Lexington Avenue Brewery raises its own beef, wants to feed it to you

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