Beer Shopping – Page 10 – A Good Beer Blog

Knut Pays The Taxman

[This post was written by Knut Albert Solem aka “Knut of Norway”]

The wait is o ver. But the picture of the package on my doormat is not quite how it went. No, there was a new slip of paper in my mailbox, telling me there was a package to be picked up at the post office. So, what was the tab?

The alcohol tax was about 100 Norwegian kroner.
The value added tax (based on an estimated value of 300 Norwegian kroner!) was about 100 kroner.
The fee for the postal service to process this ended up at 180 kroner, including tax.

A total cost of 386 Norwegian kroner. 47 Euros or 61 Dollars. Not the most expensive beer known to man, but pretty close, as these beers retail at a few Euro is civilized countries. But, considering all the man hours involved, it was a quite cheap service. And they managed to stall me from abusing these beers for a month. The beers look fine, they have been carefully packaged, and their warehouse is probably quite cool at this time of the year. So, it is time for a big thank you, to Alan, to Jeff from the Cracked Kettle. I don’t know about the Department of Substance Abuse, though.

Knut Goes Nowhere And Hangs Around His Mailbox

[This post was written by Knut Albert Solem aka “Knut of Norway”]

knut On the outskirts of Europe there lives a peculiar tribe of people. Like most other nations, they feel that they have the solution to every problem on the planet. Other small nations have had to bow to the necessity of adjusting to their surroundings, but Norway had the curse to find oil and gas in the 1970s, giving them the possibility of constructing their own reality.

One of the inhabitants of this country is a contributor to A Good Beer Blog, sending his impressions from his travels across Europe. When the generous editor Alan managed to find some sponsors for his blog, he wanted to share some of the spoils with his contributors. One sponsor is the Cracked Kettle in Amsterdam, and Alan figured that they could probably send a few beers to two of his European contributors. Packages were dispatched in early February, and the one sent to England arrived within days. Here is what happened to mine:

The package to Norway was first returned because the shipping company couldn’t deliver outside the European Union. Fair enough, they found an alternative.

Two weeks later, I get a letter from the Norwegian Postal Service, Posten. They can tell me that they have received a package from abroad, and that they can do the customs clearance for me. For a fee, of course. I sign a form authorizing them to do so, and wait for the package to arrive.

Another two weeks, and they send me a new letter, telling me that I should provide them with a receipt, an invoice or similar documentation for the package. I reply with a short handwritten note that this is a gift, and I do not know the value of the package.

Another two weeks, until yesterday. A new letter, cheerfully telling me that I must fill in a form. This is an application that has to be processed by the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs, which decides if I should be allowed to receive the gift. In the instructions following the form, I am told that the maximum amount of alcohol I can receive in this way is 4 liters. Luckily the package only contains 2 liters. For more information, see the back of the page. The back of the page is blank.

I do not know which criteria the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs use to determine if I should be allowed to receive the package or not. Will they check if I have been prosecuted for bad behaviour in public places? Will they ask the neighbours if I beat my wife? The answer is probably written in invisible ink on the back of the form, or possible posted somewhere in a basement as in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I faxed over the form today. If the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs decide in my favour, I will then receive a permit to import the beer. This permit will then be mailed to Posten, who will then talk to the Customs people.

It would be interesting to find out how many hours of work it will take for various government employees to process this package containing two litres of beer. And I have a strange feeling that there might be more efficient ways of combating drunkenness and alcohol abuse. But what do I know?

Knut Goes To The World’s Northernmost Bar

Three hours by plane straight north from Oslo, excluding 45 minutes stopover in Tromsø, and you arrive at Longyearbyen airport. It is minus 20 degrees Celsius, but the gale hits you as you exit from the plane and run for the terminal building. It is pitch dark, which shouldn’t be a surprise, as the sun was last seen hereabouts sometime in October. As soon as the luggage arrives, it is time to get those extra layers of clothing before entering the airport bus.

The bus takes just a few minutes to downtown Longyearbyen, and we are happy to find our warm lodging. We are three adult males who have known each other for about three decades, and we have planned this trip since early last year, despite any evident enthusiasm from our spouses.

So what is Longyearbyen? It used to be a company town, established for the sole purpose of coal mining – and maintaining a visible Norwegian presence in the area, especially during the Cold War. It has developed into something resembling an ordinary Norwegian small town over the last few decades. There is now a local assembly, privately owned houses, a school, a kindergarten, a few hotels etc. The miners, and later their families, were the only ones allowed to live here, but now the working population is one third connected to coal mining, one third works in research, and one third works in tourism.

