and try to give you a sense of what beers might come out of my beer larder to go along with them. With all of my beer travels lately, I have a very wide variety of beer to choose from for these meals. I hope that you won’t be too surprised if I choose something “non-traditional” as a pairing, simply because I like drinking that particular beer or want to try something new.

I grew up in southern Indiana and if you know anything about that part of the country, you know that barbecued pork is a prized summer tradition (year round actually). We will celebrate some of my mid-western heritage by having some of my wife’s excellent barbecued ribs. My wife and daughter, who has joined us for the weekend, are not much into spicy foods (my wife thinks that black pepper is “hot”), so the BBQ sauce on these ribs is a bit on the sweet side. This is one of my favorite meals, so I will pick out something “special” to go along with it. A while back a friend of mine from California was kind enough to send me a selection of Russian River Brewing’s fine beers. In that box was a bottle of Blind Pig IPA. While not available here in Vermont, I have had this awesome beer before and I think that its fruity hop characteristics, good malt balance and medium bitterness will fit perfectly with these ribs.

Some of the “bad” things about getting older are the changes that you need to make in your diet to accommodate health problems and to attempt to keep the “battle of the bulge” under control. There are a number of foods that used to be a more regular part of my diet that have taken a back seat to some of the more healthy alternatives. This is not that terrible, as I like some of these alternatives, but there are some foods we do not eat regularly any more and I miss them. One of those missed items is a good hot dog. While I don’t mind eating turkey or chicken hot dogs and I have even tried tofu hot dogs (not as good), there is just nothing like a “real” natural casing hot dog (smothered in onions with mustard). Unlike many parts of the country, we only get a few days each year with the temperatures at 90F or above. While this type of weather generally calls for a lighter beer (which I will be drinking plenty of in this heat), I think that to combination of the fatty hot dog meat (yum!) along with the onions and a spicy mustard will drive me to a stronger beer for this meal. I have a couple of bottles left of Great Divide’s Hercules Double IPA which I believe would fit the bill in this case. Intensely hoppy, but well balanced, I think that this beer will add to the enjoyment of tasting one of the favored summer meals which I dearly miss eating regularly.

The last of the meals planned for the weekend is very traditional and, in spite of its relative unhealthiness, still can fortunately be found on the Koenemann dietary agenda (occasionally). There is something special about a hamburger that has been cooked over a hot fire that makes my mouth water. Over the years I have enjoyed many different beers with my burgers, but there are a few that have become a favorite pairing. I have found that I really like a good Belgian-style beer with this meal. There is something about the fruity yeast and the subtle sweetness in a good dubbel or tripel that does it for me when I its paired with a good hamburger. I also like a good Scotch ale with a hamburger for the same reasons as the Belgians, but the addition of the peated malts found in the Scotch adds to the smokiness of the grilled meat. I happen to have both types of beer available to me this weekend. For the Belgian, I have a bottle of Allagash Confluence Ale that I have been dying to open. This beer also is made with some Brett, so some sourness will come into play as well. For the Scotch, I have a bottle of Moylans Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale. I have to tell you that I have not decided which of these beers I will choose… it’ll be a game time decision. It is also possible that I will decide on something completely different. That’s what is nice about having a variety of beers to choose from; I can choose to drink whichever one I want at the time.

Regardless of what you choose to eat this weekend or what beer, wine or whatever you choose to pair it with, choose to share the experience with family and friends. This American national holiday is the only one that happens during the summer and I plan to take full advantage of that and the great weather in store for us this weekend. As a reminder to all of you, please make this a safe weekend as well… no drinking and driving and be careful with those fireworks! A happy 4^th to all of you…

