Old Bounder Wins Silver

“Old Bounder” Barley Wine took home the Silver Medal at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) this past weekend! More than 4,300 beers were entered, representing 745 breweries from around the Country; the largest GABF competition to date.  The Professional Judge Panel awards gold, silver and bronze medals that are recognized around the world as symbols of brewing excellence. These awards are among the most coveted in the industry and Boundary Bay was one of two other WA breweries (American and Elysian Brewing) to receive a medal in 2013.

 “To continue to place at the GABF is an extraordinary accomplishment,” states General Manager, Janet Lightner, “We are so proud of our brewers who continue to bring home medals, especially considering the level of competition the GABF represents.”

This win marks Boundary’s 14th medal at the GABF. Old Bounder was awarded the bronze in 1998, silver in 2002 and another silver in 2004 in the Barley Wine Style Ale category.  “We have been fortunate to win many awards“, says Lightner, “Each of those metals signals a triumph in the craft beer community, but we also measure our success by the connections we build with our community of customers and neighbors who make it possible for us to keep doing what we love.” 

So what we’d like to say is…Thank you for your support, Bounders!  We couldn’t do it without you.

There’s a New Baker in the Mix!

Boundary Bay is thrilled to announce the addition of a new member to our crew – Pastry Chef Martha L. Aguirre. Born in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in California, Martha made her way up to Bellingham, Washington in 2001.  With over 20 years of pastry experience, the former Bakery Manger of Woods Coffee transitioned to our Brewery in late March.

A talented and reputable chef, Martha was offered multiple positions around town as a Head Pastry Chef. When asked why she decided to take the offer at Boundary Bay, Martha stated: “When I met with Sean [Head chef] and Janet [General Manager], they said they wanted to change the whole dessert menu. They said I could bring out anything – create anything. I didn’t have to follow a menu or do the same things every day. It feels like it’s my own bakery. It’s a dream job.” Martha beamed. Boundary Bay is equally as excited to have Martha in the mix.

Since arriving at Boundary – Martha’s expertise, positivity and tantalizing recipes have quickly won over our staff. She’s been busy in the kitchen whipping up all sorts of new desserts — often allowing the staff to sample and choose their favorites! From Red Velvet Cheesecake to Coconut Pineapple Cream Pie, customers will be seeing more specialty desserts circulating our menu.

“Just the other day I tried making a four-layer chocolate cake with Ol’ Bounder (barley wine). Everyone was very excited…I guess it’s one of the strongest beers here!” Martha laughed, “Cooking with beer is new for me, and it’s very exciting!” And we can’t wait to see what sorts of delicious concoctions she’ll create using our ales!

A graduate of the Bellingham Technical School of Culinary Arts, Martha’s strong background and experience as a pastry chef is well-apparent. A talented Baker, Martha epitomizes her craft; the delicate combination of creativity, balance, and science. Next time you’re dining at Boundary, be sure to ask your server about our dessert specials. As Martha puts it “Once you see these desserts you’ll think, ohhh that looks SO good! And that’s it. You have to have it.”

SOME FUN FACTS:

If Martha were in an ingredient, she would be Vanilla. “It makes everything a little bit better.  Everything! Sweet, and adds a little something.”

Martha’s favorite berry to cook with is Blueberries. Just wait till you try her Blueberry pie!

Gardening is one of Martha’s favorite hobbies. If she isn’t experimenting with new recipes, you’ll find her outdoors.

Winter Beer Tasting

On Saturday, January 21st, a few Boundary Bay Brewery folks will be at Bellingham Technical College (BTC) teaching about Winter Beers.  Join Anthony, our Assistant Brewer, and Matt, our Kitchen Manager and BTC culinary program alumni, for an afternoon of Winter Beer Tasting and food pairing!

Winter is a great time to stay indoors and warm-up with some great beer and friends. This winter you’ll have the opportunity to do just that at our “Winter Beer Tasting” class…you’ll experience a selection of strong ales, barley wines, and other winter warmers along with pairings of delicious food. The class focus will be on seasonal releases fro the U.S. and Europe plus a vertical tasting of barley wine to see how aging beer changes the flavor.

In the class, you’ll get to enjoy two spiced ales, some strong ales and barley wines – including one from Schamlz Brewing that was made with fig, date and grape juices aged in rye whiskey barrels.  There’ll even be a two year vertical tasting of Big Foot Barley Wine!  Along with all this delicious beer, Matt will be cooking up some focused food pairings to perfectly accompany these big winter beers.  Expect lots of seasonal dishes and warm, comforting foods.  Perfect for all this chilly, snowy weather we’ve been having!

There are still six seats left in this Winter Beer Tasting class, so call Bellingham Technical College or register online and reserve YOUR spot for this Saturday!  Cheers.  Oh, and if you’re STILL not convinced, check out this blog about the beer pairing class Anthony and Matt did last April.

