October 2013 - Jimmys No. 43

Vermont Sailed In: What’s On The Menu At Jimmy’s No. 43

This past Monday we had another sold out dinner were we featured produce and grains shipped in (literally) from Vermont, which we paired with various ciders. Fortunately, we have leftovers! Actually, we bought extra so we could feature Vermont Food products all week long. Among the menu items (while they last):

Sweet potato puree with caramelized onions
Wheatberry grain risotto with carrots and ginger
Winter squash soup
Plus, basic staples like potatoes, onions and apples that we’re incorporating into our regular menu.

And even though Cider Week NY is officially over, we’ve decided to keep some extra ciders on the menu owing to the overwhelming response we had. Among some of these NYC premieres are:

Whetstone Ciderworks (a super-small-batch cider maker from VT)
Slyboro Black Currant Cider (from upstate NY, near the VT border)

And while not a NYC premiere, Aaron Burr Ciders are extremely limited in availability. We were the first to offer them in 2011, and we currently have two cases left over from last week’s tasting with Andy Brennan: Golden Russet and The Traminette (made with 30 percent wine juice). Andy says there won’t be any cider for 7 months, as it all was drunk during Cider Week! So get it while you can!

On the beer front this week, brewer Rich Castagna dropped off the last two kegs of his Bridge & Tunnel Pumpkin Ale, which we’re tapping tonight to pair with our pumpkin carving (BYOP!) We’ll also tap a keg of Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin for good measure.

Plus there’s the Thursday Tap™ (Kyritzer’s Mord & Totschlag: “Murder and Manslaughter”) and we’ll have Peekskill’s Eastern Standard IPA back on draught this weekend! Oh, and stay tuned for our great line-up of cool events in November, including our next beer dinner (don’t get shut out, tickets here) with John Holl & Bacon-infused recipes from his new Craft Beer Cookbook, and the return of Battle of the Belgians.

Beer Here: Closing Out October With Some Of Our Favorites

We’ve made it through another Cider Week, and while we’ve still got plenty of cider to go around, we’re excited to be back in beer for the end of October!

We’ll have delicious harvest beers (Founders!) and pumpkins (Jolly and otherwise) available for individual purchase or in samples for tonight’s Tuesday Tasting. For $20 (pay at the bar), you’ll get a guided tasting of six different beers, including:

Sagra Pils, a refreshing pils from Spain
Founders Harvest (our favorite fresh hop Pale Ales)
Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela (the only actual pumpkin beer from the Dexter, Michigan, brewer)
Freigeist Hoppeditz-Doppelsticke Alt Bier from Koln, Germany
Stillwater Sensory Series Volume 2 – Small Black (black saison)
The Bruery Tart of Darkness (sour stout from California)

Tomorrow and Thursday, we’re getting spooky with our Halloween themes. Tomorrow it’s a BYOP (as in Bring Your Own Pumpkin) carving contest (Wednesday, 10/30), and we’ll be featuring Bridge & Tunnel’s Pumpkin Ale. On Thursday (10/31), you can come in costume (or not) and enjoy Kyritzer’s Mord & Totschlag (“Murder and Manslaughter”) for Thursday Tap™. This 7.2% ABV Baltic Porter was a legendary beer brewed for the knights of Kyritz an der Knatter as early the 17th century. This rich, hearty German dark is a scary combination of two historical styles: Baltic Porter and Schwarzbier.

As always, we’ll have regular bar/restaurant service available. We’re all about the Treat (as in Trick or Treat) at Jimmy’s No. 43. BOO!

Cider Week NY Continues with Meet the Cider Makers, Dinners, Tastings

BREAKING NEWS: At Monday Night’s Cider Week NY Vegetarian Nonsense dinner, we will be offering the NYC launch of Slyboro Current Cider! Updated menu and ticketing info here.

If you missed Saturday’s Cider Sessions: Wide World of Cider, you missed a super chill, super fun event. We had special tastings from a couple dozen cider makers, plus presentations by Steve Wood of Farnum Hill and Greg Hall of Virtue Cider. You can view some of the presentations they each gave below.

And we have plenty more cider fun in store! While tonight’s cider dinner is sold out, there are plenty of chances for you to get your cider on at the following events:

Tuesday, October 22nd:

At 5 p.m. Jimmy will be hosting the annual Cider Show on Beer Sessions Radio™ (tune in here).
From 7-8:30 p.m. Jimmy will coordinate WNYC’s The Greene Space “Lopate and Locavores” with cider week producers.
At 7:30 p.m. at Jimmy’s No. 43, we’ll have our regular Tuesday Tasting featuring 6 cider pours for $20.

