stagg | Johnny Prime

I recently went to a release event for Rockaway Brewery’s newest beer, “Meat in the Middle,” with the man behind The Dishelin Guide.

“Meat in the Middle” (4.8% abv) is a rauchbier that’s brewed with slow-smoked NY State barley. What makes it special and “meaty” is that it’s smoked with cherry wood at Brooklyn specialty butcher and sandwich shop, The Meat Hook.

The beer itself is pretty good. You get a hint of that smoke in there, with a malt-forward beer flavor. Very nice. I tried it in a flight of some other goodies. In this photo, it’s all the way on the left:

The porters and dark beers here are really fantastic:

After working up a little buzz, we hopped on one of the brewery tours and picked up some additional info about the brew process:

By then we were hungry, so we ventured upstairs to try some of the sausages that The Meat Hook was selling.

We tried both the Long Dong Bud and the Beet & Onion sausages.

Check out the color on the Beet & Onion. Incredible! It was really nice, and topped with a kale kimchi type of slaw that really made the flavors pop.

Long Dong Bud was topped with some shredded cheese, and a pineapple relish. It definitely had more of a traditional German type flavor profile, other than the relish.

We were torn on which we liked best. I went one way (Long Dong Bud), and Jay went the other (Beet & Onion). In any event, if you can get over to The Meat Hook and try these, I highly recommend them.

Ben Turley, a butcher from The Meat Hook, gave us a demo of how he breaks down a “rear quarter” of a cow – a beef shank (a back leg).

As he explained what he was doing, he trimmed off various specialty cuts within, like the oyster steak and merlot steak.

Here’s a shot of the oyster steak:

And some various other items like portions of the top round and eye of round.

He parted out the femur bone, too.

The coolest thing about this was that they were just slicing up parts of the lean beef sections and passing it around to eat raw, with just a little bit of salt on top. Awesome!

One of the thicker cuts benefited from just a quick, hot sear:

So this day was basically a dream come true. Good beer, Good food and a dead cow. And Ben basically has my dream job.

On my way out, I picked up a jar of this really crazy banana jam too, from Stagg Jam & Marmalade.

They had a table set up where you could try all four of their jams on crackers. This bacon jam has a hint of citrus and vanilla that really explodes with flavor.