Posts Tagged ‘beer’
Super Bowl XLVI Grub & Pub Round Up
Posted by Sally Traynham / Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Get pumped for Super Bowl XLVI, Sunday’s rematch between the epic teams that faced off in 2008. Whether you are a Pat’s fan or represent NY and the Giants, we have the inside scoop on the best food and drink deals for the big game.
Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse, for the big screen experience in comfy chairs and tableside service.
Capitol City Brewing Company, for handcrafted beer.
Clare & Don’s Beach Shack, for an all you can eat buffet. ($15 pp)
Crystal City Sports Pub, for a Super Bowl themed menu. ($35 pp, reservations required)
Glory Days Grill, for burgers, wings and BBQ.
The Green Turtle, for Super Bowl giveaways.
Hard Times Café, for traditional football fun.
Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern, for football pool prizes and 50-cent wings.
Kalypso’s Sports Tavern, for $2 Miller Lite Drafts.
Kilroys Restaurant & Sports Bar, for nachos, wings and pizza.
Murphy’s Irish Pub, for the true Patriot experience.
Polo Grill Restaurant, for 35-cent wings and $2 Bud Lights and Miller Lights.
Velocity Five, for tvs galore.
Virtue Feed & Grain, for a “souper” bowl between New England and Mahattan chowders while watching the game.
Whitlows on Wilson, for the big screen and beer specials.
Wildfire, for a big game buffet. ($45 pp)
Photo by: Shutterstock/Steve Cukrov
[tips for the food desk]
5 New Ways to Food on Valentine’s Day
Posted by Sally Traynham / Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
The stress of Valentine’s Day may be looming on your shoulders as February kicks off tomorrow. This year, plan ahead and avoid the craziness of Valentine’s Day goers looking to drop loads of cash on fancy dinners.
Instead, stay in, simplify life and enjoy the evening with your loved one by doing something different than selecting items off the traditional prix-fixe menu.
Need Ideas? Here’s my list:
1 . Have a Movie Night with a Kicked-Up Snack.
Customize a movie list for the perfect evening with you and your beaux, but don’t forget the popcorn. Because you are not eating out this year, splurge by making some truffle butter. Buy some truffle salt and sprinkle it over perfectly popped and buttered popcorn. [William Sonoma - truffle salt]
2. Pack a Picnic.
Since Mother Nature can’t make up her mind, this year might be a perfect year for a picnic at sunset. However, even if you decide to take the party inside and enjoy the warm fire, open up that blanket and indulge in a spread that includes wine, food and sweet treats. [World Market - cozy blankets]
3. Taste New Beers and Wines.
If beer and wine is your thing, set up an at-home, customized tasting for the evening. Try a few glasses from new breweries or vineyards and pair them with chocolate or cheese. [The Hour Shop - modern glassware/barware]
4. Dip Strawberries.
Nothing is more delicious and sexy than a chocolate dipped strawberry. Buy strawberries and dark and white chocolate at the store and set up a strawberry dipping bar. Eat them right away or let them set up and feed them to each other after dinner for an exceptionally sexy Valentine’s Day. [Frans Cake & Candy Supplies - tools for dipping strawberries]
5. Make S’mores.
Cozy up around a fireplace or an outdoor grill and roast marshmallows that will sandwich perfectly in between two graham crackers and some dark chocolate. [The Dairy Godmother - homemade marshmallows]
Photo: Shutterstock/bonchan
[tips for the food desk]
Hungry for Linkage: Paula Deen Is Irresponsible, Lyon Hall Named Top Beer Bar, Perfect Bacon
Posted by Stefanie Gans / Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Lyon Hall named top 100 beer bar in US. [DRAFT Magazine]
Speaking of, vote for your favorite beer bar, beer retailer and brewery. [NVM]
The irresponsibility of Paula Deen’s diabetes announcement. [NY Post via Eater]
Gluten-free bakery Happy Tart opened in Del Ray. [DelRayPatch]
A vegan learns to butcher. [The Salt]
When to use house-made or homemade? Debate starter. Answer still needed. [The Daily Beast]
How to make perfect bacon. Done and done. [Macheesmo]
Photo by Stefanie Gans, Society Fair opened this weekend.