Wedesday, October 23rd:

Henry Guild from Aspall Cider will join us at 6 p.m. to pour his many delicious ciders (details here).

Thursday, October 24th:

Our Thursday Tap™ will feature Andy Brennan of Aaron Burr Ciders. Then from 8:30 p.m., Rowan Imports will be co-hosting a Spanish Sidra pouring demonstration with many great Spanish ciders available for purchase.

Friday, October 25th:

At 6 p.m., meet the cider makers from Anthem (details here).

Monday, October 28th:

Close out Cider Week with a farm-to-ship-to-chef vegetarian dinner with cider options: Our prix fixe dinner at 7 p.m. features produce and grains shipped down the Hudson as part of the Vermont Sail Freight project. Tickets here.

Plus, of course, we’ll be pouring ciders a la carte all week long.

See Steve Wood at Cider Sessions here:

See Greg Hall at Cider Sessions here:

Cider Week Returns with Harvest Beer & Cider Sessions: Wide World of Cider

Steve Wood of Farnum Hill Ciders will be at Saturday's Wide World of Cider event. — Steve Wood of Farnum Hill Ciders will be at Saturday’s Wide World of Cider event.

Jimmy’s No. 43 is happy to be co-hosting the official launch party for Cider Week NY: Harvest Beer & Cider Sessions this Saturday, October 19th from 1-4 p.m. We’ll have dozens of ciders in a walk-around tasting format. Your $50 ticket (available here) gets you the chance to hobnob with the cider makers from the region who are at the core of Cider Week’s mission, plus this year we’re adding in the ciders from the U.K., Spain and France, in addition to some great ciders from other regions across the U.S., all part of the Wide World of Cider!

Among the offerings will be:

Harvest Moon Cidery/Critz Farms Four Screw (on draught),
Virtue Sidra (on draught) with Greg Hall (who will be giving a special presentation at 6 p.m.),
Breezy Hill with Elizabeth Ryan,
Steampunkt (Oakes Winery),
Slyboro,
Aaron Burr with Andy Brennan,
Eden (Ice Ciders),
Naked Flock,
and Farnum Hill with Steve Wood (presentation at 4 p.m.),
Henney’s and Olivers (from U.K.),
Drouhin and Dupont (from France),
Spanish Sidra from Asturias region,
Others TBA.

On the beer side of things, we’ll have special fall brews (fresh hop and harvest beers) from Carton, Barrier, Bridge & Tunnel (join Rich Castagna at 3 p.m. for a special beer seminar), along with other brewers who will be in attendance. Your ticket to Cider Sessions grants you free admission to the post-event talks with Steve, Rich and Greg!

And if it’s a more intimate gathering you prefer, be sure to get your ticket to the Vermont Sail End of Cider Week Dinner (with beer/cider option) on October 28th. Vermont Sail Freight will be coming down the Hudson with our order on Sunday, and we’ll be cooking up this farm-to-ship-to-chef prix fixe dinner the next day. It doesn’t get fresher than this! We hope you’ll join us for the 3rd Annual Cider Week NY (all our events are listed here).

Iberian Beer Night at Jimmy’s No. 43: Stillwater and L’anjub “Aloja”

We’re shaking things up tonight and instead of our regular Tuesday Tasting, we’ll have Johnny Brilliant and Jessica Garcia Agullo from Iberian United visiting. They’ll be here with their latest collaboration beer between Brian Strumke’s Stillwater and L’Anjub. “Aloja” is a 6.9% ABV dry Saison. Brian brewed this new beer with Spanish nugget hops from Leon and a new saison yeast, which gives off white pepper tones. The water used to brew the beer affected the way the yeast activated, resulting in a lot of lively effervescence and a “prickly” sensation. The effect is very much like champagne, which makes for a challenging tap situation. We plan to be able to pour from our keg, but we’ll also have some bottles for back up just in case.

The name, “Aloja”, refers to a mythical Iberian water woman (L’Anjub means “water cistern”… we hope that Stillwater needs no translation). This creature was both attracted and attractive to human men, so they would often leave the water to breed with mortals. However, the Aloja is a very jealous bi… beast! So best not to cross her!

Jessica and Johnny will be in around 7:30 p.m. Join us for some bubbly fun with this interesting and unusual beer.