Sunday, October 2, 2011

Hogtober 2011




We went to the Hogtober Festival sponsored by Style Weekly and Budweiser in Church Hill on Saturday.  We had a great time!!!  Here are a few pictures of our day.  We sampled Halligan's pork, as they were the only ones who offered ribs!  Extra Billy's, Buz and Ned's, Alamo BBQ, and Halligan's were all present.  Halligan's was really good!  I fell in love with their BBQ sauce.  I am not big on sweet BBQ sauces.  This sauce was vinegar-based and had mustard in it.  I saw some crushed red pepper in there, too.  We split a brisket sandwich and then ordered a few bones each.







































The ribs were dry rubbed, but I like dipping dry rubbed ribs in sauce and well, since I loved their sauce so much, I was really dipping!!!  Ribs were very meaty and super tender.  Brisket didn't have a lot of flavor, but was also very tender and moist.  Smoke ring was present...not much of a bark.  I slathered that puppy in sauce, too!  Halligan is in Shockoe Bottom, with a Short Pump location opening very soon!  Although we decided on Halligan's for our BBQ, I will say Alamo BBQ had the longest line by far!  Will have to try them out at a different time for sure!!!  Lines don't lie!  Bands were B2B Band, Jackass Flats, People's Blues of Richmond, The Atkinsons (shown), and Rosie Soul and the Rock and Roll Cowboys (shown). 

The pictures of the smoker below were from Extra Billy's.  Looked good, but as you can see by my earlier blogs, we just did pork sandwiches at home.  I was looking for ribs and brisket!





















2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing beats a good BBQ! It just brings out the fun in people. BBQ'rs can be so creative too. I wonder what was under the cast iron pans on the bricks to keep it warm?
Is the sauce the biggest difference between TX and VA BBQ?

Shannon D. Gregory said...

No, it's not necessarily the sauce. I think, in this day in time, you can find all kinds of sauces in any region. One is going to be more popular than others in different regions, but usually BBQ places are offering a variety of sauces to appeal to all taste buds. It's more the meat that differs. It is so hard to find brisket up here, where as it is everywhere in Texas. You can find brisket in Texas as frequently as you can find a pulled BBQ pork sandwich up here. Brisket is a bitch to smoke properly and people have a hard time cooking them. If I do find brisket in Virginia, usually it isn't up to par to what I am used to. Brisket can go wrong so quickly, so it does take practice. Halligan Bar and Grill just had a sauce that I could die for!!!