BEERy Exciting! Great Nebraska Beer Fest and Local Eats

As the wife of a craft beer bar owner, I have been lucky enough to be introduced to the amazing world of craft beer and along with that, wonderful and interesting people who make up Omaha's craft beer community.  For the last three years, some of our great friends from Nebraska Brewing Company in Papillion, along with other regulars in the craft beer community, have worked together to bring great beers to our state at the annual Great Nebraska Beer Fest.  For their 4th annual event, there will be over 80 breweries represented for more than 400 individual craft beers!!  For just $40, you have 5 hours to try this extensive beer collection all in one place.


Anchor Brewing Co. July 2009



New Belgium April 2012

The Great Nebraska Beer Fest is hosted at Shadow Lake Towne Center in Papillion (home of Nebraska Brewing Company). In addition to some of the local Nebraska Breweries (including: Nebraska Brewing Company, Infusion Brewing Company of Benson, Moonstruck Meadery of Bellevue, Blue Blood Brewing Company of Lincoln, Ploughshare of Lincoln, Gottberg Brewery of Columbus, and Empyrean of Lincoln, just to name a few), the festival boasts many local homebrew clubs as well as awesome breweries and brew pubs from our neighboring states. I have had the pleasure of visiting a few who will be in attendance including: Keg Creek of Glenwood, Iowa, Avery of Boulder, Colorado, New Belgium of Fort Collins, Colorado, O'Dell of Fort Collins, Colorado, Anchor Brewing Company of San Francisco, Twisted Pine of Boulder, Colorado, Tommyknocker Brewery of Idaho Springs, Colorado and Goose Island of Chicago.



Tommyknocker Brewery January 2009

Nebraska's craft beer community is also excited to host some breweries that have never been in the state before including: Stone Brewery of California, Maui Brewing Company of Hawaii, Free State Brewing Company of Kansas, Cigar City Brewing of Florida, Funkwerks of Colorado, and Blind Tiger Ale House of New York (again, just a few of many).  The Great Nebraska Beer Fest web site is extremely informative including a list of all of the participating breweries and brew clubs, a description of each brewery and/or club, as well as a description of many of the beers that will be featured at the festival.  There is a detailed description of what you can expect as a patron of the festival, there is a breakdown of the day, details on the featured beer seminars and a shout out page to the MANY sponsors of this great local festival. 

As the craft beer movement continues to grow in Omaha, this event will only get bigger and bigger.  In the mean time, check out some of the above-mentioned local breweries or some of our awesome local craft beer bars including:The Lauter Tun, Krug Park, Crescent Moon, The Huber Haus, Max and Joe's, The Library Pub, The Blatt, The Omaha Tap House, Jake's, and Brass Monkey.  Here's a cool local beer blog too, for all of you beer aficionados out there: www.beervanaomaha.blogspot.com

GNBF Itinerary

Friday August 24^th

4 to 6pm. Breweries beer drop off
7 pm Brewers Reception, Nebraska Brewing Company Patio.
Beer aplenty & food

Saturday August 25^th

10 am Brewers / Volunteers Brunch Nebraska Brewing Company
11 am to Noon Brewery setup, Dick’s Sporting Goods Parking Lot
Noon to 1pm VIP, Brewers & Volunteers Special Session
1 pm Beerfest Open to General Public
Food Vendors Open
Opening Music, Omaha Pipes and Drums
1:30 pm Seminar Tent - Beer Travel with TheBeerGeek.com
2:30 pm Seminar Tent - Homebrew Troubleshooting Panel with Brewers from Boulevard, Tallgrass and Nebraska Brewing Company
3:30 pm Seminar Tent - The role of the Internet in the growth of Craft Beer - Panel of Internet beer gurus, both local and from across the nation!
4:30 pm Seminar Tent - Chris Spradley - Beer and Food Pairing
6 PM Final Pour, Beer Fest Ends

