Tag Archives: Avril

Avril & Spring “Oven-Fried Cornflake” Chicken

Published in Cooking with Beer, Featured Belgian beer, Organic beers on April 12, 2012

Avril is crazy good with fried chicken.  Crazy.  Good.

But if you don’t want to deal with the mess of frying chicken (i.e. grease splatters and a home that smells like chicken for days on end), our friend – Kelsey Banfield, the Naptime Chef – has an amazing oven-fried alternative.  For more delicious recipes, check out Kelsey’s blog or her recently published book: The Naptime Chef: Fitting Great Food into Family Life.

Recipe and photo from The Naptime Chef

Grandma Pat’s Oven-Fried Cornflake Chicken

Ingredients

3 large chicken breasts or chicken tenders
1 cup Italian dressing (preferably low-fat)
1 tablespoon garlic salt
3 cups crushed Corn Flakes

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  If the chicken breasts are thick use a mallet to pound them until ¼ thinness. Most tenders are thin enough you won’t need to do this. This recipe also works with thighs so feel free to use bone-in meat as well.

2. Pour the Italian dressing into a ziploc bag and add the chicken to marinate for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, add the crushed corn flakes to a plastic bag and add the garlic salt to them. Transfer the chicken to the corn flakes bag and toss well so the chicken is completely coated.

3. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and bake the chicken for about 30 minutes, or until it is cooked through. Serve hot!


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Beer of the Week: Avril

Published in Featured Belgian beer, News About Our Beers & Brewers on April 9, 2012
It’s the second week of Earth month, which means that it’s time to feature our next eco-friendly, organic beer: Dupont’s Avril.  Avril will also be featured during tomorrow evening’s (4/10) Whole Foods virtual beer tasting, which will be taking place at 7pm CST and also feature beers from Samuel Smith, Bison Brewing, and Hopworks.

Now, you may be thinking, “A virtual beer tasting on twitter?  That’s awesome!  But how will this work?”  Every fifteen minutes, the focus will shift to a different featured beer as brew masters take questions from Twitter fans and share stories about the beers and the breweries.  Avril will be up first, so make sure to tune in at 7pm sharp!  To follow the conversation, use the hashtag #WFMBeer.  For more information, take a peek at our latest mailing (and sign up for our mailing list if you like what you read!).

Avril
Avril is a USDA-certified organic, sessionable, light saison, bière de table from Dupont.  It is the beer that the brewer – Olivier Deydecker – is proudest of; producing a session beer with so much flavor, complexity, and stability is no mean feat.  It is especially unusual because it is bottle conditioned, a difficult task to complete with a beer so low in alcohol (3.5% ABV).

While Avril and other bières de table are not the heavy hitters Belgium is so famous for, they are central to Belgian beer culture because they are how Belgians learn to appreciate beer. They are typically enjoyed with home-cooked meals at the family dining table, and the versatile Avril pairs well with salads, seafood, hors d’oeuvres, creamy cheeses, and so much more.  Stay tuned for mouthwatering recipes this week!

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Belgian Wins U.S. Open… and it’s Not Kim Clijsters

Published in News About Our Beers & Brewers on July 7, 2011

 

 

 
Want more help cooking with Beer? Read the Collaboration with  the Naptime Chef: Power Napping with Belgian Beer via Kortrijk and Toronto.  We are reaching a young, well-educated, affluent audience of young moms with the help of syndicated blogger and soon to be cookbook author, Kelsey Banfield.  There is a great beer dinner menu from Philly Beer Week in this post as well.
The countdown to the Vanberg & DeWulf 30th Anniversary Coast to Coast Toast has begun!  Belgian-centered accounts across America are raising a glass to celebrate three decades of awesome beers.  Please make sure that you like us on Facebook so that beer afficionadoes know that you are part of the Belgian Bash.  We’re gonna party like it’s 1982!  To put you in the mood, here are the top 100 songs of 1982.
In case you are desperate for more information about our hallowed past and sunny future, check out Gerry Khermouch’s story on Vanberg & DeWulf: Beer Marketer’s INSIGHTS Story on Vanberg & DeWulf

It’s Been a Good Week for Lambrucha

…Evan S. Benn over at Esquire queried “Is Lambrucha the healthiest beer on earth?”  Of sixteen beers profiled, Lambrucha ranked in the top three:

A Chicago couple combined his love of Belgian lambics with her fondness for fermented kombucha tea to create Lambrucha, a tart, funky, lemony brew with a dry finish. At just 3.5 percent alcohol by volume and with all the good-for-you stuff that kombucha drinkers swear by — vitamins B and C, as well as help with digestion and blood circulation — this beer’s a standout.

…Then Chris Schonberger, beer maven at Time Out New York, admitted to being obsessed about little old Lambrucha:

Pioneering beer importer Vanberg & DeWulf is behind this genre-defying hybrid: a dry, tart and bubbly blend of lambic (a style of ale that gets its sour qualities from wild yeast used during fermentation) and kombucha tea. Clocking in at a session-friendly 3.5 percent alcohol by volume, the lively, pinkish brew is ideal for summer sipping, dialing down the alcohol without sacrificing complexity.

…And on Independence Day, Lambrucha took the Gold in The U.S. Open of Beer Experimental Beer Category. More than 1200 beers were submitted in 50 categories and Vanberg & DeWulf’s three entries all medaled.