Over the years I have found that some similar principles can apply to a brewer’s creativity in beer making… brewing beer and then adding some other ingredient(s) to the beer to go “with-it”; just to make it tasty and interesting. Let me start this off by giving you an example. Earlier this week I was making an all too infrequent visit to one of favorite local beer haunts, the Three Penny Taproom here in Montpelier, and had the chance to revisit a beer that I had tasted before, but never from the tap… Dieu du Ciel Route des Épices. This beer is slightly unusual because it is flavored with both green and black peppercorns. The pepper flavor and spiciness is particularly strong in the finish and I really enjoy this beer. Scott Kerner, one of TPT’s owners, and I had a brief, but very enthusiastic conversation about how good this beer would pair up with a juicy roast beef, pastrami or (even better!) a Montreal smoke meat sandwich. The addition of the peppercorns, while not your average beer additive, created a unique and tasty combination; in other words, the “with-it” really makes the beer for me in this case.

Don’t get me wrong, I also like beer which has been brewed traditionally, even those that would conform to the old and very strict German Beer Law of “reinheitsgebot”. I just find it occasionally interesting to have a beer with a little something extra or different to add some variety for me. As I am sure many of you would agree, life is just way too short to drink boring beer!

There are many other common examples of non-standard beer additives which bring new and interesting flavors to beer. Everyone is familiar with the fall seasonal pumpkin beers that appear every year. I wrote an article (Pumpkin Ales – A Sign of the Season) last fall about some of these beers that I had been drinking. The three beers of this type are but a few of the dozens of this type available mostly in the fall, but some are available all year.

There is a great variety of other common “with-it” beer ingredients. Many of these beers used to be made seasonally, but in today’s global economy, a brewer does at least have the choice to use imported, rather than local “with-its”, to produce the beer off-season if they wanted to. Some examples include:

• Cherries – Typical examples of the use of these would be in the krieks (cherry Lambics), such as Cantillon Lou Pepe Pure Kriek and Lindemans Kriek. Another example, this time a cherry ale, would be Unibroue Quelque Chose. Not necessarily unusual because it is a cherry ale (there are many of those), but much more so for the fact that it is traditionally served HOT!  I have tried it both ways (hot and cold) and each holds some merit… either way it is a truly excellent example of a “with-it” beer.
• Raspberries – Examples of these would be in the Frambois (raspberry Lambics), such as Dieu du Ciel Solstice dÉté aux Framboises and Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise. John Kimmich, artisan brewer at The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury, VT, makes a gluten-free “with-it” beer called Alchemist Celia Framboise. This beer, by the way, won a gold medal at the GABF in 2009.
• Apicots – Examples of these would be Magic Hat #9 and everyone’s favorite, Dogfish Head ApriHop.

There are some truly unusual beers that combine one or more exotic (bizarre?) ingredients to produce sometimes spectacular “with-it” results. Again, not an exhaustive listing, but some examples within my experience base:

• Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu is one of the more unusual beers that I have had lately. It represents the brewer’s interpretation of a 9,000 year old beer “recipe” and includes rice, honey, grapes and hawthorn fruit as it’s “with-its”. This all combined to produce a beer that was a bit too sweet for my preferences, but extremely unusual none the less.
• Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale is brewed using the same red rice that the Kiuchi Brewery uses to make the saki that they also sell. The beer is light red in color with a pink head and has the fruity sourness that you would expect to find in a fine saki. Beer with a most unusual “with-it” indeed.
• Rock Art Jasmine Pale Ale is a pale ale brewed with jasmine and other herbs. I can’t say that it was my favorite, just a bit too flowery for me, but it is the only beer that I have had with jasmine as it’s “with-it”.
• Magic Hat Wacko is made with some beet sugar and real beet extract. It was a pale red in color with a pink head. You could not specifically identify the beets in the flavor profile, but there was something “with-it” that made it very different than most beers I have had.

Beer is an amazingly diverse, globally produced product. Each geographical region and ethnic culture that produces beer, does so in a slightly different way. Sometimes those differences are a result of different local ingredients, production techniques and in some cases what is included along “with-it”. For me, just like the eating habits that I developed early in my life, some of the pleasure I derive from drinking beer is in trying new and different ones… I crave the variety that the beer market can bring me. Sometimes the extras that come along “with-it” can really make a huge difference to me. Find your own favorite “with-it”; seek out some beer that breaks the mold of what is considered “traditional” and I think that you’ll agree that that short journey outside of normalcy was well worth the trip!

