Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

This weekend, beer fanatics and Veritasty flocked to Coney Island's MCU Park for Coney Island On Tap Craft Beer Festival!  Dozens of nearby and faraway breweries served up more than 100 craft beers.  Each guest gets a 5oz glass to proffer to the volunteers pulling the oft-decorated taps, built into blue plastic coolers (still trying to figure out how those worked).  Although neither of us are huge beer fanatics, we definitely appreciate a cold one now and then, and I know I definitely learned a lot about beer and what types of beer I prefer at Coney Island On Tap! Preface: we are not beer experts, but we dabbled at our homemade beer tasting and this discussion of SixPoint beer by my friend Charlie .  I think I shall divide this post into three categories: beer, cider, and other.  Also...while I tried to take notes on the checklist they provided, it got harder and harder to annotate after five, ten, fifteen different drinks...so here are the highlights! ...

This past weekend, we celebrated the 4th of July at...The Melting Pot in Red Bank, NJ! The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant, but the way Alex described it to me, it also had an aspect of Asian-style hot pot. Huh?  Do you...cook food in boiling cheese? Turns out there are cheese and chocolate fondue courses, and the entree really is like hot pot, but in a selection of broths.  We had a four-course dinner with lots of poking and prodding and bobbing in broth and it was a load of fun! First, we shared a Classic Alpine cheese fondue course, which was Gruyere, Raclette, and fontina cheese with white wine, garlic, and lemon juice.  The dippers included bread, grapes, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots.  The cheese fondue was prepared table-side by our server (who embodied the qualities of a good waitress: loud, enunciated well, and knowledgeable).  Though it was a little too strong in the wine department, it was fun to dip the bits in the cheese. ...