Try it, you'll like it.

I've found that wherever I go, I look for good local BBQ and beers.  I'm willing to try the sublime and ridiculous especially with my 'Que.   I've had watermelon-based sauces, coffee-enhanced rubs,  HOT chilies in both rubs and sauces, apricots, peaches, most any Southern fruit... just about any flavor in or on my BBQ.  Seek the off-the-beaten-path BBQ joints and look for the long line out the door and you've found a good place.

Local beers are also fun to seek and almost always worth trying.  Some bigger cities are lacking with their choices of either brews or 'Ques.  Take Memphis.  Memphis has possibly the best selection of BBQ of any city but only two local brewers, Ghost River and Bosco's, which is a brewpub.  You can find Ghost River all over Beale Street and other areas of the city and in most BBQ joints.  Most cities have decent local breweries so Seek and Ye Shall Find.

Remember: Buy Local and Try Local. You'll usually find some hidden gem and have a memorable experience.  Be bold, be brave and try something new - you'll be glad you did.

Universal Elixir

"He was a wise man who invented beer."
-Plato

Man probably didn't invent beer rather he discovered it.  Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt made beer and worshiped the libation.  The laborers that built the great pyramids were paid with beer.  6000 years ago, ancient Chinese civilizations were brewing it.  Early European Christian monks mastered the craft of brewing and built breweries as part of their crusade to provide food, shelter and drink to travelers and pilgrims.  The Mayflower bringing Pilgrims to the New World settled for Massachusetts instead of Virginia because the crew was running out beer.  An entry in the diary of Mayflower passenger William Bradford explains the unplanned landing at Plymouth Rock: "We could not now take time for further search...our victuals being much spent, especially our beer..."  The Industrial Revolution brought further advances in brewing many of which are still employed today.  Beer, is some form or another, has been around as long as civilization itself.

My beer journey started in college.  Hitting the clubs and bars, drinking swill (cheap beer), developing a taste for the suds.  Usually it was Miller Lite or Budweiser or the cheaper stuff.  For about twenty years or so after my early college days, I continued to drink the Bud/Miller/Coors (BMC) macro brews oblivious to the growing trend of craft beers. Then something happened around 2005; someone had a Blue Moon and I tried that beer - Loved it!  Something different, something with flavor.  I'd always been slightly adventurous when dining out, trying a Samuel Adams Boston Lager and their seasonal Octoberfest beer.  I knew any true beer drinker needed to be able to drink a Guinness Stout draft.  So, I tried some stouts.  Gotta train that palette! It took awhile to develop a taste for the darker ales.  Then I read about IPAs.  What is an IPA? I pondered, researched, then found and tried one.

IPA is an Indian Pale Ale, originated in England when the British would ship ales to the soldiers and colonists in India.  To keep the ales from spoiling the brewers added extra hops - the flower pods that add the bittering agent  - to the barrels of ale.  The results were a bigger, stronger and more bitter beer that stood up to the long sea journeys to India.

Wow!  Big taste, big hops and big bitter; I wasn't ready for that puppy yet.  Now I wanted to try more.  Smoky Mountain Brewery was a perfect vehicle for the craft beer newbie. Sampled their offerings; loved them.  Then on to Highland Brewery from Asheville, NC: all of theirs were even better than the local ones!  That lead to more discoveries and soon I had become a craft beer lover, even learning to drink and appreciate porters and stouts and IPAs.  

St. Charles Porter from Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery in Nashville

Since adopting my beer hobby in earnest, the Internet has become very helpful.  Beer ratings sites such as RateBeer or my personal favorite beer community - BeerPal - have helped me learn about different styles.  These sites allow one to read beer reviews, ask questions in forums, research breweries and beer styles and trade beers with fellow beer lovers from all over the world.  I have made several good friends with beer trades and "meet-ups"; friends from Wisconsin, Ohio, Alabama, California, D.C., Texas - there are craft beer lovers all over the United States and the world.  Now in the East Tennessee area, there are new beer stores, like the quaint Bearden Beer Market, and craft beer-friendly bars and restaurants opening and maintaining a steady and growing clientele, catering to beer lovers, and there are thriving breweries in the area. Smoky Mountain Brewery has several locations.  Downtown Grill & Brewery is a popular nightspot in downtown Knoxville.  Marble City Brewing opened their doors to the public in the fall of 2011 after much anticipation. 

Beer is more popular than it has ever been and craft beer is gaining market share and notoriety.  Chefs on network television programs are pairing beer with their foods.  Restaurants are carrying alternatives such as seasonal craft beers and local offerings.  Twitter and Facebook have exploded with brewery sites, beer reviewers and brew lovers.  More breweries are popping up all over America and craft beer is gaining popularity all over the globe.  Now is a great time to try something different, something with flavor, something hand-craft and artisan.  Try something new next time you drink beer.  Because beer is the univeral elixir.