Posted by Lorin Drinkard / Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Happy hour is coming early this week. / Photo courtesy: Shutterstock/Fer Gregory
Well hello there! You’ve made it to Tuesday – after a long weekend/holiday, that’s always a tough feat to accomplish. We’d like to applaud you for braving the wintery weather, early morning monsooning and general work-related absurdity.
Feel like having some fun yet?
Make your calendar – Capital City Brewing will be tapping two casks tomorrow night in Shirlington. The featured seasonal beers are the Lil’ Black IPA, a very hoppy, toned down malt brew, and the Waffle Brown, a mapley syrup, rich-tasting “breakfast in a glass” beer.
The Cap City in-house brewers will be milling about, answering questions and talking about the brews all night, plus $5 appetizers and additional drink specials going throughout the event.
Capital City Brewery
The Village at Shirlington
4001 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, VA
703-578-3888
www.capcitybrew.com
When: Wednesday, Jan. 18th
HH: 6 to 10 pm
Price: $5 apps
– Lorin Drinkard
Hungry for Linkage: Chicken Farming, Murder Mystery Dinner and Pork Belly Dancer
Posted by Stefanie Gans / Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
Should backyard chicken raising be allowed in Arlington? Reserve your spot at the meeting tonight at Marymount University. [Committee of 100 via ARLNow.com]
Elevation Burger closes. Partying ensues. [Clarendon Culture]
After your vegetable fill, join the carnivores at Meat Week. Yup, Meat Week, with stops in DC and NoVA. [Meat Week]
Enjoy draft beer from your own fridge by filling up a growler at these local bars and breweries. [MtVernonPatch]
Another chain restaurant in Ballston. [ARLnow.com]
NoVA Mag Dining Intern Wanted, Yo. [CL]
Photo by Stefanie Gans, vegetable don at Yoko Sushi
[tips for the food desk / follow @gansie]
Posted by Eunice / Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
Cask Ales Call to Beer Connoisseurs
By Kris King
Fer Gregory/shutterstock.com
In most corners of America, the iconic image of a beer is a frosty brew served ice cold and overflowing with a frothy, bubbly head. Order a beer in Northern Virginia, and nine times out of 10 that’s what you’ll get. Increasingly, though, bars in the area consider themselves “real beer bars” and are offering up an alternative: cask-conditioned ale, or “real ale,” as purists like to call it.
Cask-conditioned beers are stored in wooden casks, called firkins, and pumped into the glass manually in lieu of CO2, which draws kegged beer from its metal shell. The result is a beer that’s lightly carbonated and cellar cool (about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than kegged beers).
Cask was the primary vehicle for delivering beer until bottling and kegging technology took over in the last 200 years or so, and since then casks have fallen out of favor with most bar owners and beer drinkers.
However, over the past couple of years cask ales have made a resurgence among craft beer hounds, a trend that’s trickled into the beer bar scene. Pop into any of Northern Virginia’s craft beer spots, and you’re likely to find at least one cask brew on tap. “In this day and age, to be a real beer bar or a tap house, I think the expectation is to have a cask ale of some sort on tap,” Mad Fox Brewing Company founder Bill Madden estimates.
Casks have popped up all across NoVA in places like Vintage 50 (Leesburg), Fire Works Pizza (Leesburg, Courthouse) and Rustico (Ballston, Del Ray).
Greg Engert, the Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s resident beer guru, was the driving force behind the five casks on tap at D.C.’s Birch & Barley. He does not, however, agree with Madden’s assessment of cask ales making the beer bar. “I think being a beer bar is so much more than just carrying something,” Engert tells us. “It’s the day-to-day updates of the menu, the staff education that educates your customer, and the experience that you create around the beers rather than saying that you just have them.”
Can’t get enough of cask-conditioned brews? The debate continues at: www.northernvirginiamag.com/crazyforcasks.
(December 2011)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Remember this?
The teenage trio of brotherly heartthrobs ruled the late ’90s with MMMBop.
What did “MMMBop” mean, anyway? It’s about to be 2012 and I still don’t know.
But the Hanson brothers, now in their late 20′s and early 30′s are coming out with a more mature, more practical hit. It’s called MmmHop … and, yes, that “hop” means beer.
This is breaking news, folks!