As any good coach would, I have begun to think seriously about what the day’s lineup will consist of; the match-up of the beers and the snacks that will come into play during the game. My wife, a staunch Patriots fan, will be handling the snacks lineup and I, of course, will handle the beer selections. While planning ahead is good, keep in mind that some of the players in either list may actually end up being game time decisions, as there is a good variety of both snacks and beers that could participate in the event.

Up until recently, I have simply enjoyed drinking beer simply for the beer itself; never really taking into account the event, surroundings or the food that I would be eating when choosing what beer to imbibe. A number of recent articles I have read, including two really good ones by my Hop Press colleague Steph Weber (Pairing With Pizza and Beer School: Beer and Food Pairing – The Basics), have got me thinking about the relative importance of what beer (or type of beer) gets paired with what food. I am definitely not one of those snobby types about the beer that I drink… there are clearly situations when a Bud Light seems like the most appropriate beer for me to be drinking and I do enjoy it when that happens. As I begin to explore the world of beer/food pairings, I am certain that I will maintain the same open mindedness about making those selections. I like good beer and I like good food, so it should not be that difficult to come up with some combinations of the two which add to the overall experience, if I choose to consciously make that type of connection. I have decided that the annual event on Sunday, because of the fact that a variety of food and snacks will be available throughout the day, would be the perfect opportunity to begin to explore this topic.

As I said before, the actual snack lineup is still up in the air until game time, but I have a rough idea of the potential players. I thought that it would be fun to run down the potential list of those snacks and consider which beers in my fridge might go well with each of them. I just visited one of my favorite beer stores (the Beverage Warehouse in Winooski, VT) last week, so I have a wide variety of different beers to choose from… you’ll hear more about the Beverage Warehouse in a future article of mine. You should know that I have not yet tasted the beers listed in the pairings below and that, of course, will add to the excitement and intrigue as I move through the day. My pairings are simply based on the styles of the beers I have selected coupled with the reviews of my fellow Ratebeerians who have already sampled these beers.

The Potential Line Up:

• Salsa and Chips – A favorite snack for me, though because my wife will share it with me, I can’t make it as hot as I would like it. I have selected Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, a traditional ale, to have with this snack.
• Chips and Dip – We like the old standby, onion dip and potato chips. The hops and bitterness of the Rogue Mogul Madness should help cut through the saltiness of the chips and creaminess of the dip.
• Cheese and Crackers – We keep a variety of snacking cheeses in the house. I am a “chilihead” as well as a hophead, so one of my favorite snack cheeses is Cabot’s Habanero Cheddar, which can be pretty spicy. The hoppiness of the Nørrebro North Bridge Extreme as well as its higher alcohol content should go well with this fav of mine.
• Buffalo/Hot Wings – My wife and I differ on our heat level preference for this snack, but mine will be spicy (as I can stand them) and the Flying Dog Raging Bitch should go well with them.
• BBQ Pork Ribs – My wife’s BBQ sauce is both sweet and spicy and the Brewdog Chaos Theory should work fine with these excellent (yummy!) ribs
• Veggie Pizza – We make our pizza from scratch with yeast dough fresh from the local deli and a variety of vegetables in the tomato-based topping. Duvel with its bready yeasts and fruity esters should enhance the flavor of one of my favorite foods.
• Brownies – Chocolaty and chewy with chocolate chips, they should go nicely with the flavors of Cisco’s Captain Swains Extra Stout

Regardless of which of these foods I actually end up eating on Sunday, I am sure not to go hungry. Choosing a beer to have with each of them that will complement and enhance the experience of having them together should prove to be an interesting experiment; one which I am definitely looking forward to.