Did you know that the Lexington Avenue Brewery is now raising their very own cows? Next week's Xpress will have the story. Here's a sneak peek:

The LAB staff, and particularly the kitchen team under chef Jason Roy's guidance, has taken the local-centric concept to a whole new level. The restaurant is now raising its very own brand of pasture-grazed Angus cattle to serve to their beef-eating patrons in the form of burgers, steak and the like. Where's the beef? The so-called-for-now "LAB Farms" occupies a Leicester plot of land, and is operated by "LAB family member" Scott Brown.

The process goes like this. The LAB brews beer, and lots of it. The spent grain — close to 1,000 pounds per brewing cycle — goes to the cows. The cows from the LAB's bovine herd are pasture-raised until the last few months of their life, and are then "finished," to borrow an industry term, on said grain, once it's supplemented with a little extra protein.

By the time a LAB customer orders a burger made from that beef and washes it down with a pint of LAB-brewed beer, the grain involved in the brewing of the pint is likely on its way to LAB Farms to feed the next round of cows. Ah, the modern-day circle of life — Asheville-style.


LAB Farms' cows chow down on brewery-provided grain
Photo by Jonathan Welch

On Tuesday, Sept. 28, the LAB presents a beer dinner featuring meat from their Angus cows paired with their very own house-brewed selections. Talk about a homegrown event. They're calling the 6-course sampling, appropriately enough, the "Beef and Beer" dinner.

Dinner will be hosted in the LAB's back room, and will begin at 5:30 p.m. To make reservations, call 252-0212

Here's a peek at the menu:

Tenderloin tartar, Kennebec potato crisp, deviled quail egg, white ale sabayon / white ale
Consommé with beef shumi, house made kimchi / American pale ale
Torta lengua, brioche bun, jicama salad, mole verde / ESB

Intermezzo: ginger-pear sorbet spiced with ancho chili

Prime rib with beef Wellington, truffle whipped potatoes, horseradish dust, stout demi glaze brocolini / chocolate stout
Chocolate stout cake with papaya crème anglaise and Mincemeat strudel / marzen