Hog Wild BBQ serves up barbecue with a side of nostalgia
Hog Wild BBQ’s Greeley smoke house serves up barbecue that tastes how you remember it growing up. The restaurant is located on 16th Street across from the University of Northern Colorado. Photo by Emily Kemme.
By Emily Kemme
Chris Robinson believes barbecue is something more than smoked meat. For him, barbecue is a cultural thing, linked to four regions strewn across the southern United States. In BBQ lingo, those regions — North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas City and Texas — are what he calls “the four stars.”
Robinson’s mission at Hog Wild BBQ, his northern Colorado smoke house with locations in Greeley and Fort Collins, is to try to do a bit of all four styles. That includes smoking high quality meat and giving people a selection of condiments so the barbecue tastes how they remember it when they were growing up.
Most importantly, he doesn’t want to mess it up before it gets into his customer’s mouths.
His method is a dab of sauce before the meat spends time in the smoker and then he lets it go. “Everybody has a sauce, everybody has a dry rub, it’s whatever combination that you like the best. I don’t want to be the one to make your mind up,” Robinson said.
Even though he grew up in North Carolina, he tries to cover all the bases at Hog Wild, including Texas and KC styles.
He relies on hickory wood in the smoker because that’s what he’s comfortable with. While there are other woods that fuel the genre, particularly mesquite, maple, apple wood and pecan, the mild, sweet flavor hickory imparts to meats often adds rich bacon-y notes, one of the reasons for its popularity.
The other reason is hickory is the wood Robinson grew up with, adding another element of nostalgia.
“In North Carolina, you can walk out your front door and see a hundred hickory trees, so everybody cooks with hickory down there,” he recalled.
One grandfather had pigs, the other had cows. “We were doing pig cooking and cows at an early age.”
Robinson took those from-the-knee teachings out into the world, beginning kitchen work at 14. Besides earning a hospitality management degree from East Carolina University, he’s put in time at a range of dining establishments, from McDonald’s to a Hilton Head resort. A stint at Red Hot & Blue, the popular Memphis-style barbecue house that at one point counted 35 restaurants in the 1990s, including international locations in Berlin and Paris, honed his skills.
After smoking meats at his Fort Collins location for the past 14 years, he branched out into Greeley. His new smoker is going through a seasoning stage.
Hog Wild BBQ’s menu offers a full roster of traditional barbecue dishes with reliably good sauces and sides. Owner Chris Robinson hopes the taste will remind you of the barbecue you grew up with. Photo by Emily Kemme.
The meat goes on the smoker first thing in the morning and is cooked for 5-6 hours. “The typical rule of thumb is after six hours no more smoke is going to penetrate it,” Robinson noted.
A correct smoking technique will give meats a pink smoke ring, indicating that the smoke has penetrated the meat.
To give an example of his method, brisket is smoked for six hours, then wrapped and put into a 180- to 200-degree oven overnight. It’s a 24-hour process, which Robinson said is why Hog Wild’s meat is fall apart tender.
A lot of barbecue places cook the meat overnight, but for a shorter time, somewhere between 12 to 16 hours, Robinson said. With his method, he and his staff get to go home for the night.
“You’re cooking today for tomorrow, for the pork and brisket. Chicken and ribs are cooked and served in one day.”
To keep the meat moist, Hog Wild pours off the brisket and bone-in pork shoulder juices in the morning. After pulling the pork or beef and dividing it into portions, if it looks dry the jus is added back in. Smoked chicken and ribs are prepared and served in one day.
Hog Wild offers five sauce choices, none of them very hot, because Robinson believes overly spicy sauce in the barbecue world only numbs your tongue so you can’t taste the meat.
“You don’t want to take away from the flavor of the meat. That’s a waste of good money and good meat,” he said.
Assistant Manager Matt Bitter pulls a tray of ribs out of the backyard smoker at Hog Wild BBQ. Photo by Emily Kemme.
Speaking of meat, the brisket is tender without any gristle or fat. If you’re into smokey flavor, order the pork. The chicken comes out crisped to deep mahogany, and the ribs are generously portioned and meaty.
Sauce choices include a North Carolina mustard sauce; a hotter, Texas style with mesquite wood flavor that’s rich and smokey; a tomato-based Kansas City style; and a spicy vinegar sauce which Robinson recommends for mopping on the pork. He gets it shipped from North Carolina. To-go orders include a selection of mild, spicy and mustard sauces.
The sides are reliably good, particularly chili-style beans that pack some heat and a creamy, lightly pickle-relished potato salad.
The Greeley location reopened in early June, after first opening its doors for only a few weeks in March 2020 before COVID-19 shut it down. The 60-table space across from the University of Northern Colorado revitalizes the space formerly housing The Kitchen. Warm, mustard-colored walls, pops of red and black and a handful of piggy posters show off affection for barbecue. Hog Wild is open for dine-in, and there is a full bar and friendly staff.
Additional details and fast facts
What: Hog Wild BBQ
Where: Greeley 905 16th Street
How to contact: 970-673-8017
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; closed Monday
Drinks: Full bar with craft and domestic brews on tap
Fort collins location: 223 S. Link Lane
Fort Collins hours: Tuesday - Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Monday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Sunday
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