Mike Munhall

Here’s a video that Dorrie made for me of my Belgian Tripel-style ale fermenting in the brewery bathroom. This was early on in the fermentation. The bubbles came even more frequently (about 140/minute) later on.

Flying Dog Ales is an awesome brewery not only because they make great beer, or because the bottle labels contain illustrations by Ralph Steadman, or because the beer has been blessed by Hunter S. Thompson. It’s an awesome brewery because they have the best sense of humor. Here’s the rear label on their very tasty Road Dog Porter:

“We spent four long years in court fighting for our first amendment right to display the phrase ‘Good Beer, No Shit’ on every bottle of Road Dog. In honor of sticking it the man…

This shit is some dark, rich and malty shit. The best shit you’ll ever try and that’s no bullshit.”

Amen.

I had the fortune of being invited to join Nate at the Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival in Vail over the weekend and had a dandy time. That’s right… dandy.

Dorrie, Anna and I met Nate and Laura at their condo in Keystone and stayed there for the weekend. It was just a short drive from there to Vail for the big party on Saturday. Dorrie has already shared the Keystone side of the story, so let’s talk about the beer festival.

If, like me before attending the festival, you have no idea what a big beer, a Belgian or a Barleywine is, let me ‘splain: A big beer is a beer with an alcohol conent of 7.0% or higher. Belgian beer is a broad classification of beers that include styles ranging from the classic pilsner to nasty, sour Flanders Ale. A barleywine is a sipping beer with high alcohol content, usually around 8% to 12%. I’m sure there are finer details to these classifications, but I’m just not knowledgeable enough about the finer points of classy beer to be able to describe them properly. Regardless, the festival was focused on big, heavy, flavorful, strong beers – not for the faint of heart or artery.

The festival was much more than just sampling exotic beers. There were several seminars. Nate and I attended three. The first, which was before the beer-tasting extravaganza began, was about experimenstation in brewing. Five breweries sent representatives to this seminar to speak about what they consider experimentation and what they consider over-the-top, extreme brewing. When it was over, Nate and I had sampled five different beers and it was still morning. Quite a nice start to the day.

The second, and by far the most entertaining seminar, was an exercise in pairing beer with the best bleu cheese I’ve ever tasted. Well before the festival, five brewers agreed to participate in the event and spent some time researching their recipes to find the best match for the cheese. They each brought to the seminar samples of their “research.” Each representative had a few minutes to talk about their beer and explain how the characteristics of the particular beer complimented the food. The seminar participants voted on the best combination of brew and bleu. I was convinced that my choice was going to win in a landslide, but my choice was third in the voting. Nate’s choice was first. After the event ended, Nate and I found the booths in the sampling room where we could drink more of the beer we just sampled with the cheese, and sampled more of that beer, this time without the cheese.

The last seminar was about practical approaches to determining a good beer recipe. Because it was later in the afternoon, the seminar was probably not even half full. I guess most people were more interested in drinking, were totally sloshed, or both. By this time, Nate and I fell mostly into the last category, but we dug deep to find the will to stumble into the conference room anyway. The small crowd ended up being a bonus because the seminar turned into mostly a discussion between the speaker (who was actually a good speaker and obviously passionate and knowledgeable about the subject) and the audience.

I soaked up nearly as much knowledge about beer, hops, malts, barleys and brewing that day as I did beer itself. So much knowledge, in fact, that I’m thirsty for more. Nate and Laura are coming over in a couple weeks, and Nate and I are escaping to the homebrew store to pick up the equipment necessary for me to start my own brewing. I don’t plan on making it a fulltime hobby, but I’d like to know more about the brewing process, and there’s no better way to learn than to do it yourself.

And, the second best way to way learn something is one-on-one training with an expert. Nate proved himself an expert homebrewer by winning the silver medal in the Strong Ales category of the homebrew contest. Considering how many entries there were and the seriousness of this festival, winning any medal is a big accomplishment. Congratulations, Nate. You deserve that award.

