The official date of the last post was July 31. It feels like yesterday since I made that post. It now comes down to the busy season and the most important of all seasons. Football season of course.
The incorporation of daily football reading into the already backlog of school work, work work, household minutia, and general relaxation time necessary to maintain sanity has not been easy. Some how we managed to work it in. Life is pretty tough. The kids don’t quite see it that way. I tell ’em it’s all about priorities.
With football reading occupying time the new BBQ blog has suffered. Here I was prepped to go hit all these BBQ joints and it just hasn’t worked out that way. Nor do I find the energy to scour the web for strange BBQ antics and adventures to comprise a weekly feature.
Fortunately the BBQ smoking hasn’t suffered as much as the writing. We managed to smoke two butts – almost 18lbs of pig – in the smoker last weekend. What a long story that could be. The ending was better than the beginning. The meat had a marvelous smoke ring and flavor to it. And the rub flavor penetrated more than butts previously.
The real highlight of the day were our friends Mark and Julie spending the better part of the evening with us. Not only are M&J fellow Auburn Alumni but they appreciate good beer. So we tried a couple of other Bell styles. Panovec inspired the procurement of Two Hearted Ale whose label reads: “India Pale Ale style well suited for Hemingway-esque trips to the Upper Peninsula. American malts and enormous hop additions give this beer a crisp finish and incredible floral hop aroma.” It’s a good beer! Try it out.
Bell’s Pale Ale was also added to the LAN fridge. However the real deals were brought over by M&J. After the pig consumption, Mark and I enjoyed a few bottles of Vapeur Brewery’s Cochonn. Given the beer’s mascot is a busty pig whose been sampling the brew in a very cold beer cooler, this beer was a hit before we tasted it. I got to tell ya it tasted as good as it looked and I can kick myself for not taking any pictures. At 9% alcohol, these were the last two bottles consumed on the evening and when I awoke the next morning I realized what a mothers milk is made of. (We’ve since purchased rubber nipples to slip over these bottles for our next go around).
Brewery St. Bernardus’ Abbey Ale Abt 12 was gifted for later consumption. It is sitting in the wine rack allowing the spiders to frolic around its happy monk. We may pop this open on 8/30 about the time Kodi Burns is running in for Auburn’s 9th TD of the first half in the season opener.
We leave you this morning with a pic from Wednesday’s hump night meal. It was chop night. One said “oink” the others said “Baaa.” We said “yum”. I threw on the pork first to get a good sear and the lamb followed to cook it enough that it would be served medium rare at the most. We moved the pork off the direct heat once the lamb went on.
It turned out great. We used just a little EVOO (gots to be first press), fresh ground pepper, kosher salt, and some rosemary for seasoning.
Yes, Two Hearted Ale accompanied my plate. Tracey polished off our Spanish red wine.
Enjoy the weekend. We have marvelous temps here now. Fall isn’t very far off. And neither is the real season.