What To Pair Your Winter Beer With…

Cabin Fever

We know choosing foods to pair with your beer can get a bit tricky during the winter months, when rich, dark, flavorful seasonal beers are in season.  So, our Sous Chef, here at Boundary Bay Brewery, came up with a few suggestions to help you find just the right flavors to compliment the craft beer you’ll be serving.

CraftBeer.com recommends matching strength with strength and suggests pairing assertive beers with strongly-flavored foods.

Our Cabin Fever is the most popular of our big beers.  It’s our Winter Seasonal ale with a dark red-brown color and a very rich malty flavor.  Try it with an apple, cheddar and sorrel turnovers for a savory pairing, or go sweet with a dessert pairing of chocolate espresso torte.

If Cabin Fever’s not quite your thing, try our Old Bounder.  It’s a rich, full-bodied barley wine that has a copper color, a smooth caramel sweetness and a balanced hop character.  Which makes it a perfect partner for dark fruits like figs served with nuts and blue cheese (or another cheese with big flavor, if you prefer).  For a sweet pairing, check out the Cranberry Panna Cotta recipe below:

Cranberry Panna Cotta

Old Bounder

for panna cotta

4 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 packets powdered gelatin (about 4 1/2 teaspoons)
6 tablespoons cold water

for cranberry sauce

1 cup fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup port wine
1 tsp orange zest
Mixture of 1 tsp arrowroot powder and 1/3 cup water (for thickening)
candied orange peel for garnish

panna cotta recipe

1. Heat the heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan. Once the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

2. Lightly oil eight custard cups.

3. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a medium-sized bowl and let stand 5 to 10 minutes.

4. Pour the very warm Panna Cotta mixture over the gelatin and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.

5. Divide the Panna Cotta mixture into the prepared cups, then chill them until firm, which will take at least two hours.

6. Run a sharp knife around the edge of each Panna Cotta and unmold each onto a serving plate, and garnish with sauce and orange peel

cranberry sauce

1. Cook the cranberries in the sugar and water until soft.
2. Add the orange zest and wine
3. Slowly whisk in your arrowroot/water mixture until desired consistency. Be sure to use low heat.
4. Try not to reduce the sauce after adding the port. It is easy to turn this cranberry-port sauce into a port wine reduction!

Celebrate Autumn With Our Brewmasters Dinners!

Do you love great craft beer and incredible food?  Then come celebrate Autumn with us by enjoying local beer and local food at one of our most beautiful local resorts!  This month, we’ll be hosting a Brewmasters Dinner each week at Semiahmoo Resort!

Semiahmoo’s Executive Chef, Kasey Dubler and the brewers of Boundary Bay Brewery have teamed up to bring you a delicious five-course dinner—each one paired with an award-winning craft beer.

During the Hors D’oeurves Reception, enjoy our ESB paired with Fanny Bay Mahogany Clams (from Taylor Shellfish) cooked in Boundary Bay ESB with garlic, shallots and organic herbs.

The second course will feature the Boundary Bay IPA paired with hot smoked Bellingham Bay King Salmon with sun dried tomato hollandaise and spinach and caramelized onion quinoa.

During the third course, our Harvest Rye will be paired with rack of lamb with house-made apple sauce and fall harvest risotto with a trio of Whatcom County squash.

The fourth course features our Imperial Oatmeal Stout paired with a boneless short rib (braised for 12 hours!) with Kiska Farms Yukon Gold potato and horseradish “fondue.”

Finish off the feast with the Boundary Bay Brewery Barley Wine paired with caramel and anise panna cotta with Barley Wine poached pears and oat crumble.

These Brewmasters Dinners will take place on three Saturdays in October: the 8th, 15th and 22nd – each at 6:30pm.  You can make reservations for just the pairing dinner (at $59 per person) or make a weekend out of it and purchase the Hotel & Dinner Package which includes a classic room and the Brewmasters Dinner for two ($249).  To make your reservations, please call Semiahmoo’s front desk at 360-318-2000 or 800-770-7992.

Semiahmoo Resort is located 25 minutes north of Bellingham in Blaine Washington and the seaside hotel features a full-service spa, various dining options, plus two of Washington’s top public courses; Loomis Trail Golf Club and Semiahmoo Golf and Country Club. Nestled on the northern Puget Sound shoreline, overlooking Semiahmoo Bay and Drayton Harbor, the resort offers a multitude of activities for the whole family in an exceptional setting.

Barley Wine Food Pairing

One of our brewers here at Boundary Bay Brewery has a lovely wife who hails from The Heartland.   His Mother-In-Law came to visit recently and we sent a few bottles of our Barley Wine back to Iowa with her and asked her to take it to Jay Wilson, a fellow beer blogger whom you may be familiar with through his blog Brewvana or his recent side project: Diary of a Part-Time Monk.

