Beer Battered Avocado Tacos

By kevin

During the Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest, I had the awesome opportunity to try Searbirds‘ beer-battered avocado tacos.  As a lover of tacos, of beer, and of avocado – this was a moment of sheer joy.  As someone who enjoys cooking – this was inspiration to try to do something similar myself.

Given that avocados, when cut up, are somewhat slippery, I figured I needed a “more grippy” batter.  Usually, for beer batter, I use Isa’s recipe from Vegan Brunch.  For this, I decided to make the batter more putty-like, less batter-like – the idea being that I could take gobs of it and mold it around the avocado slices.

Beer Batter Ingredients

I took clumps of the “batter” and molded it to wrap around each avocado slice. I then rolled them in a separate bowl of bread crumbs to get the final later of crispy outside.

I don’t have a deep fryer, so I simply pour a thin layer of canola oil into a nonstick pot and fry in that.

That’s it.  Simple!  In the first picture, I topped one of the tacos with Drew’s Smoked Tomato Dressing and another with some salsa, stacking the avocado slices on top of a bed of chopped romaine lettuce.  I think these turned out pretty awesome.  My only complaint is that I am somewhat poor at picking out ripe avocados, so some of the pieces were not as buttery soft as I would have liked.

Khyber Pass Pub

By kevin

When seeking vegan-friendly bars, I think I am pretty easy to please.  I basically require just a few simple things:

  1. Craft beer on tap
  2. Vegan items clearly labeled on the menu, so I don’t have to play a game of 20 Questions with the waitstaff
  3. More than 1 vegan choice, excluding hummus, “garden salads”, and portabello mushroom sandwiches. I’ve had enough of all three in my lifetime, thank you very much

One particular chain of bar/restaurants in Philly always fulfills all three of those requirements.  I’m talking about the Royal Tavern and both Cantina locations (Dos Segundas and Los Caballitos.)  The head chef at all three locations, Mark McKinney, does a splendid job of giving us vegans a plethora of delicious menu options.  The recently revamped Khyber Pass Pub is the 4th, and possibly the best of the bunch in my humble opinion!

I strolled up to Old City this past Monday for an evening of food and drink at the Khyber.  The Khyber used to be primarily a music venue with a decent bar.  The first time I went there was more than a half-decade ago – to see Andy Rourke, formerly of The Smiths, spin records.  It happened to be the first time I tried a Victory Hop Devil; I deemed it too hoppy for my tastes at the time (oh, how the times have changed.)

The new Khyber has replaced the music floor with dining tables.  They now boast 20 tap lines and 2 hand pumps for cask-conditioned beer – everything from local favorites like Yards Philly Pale Ale or Victory Storm King to West Coast IPAs like Ballast Point Big Eye or Port Brewing High Tide.  And the food menu – still in “preview” mode for now, is Southern-style, with a bunch of vegan options.

Normally I’d go with seitan po boys or the veggie sausage sandwich – two mainstays on the still-new menu.  On this evening, however, I chose to start with one of the daily specials: Vegan Sausage & Mustard Greens Soup.

The soup was very hearty and tasty.  The sausage reminded me of the vegan chorizo you can purchase at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.  The greens and tomato broth complimented it well.

For my entree, I chose to go with the Vegan Pulled Pork Sandwich with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy.

The mashed potatoes had a really raw (in a good way), un-processed feel to them.  As you can see by the crappy iPhone photo I took, it doesn’t look like the perfectly blended commercial junk you get in the supermarket.  This was a real mashup of potatoes and soy milk.  I think the gravy could be a tad thicker, but overall the taste was spot on (not overly salty, like some veg-gravies can be.)

The pulled pork sandwich itself was a soft bun surrounding a mound of slightly sweet but also tangy seitan covered in some sort of cole slaw.  I’m not a big cole slaw fan – in fact, I don’t like most white, veganaise-y things, but even I found this to be delicious.

I was too stuffed between the beer and food that I had no room for dessert.  They do offer cakes from Vegan Treats in the event that I ever leave room in my stomach during a future visit.

Previously, my go-to, never-dissapoints, vegan-friendly Philly pubs were Local 44 and Memphis Taproom, but I now have to make room for a third.  (It also helps that the Khyber Pass Pub is merely 2.5 miles away from my house, making for a pretty pleasant walk through Philadelphia.) I highly recommend it to any vegans looking for hearty pub food and a few tasty pints.