There are daily flights from the mainland, and there are lots of empty seats in mid January. One of the hotels is closed, and the general pace in the shops and the service industry is slow. We decided that a dog sleigh excursion would be the most adventurous part of our stay, and booked tickets before stocking up for our stay. There are regulars ships to Svalbard when the ice conditions allow it, maybe six months per year. This means they have to stock up on food and drink – it is rather expensive to fly the stuff in. Sure, you can get fresh milk, vegetables and fish, but you have to pay for the air transport.

Nordpolet (which is a pun on the Norwegian names for the North Pole and the Wine/Liquor monopoly) is a department in a surprisingly large co-op supermarket, but it has the special attraction of offering duty free prices on alcohol. There are quotas on how much you can buy, both for tourists and for the locals. The beer prices are low, but there are few real finds here, mostly domestic and imported lagers. The Norwegian beers are mainly from Mack, imports are from the Netherlands, the UK and Mexico(!) I had hoped the Russian presence here had made some Russian beers available, but no such luck. The selection of fine wines was rather more impressive, the aquavit was cheap, and you can get some limited edition cognacs unavailable elsewhere.

The dog sleigh trip started with us getting into a heavily insulated outfit before driving a few kilometres out of town. The dogs were eager to get some exercise, and while we fumbled a bit before the sleights were ready to go, it was an incredible experience once we were on our way. A faint blue light on the southern horizon and no sound except the scraping of the skis against the snow. The Northern Lights were flickering while the dogs ran eagerly through the darkness.

Three hours of this was enough, as it was to cold to take any long breaks along the way. Time for a shower before we hit the pubs. The bar closest to our cabin is the one that can claim to be the most northern on the planet, not counting short shore excursions during the summer when they set up a table. The Barentz pub is part of the Radisson SAS hotel, and – as hotel bars tend to – is perhaps not the coziest place. But they have friendly and attentive staff and the best selection of beers in town. Mack Pils and Bayer on tap, Stella on tap too. Don’t ask me why! The bottles span the globe, Singha, Tiger, three Erdingers wheat beers and even the outstanding Goose Island IPA! The pizza was so-so. The next stop on the pub crawl is the Karls Berger pub. The motto here seems to be More is More. Five types of bottled beers, but thousands of varieties of hard liquor. Hundreds of cognacs and single malts, long rows of aquavit and vodka. The locals at the bar were discussing how many times they’d been barred, but they seemed fairly harmless.

Our favourite hangout was Kroa at Spitzbergen base camp, with the interior having a local flavour, based on driftwood and animal pelts as shown at the top of this post. Comfortable chairs and tables, lots of locals, good food. Beer and aquavit at decent prices. One evening we went up to Huset as well, the remains of the glory days of the coal mine, when most of the social life was focused there. When we popped in, the restaurant was totally empty, and there was lots of room in the cafeteria, too. This is the place to go to splurge, as they have a huge wine cellar and a kitchen that gets good reviews.

How do you get there? There are flights from Oslo via Tromsø year round, and there are boat trips, including more luxurious cruise ships during the summer. And, if you book well in advance, Scandinavian Airlines considers this a domestic destination in Norway. That means that your Star Alliance bonus miles can go a long way.

Stouts: The Week Of Ten Stouts

I’ve written about plenty of stouts before but never a collection this big: imperial stouts, imperial extra double stout and just plain stouts, from four US states as well as Quebec, England and Australia. Stout has experienced a great diversification in its sub-styles through the explosion of craft brewing over the last few years. In his 1977 edition of The World Guide to Beer Michael Jackson generally describes three: bitter stout, milk or sweet stout and Russian or imperial stout. By 1995, Michael Lewis in his book Stout describes how to brew six different styles: west coast, Irish draught, dry, sweet, Caribbean and imperial.

Beyond these, I can think of two traditional styles including oatmeal and Baltic, though the second is a quibble with English made stout for the Russian export trade. In addition, just in the selection gathered above we have stouts with raspberry, coffee and chocolate added as well as stout stored in oak. Heck, just one brewer in Maine alone makes six different stouts. There has to be more…oh yes – oyster stout.

