Beer : We thought the Scots were mad with deep-fried Mars Bars – But Texans take the biscuit!
Around Asheville, beer is mostly for drinking. And that’s the idea, right? With 60-plus local craft beers being made here by nine Buncombe County breweries, it’s not for watering the garden.
But down in Texas, they’ve done something to brew that seems almost unbelievable. They’re deep-frying the stuff.
Fried beer, as it’s called, is a sort of ravioli-like thing. Beer is placed inside a pocket of pretzel-like dough, dropped into a vat of hot oil, and cooked. When eaten, the dough pops open and the beer is released.
We haven’t read what that fried beer tastes like, but it probably wouldn’t make much sense to do this to a fine ale or lager.
Still, it’s getting a lot of press. You can get more about these folks at their website, www.friedbeer.net.
Fried beer is the latest in a series of deep-fried treats — fried macaroni and cheese, fried Oreo cookies, fried butter, etc. — that get a lot of attention this time of year, during state fair season. Fried beer will be served to customers 21 and older at the Texas State Fair, opening Sept. 24 in Dallas.
We won’t see this at the Mountain State Fair, opening Friday, since they don’t serve beer of any kind.
Asheville-made beer has become a favorite ingredient in local ice cream. The Ultimate Ice Cream shop in East Asheville has long blended local craft brews into their treats. Owner Kevin Barnes has used Highland’s Black Mocha Stout, Pisgah’s Porter and Apple Mead, and Oystertrap’s Oyster House Stout as flavorings (the beer is boiled into a syrup then added to ice cream).
Meanwhile, in Asheville, Craggie Brewing’s Antebellum ale has been whipped into ice cream by the Hop on Merrimon Avenue. On Sept. 23, Craggie is hosting an ice cream float night to benefit the YMCA of Western North Carolina. Those beer flavors work well in ice cream, and provide an alternative to the standard chocolate, strawberry or vanilla.
Asheville makes another brew list
: The Huffington Post online news report has named Asheville as one of the world’s dozen best beer locations. We’re sharing some great company on that roundup: Amsterdam, Prague, Dublin, and Bruges, Belgium, all made that roundup, as did our Beer City rival, Portland, Ore.
We raise a toast to them all and especially to Portland, arguably America’s greatest brew town.
This is the opinion of entertainment editor Tony Kiss. E-mail him at TKISS@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.
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