One of our first forays into real beer, and wastoid-ly groping for words to describe it, was an IPA tasting we did for a newspaper in 2005. We plucked a range of California pales (Stone, Marin County Brewing etc.) from a liquor store and stayed at the office late one night taking rudimentary notes about what we thought we tasted. Of course, it turned into a hop face-off with us quickly proclaiming the hoppiest beer of the bunch (Moylan’s Hopsickle) the winner.
Because to the untrained beer punk — and we were certainly that, undertaking this “tasting” with our intern buddy “Kluthe,” who sported a navel orange Mohawk and plaid suspenders — India Pale Ales can pose a problem; the beer equivalent to what in the music world we’ve heard described as “The Ministry Problem.”
The Minstry Problem: noun, used to describe the unfortunate situation of many proto-industrial-metal bands best typified by the band Ministry during the mid ’90s in which every new album is expected to be faster and louder than the last to push the proverbial envelope, resulting in indulgent, sample-heavy metal that, put simply, sucked after 1996.
Beer has this too! Call it the Triple IPA Problem. Its when brewers, especially our West Coast stars feel the need to make every IPA hoppier and more extreme then the next (see Port Brewing). And although we happen to love almost unapproachable beers, we’ll agree there is a line, somewhere, that just doesn’t need to be crossed.
We kept this in mind when we reserved a bottle of limited edition Exponential Hoppiness this month from Red Carpet in Glendale. And we were absolutely thinking about it when we popped the bottle by ourselves on a low-key Super Bowl Sunday that didn’t involve TV or chili or anything except sitting at the window writing. Was this triple IPA going to be metal as fuck?
It’s right there on the bottle: Alpine starts with “multiple kettle hop additions, where each addition is literally double the previous… exponentially, get it? That’s the beginning. Then there’s the use of what’s called a “hop back,” which is like a brewers’ version of sawing off a PVC pipe and smacking you. Seriously, it’s a stainless steel pipe that holds hop leaves and lets hot brewing beer pass through it like water for hot tea. Then there’s two dry-hopping sessions. Oh yeah, almost forgot, and then they toss in several “body-bag” sized sacks filled with hop flowers and oak chips at the end.
Which is why we were surprised to swill a juice cup of this beer and not double over poisoned by hop fumes, but instead be dotted with a sweet, rosy hop-water cologne. The head was nice, nothing unusual, slightly thin, lager-ish foam. The body color too seemed far from menacing: not evil red or wood colored like we’ve seen before. No, this beer does the darnedest thing. It takes hops in several stages and forms and melds them into a friendly, sweet flowery tonic that reminded us more of rosewater and orange blossom than Extreme Beer’s sacramental herb. Each tiny glass, we liked it more. Low-hanging hop berries, slightly skunky grass clippings. There’s a bitter tinge, of course, but it tastes more like booze dripping from oak trees with oversized hop leaves. In fact, looking out on our empty street on Super Bowl Sunday holding this, we felt something that made no sense: despite the $20, 11 percent alcohol beer in our hand, we felt saved from the excesses of 24-packs, the indulgences of 12-leg food buckets, 7-layer dips and the hegemony of stupid games.

Dairy Pairy: Challerhocker; a dense crunchy raw cow’s milk cheese from Toggenburg.
Soundtrack: Ministry, “Stigmata”

We’d heard the rumors — that PETA was moving to our veggie-friendly Echo Park hood, building office space in an old furniture store — but didn’t pay much mind until recently.
When we started investigating though, we found something way juicier. Ever heard of the “Fine Faux Gras Challenge?”
PETA is hosting a recipe competition that will pay $10,000 to the creator of the most “palatable” and best imitation fake duck liver. The contest is open until next month. And the rules seemed loosey goosey. The guidelines even said that the recipe merely has to be “vegetarian.”
Now this was a contest we could jam hard, we thought.
While we love cooking vegan — the culinary challenge of it, immense health benefits, good of the world, yada yada yada — we kinda hate most vegan cooking. We like vegetables in their natural shape. And fake meats from scratch. We’d prefer to eat a pan-seared abalone mushroom than a Textured Vegetable Protein “tuna salad.” And we’d rather whip together a faux foie gras dripping with the unctious pleasures of butter fat than vegetable oil.