Stout’s roasted profile clearly gives craft brewers a great starting point to play with as they deem fit. My only problem is where to begin.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 2006/2007: This is my third vintage of this brew from The Brooklyn Brewery. Darkest brown plummy oil thick ale with mocha rim and foam. Dry burnt toast scrapings, dry bakers chocolate and licorice. Fruit? Date and a touch of plum. A very well hidden 10.5%, almost 2% higher than in 2004/2005. Light cream yeast, slight chalkiness. Unlike last year’s take, French roast coffee and the ciggie ashtray effect did not spring to mind. I have another bottle in the stash and may have more to say. Some BAer unhappiness with this year’s model. Certainly a gentle imperial stout even at this strength.

Le Coq Imperial Extra Double Stout: Not imperial stout. Not double imperial stout. No, this is extra double imperial stout. Vintage 2001, this beer is made in England by Harvey and Son under license to a board of trustees and an Estonian brewery. The story packs the label so I won’t repeat the tale. Darkest brown, syrupy still ale with the thinnest of mocha film of a head that is gone in about five seconds. Nose is acidic and rich sherry. In the mouth licorice and beef gravy. Something ox-tail soup about it – gotta tell it like it is. Also plenty of blackened toast under the fatty richness. Smoke, too, and minty hop. Another sipper noted “marmite and oxo cubes.” Tangy and bone dry chocolate in the finish. Beer to soak a prime rib roast of beef in. Serious dissension amongst the BA set as a full 19% say no way. I would save the next bottle I found for a rib eye steak.

The Czar Imperial Stout: The 2005 brewing from Avery Brewing of Colorado, my first by them. After the condensed consumée above, a bit of a break even at 11.03%. Deep mahogany ale with rich mocha cream rich foam and rim. Apple butter and black rum on the nose. A walloping woo of deep and sticky pumpernickel malt, big and rich with plenty of fruit on the mouth, mostly pear and date – a very attractive combination I haven’t thought of before…now I’m thinking more about pie than stout. The yeast is creamy but the water may be a little hard, as I have found with some Colorado beer. On the finish there is a bit of telltale mineral cloy. Some spice way back there, curryish like cumin as much as anise. Really nice. And not just due to the lack of oxo cube references. A brave brewer to pass up the oxo cube notes. Some BAers debate the lack of the dry burnt toast scrapings. But they are outvoted 24 to 1. A good beer.

Raspberry Imperial Stout: from Weyerbacher of Pennsylvania. First impression – chocolate raspberry cheesecake in a bottle. The nose is full of fruit and comes across something like a ruby port – ok, maybe if the other nostril was deeply in embrace with a roasty toasty stout. In the mouth lots of true and zippy raspberry up front, then dry chocolate and mocha roasty stout then a far lighter finish than I would have expected. The minty hops open up nicely as the berry recedes. The brewer says this is an 8% which either means I am having a lot of heavy ale lately or this is a well hidden level of strength. 4% of BAers are not happy, citing plenty of stuff which proves again some people do not like most pretty fine beers.

Imperial Stout: from Schoune of the Quebec side of the south tip of the inter-provincial border with Quebec. Deep dark ale under a fine creamy tan head. Surprisingly good stout from a largely Belgian-style brewery. Dry roasty with a decent chalky background. Nice licorice-plummy notes in the middle. Finish has dry chocolate and minty hops. Nicely hidden 8.5% if the BAers are correct – a only two raters and they disagree. I like it. Sort of a dry Baltic style stout with all that licorice. Certainly the best Canadian take on an imperial stout I have tried…or seen for that matter.

Jah*va: An imperial coffee stout for day six of the week of stout. Have I mentioned I love Southern Tier? Every one I have of theirs speaks to their passion for quality craft beer. Brewed on 22 November 2005, this beer has Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee in the brew. Did I mention I know a man who knows the man who owns the Blue Mountain? It is the colour of a glass of molasses with a dark espresso foam head. A thick explosion of mouth-coating minted coffee with a tightly pack layering of fine graininess, like you get from a French press coffee pot. No plum, no fig, not dates. Just coffee, dry cocoa, a nod to mint (even with the 125 IBUs) with a thick creamy yeast. OK, maybe a date square thing in there with the sweetness, fruit and rich sweet grain. Top notch with a whopping 12% strength. Wow. Check out the brewery’s one page website. The BAers all love it. Fabulous.