Goose Island July 2012

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It's time for some more critiques on a few local restaurants. In the last month, I have experienced amazing Thai, Italian and Indian cuisine in the Omaha area. Since the Old Market is such a hub for entertainment, it shouldn't surprise you that two of these restaurants are located there. The first is Nicola's Italian Wine and Faire at 13th and Jackson. Similar to many of the restaurants in the Old Market, Nicola's ambiance is due in large part to the old exposed red-brick walls. Patrons have the option of eating in the dining room or in the large outdoor patio (which does have a fair amount of shade available).  Based on Northern Italian cooking styles, each entree is accompanied by two large pieces of bruschetta.  Meals are moderately priced.  The menu reflects the common Italian restaurant--pastas, seafood dishes, paninis and sandwiches, soups and salads, and dessert, but within each category, there are some twists on classics that make Nicola's worth the trip.  For example, during my most recent visit, I tried the Spaghetti Aglio & Olio.  This dish reminded me of a capellini pomodoro.  It's described as " a lighter dish; spaghetti sautéed in extra-virgin olive oil with roasted garlic, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes and Italian bread crumbs, sprinkled with fresh parsley and Parmesan."  The saltiness of the kalamata olives along with the tartness of the sun-dried tomatoes created the perfect flavor profile on that hot summer night.  Nicola's is also home to more than 100 wines.  If you're looking for a new local Italian restaurant, check out Nicola's.



Nicola's Outdoor Patio

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Omaha is lucky enough to have a few authentic Indian restaurants spread out across town.  My husband Chad is a huge fan of Indian food so we recently planned a date night to the Old Market's Indian Oven.  We arrived around 8:30 after taking in a movie and we were pleased to find that the restaurant was open until 10, allowing us the luxury of a leisurely dinner.  Due to the extreme heat and humidity, we opted to eat inside, although they do offer a small patio out front.  There were a handful of customers in the restaurant, so the noise level was pleasant.  The decor consists of beautiful paintings, low lighting, and candlelight--simple and elegant.  We started the meal by sharing a bottle of Taj Mahal--a light, crisp refreshing lager, and a piece of garlic naan and a cilantro pesto dip.  The bright flavors of the cilantro accented the crispness of the beer and again, with such a hot summer, this was a refreshing starter to our meal.  Although I am fairly adventurous, when it comes to food, I shy away from the unknown, but with my trusty guide, Chad, at my side, I took a leap of faith as I read through the menu of unfamiliar foods.  He informed me that anything with tandoori in the tile would be spicy so I steered clear of those dishes.  After reading through the descriptions of the chicken dishes, I based my decision on the dish that contained the most familiar ingredients and settled on the Chicken Kadai.  It was phenomenal.  It was stew-like and even with the hot weather, the herbs and spices used somehow managed to create yet another refreshing dish.  Chad let me taste his chicken tikke masala which would be another easy transitional dish for thsoe of you who are new to Indian food.  It is a chiken dish with a tomato cream sauce.  I am officially a fan of Indian food now.  The Indian Oven describes its food as "fun, playful Indian street food" and I assure you--you will feel like you are eating in an exotic Indian city when you eat at The Indian Oven.

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Mai Thai Original Location 144th & Center

Thai has not been such a stretch for me.   I have loved Asian cuisine for much of my life--everything from Chinese to Japanese to Vietnamese.  Thai food overlaps with dishes like beef and chicken fried rice; however, Thai food also uses Jasmine rice (a.k.a. sticky rice), ginger, pad Thai noodles, fresh spring rolls... There are several authentic Thai restaurants in Omaha.  One of my favorites is Mai Thai.  The original location at 144th at Center is small, but the modern Asian influence in the decoration creates a fancy, yet cozy feel.  Recently, Mai Thai has opened a second location at Aksarben Village--a new developing area complete with housing, shopping, bars, restaurants, a movie theater, and a gym.

 The new location is much larger than the original.  There is even a trendy bar inside.  The menu is the same between the two locations.  Much like in other ethnic cuisines, there are some staples to Thai food including Pad Thai, spring rolls, ginger chicken, chicken/beef fried rice, Pad See Eew-- the list goes on.  I almost always have the Pad Thai because it is, in my opinion, the spaghetti of Thai food.  Mai Thai does a wonderful job with their Pad Thai so I figure, why mess with perfection.  My other staple are the fresh spring rolls--fresh veggies wrapped in rice paper with homemade peanut dipping sauce.  However, Mai Thai does have a substantial menu.  They even have a dish created by their chef called Chicken Mango.  I recently had the mango fried rice with chicken.  The sweetness of the mango brightened up an old favorite.  There are several dishes that use basil as well.  During my most recent visit, since I was lucky enough to be joined by family and friends, I had the opportunity to try a new appetizer as well as deferring to my spring rolls.  This time we tried the fried calamari with sweet chili dipping sauce.  Calamari tends to be hit or miss, sometimes too chewy, sometimes looking entirely too much like a baby octopus, but Mai Thai's calamari was just tender enough.  The flavors were delicious and the portions were perfect to share with a table of 6.  Mai Thai is the place to be if you want great Thai food and thanks to their new location, you shouldn't have too far to drive if you're hungry for some Thai!