Brew Review: Halloween Edition!

Happy Halloween! It's one of my favorite holidays, and I am pretty excited. Although I am now and adult (and will probably consume a few adult beverages throughout the night), I still love to relive my childhood and use Halloween as an excuse to eat some of my favorite candies. This year, I decided to combine the two, and I compiled a list of the best Nebraska craft beers to pair with your leftover Halloween treats. This post was inspired an article from Craft Beer and Brewing titled “Craft-Beer Pairings for Halloween Candy.” Make sure you check out their original post for more great beer and candy combos. 

Caramel Candies: Luna Sea ESB- Empyrean Brewing Company

This sweet, yet crisp beer is the perfect brew to cut through all that sticky caramel.

Milk Chocolate: Buffalo Sweat Oatmeal Cream Stout- Tallgrass Brewing Company (Manhattan, KS)

 This one isn’t technically a Nebraska Brew, Buffalo Sweat Oatmeal Cream Stout pairs well with the sweetness and creaminess of milk chocolate.

Sour Gummies: New Zealand IPA- Zipline Brewing Company

This IPA is packed with citrus and fruity flavors and the bitterness of the beer can easily standup to the sweet and sour flavors of your favorite gummy candy.

Snickers: Nut Brown Ale- Zipline Brewing Company

Zipline’s Nut Brown isn’t as overtly sweet as other brown ales on the market, which makes it the ideal counterpart to a sweet and nutty Snickers bar.

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans: Espresso Porter- Modern Monks

If you’re looking for a little pick-me-up to get you through the night, this combination is definitely a winner.

Bonus: If you’re already looking forward to Thanksgiving, try Modern Monk’s Autumn Bomb Pumpkin Pie Ale. It has all the spices and flavors of a real pumpkin pie, so it's extra delicious. Almost as good as the real thing. 

Leave a comment and let me know your favorite candy/beer pairing. And whatever beverages you're consuming, have a safe and happy Halloween! 

Farnam House Brewing Company

Located in the heart of Omaha’s Midtown, Farnam HouseBrewing Company is one of the newest craft breweries to hit Nebraska. They opened their doors on June 30^th, 2014 and have been serving up hand crafted brews and delicious locally sourced food ever since.

Over the years, their building has housed everything from a fur retail and storage facility to a pizzeria, but, being located next to the infamous Beer Corner USA (home of Crescent Moon, Huber-Haus, Max & Joe’s, and Beertopia), it was only fitting that a craft brewery would find its home at 36^th and Farnam.

Last weekend I had the privilege of taking a tour with brewmaster Phil Doerr to see what goes on behind the scenes at Farnam House. The building’s surprisingly spacious basement is the perfect place to house all the brewing equipment, with plenty of room for potential expansion. Phil, who is a longtime home brewer, took me step by step through the brewing process. In addition to all their state of the art equipment, the basement at Farnam House is also home to a vintage bike, a disco ball, and several jugs of homemade cider. Although the cider won’t be available to the public this year, there is talk of brewing a cider/beer hybrid in the near future.

Upstairs they have 10 beers on tap ranging from the light Graetzer Smoked Polish Wheat to the dark and aptly named Taft American Stout. While I was there I tried the Farnam House Keller, the Oktoberfest, and the Hop Harvest Saison (which I would highly recommend). Although their beers aren’t available in stores, they do have growlers for sale at the bar so you can always take some home with you.

Keller and Pierogi

Farnam House is so much more than beer. Their food selection is unique and inventive, and I couldn’t wait to try some new dishes. Everyone I know who has eaten at Farnam House has raved about the pierogi, so I knew I had to try them. Let me tell you, I was not disappointed. Pierogi are a kind of potato dumpling with white cheddar cheese, creamed leeks, and little chunks of crispy bacon. So tasty. They were devoured in a matter of seconds. They also make giant soft pretzels out of the brewery’s spent grain, so that’s on the list for next time. They have so many tasty looking starters that you could easily fill up on apps and bar snacks, but they also have an impressive selection of entrees. Almost everything on their menu is made in house, from scratch. They frequently roll out specialty items, so keep an eye on their Facebook and Twitter feeds. Farnam House has great beer, delicious food, and is a great addition to the budding Nebraska beer scene.

To read more, check out this awesome review from last week’s Omaha World Herald.

Upcoming Events

There is always so much going on at the breweries around Nebraska. There’s no way I could get to all of these awesome events, but you might be able to! Here’s a list of some fun brewery activities coming up soon!

• Lucky Bucket in Omaha has tours Wed-Fri at 5:30 and Saturdays at noon, 1:30, and 3:00.  Only $3! All ages (21+ to drink) 

• Blue Blood Brewing Co. in Lincoln offers a free tour every Wednesday at 6pm and every Saturday at 2pm.

• The Nebraska Brewing Company Taproom in Omaha hosts “GeeksWho Drink” trivia every Tuesday night from 7-9. Free to enter! Win fabulous prizes (like free beer!)

• Nebraska Brewing Company is teaming up with Pizza West Thursday Oct. 23^rd for a Pizza and Beer tasting event. It sounds delicious. The event is only $8 and starts at 6:30. Attendance is limited so register here ASAP!

• Farnam House Brewing Company in Omaha is hosting a Huskers Game Day Bash this Saturday! Come watch the Huskers take on Northwestern at 6:30 with some awesome food and drink specials.

• Infusion in Benson has Bingo every other Thursday. There is one TONIGHT (the 16^th), October 30^th, and November 3^rd. Come out and win some Infusion swag 

• Infusion also hosts a Pub Quiz every other Tuesday at 8pm. The winner gets a $50 bar tab. The next few are on Oct. 21^st, Nov. 4^th, and Nov. 18^th.

