Showing posts with label Dominion Oak Barrel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dominion Oak Barrel. Show all posts

Saturday, March 24, 2012

My Kegerator

All guys have wishlists.  Some pine for a 400hp rear wheel drive sports car.  Some lust over 80inch home theater setups.  Maybe you or your guy wants that 20megapixel DSLR or a sweet cordless drill.  Some more attainable than others given where you are in your life and what you will actually be able to enjoy.  Ever since my then 21 year old buddy Ken bought me and my then under 21 friends our first couple of kegs for a college party I wanted a kegerator.  I wanted to have draft beer in my own home and not just out at the bar.

Two years ago I somewhat impulsively surfed onto my local Maryland Craigslist and found a very nice kegerator for $300.  Hours later my buddy Matty helped me retrieve it and load it into my hatchback for the trip to it's new home.  At this time in my life my apartment was somewhat of the spot to be.  My roomie Scott and I would frequently host Jersey Shore parties, pregames, and full blown ragers.  We were a couple years outta college and still routinely regressed to our Penn State partying ways (still do but it is less often).  A kegerator made fiscal sense.  Plus it's just cool.  Typically loaded with a $60 keg of Natural, Keystone, or $90 Yuengling when we were feeling frisky we didn't feel so bad about shelling out to host since we had the power of the kegerator, pouring beers for our friends for pennies. 

 Here's the old girl  

In the past two years we have been hosting less and it takes much longer for a keg to runneth dry.  Light lagers are no longer on the shopping list and Yuengling rarely makes the cut these days (why does Yuengling make you so hungover anyway?  Huh, Dick?!).  We've upgraded to Blue Moon, Harpoon, Dogfish, and Dominion but we still procure the big bad 1/2 kegs and while draft beer will probably never lose its luster on me I do get antsy for more frequent rotation as it seems to take about 3 months to go through a keg.  So now, 1/6 kegs will be my target so I can get more variety while still having that unbeatable value and taste from a keg.  One day I will dive into the world of home kegging but probably not until my square footage goes up a bit (damn you dc-metro prices).  

There isn't a huge point to this post other than to kind of show how my kegerator is growing along with me as I get older.   

Next on draft you ask?  Southampton Double White.  A 1/6 keg of course.  I'll let ya know how it turns out.  

Cheers!


Monday, January 16, 2012

Dominion Oak Barrel Stout Chocolate Cake

It should come as no surprise that my first foray into the world of baking was inspired by the world of beer.  I recently tapped a keg of Dominion Oak Barrel Stout at home here and have been enjoying it for the past couple weeks.  After you become well acquainted with a keg of beer you have to find ways to spice up your relationship.  With the Stout I started pouring some black and tans with a lager.  Then I moved to a bruised apple with some Woodchuck.  Then I started googling and came across a recipe for a Chocolate Stout Cake on epicurious.  (Recipe Here)  The feedback was promising.  Web foodies seemed to really enjoy this cake so I suggested it to my lovely girlfriend, and super baker, Lexi, and she was intrigued and insisted we make it happen.

We basically just halved the recipe, skimped the sugar by a half cup (who wants it that sweet?  jeez), used dark cocoa powder (leftover from the Trappist homebrew awhile back), and generously poured a heaping cup of Stout into the saucepan.  Thirty-five minutes later we were kickin back and enjoying our fruits.  (With draft stouts to compliment of course).

Resounding success.  Crack a beer and lick your screen below.  (All photo credits to Lexi)


35 minutes later:




Chocolately, creamy, goodness:



Ice cream icing job:



First slice of chocolately stoutnicity:



Magazine centerfold/Cake Porn:



There's a lot of cake (and beer) left to enjoy....after that, the stout is headed for a big batch of Eddie's special chili!

Cheers!