It’s Been a Great Month for Hop Ruiter
Hop Ruiter took the silver medal in The U.S. Open Beer Championship French/Belgian Ale Category.  Way to go Schelde brewery and Vanberg & DeWulf.  In other breaking news:

The Alstrom Brothers at Beer Advocate have good things to say about Hop Ruiter:

Score: A- | Excellent
A full-on collaboration with importer Vanberg & DeWulf, with their sights set on a hoppy Belgo-American Strong Golden Ale. Lacing from rim to end is epic, and a spectacular pale golden clarity shows off the bubbles. Faint oily hop resin meets a dry malted breadiness, with nutty yeast and spicy alcohol in the nose. Amazingly drinkable and refreshing moderate fluffed body. Hoppy with some sweet fresh-cut grass and herbal flavors. Bubble gum? Medicinal phenols are the second coming of bitterness here, though all is kept balanced with the dry maltiness laying down a beery blanket. Grain and hops pull equally in the dry finish. Super drinkable for an 8 percent ABV beer.

As does Lew Bryson at All About Beer:

“Beautiful pour, beautiful head! brilliant white mousse over a gauzily golden body. Very intoxicating to look at it. Candy, sweet clove, zinging spiciness: This is the smell that drew me to Belgian beer thirty years ago. And it tastes…just like that, only with a twist of bitter at the end that spins this all into another paradigm. Is it overhopped? No. Is it soppy-sweet? No. Am I going to drink the rest of it? You damn betcha. Lew Bryson

It’s an Awesome Year for Brasserie Dupont
Saison Dupont is on a roll nationwide. It just becomes more and more beloved among more and more beer afficionadoes. Recently served to the Prince of Belgium at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, a few days, later this splendid Saison was served to a crowd of more than a thousand celebrants at a July 4th picnic at the residence of the United States Ambassador to Belgium.  Meanwhile, it earned a Gold Medal in the World Beer Championships (again).  And now, Foret Blanche Organic has reached American shores – high time to try if you have not already done so.  The beguiling Posca Rustica is ready to ship from Antwerp (it is known as Cervesia in Belgium).  Avril was featured as a super summer session beer in Epicurious – Conde Nast’s online food site.  Much much more Dupont news to follow in August.

 

 

 

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Plug for a four point four pound beer book

Published in So You Want to Become a Belgian Expert? on May 30, 2011

Here is another resource to consider if you aspire to be a Belgian expert.

Our friend Chuck Cook, of http://belgianbeerspecialist.blogspot.com, asked us to put a little plug in for a book to which he was a contributor.

118 of the 1001 beers profiled are Belgian. Chuck wrote thirty-some entries and has visited every single one of the breweries he covers. One among them is Dupont, and Chuck weighs in on the merits of their Avril (organic) and Moinette. Worthy writers Joris Pattyn (a Belgian) and Joe Stange (also author of the mighty little Around Brussels in 80 Bars and the blogger behind the fine Thirsty Pilgrim.)

For more on Chuck’s take on the book and his reviews from Abbaye de Aulne to St. Bernardus Tripel, as well as info on where to buy the book, read his post.

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Two Lovely Beers of Spring from Dupont

Published in News About Our Beers & Brewers, News and Opinions on May 9, 2011










Bieres de table are not the heavy hitters Belgium is so famous for. They are light in alcohol, meant to be enjoyed with home-cooked meals and the family-dining table, and are central to Belgian beer culture because they are how Belgians learn to appreciate beer.

There is no finer example than Avril, by the celebrated Dupont Brewery. Did we say, organic? 3.5% abv. Crisp, grassy with light fruits in the distant background…complex and interesting. Think of it as Foret Organic’s little sister. Enjoy Avril with pea shoots, ramps, spring lamb, asparagus – or after walking in the rain with the one you love. Try it in 750 ml bottles or 20 liter kegs.

If not Avril, then maybe the title of “Belgium’s best session beer” belongs to Redor Pils which is coming in – by popular demand – in kegs only for the first time ever later in May. We expect the beer will be turning up in some 400 accounts around the country.

Redor Pils is light in alcohol but full in flavor – perfect for spring and summer. Considered by many the finest traditional Belgian Pils brewed in Belgium today, Redor is made from 100% barley malt, Styrian and Golding hops, proprietary Dupont yeast, pure well water, untreated with added salts or minerals, lagered for minimum 2 months, 5% ABV, and UNPASTEURIZED. Tim Webb’s The Good Beer Guide to Belgium gives REDOR Pils 4 stars **** (classic for its style) calling it the “undersung unfiltered pilsener, with a good smack of hops.”

Appreciate beers that are highly quaffable? Participate in the conversation about the market-driven demand for lighter and more drinkable beers by checking out Lew Bryson’s crusade to get lower alcohol beers their due: http://sessionbeerproject.blogspot.com/

Our Dupont family has grown to 12 beers. In 2011 it will include Saison Dupont, Moinette Blonde, Moinette Brune, Bons Voeux four organics (Avril, Foret, Foret Blanche, Biere de Miel ) Posca Rustica, Chateau Beloeil, Monk’s Stout, and now Redor Pils. How many of them have you tried so far?

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