Extra bonus side-by-side intermission: I found my last Brooklyn Chocolate Stout before the last of the Jah*va was gone. In a battle of the NY state imperial stouts, the BCS is decidedly lighter in the mouth, especially at the outset. The BSC head is the colour of maple walnut ice cream, the Jah*va’s is like milk chocolate. On the nose, Jah*va is pungent while BCS is quiet – as one would expect given they are hallmarks of each brewery’s style. In fact, for a 10.6% compared to a 12%, the difference is remarkable. But both are lovely.

Finger Lakes Stout: from the Ithaca Beer Co.’s winter mixed 12 box. I must like this because I seem to only have 3 oz left even though I just started the review. Light tan fine foamy rim over deep chestnut ale. After all the heavyweights above, a relief. Dutch licorice nose and as well as in the mouth along with a nice creamy, nutty, slightly sweet and slightly soured stout with a good but not overwhelming level of dry roastiness in the second half of the swallow. Some minty hop as is only right and proper. The brewery says it has 6.8% and there is a bit of uncertainty with the BAers as it is called, perhaps, Anniversary Stout there but not on the bottle.

Heresy: Imperial Stout aged in oak from Weyerbacher of Pennsylvania. The brewery says:

This incredibly intriguing Imperial Stout is made by aging our Old Heathen in some very famous Oak barrels that were used for aging bourbon! What do we have when we are done?

Entirely fine cream mocha head over deepest brown garnet tinged ale. The smell of coffee ice cream. Chocolate mocha ale with plenty of fruitiness: black cherry and vanilla. And the whiskey, a nod…a nod-ette. But it is there. Reminds me of Rogue Chocolate Stout with a bit more oomph. Decidedly smooth and rich but also with a fine grained texture in the mouthfeel. Not overly heavy, cream yeast. Very good. Whiskey, roasted malt and cream in the finish – a dark cream crowdie. 5% of BAers need their neck bolts tightened.

Imperial Stout: From Smuttynose of New Hampshire. Light milk chocolate head over medium dark black brown ale. On the snozz, minty hop, espresso and milk chocolate. The first sip is full of licorice and milk chocolate. Some plum and date back there with plenty of roasted malts. Dark chocolate, chalk and molasses finish. Brewed 15 March 2006:

Charles added 44 lbs of Cascade, split evenly between two batches, or about half a pound per barrel. We then transferred the beer onto seventy-eight pounds of an even mixture of Centennial and Columbus whole flowers, about one pound per barrel. The beer is a little top heavy in terms of the hopping but it seems to be smoothing out a bit as it’s aging. I’d give it six months or so, if you can wait that long.Dandy and big and smooth now nine or ten months later.

Best Extra Stout: From Coopers of Australia. Last of the ten. What a marathon. Cola coloured ale under mocha foam and rim. A soft stout with licorice up drink followed by an interestingly discordant move to toast scrape bunt barley with a reasonably rich mouthfeel – very nice and even a real ale sludge at the bottom. Hops are mainly mint but a bit of citrus in there as well. A very easy drinking stout. 6.3% and called a Foreign Stout over at the BA where 4% say no.

So another great exercise in compare and contrast. The best? Hard to say but Jav*ah was pretty darn nice.

Hair Of The Dog: Project Salvation

OK – so the issues are being worked out. And I had one Doggie Claws last night and it was infanticide, loverly but really under carbonated and cloudy. It struck me like a homebrew that I popped at two weeks rather than waiting for five to pass before I invaded its space.

As a result, we are going to work on a little experiment. In the lower box are 18 Doggie Claws under the drywall board which are under 12 Freds which is under drywall boards which are under 8 litres of water. So all in all there is about 30 pounds of weight on the lower beer and 20 on the upper. That should assist in keeping the caps in place and the seals secure.

Aside from those hibernating 30 beer, there are still seven Doggie Claw left without the weights and, after a little sharing and a little more tasting, the Fred has six unweighted bottles left some of which have very low fill lines. The best of these remaining bottles may get a wax seal to see if that can increase the carbonation or at least stop air getting in and spoiling the brew.

Click for a bigger view.

Update: An update on Project Salvation after eight months. Had a Fred last night and the yeast held up, keeping the air out at the start and the weights on top of the caps has maintained a thin line of cap to glass contact. And the beer is still quite wonderful.

Hair Of The Dog: A Couple of Difficult Cases

This may turn out to be an epic. It may end in tears. Whatever it is you can click on each picture for a bigger image.

