On Tap: A (Self-Guided) Greenville Beer Tour

Thanks in part to the Pint Bill in 2013, which increased on-site beer consumption at breweries to 48 ounces, old brewers have been expanding and new brewers have been popping up around the Greenville area. You can go straight to the source of local craft beer with a tour and a taste at these fine locations:

Thomas Creek Brewery
2054 Piedmont Highway, Greenville, SC
(864) 605-1166
Tours available by appointment Mon-Fri 9-6 p.m.; Sat 10-6 p.m.
Located south of downtown Greenville, Thomas Creek is the city's best known brewery. This award-winning facility opened in 1998 and offers everything from the classic River Falls Red Ale and Class Five IPA to specialty options like the Banana Split Chocolate Stout. The brewery is currently expanding to include a new courtyard seating area and an official tasting room, but the original facility is still open for tours and offering a few beers on tap.

Quest Brewing Company
55 Airview Drive, Greenville, SC
(864) 272-6232
Tours available Sat 1-4 p.m., on the hour
Quest began brewing in 2012 and wasted no time making an impact on local beer lovers. The adventurous spirit of the city inspired its name and beers: try the Smoking Mirror Porter or the Kaldi Coffee Stout, made with West End Coffee's freshly roasted beans. The taproom frequently hosts food trucks, live music, outdoor games and even yoga nights.

Brewery 85
6 Whitlee Ct, Greenville, SC
(864) 558-0104
Tours available Thu and Fri 4-7 p.m.; Sat noon-5 p.m.
Brewery 85 begins hard hours in March with a small, but enthusiastic line-up of beers available in half- and full-pint pours (flights are in the works). Start with the 864 Weizen for a literal taste of the Upstate—all ingredients are locally sourced—and bring your drinking pants for the 8.5% Quittin' Time Helles Bock. The large, outdoor patio is the perfect place to sip before a sunset, and rumor has it that live music, food trucks and games are soon to come.

Swamp Rabbit Brewery
26 South Main Street, Travelers Rest, SC
(864) 610-2424
The building that once brewed Leopard Forest Coffee will soon re-awaken to brewing a different sort thanks to Swamp Rabbit Brewery, the latest beer adventure of lauded brewer Ben Pierson. This family-run operation near the popular Swamp Rabbit Trail will welcome enthusiasts to sip classic beers at the steel bar in late March.

Blue Ridge Brewing Company
217 North Main Street, Greenville, SC
(864) 323-4677
While technically a brewpub, Blue Ridge should not be missed for both its importance in local brew history and its thirst-quenching beers. Bob Hiller was only able to open Blue Ridge in 1995 after lobbying to make brewpubs legal in South Carolina. Take a seat inside amidst the large tanks or out on a sidewalk table, and sip one of the big four: Colonel Paris Pale Ale, Kurli Blonde Ale, Rainbow Trout ESB and XXX Total Eclipse Stout.

A big thank you to Harvin, The Craft Beer Chick, for her round-up of local breweries for Gap Creek Gourmet! Visit her all things beer blog at www.craftbeerchick.com

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A beer float.

When the Fervent Foodie visited Greenville a couple of weeks ago, we went on a tour of Thomas Creek Brewery. I HIGHLY recommend you take this tour.  It's really educational.  And they give you beer samples.  

One of the last beers we tried was the Coffee and Oatmeal Stout.  It tasted sort of like a mixture of, well, coffee and beer. 

 I don't drink my coffee black so my first thought (which I said out loud) was that it needed half and half.  People rolled their eyes at me.  And then a light bulb magically appeared above my head.  What this beer needs, I thought, is a really good ice cream.  I'm totally making a float.

And I did.

I ran to Ingles for some Coffee, Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz Ben and Jerry's.

Popped into Greenville Beer Exchange to grab some Coffee Oatmeal Stout beer.

And made a most excellent float.  

The end. 

