Making Beet Kvass

I first heard about the wonder drink called Kvass at the Rootstalk festival in 2011, during a lecture on fermentation. I expected to learn more about yogurt, saurkraut, and kombucha, but never thought I'd learn about a liver cleansing fermented drink made with the mighty BEET!

Kvass can also be made with stale Rye bread, but I'm not going there now. Because it sounds kinda yucky. But Beet Kvass is a bubbly, salty-tangy, beautiful burgundy/purple drink full of proanthocyanadins (the colorful antioxidants in dark foods) and probiotics.  Beets are one of the best foods for the liver, and given what I've learned about fermented foods, the benefit must increase exponentially when beets are fermented!  I've heard that in Chinese medicine, foods colored like beets are superior for the blood, too.

There are lots of methods and variations to fermenting beets, but I've only done it one way.  It's called Lacto-Fermentation, and I got my basic instruction from Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions (it's awesome, get it here!), but I don't really use a recipe any more, because I like fooling around with it a bit.  It only takes 2 DAYS and you can make several batches with the same beets.

Here is what you need:

• 1 very large beet (I mean the biggest beet you've ever seen kinda big) or several regular size beets
• Quart size jar
• Sea Salt
• Whey (liquid strained from yogurt - DO NOT USE whey powder)
• Filtered/RO/Distilled water - DO NOT USE tap water

Here is what you do:

• Clean and trim the beets. You can skin it if you want but it's not necessary
• Chop or dice the beets, but don't shred or chop in a processor or blender - I keep them about the diameter of a nickel (further processing can make the beets turn to booze too quickly, something I definitely want to try at some point!)
• Put the cleaned, chopped beets in your jar
• Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of  sea salt over the beets
• Pour 2 tablespoons of whey into the jar
• Fill the jar with filtered, distilled, or RO water (don't use tap water) and stir
• Cap the jar tightly and let it sit for 48 hours

After 48 hours, take the lid off for a taste.  There may be a white foam or scum on the top, but I always just drink it, and it's never caused any problems. I think it's just from the fermentation process. At this point you can put it in the fridge and keep it there.  Sally Fallon recommends drinking 4 ounces in the morning and before bed.  That can be tough as the flavor is...very unique, and most of us are not accustomed to such strong tastes.  I've gotten quite used to it, so I enjoy it, but have had luck getting others to drink it when mixed with Kombucha.

It'll last a good long while in the fridge. Once you get down to having about 1/2 a cup of liquid in the bottom, just fill with filtered water and repeat the process. Each successive batch will be a little weaker, but still yummy and healthful.  I've done 3 batches with the same beets, and then you can eat the beets. They just taste pickled and people enjoy them. 

As my experience evolves, I'm sure I'll update or add more posts about this. But for now, this is a simple explanation of a simple way to get good nutrition into your body. Drink up!

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." ~Benjamin Franklin

Charlottesville, Virginia

We spent some in the South for Christmas with Candice's family this year, and of course we had to go to Charlottesville, the home of Thomas Jefferson to visit a dear friend and some good beer spots.

Charlottesville is situated in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian range. It's beautiful! We visited Monticello, and there learned that good ol TJ brewed his own beer, and grew grapes to make his own wine.

We stopped at a great little shop/restaurant called Beer Run, where you can find all kinds of obscure tasty beer delicacacies and grab a delicious panini at the same time.

Near Wintergreen Ski Resort we stopped by the Devil's Backbone, a cool brewery and restaurant in all kinds of good rustic garb.  Enjoy the pictures, we enjoyed the beer!

Fun with Beer!

Some pictures Ryan took, playin around with lenses and beer bottles.

Can you guess who this is?

Pacific Northwest Beer

Well, it's been a while since we've posted anything about beer, and hopefully I can remember some good details about our trip to Oregon last month.  We flew up to Eugene and then rode to Salem for a truly amazing festival about plants and people, called Rootstalk, put on by Mountain Rose Herbs.  Having lived in Oregon for a few delightful years, I was really excited to show Ryan my famous favorite beer, Ninkasi.  Sorry for having no pictures...words will have to do.