So what did we do? Watch the video to find out. And make the recipe to taste it yourself. As for the contest? Lets just say we found new meaning to the phrase “faux pas” so we decided to eat our entry ourselves and call it a day.

3 parsnips
1 cup raw cashews
3 cups cream sherry
8 oz. unsalted butter*
2 tsp. ground white pepper
1 gram agar agar**
3 tsp. sea salt

*You want the highest butterfat percentage possible. IF you cannot find Beurremont 83%, go for Vermont Butter And Creamery, or Plugra.

**Agar agar can be found in many forms; the cheapest is in aerated sticks, stocked at most Asian groceries. Powdered agar is waaaay easier to work with but costs 10 times as much.

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the parsnips in half lengthwise and place them skin side down in a roasting dish. Add 4 Tbs. (2 oz.) butter, 1 tsp. of salt and 1/2 cups of sherry. Seal the roasting dish with aluminum foil and roast for about 25 minutes.
2. Heat a medium sized skillet on medium heat and add the cashews. Toss often to ensure even cooking. When the nuts start to brown add 2 Tbs. Butter. When the butter starts to brown, turn off the heat and set the nuts aside to finish cooking, they will absorb most of the brown butter. When they have cooled, pulverize them in a food processor as fine as you can.
3. Check the parsnips: you want them to be easily penetrable with a fork at their thickest point. If they’re not there yet, return to the oven and keep roasting. Check them every 10 minutes until they are ‘fall apart tender.’
4. When the parsnips are done and cooled, carefully scrape all their flesh into a bowl. Add 4 Tbs. more butter and let the heat from the parsnips melt the butter a little. Mash the butter into the parsnips, and add all the white pepper and the remaining 2 tsp. of salt.
5. Combine the butter-parsnip mash and the cashew pieces with 1/2 cup of sherry using an immersion blender or in a stand blender. Blend until smooth–this will be hard and laborious. You want the texture to be smooth enough for all the ingredients to be incorporated, but have the thickness of a pliable batter. When its super smooth, taste and adjust salt levels if need be.
6. Now make your sherry gelee: Pulverize the agar either by crushing it or by chopping it, as finely as possible. Add the agar to 3/4 cup sherry in a saute pan and heat on a medium heat. The sherry needs to get close to boiling in order to melt the agar and gel properly, but you do not want to boil off the liquid.
7. Clarify the butter: While the sherry heats, prepare a double boiler by placing a metal bowl over a small sauce pot of boiling water. Add the remaining butter and melt. When the butter is totally melted, skim off the layer of scum on the top and gently spoon everything except the water at the bottom of the buttery pool into a bowl. When using high butterfat butter, there will be very little water at the bottom of your bowl. Keep the melted butter warm.
8. Separate your Faux Gras slop into two French terrines, or mason jars. Make sure to leave at least 2 fingers of space at the top of each jar. Smooth the top of each puree into a flat landscape with a spatula as best you can, and wipe the inside sides of each jar clean with paper towels.
9. Pour half the clarified butter on top of each Faux Gras puree, and place immediately in the freezer. The butter will harden and create a flat surface for the Sherry gel to live on.
10. Whisk the agar into the sherry, if the mixture starts to boil turn it down, until there are no lumps and the liquid is smooth. Remove the sherry gel from the heat and let it cool for one minute, then divide evenly between your two jars. Place the jars in the fridge to finish gelling.
11. To serve, bring the Faux Gras up to room temperature, and garnish with sea salt and ground black pepper. Serve on crusty bread, and feel the anti-burn.
Beverage: Russian River’s Temptation
Soundtrack: Pictureplane’s “Cyclical, Cyclical (Atlantis)”

