Cheese and Beer at Churchkey

I love restaurants with a little specialty focus, especially when that specialty is beer.  I have heard a lot of great things about Churchkey's beer menu, so I decided it was time to try it out (along with some food!).

Churchkey is the upstairs, scaled-down version of it's sister restaurant Birch and Barley.  It's more of a pub/bar scene with simple, low-key food.  The seating is first come, first serve at Churchkey so if you want to get a seat without waiting, I recommend you show up early as the place fills up quickly on a weekend.  The layout is open and spacious with low lighting, deep, rich red walls, and large butcher tables next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street.  It definitely has a cool, hip vibe.  Wear your trendy hat, you'll need it.

The beer menu at Churchkey is a book.  Seriously, it's about 20 pages.  19 more than the food menu.  And the draft menu is 2 pages.  They even include on the beer menu what type of glass the beer is served in (e.g., tulip) and the temperature at which the beer is served.  It can be a little overwhelming.  So I focused on the draft menu.  After much deliberation, I selected DC Brau's The Rider.  It was hoppy with a little Belgian flavor, absolutely delicious.

To accompany our beer, we opted for a few appetizers from the menu -- the disco fries and the mac and cheese sticks.

Meat and cheese on fries... oh my!

The disco fries were hands-down, the best fry basket I've ever had... the cheese and sausage gravy topping could have gone terribly wrong (think goopy cheese whiz mess) and it didn't.  It rocked.  Or rather "discoed." It was just the right balance of saucy topping on the fries and was DELICIOUS!  

Mozzarella sticks, but with mac and cheese... interesting

The mac and cheese sticks were good as well, a light crispy outside with yummy mac and cheese on the inside.  The mac and cheese could have been a little more creamy on the inside (maybe add a layer of cheese on top of the mac inside the crispy shell?) but generally, it was darn tasty!

More cheese please!

Since I clearly had not met my cheese quota for the evening, I went for the grilled cheese sandwich for dinner.  The truffled grilled cheese sandwich was gooey and creamy with a smooth truffle flavor to accompany the cheese.  It was served with a side of tomato soup dip, which really didn't do anything for me.  It was a cool idea, but I think it should be a little more creamy and light for dipping the sandwich. It sorta just tasted like pureed tomatoes to me.  The hand-made potato chips were crispy but a little bland.  They could definitely benefit from some salt or malt flavoring.  It was a good dinner, but it could have been a little more flavorful.

Overall, the beer at Churchkey is fantastic - great seasonal selection and so many options to choose from.  The food was good as well but, you can tell Churchkey spends more time on their beer menu than their food menu (there's only so many hours in the day!).  I believe my man over at the Midnight Raver Blog (who joined us for dinner) summed it up best "This shit is goooooooo.....D, man!"  He's so articulate.... 

  

Oktoberfest Beer

Today is the first day of October and the last week of Oktoberfest -- a 16-day festival celebrating beer in Germany.  In honor of Oktoberfest, we held a little Oktoberfest beer taste test competition this past weekend (and we had some extra time on Friday to go to Total Wine). 

Since this was not my idea, I got to relax as my husband prepped the competitors for the main event.  Bonus.  There were six beers entered in the race: 

• Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest-Marzen
• Spaten Oktoberfestbier Ur-Marzen
• Paulaner Oktoberest-Marzen
• Weihenstephaner Oktoberfestbier
• Harpoon Octoberfest Beer
• Dominion Octoberfest Maerzen

Reminded me a little bit like the "waterfall" drinking game from college

Almost all of the Oktoberfest beers had the dark amber hue, but the German beers were definitely darker than the American versions.  The obvious outlier was the Weihenstepahner, which was light honeyed color.  We both tried each beer, starting with the Hacker-Pschorr. 

The first three beers tasted very similar (the Hacker-Pschorr, Spaten, and Paulaner) - malty and smooth.  The Wiehenstephaner was really light and smooth, didn't feel as heavy as the other three.  As an extra bonus, it had this awesome picture on the six pack box.

Had I known this was what nun life was like, I might have chosen a different "path"

The other two were the American Oktoberfest-style beers.  I am no beer connoisseur, but these beers paled in comparison to the German brewed beers in terms of flavor and smoothness.  The Harpoon was decent, I would drink it if I were in a bar and it was on tap.  But the Dominion beer was pitiful.  It was like they just added more malt and slapped on the "Oktoberfest" label.

Finished everything else, except for the lonely poor-tasting Dominion

So, I went back to try my hand again at the three German Oktoberfest beers that were the amber color to discern a difference.  This time, I noticed a slight difference in the Spaten.  It took me a while to put my finger on it, but there was a different malt flavor that lingered after you drank the Spaten.  It was a little sweet.  And that did it for me, I declared an Oktoberfest beer winner -- the Spaten!

Winner, winner, pork and kraut dinner!

My husband was okay with my declaration of the winner, but he really liked the Weihenstephaner.  I think it had to do with the "woman in a uniform."  Turns out, he's not so picky when it's in the fridge and the game is on.

Enjoy the last week of celebrating Oktoberfest with some delicious beer!