beer

Linkdown: 5/20/15

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– In cool local barbecue and beer news, Birdsong Brewing is brewing a small batch beer with the help of Queen City Q

– Congrats to Mac’s Speed Shop as they took 5th in whole hog at last weekend’s Memphis in May

– Charlotte food writer Kathleen Purvis breaks down 5 new barbecue books from 12 Bones, Franklin Barbecue, and more

– Charlotte Five points out what you can eat at The Improper Pig for under $20 (tip not included)

– Chef Ben Adams of Durham’s Piedmont is leaving that restaurant to open a barbecue restaurant in North Durham with Wyatt Dickson, whom he met back in college at UNC

– Meanwhile, The AP Stylebook gets things horribly, horribly wrong: barbecue is a noun not a verb

– This opinion article from blues singer Pam Saulsby contains some updates on Ed Mitchell’s next venture

A reliable source tells me that while Mr. Mitchell’s Que Restaurant and Blues Experience is no longer in business at The American Tobacco Campus in Durham, there are plans to re-open in a larger location. In fact, Mitchell has his eye on two locations: one between Chapel Hill and Durham and another on the outskirts of Raleigh.

– Robert Moss has a list of the top 5 southern barbecue sides, broken down by region, in his latest column

– Catching up with prior posts from Moss, one on Aaron Franklin winning a James Beard award and another on shoulder clod, “Texas’s forgotten bbq star”

– If you’re smoking barbecue at home (and you should), here’s some great info on what wood to use for what meat

– The Men In Blazers met up with GFOP’s (great friends of the pod) at Joe’s Kansas City last week

Photo Gallery: The Great NC BBQ Map Launch Party at NoDa Brewing!

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Goodie bag, including map
Paul’s Brew-B-Que beer
The NoDa Brewing parking lot, turned into smoker’s alley for the day
Midwood Smokehouse
Zach from Sauceman’s and his burn barrel
Inside of NoDa Brewing
The hushpuppy eating contest
Amanda addresses the crowd
My plate of food, with both western and eastern barbecue
‘Naner pudding

While I did back The Great NC BBQ Map‘s Kickstarter campaign a few months back, I didn’t back them at the level to get you to the launch party. So when I was picked randomly as the lucky winner of their Instagram contest to gain entry into the party, I was thrilled.

The launch party took place at NoDa Brewing Company this past Sunday, and the main event of the party was a barbecue showdown between Midwood Smokehouse (representing eastern NC barbecue) and Sauceman’s (representing the west) with the party attendees voting to decide their favorite. In addition to the food, Paul (one of the map co-creators) also brewed a small batch of “Brew-B-Que,” a red ale brewed with smoked serrano and chipotle peppers to mimic the spiciness of eastern NC barbecue.

There were also fun activities like a “cake walk” contest that was kind of like musical chairs, but with cake, as well as a hush puppy eating contest, Coney Island style, and a raffle.

For those of you who backed the Kickstarter, you should be pretty close to getting your map in the mail (if you haven’t gotten them already) and I think you will be very happy with it. It is on high quality, heavy paper and is well designed with a ton of information for each of the 434 joints (!) in the state – location, hours, whole hog vs shoulder, flame source, sauce type. Not to mention it has a definitive history of barbecue in the US, a comprehensive listing of NC barbecue festivals, and a breakdown of NC barbecue traditions. I’m telling you, this thing is packed to the gills with information. They will be taking additional orders for the map soon, so be sure to sign up for the mailing list on their (soon to be now redesigned) website if you didn’t get in on the Kickstarter.

I briefly spoke with both Amanda and Paul (both super nice, btw), co-creators of the map, and their excitement was evident that night at the unveiling of their labor of love to the world. A big congrats to them on their hard work finally coming to fruition!

–Monk

Linkdown – 6/30/14

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– Another dubious barbecue list, this time from Cheaptickets.com; the only NC city represented is…Charlotte. Wait, what? (via bbqboard)

– Daniel Vaughn gets a mention in this NPR article about the traditional method of cooking barbecue: low and slow

– WRAL out of Raleigh lists the best local beers for your July 4th cookouts and while not officially listed, it ends with a suggestion for barbecue

We really can’t overlook one of the beers in the Triangle that screams barbecue and is a staple for your grill – Fullsteam’s Hogwash. This beer was made for eating Carolina BBQ and would also make a fantastic marinade.

– A couple originally from Jacksonville have opened a new NC barbecue joint called Unkl Sid’s BBQ Shack near Pittsburgh

– A list on USA Today of best southern barbecue spots includes Big Bob Gibson’s (with a location in Monroe), Lexington #1, Skylight Inn, and Scott’s Bar-B-Que

– barbecuerankings also posted a review of Midwood Smokehouse this week and generally liked what he ate; he also posted a review of Mac’s Speed Shop 

I’ve been to a number of places east of the Mississippi who put their restaurant’s reputation on the line with their brisket.  Some (4 Rivers, Full Service, for example) totally back up their claim with great brisket.  Others…no need to mention names…don’t quite stack up.  Midwood’s staff have spent time studying, learning and eating in Texas to learn from the masters of the craft and the results are evident as they make a quality brisket.

– For our short family trip to Atlanta this past weekend, Grant of Marie, Let’s Eat! wrote a letter to Mrs. Monk when I mentioned we may only have time to head to one barbecue spot (he also had some nice things to say about this site, which was cool). Unfortunately, we only did eat at one barbecue joint (we did some smoking of brisket and ribs on our own Saturday) but we changed it from our original plan of Fox Brothers to Heirloom Market based on his suggestion:

With this in mind, I understand that you will be visiting Atlanta this weekend. Unfortunately, Atlanta is 88 miles from Georgia’s best barbecue (Old Clinton in Gray) and 311 miles from Georgia’s second-best barbecue (Southern Soul on St Simons Island), never mind the holy trinity of joints around Athens (Paul’s, Zeb’s, and Hot Thomas), and you can’t get Columbus mustard sauce anywhere here, never mind that weird mustard-vinegar stuff that they cook the pork in everywhere around Macon, but nevertheless, Atlanta and its suburbs are home to at least eighty – that’s 80 – barbecue joints, and those are just the ones we know about. At least twelve of those will provide meals amazing enough to give anybody pause, and I assure you that many, such as Mustard Seed, Miss Betty’s, Wallace, and Speedi-Pig, will provide meals quite unlike anything any North Carolinian can get at home.