• Infusion gives tours Tuesdays at 6 and 7:30 and Saturday at noon and 2. These tours are $5 per person and include free beer!

• Empyrean Brewing Co.’s next monthly brewery tour is Monday Nov. 3^rd at 7pm (but get there early!). This is a FREE event, and it’s the last one of the year, so don’t miss out! 

• Borgata Brewery and Distillery in downtown Omaha has tours Thursdays at 7, Fridays at 5 and 7, and Saturdays at noon, 2, and 4.

• Borgata is also hosting the Bricka-Ruse Barn Burner in Louisville on Friday! 8pm to Midnight. Tickets are $5 in advance and $10 at the door and are available at Borgata. Designated drivers get in FREE and will receive a free beer card for their next visit to the Borgata taproom.

If you know of an awesome brewery event that I forgot, make sure you leave it in the comment section. And check back later this week for a tour and review of Farnam House Brewing Company!

Brew Review: Empyrean Brewing Co.

As a follow up to my last post, here is a quick review of two Empyrean Brewing Company beers available in stores right now. Just in case you’re new to the world of beer, here’s a quick breakdown of a few key terms. ABV is Alcohol By Volume. This tells you how boozy your beer is. Pretty easy. IBU is a little more obscure. It stands for International Bittering Units and a beer’s IBU score helps tell you how bitter/hoppy a beer will be. Generally a low score on the IBU scale (like a 20) means that a beer is more mellow and a high score (like a 60) means that your beer is packing a lot of hops. Now we’re all up to speed. I am by no means a beer expert so I’ve given you the official description in addition to my own impressions for the following Empyrean beers.

Barrel Aged Big Old Red Ale

8% ABV    44 IBU

Their Take:

“Our Big Old Red Ale for 2014 was brewed in February and aged in a mix of rum and bourbon barrels for seven months. The ale is dark amber with ruby highlights. Waves of malt sweetness hit your palate first in this beer, caramel and smoke that twist into fruit flavors of apricot and fresh cherries. The wood and aging flavors finish the beer with a dry-oak character, hints of sherry, leather, rum and bourbon. Go Big Red!”

My Take:

This beer is super flavorful. It takes you off guard a little bit at first, but I’ve grown to appreciate the complexity. It tastes like a barrel in the absolute best way. This beer is from Empyrean’s ongoing “Carpe Brewem” small batch series. I would recommend snatching up the limited release Empyrean four-packs whenever you can. They are always unique, imaginative, and showcase craft brewing at its finest.

Food Pairing: Sharp cheeses and caramel desserts 

Aries Märzen Oktoberfest

5.3% ABV    28 IBU

Their Take:

“Smooth and bready sweet up front, with a clean, dry-herbal hop finish. In the tradition of the Bavarian Märzen beers of Germany, we cellar our fall lager in cool tanks for the length of the summer, producing an exceptionally clean-smooth flavor. With its pronounced malty “Vienna- bread” sweetness and herbal Nobel hop finish, there’s an Oktoberfest in every sip.”

My Take:

This is a pretty classic Oktoberfest beer. Very smooth, very drinkable. It isn’t as caramel heavy as some other Oktoberfest beers, which makes it really versatile when it comes to food. If you’re looking for a solid Oktoberfest that wasn’t made my Sam Adams, Aries is the way to go. Get it before it's gone!

Food Pairings: Pork dishes, slow-grilled meats, and bold cheeses 

Empyrean Brewing Company- Lincoln, NE

To begin my journey into the world of local brewing, I decided to go straight to the original source. Empyrean Brewing Company was founded in 1990, which makes it Nebraska’s oldest brewpub. On the first non-holiday Monday of each month, Empyrean opens its doors to the thirsty citizens of Lincoln for a unique and entertaining tour.

Since this was my first official brewery tour, I was not quite sure what to expect. I pulled up shortly before 7 and there was a line of people down the block. Only 150 people are allowed inside, but thankfully we were among the lucky few. Once the line started moving, we were issued a drink ticket with our group name and made our way inside.

The tour is broken down into two parts: the standing around part, and the actual tour part. Turns out the standing around part is just as much fun as the actual tour. Every person gets to enjoy two free Empyrean beers while waiting for their tour group to be called. In the waiting area, they have Beer Pong, Ping-Pong, and a game called Polish Horseshoes (or Frisbeener), which involves Frisbees and beer bottles perched on posts. Truth be told, I did get hit by a rogue Frisbee, but that was the only low point of the evening.

Since it’s October, this month’s Empyrean tour featured a variety of Oktoberfest beers. We were given samples of Hofbräu Oktoberfest, Spaten Oktoberfest, and Sam Adams Octoberfest. In addition to delicious beer samples, Empyrean’s operations manager Jim Engelbart served up some fun beer knowledge about the origins of Oktoberfest and why brown glass bottles are better for beer than green or clear bottles. The second leg of the tour featured Empyrean’s Aries Märzen Oktoberfest and Third Stone Brown, as well as a Q&A session with head brewer Rich Chapin. He gave us some insight into the company, a few tips on how to start home brewing, and his opinions on sour beers and the future of craft brewing.

This tour was an absolute blast. Every month’s tour has a different theme and features different specialty beers, so even if you’ve been on the tour before, it is well worth your time to check it out again. Next month’s tour is on November 3^rd and will feature “feasting beers” which are meant to compliment the upcoming holiday mega-meals. Make sure you check out their website and Facebook to stay up to date with special events and promotions, and check back here later this week for a review of some Empyrean Brewing Company beers.