It’s true we’ll never be big believers in vegan “cheese.” You know, the velveeta-like pizza and quesadilla goop? Its mostly oil and flavored science to help it “melt.” We’ll take a splash of good olive oil and freshly ground spices over that any day, thank you very much.
But, we are still keen on protein-laden pâté and spreads that can compliment, or even replace, a funky fromage. Think Euro charcuterie rather than Kraft singles…
So, last weekend, as we prepared a deeply beer-friendly cheese plate for our Greatest Sips book launch party, we looked for a vegan equivalent. We decided to hone a cashew “cheese” recipe we’ve followed a couple times from Charlie Trotter’s “Raw,” an excellent vegan-raw “cook” book. Trotter’s “cashew cheese” is a simple, creamy spread that doesn’t involve a dehydrator or his typical 20-steps. But we also find the flavor to be a little simple as a result. So, to pump up the ‘stank’ factor, we played a little fast and loose with the fermentation directions and added a secret ingredient that, by now, dear readers you should have sitting around anyway.
The result is a creamy, velvety spread that comes close to the fat and funk of a farmstead cheese, though it really can’t be called an imitation. Served with lunchmeat style habanero seitan and kraut-relish, our guests loved it, though some didn’t much care for the “cheese” reference. Okay, okay, it’s pâté. Now, if only we had a vegan impression of that other classic cheese plate protein — a terrine of foie gras. Hmm, stay tuned…

3 cups raw cashew pieces
3 cups filtered water
1/2 cup Rejuvelac
2 Tbs. sauerkraut brine (red cabbage preferred)
1 Tbs. kosher salt
2 Tbs. peppercorns
1 1/2 Tbs. Brewer’s yeast
1 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tsp. fennel pollen (optional)
1. Soak the cashews in filtered water for at least 12 hours, covering the bowl with a cloth.
2. Puree into a paste: Drain cashews and add to a food processor. Pulse cashews for several minutes, pouring in the Rejuvelac slowly. Then pour in the kraut juice. Once mixture is creamy and fully mixed, spoon it into a fine mesh strainer and rest the strainer in a large bowl, covered with a cloth.
3. Store the cashew mixture in a warm place, like your oven, for 16 hours. If your kitchen isn’t particularly warm, try turning the oven on warm for 10 minutes every 3-4 hours to trap in heat, but make sure not to cook the stuff.
4. Once the mixture smells yeasty, you’re ready to finish flavoring and shaping it. Remove from strainer into a clean bowl. Add 1 Tbs. of Brewer’s yeast and the salt to taste. Then mix with a spoon. Prepare a sturdy cutting board with wax paper and choose 3 ring molds or tea cups to use for shaping the cheese. Spray each cup with a bit of canola or olive oil spray to prevent sticking. Spray the wax paper as well. Divide mixture into 3 portions (about 1 cup each) and pack tightly into cup.
5. Turn the three cups onto the wax paper-lined cutting board and sit like this stored in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
6. Now, the spread should hold its shape. Tap the cup to loosen the Pâté and top with garnish of chopped peppercorns, rosemary, fennel pollen and remaining Brewer’s yeast.
Beverage: Firestone’s Velvet Merkin
Soundtrack: Stereolab’s “Velvet Water”

