Pretzel #11: As-salt-ed

South of North Brewing Company, South Lake Tahoe, CA

Every summer my friend Bruce spends a week with his father at a “music camp” on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe. Bruce’s dad is now in his mid-90’s, and he’s been coming up here for years and years to play his violin with a bunch of young kids. I admire his commitment! But the other benefit is that every year I make a day trip up there to meet Bruce and we get a beer at a wonderful place called South of North Brewing Company. (An earlier blog post about SONBC is here.) I still don’t quite understand the meaning of the name, though surely it connects to “South Lake Tahoe” somehow.

This, my friends, is an ideal setting for a beer and a bite. It has a spacious outdoor seating area under leafy trees, games like the ubiquitous cornhole that admittedly no one actually ever plays, live music many nights of the week, and an ultra-relaxed vibe. They brew their own beer, and they make it with water from the lake itself. Drink Tahoe Brew indeed.

So anyway, as per tradition, I met Bruce in Tahoe and we had lunch at South of North. And this time I got their pretzel, which the menu describes as “Locally made Bavarian pretzel salted and served with housemade beer cheese, whole grain mustard and pickles.” So, the pretzel is locally made, while the beer cheese is house made. I take this to mean they make their own beer cheese but not their own pretzels. I’m beginning to think that pretzels are a specialty item that are beyond the capability of most brewpub kitchens. Anyway, moving on.

Let me state for the record that I was prepared to love this pretzel. The place is so relaxed and friendly and lovely that it instantly puts me into a positive mood. It’s the kind of setting where you feel “The lark’s on the wing/The snail’s on the thorn/God’s in his heaven/All’s right with the world!”

And yet. This pretzel does not match the promise conveyed by the setting. First, the dough itself is boring. It seems like it might be wheat flour. In any event, visually it lacks the characteristic cracking and when you bite into it you just get a mouthful of bread. What’s more, it seems to have not to have encountered even a whiff of baking soda.

Second, this pretzel has a ridiculous amount of salt. Just look at the picture! Even I, who reflexively adds salt to potato chips, had to brush at least half the salt from this pretzel. Had I not made this effort, I think my cell walls would have been irreversibly erupting. I mean, the surface is literally more salt than pretzel.

Third, the size of this pretzel was inexcusably skimpy. It’s $19, for God’s sake. I hate to think what that translates into as dollars per ounce. Here in California, I could have bought a full two gallons of gas for $19.

The one bright spot was the beer cheese. It was positively amazing. It tasted both cheddary and beery. And, as we’ve discussed, it’s made at the brewery itself. My only complaint is that there was not enough, even for a small pretzel like this. They do also give you some stoneground mustard, which is fine. But rather than providing it in a handy little cup, as they do with the beer cheese, the mustard is just squirted haphazardly onto the serving tray, conveying, I believe, disdain for the patron. Now, there are some pickle slices, but these seem like an odd condiment for a pretzel.

Overall this pretzel seems to be poorly conceived and poorly executed and overpriced. Other than that, it’s a winner. Two stars.

PRETZEL TRIVIA

In 1615, Flemish artist Clara Peeters (sic) painted a “Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels.” Now, I’m going to let the lack of Oxford comma pass without my much-justified outrage, but I am going to take issue with the so-called “pretzels.” I mean, just look at this painting:

Let’s zero in on the offending image:

If she’d titled her piece “Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds, and Brown Links of Chain” I wouldn’t have a problem. She even could have called it “Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds, Some Ruffles Potato Chips, a Jug of Something, and Some Odd, Tangled Breadsticks Entirely Devoid of Salt” and I wouldn’t object. But pretzels? I think not. I invite my loyal readers to send me some worthy pretzel art. These 17th-century Flemish painters just aren’t cutting it.