by Patriots Daily Kitchen Staff

Just lose to help the Pats draft position baby! Yup, the Pats again own an Oakland draft pick. This year it’s their 2nd rounder.

Oakland got the only win they really needed last week, so here’s hoping they go 0-13 the rest of the way.

What To Eat.

Schwenkbraten is a German grilled pork. Usually cooked over a beechwood fire, if you have a smoker go for it, it’s still great when cooked on a gas grill.

It isn’t Raiders related, but it’s a favorite (favorite enough to be repeated from previous seasons) and will go great with the featured beers this week.

Ingredients:
Schwenkbraten – German grilled pork
serves 4
4 onions
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic crushed
1/2 cup (2 nip bottles) gin
1 tablespoon mustard (german stoneground will be best, but brown will do)
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon black pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon salt (kosher will be best)
2 pound pork loin, you can use boneless pork chops, but the loin is more tender
8 bulkie or kaiser rolls

Prep:

Almost all of the work for this recipe occurs a day before. Slice the onions and put the rings into a large ziplock bag, add everything but the pork and salt, mix it all together. Cut the loin into 16 chops, cutting on the diagonal will give you thinner chops with more surface area. They’ll soak up more marinade and grill faster, both good things. Sprinkle the salt over your cut chops. After 15 minutes, put the chops into the ziplock, mix it up, push the air out of the bag and close. By adding the salt and allowing the meat to sit salted we drew some of the moisture out of the pork, that will allow the marinade to soak in faster. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

Cooking:

Take the chops out of the ziplock. Pour the onion and marinade mixture into a large aluminum foil pouch. Put the pouch on your grill, after 10 minutes put your chops onto the grill. The oil used in the marinade may flame up, so be careful when you put them on. 4 minutes later flip the chops, and after another 3 minutes check to make sure the pork is no  longer pink and the juices run clear and you’re done. If you cut the chops thick you will need to cook them longer.

Layer the chops and onions onto the rolls, 2 chops per roll. You could use some more German mustard if desired, but you won’t need it. Mix some cayenne pepper into brown mustard and you’re pretty close to the secret recipe stadium mustard served in Cleveland.

What to drink

Octoberfest has appeared in every season of the Buffet Table, so we’re switching it up and instead of featuring beer from the opponents territory we’re going with the Top 10 Octoberfests.

The first Octoberfest was a wedding celebration, so buy enough so that you can have some left over for next week when those incurable romantics Mr. & Mrs. Ryan come to town.

Top 6 Pack of US Octoberfests in no particular order

  • Heavy Seas Marzen, – formerly Clipper City Balto’marzhon Quality remains though the name changes
  • Sam Octoberfest – By pure ubiquity, it isn’t as good as it used to be, similar to how the winter lager has been slowly weakened over time. Still a good beer. And you can find it anywhere.
  • Jack’s Abby Copper Legend – Newcomer specializes in German style lagers, and their Octoberfest is as good as you’d expect with that pedigree.

2 from Germany

There are obviously many good German examples, but manyare becoming more like strong Helles and less true Octoberfests. The newer versions should be marked as Wiesn and the traditional types should have wording like “Marzen” or “urtyp.”

Paulaner for example has an Octoberfest-Marzen and also an Octoberfest-Wiesn. The Wiesn is a far ligther beer in the new style.

Stick with the originals from:

  • Hacker-Pschorr – Also 5.8% and produced by the same brewery, they’re pretty interchangeable.

Many people prefer Ayinger but it is too sweet for me.

We need 2 more to round out a top 10, so we’re picking 1 each from untraditional styles. First a higher ABV or Imperialized Octoberfest. Second an ale that fills the Octoberfest niche.

Heavy Seas shows up again with their Prosit! ImperialOctoberfest Lager. This fills out the amped up Octoberfest slot. It’s an octoberfest taken to 8% ABV.

Since many Craft brewers are ale breweries they can have issues when trying to brew lagers and many just try to make an Octoberfest like ale.

Magic Hat however gets into the spirit of the thing with their Ourtoberfest Hex. It uses a portion of cherrywood smoked and rye malt.

A good Fall beer that isn’t just a poor imitation of a real Octoberfest. So they’ll probably discontinue it as that is what Magic Hat does with all of their good seasonals.

A note on glassware. If there is ever a time to break out special glasses it’s for Octoberfest.

The big mugs you see in pictures are Maßkrug. ß when seen in a German word is standing in for “ss”, often causing confusion to tourists as the word for street pronounced “Strasse” is written “Straße”. Maßkrug pronounced “moss kroog” hold 1 liter of beer to the line right above the handle. The glass extends another couple of inches. They weigh over 4 pounds when full.

The boot shaped glass is Der Stiefel, although it is fun to call them Das Boot. Commonly found in 1/2, 1 and even 2 liter sizes. Drink with the toe facing down.

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