Smokin' Hereford BBQ - Storm Lake, IA

I'm originally from northwest Iowa. Born in Sac City. Grew up in Spirit Lake, Iowa. Then, after attempting college, and living in the twin cities for a spell, I moved back home. That's when I started playing out. Really only three spots would have me. Sportsmen's, the Spirit Lake VFW, and Okoboji Brewing Company. Only the brewery would have me back. Probably for the best. After a while of working mediocre jobs and playing when I could, I moved down to Cherokee for a woman. My wife. The best decision I ever made. After that, we moved to Des Moines. Being a full-time musician in the center of the state meant that I had a lot of shows to do, and plenty of traveling, but rarely was that taking me up to my old stomping grounds. As an original singer/songwriter I struggled to get shows in northwest Iowa. The land of the cover band. I could barely get booked when I lived there, but I wasn't prepared to write it off entirely. I started doing a short run of shows called NXNWIA (North By Northwest Iowa, of course) and I tapped my friend and colleague Casey Joe Collins to come along for the ride.

It's like all this guy ever talks about...tours and songwriting. What about the damn beans?

I kicked this run of northwest Iowa shows off with a performance at The Temple Theater of the Performing Arts in downtown Des Moines. A decidedly not north or west town in Iowa. But, when routing works out, you jump on it. It was a Tuesday night, and one of my performances, so ticket sales started slow. I had Brian Schwager on my side, playing lead guitar, so I knew it would be fun nontheless. Imagine my surprise when almost 30 more people showed up at the door, more than doubling the presale tickets. That was a great way to start a run of shows. That's the thing with this job. It's all highs and lows. Now, there have been ups and downs on this NXNWIA run. Not just this year, but over the course of three years we've been doing it. One constant, however, is that Casey Joe and I explore as much as we can and search for better food than fast food joints allow. This year, our third on the run, we ended up in Storm Lake, Iowa for a show at The Cobblestone Ballroom. A very cool, historic ballroom that was a pleasure to play. For all four people that were there. Before that, though, we wanted to eat and Casey Joe recommended we try Smokin' Hereford so I could get a bean blog in.

Back on track, thankfully.

I had to check my records to make sure I wasn't hitting a duplicate. I thought I might have posted this one considering the quantity of times I'd eaten at that restaurant. Friends, they have a promotion where, if you can drink five 64 oz "silos" of beer, tney'll give you a shirt. Now, I'm not afraid of a challenge and I'm a proud owner of one of those shirts. That's five times at least. I guess I hadn't gotten serious about the blog last I was there. But, I digress. We're back in town and we're ready to feast.

I think we made it...

Obviously I got a meal. Surprisingly I didn't get a silo. Obviously I ordered the Spicy Smoked Hereford Beans for my side. This was merely a side dish so it was served up in the customary small, white styrofoam cup. I didn't get a spoon. There was a fork wrapped in a napkin on the table. It worked, of course, but I felt a little underequipped for the job. This dish came out of the kitchen steaming hot, straight from the bean pot. Immediately, you could see that there was a strong presence of course ground black pepper in this dish. Something I'm looking for, to be honest. You could also see right away that this was a single bean dish. The might navy bean holding down an entire dish. It's the right move, but I love to see a kidney bean or something in the mix. Variety (of beans) is the spice of life, after all. The other down side to this single bean dish is that they were slightly over cooked. We were in there around 5:00, so you'd not expect anything to have been cooking for too long, but these had suffered such a fate. To save the dish from being too mushy, there was a generous addition of scrap meat(s) in the mix. Pulled pork for sure. Something chopped smaller, perhaps brisket. This addition did help resurrect the texture of the dish. All previously mentioned ingredients were stewed together in a most righteous sauce. It was thick enough to eat with the fork they provided. Before it hit your lips you could smell the black pepper and hints of smoke. The aroma, couple with the heat and the subtle sweetness of the sauce made it a near perfect thing. Balance is key with these different flavor profiles and Smokin' Hereford pulled it off pretty damn well. 
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Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 3
Flavor: 4
Mouthfeel: 3

Total Score: 10

For what it's worth:
Getting nearly 60 people out to a ticketed event on a Tuesday night: 5