The Camden Town Brewery is about 15 minutes’ walk from my front door, and on Saturday they were hosting Texas Joe’s Brisketfest. a £30 ticket bought you a taste of 8 different BBQer’s interpretation of brisket and a beer.
The even started at 12pm, but after some needed sleep from the night before (review to come) I rocked up to meet my friends at the agreed upon 2pm. The place was already pretty busy, and after we all arrived, we got stuck in.
First up was The Joint, who had pulled up their food van (a converted St. John’s Ambulance I think) into the brewery. Their Brisket was served pulled on a brioche bun with mayo, lettuce, tobacco onions and chili jam.
This was a combination that really worked. The sweetness of the bioche and the mayo combined well with the meatinesss of the brisket and the tobacco fries. The real stand out was the chili jam. It was spicy and warm, with just enough sweetness to cut through the spice. A great starter!
To demonstrate the popularity of Brisketfest, Miss P’s BBQ had run out of brisket. At 2pm on the second day! They had, however, managed to get some from Texas Joe, and so I’ll not review their meat, but their sides. The Texas Joe brisket will come in later.
Miss P’s BBQ had 3 BBQ sauces on offer, their Standard (which turned out to be a bit different) Hot, and a Chipotle and Bourbon sauce. Being the glutton I am I got a squirt of each in my hand to try before I made my choice. The standard had apparently been spiced up with some jerk spices (accidentally) and I can only urge them to keep this recipe as it was incredible. It was smoky and deep, not too sweet with a real spice punch before the heat of the chilli came in. The hot was a bit spicier, and concentrated more on the chilli flavour than on the underlying spices. Still very good though. The coleslaw was also excellent, and also mixed fresh for each person that came along. It wouls have been great to try these with Miss P’s own brisket.
With the first 2 polished off in quick order, it was on to Smokestak. These guys had thankfully not run out of brisket, which was served on a brioche roll in slices. Served with it were pickled red chillis and a dark barbecue sauce.
Bow down before the magnificence of that smoke ring!
I wanted to save it until the end, but I can’t wait. This was the absolute highlight of the day. The brisket was insane! For those of you who have watched Man Vs Food where Adam Richman goes mental over smoke rings, bark, texture ‘like butter’ and depth of flavour? Well, that was me! The combination of crunchy bark and soft, literal melt in the mouth inside was almost too much. Combine this with an incredible soft bun, the almost too hot chillis and that dark, sweet sauce was the absolute perfect combination mouthful. I wolfed mine down in 3 bites, and I wish I could have gone back for seconds. I shall be keeping an eye on their twitter and shamelessly stalking them until I can eat it again!
After that I was a bit worried – how could anyone top that!? The answer is, they couldn’t but they had a bloody good go!
Next up were the BBQ Fanatics with a minimalist offer – brisket in a brioche bun, with a Barbecue sauce. Had I eaten this on its own, I’d have been delighted with it. Great barbecue flavour, great bark, but not quite up to Smokestak’s brilliance.
Howards Meat were up next with a different riff – the brisket Frito Pie!
This was actually very welcome – we got brisket chilli, sour cream, jalapenos & cheese with crushed up fritos and a couple of very generous slices of brisket on top. A great combination, and the cream and the cheese was a welcome respite in texture and flavour. The chili was excellent, a little bit spicy and full of flavour. The texture contrast between that and the crunchy fritos was lovely.
This picture does not do it justice!
Texas Joe’s was next up
I was a bit underwhelmed with this one. It looked and tasted like something you could do in your oven. It was tasty (hell, it’s slow cooked brisket!) but it seemed to lack the smoky flavour and outside crunchiness that the others had managed. Having said that, we got a free pack of Texas Joe’s beef Jerky, and that was amazing! you must try it. I ate half the pack before we started on the brisket, and am just finishing it off now as I type.
The last 2 we went and got as a one-er as people were starting to run out of brisket.
The Social Meat Company was one chap on his own (Matt the chef by the looks of it) and he was worked off his feet! His approach was also a little different, with his brisket accompanied by mashed potatoes and cucumber, with a generous squeeze of mustard. Very tasty, though the mashed potatoes turned out to be a bit much for me at the end…
Next to the pot of Brisket comes the final effort, from Prarie Fire. This was my decond favourite offering – they laid everything out very neatly on a bit of bread, which made for easy folding into a sandwich. They also supplied a chunk of burnt end, which is just cheating to be frank. It just tastes so good! So smoky and fall apart tender. Gorgeous!
They also had quite a bit of brisket left over, so were selling quite frankly huge brisket sanwiches for a fiver a throw. Absolute bargain, and my friends who had not bought the £30 ticket were very grateful. I, on the other hand, did not have room…
So that was my Saturday afternoon! A great chance to catch up with some old friends and stuff my face with delicious meats. Well done to Texas Joe for organising – I will certainly keep an eye out for other events in the future. I walked past Texas Joe’s place in The Grafton just up from the Camden Town Brewery. There were some people eating chicken wings out the front that looked very tasty indeed!