In the early fall – actually on September 28th 2006 just after noon – I jumped into my first LCBO private order, two cases from Hair of the Dog brewery in Portland Oregon being organized by the excellent gents, those Bar Towellers out of Toronto. I faxed through my deposit of $51.60 CND on a total order of $197.96 CND. I ordered one each of Doggie Claws and Fred, two 10% or so barley wines from one of North America’s top boutique brewers. I had a Fred when I was at Volo earlier this year. And then I waited. And waited.

Around the first of December, the order came into Toronto, I paid the balance and waited for it to make its way 220 km or so east to Kingston. Then there were rumours of issues with the capping. Excellent, I thought – bottle variation. The curse of decent wine. Jon Walker, a Bar Toweller, noted:

This thread worries me. As a result I went in to check on my stash of HOTD and indeed many of the caps are not fully crimped onto the bottles. Most flair at their base and do not fully grip the lip of the bottle. I was actually able to press up on one with my thumb and get the gas to release in the “PPST” common to uncapping. What do I do know? I don’t have a capper to close the caps properly (if they actually CAN be sealed, perhaps they are the wrong size???). I’ve got just shy of 70 bottles left and I’m loathe to believe I might lose some to oxidation due to loose caps.

The cases showed today, 21 December 2006, about 12 weeks after they were ordered which is really not that bad seeing as I think the beer was still in the tanks when the order was originally placed. But there was an obvious problem from one look at the case of Fred that seemed to echo Jon’s words above.

When I got home I decided to have a look inside and what I found was not pretty. The inside of the box was soaked. Ten bottles were seriously uncapped with significant beer loss with mostly empty necks like above at the right. In addition, twelve were showing little beer loss and two showed some promise. All were irregularly capped in the same way. Some caps show some rubbing and wear like there was a mechanical issue when they were put on.

It looked as though it was shipped upside down as there is plenty of yeast in the necks and a fair amount of beery sneakery out from underneath the caps. No violence to the box, just seeping. This may actually be a short term saving grace. The smell is also rich and clean, not sour like a bar on Sunday morning. I will have to have one. I am a little depressed, a little pissed off and a little curious. I have not even looked at the box of Doggie Claws.

Much to my surprise, the beer, picked from the worst group of ten, opens with a loud Pfffft!!The yeast had created a seal inside as you can see below to the right and it pours with a huge head. It is huge and lovely and lively. Hallelujah! Christmas is saved. Christmas is saved. And the Doggie Claws show no sign of leakage at all with the same location of the irregular capping as the Fred but with a lot less severity.

So it will likely be a crap shoot one a bottle by bottle basis but if that yeast cakes up it may last throughout the holidays at least. “Pour slowly to allow sediment to remain in the bottle” it says on the back. What can you do? That yeast is my best friend right about now, the life in the ale securing what the dim-witted capped and shippers could not. I would hope the legal saying “buyer beware” is popping into readers’ minds right about now.

J’accuse!

Middle Ages Brewing By Shoe Cam

We had a bit of a beer blog break through as Gary and I met at Middle Ages Brewing in Syracuse NY as part of his day of two tailgates and my introduction to NCAA football. It was a perfect place to meet to start the day. Gary filled in when my camera’s memory card let it be known that it was not about to cross international borders this weekend. The effect was top notch shoe camera.

Let me start by saying, this experience is fairly foreign to Canada but not unknown. Middle Ages opened its doors on Saturday at 11:30 am. Gary was there at the bell and reports that there were a couple of dozen beer fans lined up with growlers to be filled. Once those guys were served, two happy gents behind the bar asked what we wanted and sold us – no, gave us free 4 oz shots of their excellent fresh ale. I tried their porter, IPA and the double IPA. All were as good as I remembered. So good I bought the baseball hat. I figure that if a brewer is good enough to go into business, make great ale and then give it to you for free, you ought to buy the hat. Note also Gary’s uncanny capture of the original portrait of the wench who wails. Gary also showed me the first beer blog award pottery component which now just needs me to forward the brass plaque for the 2006 award to be announced later in the year – though I already am pretty sure I know who is getting it.

I mention that I have not seen exactly this sort of thing in Canada before but I have almost seen it. In the days before the beer blog, I lived in the Maritimes and Halifax’s Garrison Brewery would serve all you want. But it had to be booked and was a private affair for attendees only. You got to pour and hang around asking the happy patient brewer lots of repetitive questions and also get a tour of the place but it was not a moment to meet other beerfans and you did have to stick around for the time booked. I like the Middle Ages approach better.