Old Bounder, our Barley Wine brought home a 2011 Gold Medal from the North American Beer Awards and we wanted to share some with our pal back in Iowa.  The beer ended up on the Brewvana blog where Jay recommended pairing it with a Midwestern classic:  Beanie Weenies.  Seriously!  Check out the whole article here where he describes why the combination works so well.

Now, being a Northwest brewery, we don’t get much call for dishes like Beanie Weenies.  And I’m not sure we’d have ever come up with this beer and food pairing, but that’s what is so cool about craft beer.  It can work in a multitude of ways.  Recently, at one of our Brewmaster’s Dinners out at Semiahmoo Resort, our Old Bounder took the high road and was paired with Fig Tart with chèvre filling in a walnut crust with caramelized figs and  grand marnier.  And we’ve even made our own gelato, here at the brewery, with our Old Bounder…but those are classic barley wine pairings.

Barley wine has strong flavors of it’s own and easily overpowers most main dishes.  It’s common to see it matched up with strong cheese or dessert.  Think of it more like port – a great after dinner drink on it’s own, wonderful with stilton and walnuts or with something rich and sweet like chocolate torte.  And, apparently, it’s great when paired with fatty dishes that make you want to scrape your palate clean (Jay’s words, not mine!).

So we wondered, what other regionally specific classic flavors are out there that would pair well with our Old Bounder?  Tell us which dishes are classic flavors for you and how the big, bold flavors of Barley Wine compliment them.  We’d love recipes too, if you feel like sharing!  Cheers.

Best of the Northwest

Well folks, it’s that time again. Northwest Brewing News is holding their annual Reader’s Choice Awards where you can cast your vote for best brewery, best brewpub, best beer (by style) and oh so much more! Enter your vote by November 15th by voting online or downloading the entry form and faxing it to (888)665-5007. Or, if you’re here at Boundary Bay Brewery, you can grab one of the voting forms in our foyer, fill it out over a nice big pint to fend off this autumn chill and we’ll fax it in for you when you’re done.

Here’s a look at the voting categories:

• Best Brewery
• Best Brewpub
• Best Pub/Alehouse
• Best Bartender
• Best Beer Store
• Best Homebrew Shop
• Best Beer (by style): Pale Ale, IPA, Amber Ale, Brown Ale, Double IPA, Porter, Stout, ESB, Scotch Ale, Imperial Stout, Strong Ale, Barley Wine, Belgian Ale, Wheat Beer, Pilsner, Bock/Dopplebock, Organic, Herb or SpiceFruit Beer, Wood-aged Beer, Sour Beer and Other.

Last year, Boundary Bay Brewery was voted Best Brewery in Washington State (tied with Elysian Brewing), Best IPA and 2nd place for Best Scotch Ale.  In past years, we’ve collected awards for Best ESB (2005) and Best IPA (2005 and 2006).  You can visit our website to see the list of all the awards our beers have won.  We love the Reader’s Choice awards because it’s the voice of the people we brew our beer for, so thanks to all who’ve cast their votes with Boundary Bay Brewery in the past!

For those NOT at the GABF

The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is a three-day annual event hosted by the Brewers Association in Denver, Colorado. The GABF brings visitors from around the world to sample more than 1,800 different American beers. This weekend, in Denver, more than 46,000 people are enjoying the GABF. For those of us left at home, Boundary Bay Brewery wants to ease the pain just a little bit.

Today and tomorrow, we’re serving up some of the special brews that we made specifically for the Great American Beer Festival. Yep, you heard us right, we set aside some of those kegs of liquid gold for those not able to make it to Denver.

alpha king!!

On Friday (today!), we’ve got Alpha King on tap. This is like our Imperial IPA which won the Alpha King Challenge two years ago (and placed 2nd last year), but even hoppier if you can believe it! This hophead’s dream is our entry into this year’s Alpha King Challenge. Come in today for what may be your only chance to taste this one of a kind beer. Heads up…we’ve only got one keg…this one will go fast!

We’ve also got a special cask of our Black IPA for tonight’s Happy Hour.

Then, on Saturday, we’re bringing out the big guns! We’re going to have our Cabin Fever on tap as well as a special Bourbon Oak-Aged Barley Wine…both entries in this year’s Great American Beer Festival Competition.  Bring some friends, grab a couple pints and start judging like those lucky judges at GABF!

Beer Ice Cream?!?

Boundary Bay Brewery‘s Recipe for Barley Wine Gelato!