The Communal and unified nature of the American brewing scene shouldn’t be anything new to you. (Buy Our Book.) New, rowdy breweries are equipped with the obsolete machines of Elder breweries past, and Macro-Micro breweries are always evolving into new paternal forms: from distilling to distributing other fellow ale houses’ suds.
But the pinnacle of this new school of collaboration rests in grand old Escondido, in the vast fortress of our first love: Stone Brewing. Along with countless forays into expanding the expression of beer-madness, the dudes at Stone are in their third year of organized collaborative brewing and the results have been building in Rad.
Engaging in Hands-Across-The-Pond style brewing, and even embarking on something as official and nerdy as a “Brewer Exchange Program,” the Juxtaposition series presents the boys who always wanted to ruin your taste buds with a new set of potential hurdles to demolish. The process they’ve coined consists of a tryptic of current brewing baddies. Past projects, and current ones for that matter, pretty much read like a roll call of the best and brightest brewers on the planet.
The ‘witches round the fire’ situation that ensues from such a meeting of minds produces some pretty blazing results. In the case of 2009’s Black Pilsner, the three-way offspring becomes a veritable ubermensch. Pilsner, lets face it, is a fairly tired style. Yeah, when pressed to we can tell the difference between PBR and Czechvar but being deeply into Pilsner is like insisting that Barry Manilow is still a total ruler, or that a Wham! Reunion deserves closer inspection given the current economic climate — tepid and silly.
This Juxtaposition bottle was pried from the depths of the Rock n’ Roll 7-11 in Highland Park. Upon popping, a veritable palette of hops exited the wee bottle (there were 9 hop additions during the brewing). In the glass, this beer looks like the antithesis of Pilsner: black, velvety, dense. Swilling brings about a whole new feeling, not unlike the first time you shower stoned. “Wow,” you might say, “this feels really goddamn good!” And it does. And it tastes like pineapples. It tastes like hop candy, it tastes like the lightest, hoppiest, stout that you could imagine in all your beer dreams, like some amalgam of Black Flag and Pliny, and something else, like a perfect waxed cup of your best seven-year-old soda fountain cocktail with an inappropriate name (we called them ‘Suicides’).
And then its over. Flavor upon flavor, in unyielding nonsensical throbs for seven to 17 seconds and then… your mouth is clean. Did you just brush your teeth? Where’s my car…
This is aged magic in a bottle; a damn near perfect collaboration of three genies that comes out tasting like something you’ve never tasted before (or maybe never liked before). Find this before its gone; or covet the success of those who beat you to the punch.
Soundtrack: Mi Ami “Dreamers”
Dairy Pairy: Brebis Roussinere — a raw washed rind hard aged sheep’s cheese from way too high in the mountains.

In the six years since starting Hot Knives, the conduits of our medium have been many: internet (duh), video, independent newspapers, radio, catering, hanging out, bike rides, beer tastings and various other bamboozley boons. Its time to add another notch to the gun.
We bring you “Greatest Sips.” Our first fully-fledged book containing 21 of our favorite pieces of beer writing in the history of our blogging, and drinking, careers. Printed one at a time by our friends up north at Publication Studios, this book-length zine comes with a radical Hot Knives bookmark and a secret URL where you can hear songs to go with each of these beers! Courtesy of our rad partners at State’s Rights Records!

Would Be Hater: “But wait… Can’t I just look at past entries and save my hard earned cash amid the crumbling of modern capitalism?”
Us: “Yawn.”
No no no people, don’t debase yourself with the ideology of the now ubiquitous free downloader. This is the chance to have and hold our deranged beer writing – think Sufi love poems meet druggy brain farts – in your hands, whether on the toilet or curled up in bed. Rip off our cheese pairings. Give it to your boyfriend for Valentine’s Day (bros are easy). Just remember that the fate of the printed word, while easily replicated and distributed in cyberspace via clicks and drags, is a precious commodity; its physical reproduction a potentially dying art.
For years, we’ve been your humble guides in a world of bubbles and foam, bitterness and darkness. Now we can reside tactilely in your pocket or satchel on trips to bars and beer stores! When you reach the limits of your 3G network, or when you drop your phone in the ocean! Inspirational beer prose and wholly legit beer-and-cheese pairings at the flip of a page?
We’re the App for that!
“Greatest Sips” can be purchased here at www.publicationstudio.biz/books/