"They who drink beer will think beer."
-Washington Irving



Read my beer reviews at BeerPal: bluesandbarbq

Smokin' Good Time

BBQ.  Barbecue.  Barbeque.  Bar-B-Q.
Smoking meats using indirect heat with charcoal and wood can be delicious no matter how you spell it.  Pork, beef, poultry, fish, mutton, even goat, venison, and wild game can all be smoked, barbecued, successfully and flavorful.  Methods vary as much as the meats that are chosen to be smoked.  And the cooking meat with fire or hot coals is as old as humanity.

Growing up in the South, Mecca for good BBQ, I learned at a young age that I really liked it.  East Tennessee is the crossroads for BBQ.  There is Memphis BBQ, Carolina BBQ (North AND South), Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky... all with different variations of mostly pork (western Kentucky is famous for mutton), different sauces and rubs, and that is just in the Southeast.  Kansas City and Texas are both big BBQ regions with their own distinct styles.  Then there is Hawaiian, Jamaican, Mexican, even Mongolian BBQ; all over the world man has established tasty methods of preparing and cooking meats and food items with smoke from various woods in order to obtain savory and filling meals.  Now everywhere traveled I endeavor to try the local BBQ to see the local methods and flavors;  maybe finding something that I can incorporate into my process.  It is my "Quest for Smoked Nirvana" to paraphrase a friend.

It takes patience and practice to become adept at the art of BBQ.  ANYONE can become accomplished at cooking good BBQ.  All it takes is a passion for savory smoked goodness.  Everyone has their favorite meat, favorite seasoning and rubs, favorite spices, favorite woods to use, favorite sauces.  The novice can be successful using a regular kettle charcoal grill.  That is how I learned.  Then bigger smokers come into use.  Mine is an Oklahoma Joe Smoker that was given to me by my brother-in-law.  That's right - GIVEN.  It took a backhoe to move the heavy son-of-a-gun!  After receiving that beautiful piece of equipment and getting it cleaned up and BBQ-ready, my cooking became quite a bit more serious.  Reading BBQ manuals and blogs, asking friends their BBQ methods, learning from some who showed me the ropes on good rubs and preparation - all of this helped me become somewhat of an amateur pit master.  It is gratifying and enjoyable to cook, nay BBQ, good meat, enjoy some good Blues music and some cold adult beverages while my masterpieces slowly cook, then share the goodness with my family and friends.  It is an art when done correctly. 

BBQ is social... and it is in our DNA.   That's why I have a smokin' good time when I BBQ.

 

How I found the blues (or did the Blues find me?)

Many people have asked me when and how I discovered the Blues.  It was a roundabout journey that began when I was young and discovered that music was something interesting and something to enjoy.  Growing up the the Seventies, I was  inundated with AOR (album-oriented rock) on FM radio.  The music of Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foghat, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, AC/DC,  Jimi Hendrix, Cream and many others filled my ears with wonderful and powerful big music.  Little did I know that much of that music was Blues-based; I just knew that I liked it.  Only straying for a brief period of time to Punk and some New Wave, my music always seemed to be that genre now called Classic Rock.
Then in 1984, I enrolled at the University of Tennessee; record stores all over the place. (Yes, those 12 inch vinyl discs that are now being rediscovered by my kids.)  Used records, new records, lots of clubs with live music, a subscription to Rolling Stone: I was living the college music scene, taking it all in.  Then I read a brief article in Rolling Stone about an up and coming guitar slinger from Texas: Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Cool.  Had to check this guy out.  I love good guitar players.  The louder the better at that time. A jaunt down to Cat's Records on Cumberland Avenue (The Strip to all familiar with the University of Tennessee.)  Ask if they have any of this new guy, Stevie Vaughan or whatever his name is.  Yes, they have his new album "Texas Flood" - bought it, took it back to the apartment to give it a listen.

Bam! Wow! Holy ____!

The first sound of  Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Love Struck Baby" blasted off from the needle of my turntable through my rather large speakers to send a sound shock wave through my body.  Stunned.  Mouth agape.  An epiphany.  This was it!  This, THIS beautiful powerful passionate surging music that filled my ears, head, body and Soul with bliss and fulfillment - THIS was IT!  I listened to the next song.  Still loving it.  The next?  Yep.  The entire album, played over and over again, for several hours I'm certain.  I had found my music and for my young mind it was like sex - I had to have more. 

Another trip the next day to Cat's Record store.
"Do y'all have anything else like this?"
Store clerk, "Yes, have you heard of Albert Collins?"

Purchased Albert Collins' monumental Alligator Records release "Ice Pickin'" and was introduced to the world of Blues, a world that was waiting for me to discover, a journey that I am still taking today, discovering new artists and old alike, taking it all in, into my bloodstream and straight to my Soul.

That is how I found the Blues, or the Blues found me.