Sweet Lew’s BBQ

Linkdown: 2/1/23 – The Barbecue in a Bowl Edition

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Featured

Monk: The second annual Carolina BBQ Festival is once again bringing some of the best and brightest pitmasters to the Queen City in early May. Lewis Donald has invited many of the same pitmasters from last year’s festival and added a few new faces: Jake Wood of Lawrence Barbecue, Keith Henning of Black Powder Smokehouse, Michael Letchworth of Sam Jones BBQ, and Tank Jackson of Holy City Hog.

The full list of pitmasters and chefs:

Tickets go on sale on Friday, February 10th. More information here.

Native News

Backyard BBQ Pit has received nearly $50,000 from its GoFundMe campaign and even got new kitchen appliances donated by an angel donor; now they are paying it forward to other local small businesses

It’s Brunswick stew season

In sad news, Clyde Cooper’s daughter Joyce recently passed but the occasion brought together is grandchildren and great grandchildren

Sweet’s Turkey BBQ is a Greensboro food truck serving chopped turkey barbecue, a healthier alternative to pork and beef

Midwood Smokehouse‘s Raleigh location has gotten their Oyler

Non-Native News

The James Beard semi-finalists were announced last week and pitmasters from Moo’s Craft Barbecue in LA, Heirloom Market BBQ in Atlanta, Tropical Smokehouse in West Palm Beach, Distant Relatives and KG BBQ in Austin, Goldee’s in Fort Worth, Curry Boys BBQ in San Antonio, Gatlin’s BBQ in Houston, and Burnt Bean in Seguin make the list

Charleston’s Swig & Swine BBQ is expanding to Myrtle Beach

Adrian Miller’s field guide to US barbecue

Bill Murray recently enjoyed a beef rib at Heritage Barbecue

30 pitmasters will be in Greenville, SC for Southern Roots: A BBQ Reunion on April 15

Episode 3 of Peacock’s “Poker Face” is brisket-focused and actually gets the specifics mostly right

Our Favorite Posts from 2022

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Monk: 2022 marked the ten year anniversary of the blog and its gone by in a flash. We’re going to take the rest of the year off in order to come out strong in 2023, but before we do we want to 1) wish you all a happy holidays and 2) spotlight one last time some of our favorite original content from 2022.

Without further ado…

Original Content

My summer kicked off with a weekly recap of all 8 episodes of the third season of “BBQ Brawl.” While I was happy to get through those two months mostly unscathed, I also checked out a few other barbecue streaming shows throughout the year featuring notable barbecue personalities like Michael Symon’s “BBQ USA,” “World of Flavor with Big Moe Cason,” and the third season of “BBQuest” which added Hardcore Carnivore’s Jess Pryles as a co-host.

Barbecue Bros AV Club: “BBQ Brawl“ S3 E1 – “‘Cue the Introductions”
Barbecue Bros AV Club: First Impressions of “BBQ USA”
Barbecue Bros AV Club: First Impressions of “World of Flavor With Big Moe Cason”
Barbecue Bros AV Club: “BBQuest” Season 3

We’ve done some updating of our Lexington rankings sadly due to closures but I already know I need to get back to Lexington to try Cafe 71 Smoke House BBQ, which opened this fall in the old Rick’s Smokehouse space.

The Lexington Barbecue Rankings: June 2022 Update

I also am trying a new post format with the “best barbecue within an hour of [insert major city here].” I’ve started with Charlotte but will work on posts for both Raleigh as well as the eastern part of the state.

Best barbecue within an hour of Charlotte – October 2022

We also went to a few festivals this year! May was a busy month in Charlotte with both the Smoke & Grapes event at the Charlotte Wine & Food Festival as well as the successful first annual Carolina BBQ Festival hosted by Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ.

Recap: Smoke & Grapes at the Charlotte Wine & Food Festival featuring Jon G’s Barbecue
The Carolina BBQ Festival Delivered on its Promise to Put Charlotte Barbecue on the Map

In November, I went to Charleston for the second annual Holy Smokes Barbecue Festival and had a grand time in the lowcountry.

Holy Smokes Brought Pitmasters from All Over to the South Carolina Lowcountry

I can’t wait to see what festivals I’ll make it to in 2023.

Reviews

We’re up to 327 reviews on the site now, and in 2022 we added 23 more. Not quite our most productive year, but still an average of nearly 2 per month.

Rudy got to finally try Noble Smoke in Charlotte in February, and left pretty impressed with a 4.5 hog review.

Speedy loved pretty much everything about the relatively new Bringle’s Smoking Oasis in Nashville, from the space to the bar to of course the food (in particular the beef rib and the brisket). Another 4.5 hog meal.

But from the looks of it, Speedy’s favorite meal of the year was at Prime Barbecue in Knightdale when he was back in North Carolina this summer. He gave it our prestigious 5 hog rating, the first since our most recent Jon G’s Barbecue review from 2021.