ChefQ6: Michael Kramer from Table 301

Welcome to ChefQ6 with Michael Kramer, the Executive Chef of Culinary Operations at the famed Table 301 Restaurant Group in Greenville, South Carolina. 

BREAKING NEWS:

Your Wednesday night dinner prospects just got a lot more interesting.  Table 301 Chef, Michael Kramer is cooking a Pop-up Family Style Oktoberfest feast at the Growler Station on Wednesday night, Oct. 30. Guests will nosh on German Style Pretzels with Cherry Mustard, Spicy Arugula with Roasted Pears, Pumpkin Seeds and Parmesan Reggiano, slow Cooked Beef with Parsley-Garlic Marinade and Stout Reduction, Braised Chicken with Preserved Lemon, Pine Nuts and Rosemary, Grain Mustard Glazed Potatoes, Butternut Squash with Sage and Brown Sugar, and Warm Apple Crisp with Caramel Sea Salt Sauce... all paired with Growler Station beer.

(You are drooling, aren't you?)  There are a few tickets left, so grab yours now!  864.400.8327 Tickets are only $45 (plus tax and gratuity). On top of all of that delicious food and beer, guests get 15% off any growler fill that night.

Now down to the meat of things.  Chef Kramer was nice enough to answer a few questions for us for this installment of the Gap Creek Gourmet ChefQ6.  Turns out, he's pretty dang awesome.  Prepare to be impressed.

To start, Chef Michael Kramer's credentials are a little intimidating.  He started his career at La Folie under legendary French Chef Roland Passot.  He worked at Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Los Angeles and the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas under celebrity chef Dean Fearing before he was recruited to be the Executive Chef of McCrady's in Charleston.  His road doesn't stop there. He took over as Executive Chef of Voice Restaurant at Hotel Icon in Houston in 2007, where he scored his second nod from Esquire Magazine's "Best New Restaurants" list, and a spot on Travel and Leisure Magazine's "50 Best New Restaurants in America."  He opened Tasting Room at City Centre in Houston and was working as Executive Chef for the Compass Group in Houston before Greenville's famed Table 301 Restaurant Group snagged the crazy talented chef in 2013.  Now he's instrumental  in creating and developing new menu items and concepts for the group, in fact, he was a big driving force behind Passerelle Bistro in Falls Park which opened this summer.

If his kitchen chops don't impress you (how is that possible?), the man also has serious surfing and biking skills.   Now that you know a little something about Chef, let's get this show rolling.  

1. When did you know you wanted to become a chef?

I started working in restaurants when I was 15 to pay for my surfboards, and it just took off from there. I naturally progressed into the kitchen, and I just loved it.

2. Which chefs have most impacted your career?Roland Passot of La Folie in San Francisco, Dean Fearing at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, and Marc Valiani, my former chef and Mentor who passed away 2 years ago from ALS. He was very influential. 

3. When you are not in the kitchen, how do you spend your time?Cycling, I am a big roadie, and train in the hills like crazy. Spend time with  my dogs, and and I try to see my little boy as much as I can he lives in Houston.

4. If we could take a peek into your home refrigerator, what would we find?
My fridge is kind of boring as I don't eat home much, so mostly condiments, I always have Parmesan Reggiano, sea salt and olive oil on hand.

5. If you could pick one chef to cook your last meal, who would it be?Thomas Keller is still one of the most influential people in the US cooking food. I like his style, and sensibility, and it's always honest cooking.

6. What’s been your biggest life accomplishment (so far)?Biggest life accomplishment has to be my son Evan. He is amazing. 

Thank you, Chef Kramer!

A little taste of Euphoria 2013

  

Last weekend food lovers descended on Greenville for Euphoria 2013, four days of all you can eat foodie bliss. It's been almost a week.  I think I am mostly recovered. I missed the debauchery in 2012, but was lucky enough to snag tickets this year for a weekend of  amazing sip and nosh and crazy paparazzi-style picture taking. (That's me and Soby's Chef, Shaun Garcia.) 

