Burger Brief: Common Burger's Tempting New Stout Sauce Burger Graces Burger Cup

Burger Brief takes a look at some of the attendees of the Beijinger's 2017 Burger Cup. With the grill warming up ahead of the 2017 Burger Cup’s voting starting on May 22, the day after our May 20-21 Burger Fest, we talked to Andrew Moo, marketing manager at Hatchery, about the stout, bacon, and cheese burger. This burger was part of the incubator's recently wrapped Common Burger residency, will be available at the Burger Cup, and will soon to be spun off into a full fledged fast food joint of its own.  

This burger is topped with a pretty unique stout syrup. Tell us more about it.
Common Burger stout syrup was the brainchild of Hatchery Chef, Simone Thompson – who loves cooking with beer because it’s taking a commonly consumed product and re-imagining it in a completely different way than expected. Our stout syrup uses locally brewed Jing-A Black Velvet Vanilla Stout, which has a malty, sweet, and savoury taste with a smooth vanilla finish. This gives it more depth than your average sugar syrup – think savoury maple syrup – which makes this Beijing burger super unique and moreish.

How about the beef? Where's it from, how did you get the fat ratio just right to make it juicy and tasty, and have you added anything else special to it?
Common Burger uses 100 percent grass-fed beef imported from New Zealand from the Silver Fern Farms Reserve selection. The beef is grass-fed and pasture-raised with no added hormones or antibiotic feeding and is individually selected by dedicated master graders – with only four in every 100 cows making the cut.

We mince all of our meat in-house using 60 percent chuck with 40 percent brisket – with an overall fat ratio of 20 percent (fat equals deliciousness). We’ve found that this ratio works perfectly for us, with any leaner ratio creating a dryer patty. All of our patties are made by hand in-house and are 150 grams of pure meat with no additives – we let the beef speak for itself.

What kind of cheese do you use, and what does it add to the burger in terms of flavor and texture?
We currently use two slices of melty American-style cheese on the stout, bacon, and cheese burger for a silky smooth mouth-feel and a tangy finish.

Are your buns made in-house or sourced elsewhere?
Our buns were specifically developed for Common Burger in collaboration with local french-influenced bakery, Jing Mai Tang (JMT, formerly of L’Atelier). We worked with JMT to create a brioche-style bun that not only tasted fantastic, but was structurally sound for a burger with a good meat-to-bun ratio and sauce absorption.

What's the price and availability?
The stout, bacon, and cheese burger was available at Common Burger at Hatchery Dongsi for RMB 75. The three-month residency has since ended, and Hatchery is now working to develop and launch Common Burger as a standalone business in the near future.

Burger aficionados can get the stout, bacon, and cheese burger exclusively at Burger Cup (stall number 16) for this weekend only and at a festival price of RMB 60 (limited amount and while stocks last).

Anything else you'd like to add?
As Common Burger is a brand launching off Hatchery’s incubator platform, we’ve been able to take in a bunch of feedback from focus groups, surveys, and from our daily diners. The stout, bacon, and cheese burger that punters will try at the Burger Cup is a revamped version – call it version 2.0! – that’s been developed taking into consideration all of this feedback. We’ve improved the meat-to-bun ratio as well as the type of cheese. Definitely not to be missed this weekend!

The Beijinger 2017 Burger Cup is sponsored by Bon App, Job-in, and Left Hand App.

More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @MulKyle

Photos: courtesy of Hatchery, Robynne Tindall