This past Friday was the first day of the 4th annual NY Craft Beer Week. The week, which in truth is 10 days, is a series of beer related events across the various boroughs. Most of the beers are local to New York, but BLT Burger was featuring a 3-course prix fixe dinner with beers from a small brewery in Colorado. Its hard to turn down a reasonably priced beer dinner…
The beer week has dozens and dozens of bars in on the fun, each pouring $3 glasses with a coupon from your Beer Passport. The passport gets you a discounted feature beer at each bar, and if you don’t use them all, you can save them for a year, getting a discount or other deals at those same bars. Glorious beer.
The first course was a choice between fried green tomatoes or hush puppies with a Jalapeno pepper dipping sauce. The hush puppies were served with an Agave Wheat (bottle). The hush puppies weren’t exactly what like hushpuppies I’ve had before, having a thicker outside crust, though the inside was delicious, soft and went great with the dipping sauce. I only wish it was spicy rather than a more mild sauce. The beer was sweet, without being too sweet and a pretty nice pairing.
The second course was a choice between a burger with a fried mac and cheese patty, bacon, onions, beer cheese and bbq sauce and um, well, who cares. The name of the restaurant is BLT Burger, not BLT Pulled Pork. The burger was paired with a Ball Park Brown Ale which was pretty excellent and was a bit heavier (not in a bad way) that other brown ales I’ve had before. Sadly, the burger didn’t exactly stack up. When it first arrived I was excited until the first bit yielded a well-done burger. A true crime was committed upon that poor patty. I opted to say something and the waitress and another employee apologized, saying they’d bring out a new one, medium-rare. Not long later the true burger arrived. With that mac and cheese on there, I only took a few bites with the bun and all, and wasn’t really blown away by the burger itself. With all the fixings, mac and cheese, it was great, but as a burger, at a burger joint, it was only O.K. A little disappointing to say the least. Part of me wonders if their regular burgers are larger and more juicy, but who knows.
The final course was a wam pumpkin desert, which oddly only contained pumpkin seeds as part of the dish. The banana nut bread with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and seeds were served with a beer cocktail. The cocktail consisted of a Avalanche Ale along with some pineapple and other fresh juices. It was a nice refreshing way to end the meal.
Overall, a had a nice time and enjoyed the meal. The beers were all very refreshing, the brown ale was the only heavier beer in the bunch. My biggest complaint or issue was the burger. Not only the fact that it came out overcooked, but that the burger really wasn’t that great. The only saving grace was all the other stuff on it. A great burger should be able to stand alone. I’d probably give BLT another shot and try out their burger, this time their standard one.