On Friday, we grazed around the beautiful Peace Center Amphitheater on the Reedy River in downtown Greenville for the Verizon Wireless Taste of the South.  Josh Leo and Adam Craig Band cranked out country tunes as we sampled small plates from Greenville's best restaurants: Larkin's on the River, Devereaux's, The Green Room, The Lazy Goat, Rick Erwin's West End Grille, Soby's, Stella's Southern Bistro, and Bacon Bros. Public House. (I left out a few, but you get the point. The best of the best were there. It was freaking amazing.) Top that with beverages provided by Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, Stella Artois, Thomas Creek Brewery (a local fave), Sierra Nevada, Williamsburg Winery, Trump Winery, and Boxwood Winery and  Barboursville Vineyards. 

Kat Kinsman was at Euphoria from CNN's Eatocracy blog!

Let me give you an idea of the very cool food we put in our face. Fried chicken and spicy waffle with maple syrup from Larkin's on the River, Braised Duck Pot Pie with Jalapeno Cornmeal Crust from Stella's, Korean Pork Tacos from the Rick Erwin's group of restaurants, Braised Beef Short Ribs with Poblano Slaw and Cherry Coke Glaze from Soby's and Smoked Manchester Farms Quail with Pimento Cheese Grits and Bacon Jam from Bacon Bros Public House.   

  

Take a look at my Euphoria 2013 post for more Euphoria pics. 

Let's talk about Saturday. (Stay with me.  Gonna be a long post!) I was crazy excited about that Charles Krug Wines and Justin Wines were going to be at the Bon Secours St. Francis Health System Tasting Showcase.  If you've seen me excited about something, you know why the guys at Justin Wines considered giving me a job when I walked up to their booth. I'm a total fan girl. If you've had their Cabernet, then you understand why I was so stoked.  R Stuart and Co. was also there with their Big Fire Pinot Gris, one of my favorite whites.  

Beer companies were sampling too. I'm not normally a beer girl, but I was happy to try them all.  Greenville's own Thomas Creek Brewery was there with their River Falls Ale (my favorite of all beers) and I loved the Blueberry beer from Atlanta's Sweetwater Brewery. Poppington's Popcorn was also there handing out samples of their Buffalo Popcorn. YUM!

Saturday, to me, is mostly about the booze, quite frankly, but Tupelo Honey Greenville was there serving up an absolutely amazing dish of Southern Chicken Saltimbocca with Country Ham in a Mushroom Marsala Sauce. It was one of my favorite dishes of the weekend. I've got to get my hands on that Tupelo Honey Cookbook.  Look for that to be on my Christmas List! And if I'm lucky, maybe they'll give me one to give away on the blog.  Stay posted.

Other tasty highpoints were the fare at the Fine Wine Auction and Reserve Tasting at Soby's on Saturday afternoon and then the macarones from Buttercream Bakehouse.  And we did linger over the breads at the La Farm Bakery booth for quite a while...

After a change of clothes and a switchout of girlfriends, I headed back down the mountain to check out the Euphoria Food Truck Driven Associates Traffic Jam at The Old Cigar Warehouse on Saturday night. Columbia's 2 Fat 2 Fly was there with their stuffed chicken wings, The Chocolate Moose was handing out cupcakes, and ASADA Food Truck was fixing up California-Mexican goodness. (I can't get enough of their tacos.) Also there: Henry's Smokehouse, Kona Ice, Thoroughfare Food Truck and Fudrucker's The Fudd Truck.  This was the first year for the Traffic Jam event. 

The Euphoria girls sure know how to throw a party.  It was a hoedown style event complete with strings of lights, cornhole games, a live band and even a hammock.  The lines for some of the food trucks were problematic (more booze than food =  drunk people) and one of the more popular trucks ran out of food before the event was over, but doesn't that just mean it was SUPER successful?

Sunday. That's me with the new chef of Hotel Domestique's Restaurant 17, Adam Cooke. (He's a cutie, right?)  I was excited to hear from him that the Hincapie venture should be open by November.  I hope they show some GCG love and allow us a preview!