I got in on the 4.5 hog action with a couple of joints in the Carolinas: Lawrence Barbecue in Durham and Palmira BBQ in Charleston. At Lawrence, in addition to the fun atmosphere at Boxyard RTP and the Lawrence Barbecue-inspired beer from Trophy Brewing, the pork and brisket were highlights of the meal. At Palmira, I got to chat with owner and pitmaster Hector Garate and both the whole hog barbecue and hash and rice shone through.

And last but not least, I can’t forget my mini whole hog barbecue tour in eastern North Carolina in the spring, where I visited B’s Barbecue, Skylight Inn, and the original location of Sam Jones BBQ.

I did a brief writeup for The Smoke Sheet, which a version of showed up on the site as well.

Eastern NC Whole Hog Tour, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Dichotomy of NC Barbecue

With that, the 2022 posts are done for the year. But we’ll be back in January with all new content.

Happy Holidays and see you all in 2023!

Linkdown: 10/5/22 – The Expansion and Collaboration Edition

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Monk: Expansion and collaboration is the name of the game in several of this week’s links. From smaller stalls from Midwood Smokehouse and Johnny Rogers BBQ & Burgers to various upcoming collaborations involving Brandon Belfer of Fumar, Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ, Garren Kirkman of Jon G’s Barbecue, and Jake Wood of Lawrence Barbecue, hopefully news of this nature will start to become more and more common.

Native News

Fumar (formerly Smokeshow Barbecue) is teasing a Tex-Mex pizza collaboration with Salud

Fumar’s permanent location is in front of Petty Thieves Brewing in North Charlotte

Chef Johnnie Gale is collaborating with Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ on November 3 as part of the Louisiana x Charlotte chef series

Midwood Smokehouse is coming soon to the Charlotte airport

Johnny Rogers BBQ & Burgers is one of the six local vendors opening today at Gibson Mill Market

The revised version of D.G. Martin’s “North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries” is almost ready to go after a 2- year delay, and several barbecue restaurants were lost along the way

The Wood, Fire, Smoke Festival is coming to downtown Lenoir this Saturday: The reimagined festival is a celebration of Lenoir’s furniture heritage and commitment to art, design, and innovation. Skilled craftsmen, artisans, and chefs will converge in downtown to carve with chainsaws, pour molten metal, and cook delicious barbecue.

A short profile on Holy Smoke author John Shelton Reed from Axios Raleigh

Lawrence Barbecue is teasing a “PRETTY RADICAL ANNOUNCEMNT” with Jon G’s

Speaking of which, “Meat Jon G”

Non-Native News

“World of Flavor with Big Moe Cason” season 1 is now on Disney+; read our first impressions here

Adrian Miller accepted the Barbecue Hall of Fame’s “Impact Award” on behalf of the innumerable “Unsung Black Barbecuce Cooks” who never got their due recognition

Linkdown: 7/20/22

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Featured

Monk: A fairly wide-ranging state of NC barbecue from News & Observer writer Drew Jackson, who has been very ably covering the barbecue scene in and around Raleigh for the past few years.

Despite the invasive species of brisket coming into the state, there are still a number of places clinging to the NC barbecue tradition, be that eastern whole hog or Lexington-style shoulders (though this story focuses on places east of Durham. Wyatt Dickson, Matt Register, Ronald House (night pitmaster at B’s Barbecue), and Ryan Mitchell are all quoted in the story but of course Sam Jones has the money quote:

“The hard lines that used to exist, that barbecue was either this or it’s not barbecue — that’s over. It used to be, for people in North Carolina, it was either whole hog, or it ain’t (expletive). For 10 million Texans, it’s brisket. As times go on and we’re so much more transient as a society, those lines are blurred.”

Sam Jones

Read more at the link:

Native News

Lewis Donald is no longer involved with Dish and will be focusing his efforts on Sweet Lew’s BBQ and the Carolina Barbecue Festival going forward

Axios Raleigh releases their Triangle barbecue list

Barbecue Center in Lexington is closing for a week later this month for some hard earned rest and relaxation, so plan accordingly

Hillsborough’s Hog Day festival is the oldest barbecue festival in Orange County and this year will officially be part of the Whole Hog Barbecue State Championship

Jon G’s makes the Yelp Charlotte Top 25 Places to Eat along with…JD’s Smokehouse in Rutherford College near Morganton?

A behind-the-scenes follow-up to Jeremy Markovich’s story on B’s Barbecue in Our State Magazine from 2016

Non-Native News

A couple of recent stories where Adrian Miller was interviewed:

Little Pigs BBQ is on this Eater essential restaurants list for Myrtle Beach

Feges BBQ hosted Premier League champions (ugh) Man City on their pre-season US tour

Barbecue sauce beer? Barbecue sauce beer.