a half-day off; Marble IPA, Marble Apricot Sour and brainstorming

Since I worked saturday, I was able to get off at noon yesterday. Leah and I HAD to get our registrations renewed, including getting our cars emissions tested, which prompted our afternoon with some responsibility. Despite our great attitudes, we were still expecting a stereotypical experience at the NM MVD - the lady that helped us was actually, in one word, great! Leah even said "We really appreciate how nice you were". The lady, increasing her coolness, replied "Oh great, there goes my rep!". Small things, but it got our afternoon off to a great start.



We vacated MVD by 3pm, and were promptly looking for a decent place to eat that wasn't fast food. We saw that in Old Town, there was a new pizza place that took over a place that formerly was one of the premeir fine dining establishments in Albuquerquer. Old Town Pizza is a clash of styles and textures on the eyes, but they make up for it with their food and beer offerings. Marble Brewing, our local, hot new microbrewery is really making waves in town after only a year, and seems to be doing a great job at promoting itself through the local restaurants. Along with Marble's IPA, Wildflower Wheat, and their Amber, they also had a decent selection of Italian imports next to their domestics. Being a homer, I stuck with old faithful, the Marble IPA.



The Marble IPA is a super hoppy ale that sometimes can be harsh to the uninitiated. I am new to beer fandom, and am learning to discern what is a good IPA, a great IPA, and a misnamed IPA - since I cut my teeth on these bitter monsters, I sometimes find myself scowling at IPA's that have just a subtlety of hops. But I digress....



Old Town Pizza; bottom line if yer in Albuquerque - check it out. It's medium on price, and the service was good.

Sooooo, we are planning a dinner with some friends and Leah mentioned doing a beer pairing.... Well I took off on this idea and we spent the next three hours (or was it 5?) researching ideas. I will take this oppurtunity to apologize to my lovely Leah for exploding with ideas and getting so far off track from what her original idea was that I felt like a heal. But we had fun talking about recipes and beers, and trying beers - and that what this is about....

so you blogosphere addicts, here is what we've got so far....

An Apple and Bacon Spinach salad paired with a Apricot Sour from Marble. We weren't sure how long this seasonal brew would last, so we invested in a growler for this purpose.

I want to make a grilled Salmon dish - I found this recipe in a wild game cookbook years ago and have made it several times with success. It's called Koni Salmon, supposedly a Hawaiian dish, but have never found its like elsewhere. The best description for the marinade is "it is like Teriaki with green onions, sesame seeds, and alot of garlic". I'm hoping that if I can find some Moose Drool locally, that it will pair well with this, but...... any ideas?

Thats about all we got so far - we have other ideas, but I think thats all that's formalized. And baby, if I am mistaken about this.... I apologize.

Any other pairing ideas out there? I'd love to hear about 'em!