While shamefully humming “MMMBop” in your head, wouldn’t you love to be sipping on a nice, strong and hoppy beer made by none other than Zac, Taylor and Isaac Hanson?
Grown-up Hanson-fans-turned-beer-lovers, unite!
You can read the full report here.
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Image: Eireann/Shutterstock
The Christmas season is also the tastiest season!
Virtue Feed & Grain, the comfortable escape to tasty morsels, beer inspired ‘hoptails,’ big screens and vintage arcade games is prepared to provide the classic backdrop for the holidays.
Decorated with hanging Christmas trees (kissing under trees is better than kissing under mistletoe), sparkling Christmas lights, and reefs on many walls, the decorations are only a precursor for the seasonal beer list that will feature a different holiday beer everyday from now leading up to Christmas. (Stay tuned to Facebook/Twitter for announcements.)
Pastry Chef Rebekka Baltzell’s special creations for the holiday season include a Chocolate Candycane Cake, Guinness Gingerbread Cake and White Chocolate Eggnog Mousse.
New Year’s Eve at Virtue Feed and Grain:
For New Years, the restaurant will be serving the full menu, including Feast Specials of Lobster, Prime Rib, and Whole Suckling Pig. There will be a midnight toast alongside the dropping of the ball on the big screen.
– Jennie Whistler
Evening Star Café Re-Opens TODAY!
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Out of the loop on Evening Star Café?
The 15-year old restaurant in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria has been closed for the past month while undergoing fun and communal renovations. Today, December 8, the restaurant re-opens with a revamped look, new menu and new chef Jim Jeffords.
Doors open to the neighborhood today to reveal a refurbished space — original wooden banquettes still line the walls, but a new center with bold blue, plush benches boost the seating capacity to 60. New lighting and artwork by local artist Rick Singleton brings a retro feel with old junk turned into new art, in particular, an old Erector set that hangs the lights from the original ceiling in the dining room.
If you look around the restaurant, you’ll notice small vintage details from unique light fixtures made out of old metal to the trophy display on the back wall of the Majestic Lounge bar (the trophies were donated by community members and date back to 1901).
A light fixture made out of vintage jars hangs over the Majestic Lounge's bar.
As a matter of fact, everything about the renovation process has involved the community, from old trophy donations to a yard sale to sell the old furnishings from the pre-renovated restaurant, to a cocktail-naming night that will take place a couple weeks after today’s opening.
The Evening Star menu still features classic-meets-modern American comfort food, but with a more Southern tone. The back bar (dubbed “The Majestic Lounge”) now features 30 bottles of craft beer, 19 draft beers — served from 1950s vintage refrigerators — and one cask, which will feature local brews and rotate constantly. The bar will be serving original cocktails, including “The Hipster,” made with mezcal, chipotle peppers and PBR. You can also order any bottle of wine from Planet Wine next door with your meal.
The kitchen gets cookin’ today for dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. — and it sure isn’t going anywhere for a while.
The Evening Star Café is located at 2000 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria (703-549-5051). Visit www.eveningstarcafe.net for more information.
-Julia Harbo
Port City Beer Meets RedRocks Pizza
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Tonight from 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Beer? Check. Pizza? Check. Awesome? CHECK.
Go out to RedRocks Pizza Napoletana in Old Town Alexandria TONIGHT for fun, food and beer! Join them to celebrate Alexandria’s own Port City Brewery and RedRocks Pizza.
Port City founder Bill Butcher will be there to showcase his fine selection of draft beers, accompanied by samplings of RedRocks famous Neapolitan pizza, small plates, charcuterie and dessert!
Port City Brewing Company is an innovative brewer of top-quality beers right in the heart of Old Town Alexandria. A new craft brewery, they take great pride in producing locally crafted ales for the DC and Mid Atlantic market. If you haven’t tried it yet, tonight is the perfect time to sample their IPA, Pale Ale, Witbier, and Porter.
Beer and pizza: possibly the best combination since peanut butter and jelly.
Tonight, December 1, 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at RedRocks Pizza Napoletana in Old Town. Admission is $35 pp + gratuity.
For more information or to make a reservation call (703)717.9873 or email info@redrocksoldtown.com.
RedRocks Pizza Napoletana – 904 King Street, Alexandria
– Jennie Whistler
