Local Foodie Moment Follow Up: Pint House, Short North

With so many great places to eat in this city sometimes its hard to make it back to a place twice.  Thankfully the kind folks at the Pint House gave me a reason to come back to their great establishment by inviting me to a private local blogger dinner!  I drug Chris along (more than willingly as he really likes Pint House) to be my beer taster since my beer palate is a little bit embarrassing and not at all refined (give me a cold Bud Light and I'm a happy camper! #socollege).

Brainless on Peaches

The dinner was on a night where they were featuring Epic Brewing Company as their Weekly Tap Takeover.  As previously mentioned I'm not really a beer enthusiast but I was surprised to see Epic has a lot of offerings to match just about any beer palate.  When I'm trying not to embarrass Chris with my domestic beer choices, I typically venture out with lighter wheat beers.  Just about anything that mentions a seasonal fruit and I'm in, aka the girly beers.

As I perused the beer list I came across the Brainless on Peaches, their Belgian-style ale with peach puree added to it then aged in Chardonnay casks.  It sounded delicious, the name was quirky so I decided to give it a shot.  Then I realized its a 10.8% ABV, I didn't really realize the strength of a 10% beer until I got halfway through and realized I was already buzzing, there went my post dinner productivity.  Anyways, this was light, delicious and perfect for warmer weather, but it definitely packs a punch!

Chris got a beer sampler and he was kind enough to write up his thoughts on it for me (what a guy)!  "In the sampler I got Blue Ski Lager which is a classic American lager which was not bad but nothing special.  There was the Imperial Red Ale which was nice and caramely which I love in my beer.  The third was the Pint House Epic IPA which Epic makes exclusively for the Pint House and was my favorite.  I was surprised that I liked it better than the Imperial Red because it has grapefruit and pineapple peel added to the caramel but the blend of flavors was really good.  This is what I got a full glass of and it went really well with the beer chicken.  It was also cool to be able to talk to the rep from the Epic distributor. He gave good suggestions about the beers and suggested the food pairing with the Pint House IPA which was great."

Beer Sampler

Before dinner, one of Epic's distributors let us gather around as they opened a Firkin, a unique smaller beer cask.  What makes beer out of a firkin unique is that is has not been cold filtered, pasteurized and carbonated with outside equipment.  The beer inside the firkin is naturally carbonated by its resident yeast.  They passed out samples for us to try of the firkin beer and it was definitely different.  It had a spice to it and almost a little bite, very interesting to try! (Sorry no Firkin photos, wasn't quick enough!)

The dinner featured Pint House's Wednesday special, Beer Chicken, half a beer-brined chicken with a side of fresh cut fries.  The chicken was super moist, juicy and had great flavor.  There was a side of a BBQ kind of sauce that was tangy with a little kick that really complimented it.  It's served with a slice of lemon but I found I didn't really need it as the beer brine flavor was just right.  As usual the fresh cut fries were delicious! Chris even said the star of the show was the fries, high praise there!

As I mentioned in my previous post about Pint House, it has a industrial casual feel with a mix of mostly high tops and bar stools and some lower long bench picnic tables.  I love the rustic food presentation on wood block cutting boards, it makes you feel less inhibited to dig in, throwing elegant eating habits to the wind!  Or maybe it's the beer?  Either way, we had a great meal with great beer and good conversation with other local bloggers!

Back room of Pint House

One thing is for sure whether you go to Pint House for the beer or the food or both, I doubt you'll be disappointed.  Thanks to Pint House for hosting us!

I'm going to try my best to get a few more LFM's and shoes posted before the big wedding day and honeymoon but you never know what will come up! 

Cheers!
Steph