Ninkasi is crafted in Eugene, Oregon, and the company is a huge supporter of Cascadia Wildlands, a non profit working to educate and advocate for protection of Old Growth forests in the Cascadia bioregion.  Cascadia was also the beneficiary of Rootstalk, and anyway we got our first Ninkasi Tricerahops Double IPA at the Cascadia Wildlands office.  By the time we got to drink it though, it was warm and not as refreshing as we hoped, but still good.  Next time though, we have to spend some time at the Ninkasi tasting room because we didn't get enough of it to write the review it deserves.

Next beer on our list was at the festival.  Oakshire Brewing is also a Eugene crafted brew, and this was the first time we'd had it. Wow!! They made a special batch of herbal ale with over 14 herbs.  They also had a delicious Overcast Espresso Stout and and the tasty Watershed dry hopped IPA. We had a lot of this stuff during our 4 day stay at the camp, and really want to visit their brew pub (I think they have one) the next time we go to Oregon.

After the fest we spent a day urban hiking around Eugene, and of course made our way to the Eugene City Brewery, which is a ROGUE operation. OMG! Well any person who claims to truly love beer absolutely also truly loves Rogue beer.  We tried so many delicious beers there, including the Chatoe Rogue First Growth Wet Hop Ale, brewed with hops grown on the Rogue farm...I don't honestly even remember what else we tried but the Juniper ale (duh).  But their taps were impressive, I'm guessing around 30 or so delicious brews from which to choose.  Highly recommend Rogue, all the time, to any one, of course. Our bar tender was super nice, and gave us a whole stack of beer publications and brew tour info...We're still enjoying reading it, and are really excited when we try something new at a pub and then go home and see it in one of our magazines.

After our time in Eugene I headed up to Vancouver, BC for some good times with my best friend.  I got to try a few local Canadian beers, but no matter what anyone says, I did not have a single Canadian micro brew that was stronger than its American counter part (according to style of beer).  I still enjoyed it, and my favorite was the Granville Island Ginger Beer.  An actual alcoholic ginger beer, first time for me, and damn was it good!  The disappointing thing about Granville was the brewery tour was full, and they only had a tasting room so you couldn't buy more than 12 ounces of beer.  Never heard of such a  weird thing!

I'm primarily a big fan of the Pale and India Pale Ales, and the Canadian pales just weren't bitter enough for me.  I was surprised that while there I favored the local lagers, and fruity ales.  Granville's False Creek Raspberry Ale was surprisingly yummy, and I don't even like raspberries! Whistler's Bear Paw Honey Lager was pretty good, and mild, and very sessionable.

All in all, the Pacific Northwest is a great place to get beer, in case you didn't know. 

Prescott, Arizona

Brewery and Art Fair/Market

After a couple of days of building new porch steps for a friend who lives in Prescott, we decided we needed to get AT LEAST one round from the local brewery.  We love Prescott Brewing Company.  Their beers are full of flavor and good cheer.  Every time I go there I am impressed and surprised, especially with their seasonal brews, but even by those I've had before.  I think you can get a couple of their beers in 6 packs at beer shops in the valley...but NOTHING compares to fresh out tha keg.

So we started.  Me with a Bumbleberry Ale, Ryan with an Achocalypse Stout. Holy Cow! First of all, the Bumbleberry is the best fruity beer I've ever had.  After a long day in the sun, it was a perfect summer thirst quencher.  It wasn't too sweet, it still tasted like ale, and it had a great color.  Yummy! And then there comes the Achocalypse.  Well.  Chocolate beer can be hit or miss for me, but this is definitely beer for the apocalypse.  It's delicious flavors of chocolate and hints of coffee go down in thick stouty goodness.  Of course we had to taste all the beers they had available. And a couple of rounds later...we decided we needed to sit in the park across the street for a while before leaving town.

Of course, we had to go back to the Brewery to pay our tab (yea they were that nice, but they had a ransom) and pick up our growler of Achocalypse.  So we decided we would play things by ear and make it home to the Valley eventually.  We had another round, decided to take lots of pictures, conversed with local beer enthusiasts, and ate some food. 

Bumbleberry Ale

We left and decided to do some cartwheels and tumbles in the park, which after 3 beers is pretty entertaining and difficult.  For a long while we pondered staying in Prescott for the night, or making our long way home, or just staying up all night to see what would happen.  A blend is what we found.  Meanwhile, we headed to Jersey Lilly Saloon (where we drank Stella) a new one for us,

local view

and the owner let us go behind the bar to get our picture with the shelf and old time cash register. Priceless, eh?