I ran around chasing chefs most of the morning... until I spotted cake. This girl loves her cake.  Especially Brick Street Sweet Potato Cake.   Yes, I ate that first. With a Mimosa while I tapped my foot to the tunes of South Carolina Jazz Orchestra. But the best dish of the day goes to Performance Foodservice for the Smoked Salmon Strudel with Red Onion Relish.   

It was truly an amazing weekend.  I want to thank Sparkle Boss Taryn Scher (the PR genius behind Euphoria) for being so kind and for the Euphoria staff for doing an absolutely amazing job. Again.  You guys are the bomb.

Oh!  And one last story.  So right before we left, I grabbed Taryn for a hug and a thank you.  I asked for a picture.  I just wanted to snap a selfie shot. (I think she is amazingly cool.) She was worried about us looking funny that up close.  We were cute actually!  Until I got home and realized in my picture edits that I had food all in my teeth!  How long had that been there?!  Isn't that  the way of the world?  You think you're all snazzy and then you realize you had food in your teeth the whole time!

Until my next embarrassing moment.  

   

A little beer and cheese with GALS Greenville

Gap Creek Gourmet joined GALS Greenville on Monday night for a beer and cheese tasting. I've been on this all girl beer lovers group invite list for a while and finally buckled down, grabbed my buddy Nina, and got my butt out there to meet the ladies.  

Okay, I'm going to name drop now:  I am such a crazy fangirl so it was so cool to meet Christina, the other half of the Upstate Under Your Nose blog team (love their blog!) and Faith, the wife of former Owl Restaurant Chef de Cuisine, Joey Fazio (He's now at Cliff's Valley in Travelers Rest, in case you wondered).  And local musician Darby Wilcox was there (OMG! Love her.). Michele Golobic-Moore, the new owner of Independent Public Ale House, was there and I even ran into an old friend from Travelers Rest high school.  And I met so many more creative, fun women at the event. It was as a total blast!  

Here's how it worked: everyone brought a beer and cheese pairing to share with the class, then we grazed around the room, mingled, and at the end of the night voted on our favorite pairing.  The winner took home this fall brew.

You guys know I'm so not a beer drinker.  I'm a wine girl. So this was a full on education for me.  I went to the guys at Community Tap for a little help on the beer and cheese pairing.  They recommended a Saison Dupont Belgian Farmhouse Ale with an aged Manchego.  I didn't love the beer, but I could have eaten that cheese all day long.  Here were some of my other favorite pairings. (Due to heavy sipping, I was a little lax about snapping pics of the names of cheeses.) The Fox Barrel Pear Cider was awesome. I loved the Chocolaty Westbrook, and I have go to get my hands on another Lips of Faith Plout.  (There ARE beers in the world I like.  Yea me!)

This girl gets mad props for presentation.  She whipped up these fantastic little bits of heaven: Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar with Lemon Curd on Ginger Snaps. Oh, boy.  You HAVE to try it.  You'll be the hit of your next party. (And I MUST get one of those t-shirts.  Who doesn't love a club with swag?!)

Drum roll.... my favorite tasty nibble from the party was this Pimento Cheese.  Seriously, the best pimento cheese I have ever put in my face.  I had to have the recipe and Stephanie Smutler was more than happy to share her recipe with me and with you guys!  I can't wait to whip up my own batch of Smutty's Pimento Cheese.

Smutty's Pimento Cheese

1 8 oz. container of cream cheese 2-3 tbsps mayo (Duke's of course) 1 jalapeno finely chopped less than a 1/4 of an onion finely chopped 1-2 cloves of garlic finely chopped 1-2 blocks of shredded cheddar, you could use one white and one yellow, which is what gives it that color. 1 jar of pimentos (smashed before adding them) a little paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper to taste

Blend. Serve.

Cheers, y'all. And GALS Greenville, thanks for having me!