The Lost Cowboy Brewery

Although I'm from the Boston suburbs, three of my favorite things are barbecue, beer and country music. So I was in a state of food Nirvana when I found Lost Cowboy in Nashua, New Hampshire.

“I'm Michael Buckley, welcome to Lost Cowboy!”

Michael Buckley is an expert chef, and he will do just about anything to make a dish a little more flavorful.

“I feel there’s nothing around like this. It’s a restaurant brewery, but with an emphasis on the restaurant. We’re constantly striving to make the dining experience a true dining experience in a very casual, fun atmosphere. It's a large space. It's a 17,000 square foot building and they're just all having fun. Yee haw!”

This is a real American experience.The restaurant is gigantic. I think it holds about 400 people.

There's a gigantic American flag, pictures of the American heartland, wildlife on the walls.

The bar is about as big as you are going to see. 84 seats, this bar is the size of Montana!

They serve six to eight of their own beers at any given time. I tried them all because I'm a professional.My favorite is the Lost Cowboy American Lager, really drinkable type beer.

“I like to say that we design our beers a little bit more towards a mature palette, somebody that's looking for something a little more balanced, somebody that's looking for something that the hops don't beat them over the head, they can taste kind of little more going on than just that.”

I think if you’re going to sit at the bar, The Hot Mess fries are a must. Big, crunchy french fries with queso, scallions, big pieces of bacon. You can get this one with pulled pork or brisket.

“When you bite into it, first thing you get is.. a really rich, cheesy flavor and it’s very umami. People love it because it's fun. You can share it. It's a little messy, but they don't care”

I'll talk about the barbecue ribs in a minute. In the meantime, I want to talk about the crispy fried ribs.

“Deep fried, slow smoked ribs, then we toss them with the cowboy candy which is basically candied jalapenos and sugar vinegar red pepper and salt and what you get is like the rich, smoky rib flavor with just a nice pop of bright spice”

That’s a good rib!

I think the number one thing on this menu is the Prime Rib. You can get a one inch cut or a two inch cut. Here, they make it on a rotisserie. That means it gets really crunchy on the outside, nice and red on the inside.So it's just absolutely perfect with all that au jus, and the mashed potatoes and grandma's green beans. It is worth the drive just for this dish alone.

“If you cook it too fast, it's going to be well done on the outside and rare on the inside. So we do basic garlic, kosher salt, cracked black pepper on the outside, and then we slow cook it on the rotisserie for a good three to three and a half hours, depending on the size of the rib. And if you do it right, you're gonna get something where the fat just melts into the meat. I don't think you can go wrong.”

The Cowboy Burger is a big, meaty burger. It has American cheese and onion rings, avocado and tomato. But what sets this apart is it has fry sauce, that's from the Midwest .Imagine a ketchup, tastier, a little spicier. That is fry sauce, and it puts this burger over the top.

“Out West, everything's fry sauce. It's not so much ketchup, it's fry sauce. They do fry sauce for onion rings. They do fry sauce for fries. They do fry sauce for burgers. It's basically got jazzed up mayonnaise. You have to try it.”

These are St Louis ribs, my favorite cut of rib, cooked in the smoker, low and slow, made with their competition barbecue sauce, which is a little bit sweet and a little bit smoky, You've got the fresh made corn bread with honey butter, coleslaw and their quick picks, which is their own house made pickle.

“When you get our ribs, they should be fall off the bone tender. They should have a nice little pink hue to it, and some nice little smoke ring. And then it should be glazed with the sauce, but not over glazed, because you want to taste the sweetness and the chili seasonings in the barbecue sauce. If you can't taste the pork, then you got too much sauce on it.”

When you're finishing your meal here, I think there's two directions you could go. One is a margarita. The other is s'mores. These are made with fresh graham crackers. They make themselves. Trust me, you can smell that it's homemade. Then there's marshmallows, all kinds of hot chocolate in the bottom of that skillet. It's just a scientific fact. If you're having a margarita or s'mores, you can't be in a bad mood.

“It's an attack on your senses. It's chocolate, it's marshmallow.  Let's face it, s'mores are sweet, and it's over the top sweet, and it's all about the creaminess of the warm chocolate with the toasted marshmallow flavor and those fresh graham crackers. It's a home run.”

So, if you like barbecue, beer and country music, and shame on you if you don't, you need to head up to Lost Cowboy in Nashua and New Hampshire.

“Ya’lll come back now, ya hear.”