Dorrie and I, over the last couple of years, have been on the hunt for the best wings in the Denver area. There are a number of things we look for in wings, including cooking style, meatiness, flavor, wing sauce, heat, and finally, dipping sauce.

The cooking style is important. Generally, deep fried wings are easy, quick and tasty. But, they are also the least healthy option compared to grilled or baked wings. Bonus points go the wings that are grilled or baked, but we never rule out anything prepared in the bubbling oil. It’s a deep-friend-goodness thing; anything tastes good when fried.

It goes without saying that chicken drummettes and wings are better when the meat-to-fat ratio favors the meaty side. A small, fatty wing is gross. Some fat is okay, though, as long as the fat doesn’t overpower the rest of the chicken part. Besides, just like deep-fried-anythings, fat might bad for you, but it tastes good. Also, the meat must be tender and a little juicy, not tough or dry.

When it comes to flavor, we consider flavor to be taste of the meat itself; wing sauce and its flavor is in a category of its own. We’ve tried many wings where the meat tastes gamey or old. Nothing ruins a good wing faster than the taste of gross meat.

The funnest part of the wing, by far, is the wing sauce and the amount of heat the sauce provides. It’s also the most subjective part since everyone has their own taste. Wing sauces and recipes deserve a post of their own, so it wouldn’t be practical to write about wing sauces in too much detail here. What Dorrie and I favor, in any case, is a full-flavored, hotter-than-hell sauce that keeps you reaching for your beer.

Finally, comes the dipping sauce. Dipping sauces, like actual wing sauces, come in too many varieties and tastes and certainly deserve a post of their own. Anything other than bleu cheese dressing or ranch dressing would seem odd to me, but I wouldn’t doubt someone out there has found something that works well.

One would expect, at this point, a list of the best wings in the Denver area based on the criteria just mentioned. Well, Dorrie may write about it on RRC, but we both agree that the best wings we’ve had to this point aren’t served in any restaurant. See, we’ve discovered a few things along the way that have helped us concoct our own, Best-Damn-Wings-in-Denver recipe. For the sauce, we can’t get away from Frank’s wing sauce. It’s hotter-than-hell and tasty. We like bleu cheese with our wings, and for that we like T. Marzetti’s blue cheese salad dressing.

The biggest trick to the Best-Damn-Wings-in-Denver, though, is the meat and the cooking method that Dorrie’s uncle Ted introduced us to. Believe it or not, the best meat we’ve had so far has come from Costco. Yes, buy everything in bulk at Costco, including wings. They’re really large and not too fatty. And they cook up really well.

Believe me, this recipe blows away anything we’ve had in the last two years, and it’s easy too. It takes quite a long time, but it’s worth it in the end. We have to credit uncle Ted for the recipe since, we believe, it’s the cooking method that makes these wings. Another nice thing about the recipe is that you can use any sauce or dressing you like.

Uncle Ted’s Best Damn Wings in Denver

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours

Ingredients

• Chicken wings and drummettes
• Franks’s wing sauce or your favorite sauce (Ted uses BBQ sauce)
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Olive oil
• Blue cheese dressing or your favorite dressing (Ranch is good, too)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Arrange wings and drummettes in a baking dish or pan.
3. Drizzle wings and drummettes with olive oil and a touch of salt and pepper.
4. Bake on middle oven rack for 1 hour.
5. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around a bit (to prevent them from sticking to the pan).
6. Add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper.
7. Place the meat back in oven and bake for another hour.
8. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around again.
9. Place the meat back in the oven and bake for another 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and add some wing sauce. We use a lot. Use what you think is right. Remember that you can always add more after the wings are done.
11. Bake for another 30 minutes. The wings are done when most of the liquid cooks off.

Nobody wants their oven on for three hours during the middle of summer. So, an option on this recipe is to grill the meat on direct, low to medium heat for about 30 minutes, turning the meat every five minutes or so. The cooking time, of course, will vary depending on your grill. I don’t care for the grilling method as much as this oven-baked method, but the wings are still really good.