After Jersey Lilly's, we were referred a few blocks down to a place that we quickly loved. It was a two part kind of place - indoors there was a nice long bar with a side room holding a few pool tables, and outdoors was another bar with tiki sort of huts all around. Well we each ordered a beer, I think he got Moose Drool and I got Black Butte Porter, and they handed each of us two! Little did we know it was 2 for 1 night, so then and there we realized we had best find a hotel or hostel cuz we weren't leavin any time soon. Unfortunately I do not remember the name of this bar...it's on Whiskey Row though, but I know I can find my way there again next time I'm in Prescott.

So if you want some Wild West kind of fun where all the locals are extremely friendly, the weather is awesome, and the downtown is fit for any kind of hanging out, head to Prescott. Stay the night, and if you're hangover isn't too intense there is some killer mountain biking, hiking, and exploring all pretty nearby.  Or check out the antique shops.  Whatever you do, enjoy the brew!

Prescott Sunset

Beer in Bisbee, AZ

I think the inaugural post for this blog appropriately should be about one of the best beer drinking trips we've been on in a long, long time.  Quite possibly the best trip we've ever had together that pretty much revolved around our favorite things: Beer, and new old towns.

About a week ago we took an impromptu day trip to the little mountain town of Bisbee, Arizona, about a 3.5 hours drive from the Phoenix metropolis.  It's a mining town situated just north of the Mexican border, in beautiful high altitude setting.  We had our eyes set on visiting Dave's Electric Brewery, first and foremost, and planned on an urban hike around town only after having a few beers in the town where they're made (Dave's Electric now has an outpost in Tempe, near ASU).

Old Bisbee Brewing - Tap House on Left, Brew House on Right

We pulled into Old Bisbee with its beautiful architecture and eccentric style, and driving down a very narrow road our first sight was the Old Bisbee Brewery - we hopped out of the cars and Victor, the co-owner and one of the brew masters quickly noticed our enthusiasm and gave us the grand tour.  State of the art equipment and a quaint tap house where the guests settle in next to the stainless steel holding tanks proved our day was off to a great start. The best thing? We didn't even know Old Bisbee Brewery existed! What a delightful surprise. We had the sampler of course, and then moved on to an IPA and the Mountain Lime Hefe, which was refreshing and impressive.

After the Brew pub we walked around this awesome town, up and down hills, past some very interesting establishments and city art, including the bark park, a painted car, and property walls full of decorative glass...like this here keg.

Then we stopped by St. Elmo's, a local dive bar where the keep didn't seem too fond of tourists, but a Stella is a Stella no matter where you go.  The decor shouted of the olden days, and despite our rude host, we enjoyed the glimpse into the past (and present) of this great town.

We decided to go in search of Dave's Electric tap house. Well, we drove and drove, and asked and asked, and eventually we found the brewery. Unfortunately, the tap house closed a year or so ago.  Almost in despair we moaned a bit about what to do, and decided to mozey on down to the VFW (Veteran's of Foreign Wars) to see what it was about.  With perfect synchronicity we met Frank, the Chief Commander of the Bisbee VFW, who unlocked the door and opened the cooler to our hearts.

Frank is awesome. He runs a great bar that hosts parties and recitals, and the VFW serves all the men and women who serve our country.  Ryan signed up for a membership and we got to meet some of the folks who help run the place. They were welcoming, friendly, and kept the juke box full of credits.  5 Budlights later we found our way back to Old Bisbee where we decided we just couldn't yet leave, and got a room at the Hotel le Mor. Thank you Rocky!

As evening settled and storm clouds formed, we found another local dive under a hotel, and unfortunately I can't remember the name.  Here we finally had some Dave's Electric, and after telling our bartender of our search for the DE tap house, she told us Electric Dave was indeed sitting just several stools down the bar from us.  We had a brief chat, and realizing he wasn't crazy about tourists either, we went back to our seats and talked to our new philosopher friend. We got some thunder and lightning and a few sprinkles, then headed back to seedy St. Elmo's for the much loved PBR and interesting entertainment.

All in all, Bisbee is a great place for beer - whether it's micro or macro you prefer.  It's also a great place for people to meet, to enjoy each other, and to have deep conversations about life and love, while sitting in a city park with a cold one in your hand at 2am. 

If you like mountains, Earth tones, brew pubs, heroes, and eccentricity, Bisbee is a place high on our list for a day trip or a week long vacation.