Food, Beer and 10% of 800 People
Last Updated on Friday, 27 January 2012 06:30
Written by thebigoakhurst Friday, 27 January 2012 06:06 |
I’ve never had a blog before. It seemed to time consuming for me to sit down and explain my view of what ever is happening in and around my world. I’m not that important. After all I’m first a father of two spastic-ly awesome boys and husband to my beautiful wife. My second thoughts are devoted to music, food and service industry puzzles. Somehow I enjoy the game of always trying to impress and wow, no matter what side of the bar or stage I might be on. So, do I have time to write about it all? Not really. If you did make it this far into blog one of mine and anticipate constant updates and impulsive banter from my muddy kitchen floor, stories of me playing catch for the first time with my boys where the completion rate is over 50% (true story), insight into what it felt like on stage last night or the who’s who of Denver in my restaurant, then maybe these words that follow will not amuse you. I will be writing about experience and things that have moved me while I’m still moving. And I have had a “great things happen to me in great places” for the first or maybe the one thousandth time. It really depends on how you look at it I guess.
I have the pleasure of working along side of one of the most charismatic, hard working, creative beyond the limits and under recognized Chefs in Downtown Denver at our restaurant Appaloosa grill. He challenges me more than any other person in the gastropub biz. I’ve learned from Chef Sean Boutot that keeping things simple can be difficult in the food service industry and that it’s really up to us to solve the puzzles of the front and back of the house. This is because the patrons and window treatments only see the last 10%. This is true in most aspects of life especially when it comes to music and food. Think about it, 90% of your work will go unnoticed if you can’t pull all the ingredients or notes together at the last minute. And present them with confidence and pride to the point of returning guest. I also have the pleasure of working with some of the most passionate partners in downtown as well. We have a great team and we respect that no one is perfect and that if we were the center of the universe the world might stop turning. And, more importantly, that we are to grease the mouth and music wheels of society (our society) and keep moving forward and trending upward. We try and learn from others at every turn. Asking questions and watching how other eateries execute their creations and services is a key for us to keep evolving in this fast paced industry. So, in all of the venues, restaurants, cafes and breweries I get to enjoy or not, I have found yet another gem in the world.
The concrete walk way ended at the front door. Right before the old wooded walkway from a Western Railway track house. The adobe walls of the building don’t look as worn out from the cold and snow that embrace Dolores, CO in the harsh winter. The smell of hickory billows out of the smoke stack. The door of Dolores Brewery opens up to the band around 4:30 yesterday afternoon with a “come on in we’re just getting started”. What a great way to be greeted. My self and Chris enter to find a gentleman who introduced himself while holding a couple of mic stands. “hi my names is Mark”, he asserts himself, “I’ll be your sound guy”. He was putting the sound system together in the corner of the establishment. Facing the 8 large tables in the dinning area and the bar. We as a band are stoked when the sound guys are happy and ready to get to work. The place looks to hold about 35 people seated. But we all know size doesn’t matter….. or do we? We got all the gear in and ,as usual, have a little time to kill before sound check.
Dolores is home to 800 residents. So you can imagine there’s not whole hell of a lot to get into. While the band and crew are setting up I like to explore the surroundings so I can get a feel for the show before we get started. In the back of the building I see the brew house door. I went to take a peak at what the production looked like. A small operation for sure. Looked to be able to produce 350 barrels a year or so. In the middle of the room is a labeling machine.It running labels for 16 oz cans and Mark is manning the station inserting one can at a time. And then with a blue sharpie coloring in the tongue of the SW art character to differentiate what beer is in the can. Mark looked up and said “welcome to my brewery”. I was looking around and asked him who the brewer was and he said, ” just me, it’s a one man operation. I can and label all my own beer to keep cost down.” I asked him what he was labeling and he said “ESB, it stands for Extra Special Bitter. For some reason people won’t buy something with the word Bitter on it. So it’s referred to as ESB.” After meeting the maker I went to see what his ESB beer was all about. So I went to the bar and ordered an ESB. Nice floral nose with the cloudiness of a true craft brew. At 5.6% alcohol this would be considered a session beer by beer snobs and critics. Flavors of orange wood smoke, and lightly bitter. A fine ale. I tried the pale ale after that and it had an almost creamy light lemon zest nose and the flavors were just that as well. With a subtle hop on your tongue at the finish. WOW I could put several of these back for sure. I was thinking of how craft brew has gotten more artsy that ever before and brewers nation wide have been trying to go above and beyond. Not all but the vast majority will have something on the menu that will require a unique pallet. And some have brew that shouldn’t grace the lips of any man, woman or dog. Nor do the fish deserve to have it pollute their homes. But breweries/taprooms/pubs make it and that’s profit they would like see. And the “love of the craft” sometimes seems to blind the people serving it. But not Mark Quist he takes pride in keeping it simple and severing his small batch craft brews and that’s not all.
I have a hard time resisting the smell of hickory burning. I consider myself more than a novice meat smoker. I say this because if you have more than 1 smoker, 3 different charcoal varieties, 4 different species of perennial woody plants and multiple once steel colored water pans, then I feel like you qualify for a serious slow smoking artist. So every chance I get to learn about others techniques and taste I’m in. When mark built the brewery 10 years ago he went with a wood burning stone oven as his primary cooking tool. His built the restaurant around the work of smelly goodness. I’m not familiar with this style of cooking but I have always wanted to learn about wood fired pizza. Looks and taste amazing when done right. So I thought lets try something off the menu that you don’t see everyday. “Wood Fired Calzone please”. Basically a folded in half 16 inch pizza landed in front of me about 20 minutes after I ordered. I had a fresh pint of ESB and a tightly sealed, perfectly toasted brown calzone and tools to take it apart. The dough was a wheat based with hints of cinnamon and sea salt. The sausage, ricotta and red sauce are blended perfectly and complement the ESB with every bite. The staff takes pride in what they deliver and they should. Before you can even take everything in and find a place to stay in Delores, CO. I highly recommend you stop in at Dolores River Brewery www.doloresriverbrewery.com and get a bite and a pint. See if you enjoy what I’ve found to be fantastic.
By then end of the night we had packed in about 10% of this tiny town. Playing in a corner surrounded by people sharing the moment and dancing with imperial pints sloshing about. The energy of people can feed the band into a musical frenzy. Win win if you ask me. I know we will return to this little gem soon.
Sounds like a good time, a good town, and you guys are killing it everywhere you go. Keep it up and we will catch you over at Fox Theater real soon!
Good readin’ Adam, keep it up!
The blogging thing is a great idea. You are a great writer. It sparked great mental images of what sounded like a great night. Keep this going!
Delightful writing, AP. I really want one of those pale ales you spoke of… Cheers.