Dinner at Home

After a week of dining out, it sure was nice to stay in and enjoy a home-cooked meal. Actually, tonight was the second such. It was also nice to enjoy a combination of fancy limited-release commercial goodies, homework beer, and especially homebrew.

Dinner was a cold salad of orzo with baby spinach, grilled red pepper, chevre, and black olives, with some grilled marinated baby octopus. To wash it down, Victory's Wild Devil, which is Hop Devil fermented with some Brettanomyces in the mix. If you like Ommegeddon, or Les Deux Brasseurs, you will like this one. The Brett character adds an extra refreshing snap to the beer, perfect for a hot summer night.

Somewhere in there, we broke out a homework beer, St. Peters Sorgham Ale. Yes, they spell the name funny, though they spell the ingredient itself correctly. This was eminently drinkable, pale gold in color, fairly hoppy- a rather beery beverage. One of the better gluten-free beers we've tried.

Dessert was a homebrewed Pale Old Ale and some Mclelland mature Scottish cheddar. The POA was brewed about 6 months ago from Marris Otter pale ale malt and Goldings hops to an original gravity of 1.070, and 43 (calculated) BUs. The beer was produced much like a Scottish ale, with a long, vigorous kettle boil from the time the first wort was collected. The resulting beer has a rich, creamy, caramelly malt character, with a curranty nosefull of hops. Paired up with a tangy, fatty Cheddar, it's mighty fine. We'd probably still be out by the fire sipping one more if the skeeters would allow it....