Here is a delightful twist on a Italian tradition. Zabaglione gelato is made with Marsala (fortified wine). In this recipe I replaced Marsala with Old Bounder Barley wine.  The Boundary Bay Old Bounder is a rich, full-bodied barley wine.  Copper in color with a smooth caramel sweetness, warming alcohol content, and balanced hop character.  We use Colombus, Mt. Hood and Amarillo hops along with Chocolate, Crystal, Carastan, Munich, and Premium 2-row malts.

The first step in this recipe is to head on down to Boundary Bay Brewery and have a pint (and maybe some nachos) and pick up a 22 oz. bottle of Old Bounder. Once you get home, gather all your ingredients and crack open the 22 (you want to let the beer go flat before you add it to you cream, so let it sit out while you make your custard). The basis of this recipe is a creme anglaise (cream English), which the backbone (or maybe a tail end) of many “fancy” desserts. The main thing you need to know about creme anglaise is that cooking temperature where it will thicken is between 156 degrees F and 185 degrees F. The higher the temperature the thicker the cream. If you have a thermometer it is helpful, but the most important thing is to stay with the pot the whole time you are heating the cream, stirring gently and keeping an eye on the thickness. Recipes often quote “6 minutes” as the time it takes for the custard to form, you are not chained to this number, just heat it slowly and watch the pot. Once the cream doesn’t run back into a track made by your finger over the back of a wooden spoon it is generally ready. Once it has thickened and you have poured it in a bowl, its time to add the Old Bounder, rum and vanilla. If you haven’t drank the rest of your 22 by now you can save it a jar in your refrigerator until the next time you want to make gelato.

*  4 large egg yolks
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1 cup whole milk
* 1 cup heavy whipping cream
* 6 tablespoons Old Bounder Barley wine
* 2 tablespoons dark rum
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Whisk yolks and sugar in medium bowl until thick, about 2 minutes.

Heat milk and cream in medium saucepan over medium heat until mixture bubbles at edges.

Gradually whisk hot milk mixture into yolk mixture; return to saucepan.

Stir over medium heat until custard leaves path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across and temperature registers 170°F, about 6 minutes.

Immediately pour custard through sieve (you only have to do this if there are chunks in your cream) and set over another medium bowl.

Stir Old Bounder, rum, and vanilla into custard. Cover; refrigerate at least 3 hours.

Process custard in ice cream maker, follow manufacturers instructions, if you have no instructions for your ice cream maker process for about 50 minutes.

Transfer gelato to container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 6 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep frozen.)

Boundary Bay at the Great American Beer Festival

Currently, Ed Bennett (owner of Boundary Bay Brewery) and Matt Z. (one of our beer salesmen) are at the Great American Beer Festival that is happening this weekend in Denver.

These are the beers we’ve submitted for judging:

Cabin Fever: Specially brewed and bottled for the Pacific Northwest winters, this winter warmer’s dark red-brown color and rich malty flavor will complement any rich, hardy meal as well as your favorite spicy dish.  However, with it’s cold conditioned, smooth, dry-hopped flavor, Cabin Fever is very satisfying all by itself.

Old Bounder: A rich, full-bodied barley wine with a smooth caramel sweetness, warming alcohol content and balanced hop character.  Excellent with desserts as an after dinner beverage. To be appreciated in moderation.

Dunkles Bock: This traditional German-style Bock is made with all German malts.  Strong, full-bodied and bottom fermented, our Dunkles Bock has a low hop flavor and a deep copper color.

Imperial IPA: A full bodied, copper colored India Pale Ale, with a fairly strong alcohol content and an aggressive “fresh hop” quality.  Only in the Great Northwest can one find such a well balanced, over the top highly hopped draft ale.

Imperial Oatmeal Stout: A black, very rich and full-bodied stout with a silky smoothness that gives way to a long “roasty” finish.  A heavy weight monster of a beer — not for the timid.

Pilsner: A light, honey colored lager with a beautiful hop aroma and flavor.  This lager is brewed in a traditional manner using only the finest ingredients: Pilsner, Munich and Vienna malts and Saaz and Gr. Hallertau hops.  This beer is fermented at lower temperatures than an ale, creating a drier body, with less fruity esters.

Highland Reserve: In commemoration of the Highland Games our brewers have released a special reserve Highland Scotch Ale, rich and dark with a faint smokey finish.  Dark crystal and peated malts are added to achieve the elements unique to this historic seasonal.

Boundary Bay winning the Alpha King, 2006

The Alpha King challenge (which our Imperial IPA won in 2006) will be judged on Friday and all the awards for the entire competition will be presented on Saturday.  Get a piece of the action by trying one of our entries to the GABF.  There will be rotating taps all weekend with selections from our beers being judged. Come in to Boundary Bay this weekend and judge them yourself and let us know what you vote as the favorite!

Click here to see a list of the awards our beers have one in past years of competition.