no more bedhead

Today had us laying about "Stowe Haus" for a while, then Laura joined us and we headed into Stowe proper. We took a back way that avoided all the traffic on Route 100, and as a bonus, featured a covered bridge!  The road that passed through the bridge was a dirt road, and I noticed that the road was actually better maintained than the asphalt streets back home.

The "back way" also had the advantage of coming out right by the place where we usually park.  Ellen and Laura took the kids into the post office to mail a postcard to our neighbor.  The kids were excited to see this, as they have never been in a post office before (or so they claim).  Still, the card was hand-cancelled, so they got to see that which is kind of cool.

We went to our regular stops at the Stowe Mercantile, which has all kinds of Vermont-related items, from food to beer to t-shirts to games and toys.  Ellen found some jelly made with Heady Topper beer, and picked that up. The sample that was out was made with a porter and that was pretty tasty, so I'm going to have to make some Bready Topper when we get home and see how the Heady Jelly tastes on it. (If it's good, we - and you - can order it from Potlicker Kitchen.)

I get tired of shopping easily, so while everyone was still in the mercantile (and the shops in the same building), I went outside to enjoy the sunshine and the view of downtown Stowe from a bench.  Found a friend, too:



As I was sitting there, I started to smell something good.  I looked up the street and could see what looked like some people setting up a large grilling device on the side of the road. Smoke poured out of it, and the smell was delicious.  As I looked more closely, something wasn't right. It almost looked like that smoke was coming out of a car. In fact, that car almost looked like an old-style Volkswagen Beetle.  I had to investigate.

I was right. Behold the Carbecue:


Apparently, they are in Maryland and Vermont. Ellen, Laura, and the kids found me there and Ellen lamented the fate of the Bug.  I thought it was brilliant!

We wandered around Stowe for a while longer, finally ending up back at the Carbecue. It was there for a small craft fair that was just getting under way, so we browsed through that on our way back to the car.  We did come across a great booth for Green Village Soap Co. [Etsy / Facebook], whose producst are similar to Lush's - natural products, goat's milk soaps, etc.  We got some charcoal-based soap to try when we get home, and Ellen got some deodorant that smells really nice.

One last shot from Stowe, presented without commentary:

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Bready Topper!



I made it. My experiment with beer bread has culminated in a loaf made with the best beer I have ever had - Heady Topper.  It came out almost perfect - maybe a skosh too long so the peaks in the crust were a little browner that I was shooting for.  But, the flavor is awesome!  Tastes just like the beer, with that rich, hoppy flavor to it. Definitely not one to make sandwiches with*, but a nice slab of bread washed down with a tasty beverage - yum!

* Now that I say that, I'm starting to wonder - would this be good with, say, corned beef?  Or would I make a stout bread for that?  Hmmm...I wonder what meat/cheese combo goes well with beer bread? I may have my next experiment!

I've been on a bread-baking kick this week. Somehow, I got the idea to make a Heady Topper bread. Heady Topper, brewed by The Alchemist, is, IMHO, the best beer ever. Allow me to say that I'm really not a hoppy beer enthusiast (give me a good strong porter or stout any day), but Heady hits you over the head with the hops.  And I like it - it works for me somehow.

Again, for some reason, I decided I wanted to make bread using Heady Topper. But, I didn't want to use a can until I knew that the recipe was going to work. (Heady is only available in Vermont, so I have a somewhat limited supply, that can only be refreshed on trips east.)  I did a quick search and found a beer bread recipe that looked promising, so I figured I try it out and get a good feel for it before I took a stab at the final goal.  I also thought that "testing the recipe" would be a good way to use up some of the, um, less-than-stellar beers that are just sitting here.

My first attempt was with a straight-up ale.  Figured I couldn't go wrong there.  I picked a bottle of Oberon Ale from Bell's Brewery.  Oberon is a Pale Wheat Ale that I gave a 2.5 star rating (out of 5*) on Untappd. Mixed it up, threw it in the oven, and an hour later had a really nice loaf of bread. Crispy crust, good flavor, tasted like bread.

Wanting to make a side-by-side comparison, I immediately made another loaf, this time using Abita Brewing Company's Turbodog.  Turbodog is a dark brown ale (that I rated 2.5 stars on Untappd).  Again, it produced a nice loaf of bread with a good taste.  The only difference really was that it was darker in color. I really didn't notice a difference in taste in my comparison.

The next day I thought I'd start moving toward my Heady goal, and I pulled out an Abita Jockamo IPA.  The Jockamo is an American Indian Pale Ale (wait, what?) and I actually enjoyed this offering from Abita, giving it 3.5 stars.  Still, this bottle went into the bowl.  What came out was pretty good. While I got the expected color difference from the other two loaves, what set this apart at first was the smell. It smelled like beer.  And not in that "down at the club, everyone has spilled their beer on the floor" kind of way. In a good way.  And, tasting it was great - it tasted hoppy.  There was a bitterness to the bread that was very unusual, yet satisfying.  This bodes well for the Heady bread (Bready?).

What's left of the IPA bread after one day. Nom, nom, nom!

In the meantime, I think I want to play around with the recipe some more. Maybe throw a stout at it to see how it reacts. Maybe try a smoked beer, or something unusual, just to see what happens.


*Heady Topper I rated a 5/5. I would have given it a 6.