Phillies 2008 Opener

By kevin

Thanks to my awesome brother, I scored a ticket to today’s Phillies home opener against the Washington Nationals.  Last year, PETA named Citizens Bank Park the most vegetarian-friendly ballpark in North America due to the various veg options. Vegan garden burgers, vegan hot dogs (taste like Smart Dogs), and vegetarian cheesesteaks (vegan if you order minus the cheese.) Well this year they have stepped it up even more – Planet Hoagie now offers crab-free crab cakes (dissapointingly not vegan) and Rick’s Steaks has added vegetarian chicken cheese steaks (again, vegan minus the cheese.)

Since I did not have a very substantial lunch, I started the game off with a vegan hot dog and gardenburger. They have these neat onion grinder thingees that you can use to add onions to your food. You spin a wheel and out comes fresh-diced onions. Yum. A perfect accompaniment to both of those items (especially since I personally hate both mustard and ketchup.)

The second best part about the Phils’ stadium? A stellar beer selection. Pretty much every local brewery (Sly Fox, Victory, Yards, Troeg’s…. Yuengling) are represented on draught, Dogfish Head (Shelter Pale Ale, maybe) can be found in bottles, and the big national craft brews – Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, are pouring also. Good stuff. All very vegan friendly breweries.

I helped myself to a Victory Hop Devil with my burger & dog, which was an awesome trio. I later grabbed a Troegs Sunshine Pils (ridiculously refreshing, but probably better suited for those mid summer 90 degree games, for me). My last beer of the day was somewhat ominous; Yards Philly Pale Ale, probably my favorite local goto beer (deliciously citrus-hop aroma and flavor, reasonable bitterness, light enough to drink lots of) tasted like crap, and it came right around the time that the game imploded for the Phils. I’m not sure what the deal is, but of the past 4 Yards Philly Pale pours I have had (4 different locations) – 2 were delicious, and 2 were dump-worthy. Today, it tasted kind of like malt vinegar (aceto bacteria) with a splash of moldy bread. Not pleasant. Don’t know who is to blame – infected tap lines? Brewing inconsistencies while they continue to contract brew up at The Lion (until the Delaware Ave new brewery opens?) I don’t know. I hope it gets remedied soon!

Side note: I cracked open a finally carbonated bottle of my All-Summit Pale Ale that I brewed like 6 or 7 weeks ago and it is freaking delicious. New. Favorite. Hop. Between the orangey-citrusy hop flavor & aroma and the subtle fruitiness of the Safale US-05 yeast I used, I think I’m in love.

Final Score: Nationals 11, Phillies 6… But at least I ate and drank well!

Welcome to veganbrew.com

By bwyker

Welcome to the beginning of veganbrew, the pioneering effort of two vegan
beer geeks to bring together the inventive worlds of vegan cuisine and
craft beer. What does veganism and beer have to do with each other you
ask? Perhaps it’s best summed up by honest Abe:

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be
depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring
them the real facts, and beer.”

– Abraham Lincoln

It is every genuine craft beer crusader’s mission to school the masses on
the wonderfulness of craft beer in the hopes that they will wean
themselves off of the carbonated piss served up by Budweiser, Miller and
Coors. So why stop at what we drink? In an effort to wean the masses off
of the garbage served up by KFC, McDonald’s and Burger King, we will
regularly fill these pages with commentary on the whys and how-tos of
eating and preparing delicious vegan food, while enjoying fine craft beer.

Make no mistake about it, the core of our mission is centered on social
responsibility. The industrial model used for modern-day farming is
flat-out reckless and immoral. However, let us be perfectly clear on this
– we are not dumpster-diving, politically correct, granola hippies.
Likewise, we are not self-important, “my shit doesn’t stink because I
donate to Green Peace,” pseudo-environmentalists. On this blog you won’t
find rants about the war in Iraq, genocide in Darfur or how wrong it is to
“water board” someone. The world is a fucked up place, but that, my
friend, is why we drink so much! What you will find is reviews of vegan
fare served up at brew pubs around the country, recipes for cooking with
beer, socially responsible homebrewing, write ups of beer and vegan food
pairing, vegan-friendly breweries, and much more.

Enjoy.