So a return for the tour is definitely in order as are more secret assignments with Gary and the shoe phone.

Beer Shop: Marché Jovi, Gatineau, Quebec

A run to Ottawa to see the Billy Bragg show on Saturday meant the opportunity to do a Sunday morning run to one of the better shops in Western Quebec for craft beer, Marché Jovi in Gatineau, Quebec. The shop is handy for anyone near Ottawa’s Island Park Drive and the bridge to the other side and sits near the gate of Gatineau Park.

Inside you are met with one of the tidiest depanneurs I have ever come across. I asked if I was able to take some pictures and, one bien sur later, was being escorted around the place by a very friendly guy in a dapper white grocer’s jacket. He was proud to show of the selection, let me know that there was new stock coming in and took particular pride in noting the selection of glassware – quite the thing for what you would think was a corner store – and the fact that the regular customers were quite knowledgable in their correct use. I also picked up a copy of the autumn issue of Le Sous-Verre: L’actuality de la biere!, a free craft beer newspaper out of Montreal…a review of which Google has butchered in translation here.

As Blork noted almost two years ago now, buying beer in Quebec is similar to much of the States. You can get your beer and your corn flakes and your milk all in one stop. Usually this means one large stack of macro brew – as it does most place in the states – but where the owners have imagination and the knowledge, you can create a small oasis like you find at the Galeville Grocery near Syracuse or in pretty much any place in Portland Maine. Usually it also means a walk in cooler.

Most of the stock was Quebec products including macrobrews (inlcuding Labatt Porter) but also many craft beer from breweries like Unibroue, Saint-Arnould, Les Brasseurs RJ, Ferme-Brasserie Schoune. Blork has already reviewed the white beer made by each of the last three. I picked up mixes sixes from Saint-Arnould and Schoune for ten bucks each as well as a couple of large format imports from Saint Sylvestre of France (on special for $5.79) as well as a 330 ml Floreffe dubble from Belgium. Interesting to note that Blonde d’Achouffe is being brewed by license by Les Brasseurs RJ and was included in their six pack.

I would definitely go again, especially with the indication that there were going to be additions to the stock on a regular basis. Clean and helpful with a good selection and good price. What ele could you want from a corner store?

“A Glass Of Handmade”

There are a few moments I can point to in my memory that represent elemental changes that helped frame my interest in beer. The first time I was allowed to dip a finger in a Labatt Blue; the Olands Ex I had at my pal’s house in high school; the visit I made to the Pitfield Beer Shop in 1986 from which I returned to Nova Scotia with beer making tools including two polypin cubes as well as Dave Line‘s Big Book of Brewing; and finding an article in an issue of The Atlantic in 1987 that gave me some hope that there was going to be a bigger world of beer out there, even with the first bottles of long-gone Hans Haus beers arriving in the liquor stores or our regular attendance at the first Granite Brewery at the old Ginger’s Tavern in Halifax (oddly excluded from the brewery’s own sense of history which starts in 1991 but referenced in this home brewers digest from 29 November 1989).

That article was “A Glass of Handmade” by William Least Heat Moon and I have finally located a copy on the internet which I have filed in the archives. It starts out with the following introduction:

The industrial brewers continue to prosper; but now they are facing a new challenge from local brewers across the country who are dedicated to turning out brews that have only one thing in common with industrial beer – wetness.

What I love about the article now is its place in time including some quirks – Redhook is considered a huge break-through, common terms need explaining as in “boutique, or micro-, brewery” and now famous names are played out like the obscure tiny operations they then were. It is a gem of an article with a great last line I have used for almost twenty years now. Here it is. Please add your reviews in the comments when you have had a good read through.

The Stash Renewed

While in Syracuse NY for a couple of days, a brief side trip this morning to the Galeville Grocery sees the stash now renewed for another month or two. As a result, I have stories to write about Middles Ages, Mendocino of Saragota, Magic Hat, plus two new to try from each of Youngs, Ommegang and Weyerbacher (their imperial stout and imperial pumpkin ale) as well as a bunch of singles including Stoudts ESB.

The night before found me at Clark’s Ale House and its neighbour the Blue Tusk. I didn’t take notes or photos taking the time to just enjoy these two great bars and introducing them to pals. Both institutions handle the beers fantastically, coaxing hidden flavours out with their cleanliness and care. I had my first taste of Lake Placid’s keg only brown ale last night at Clark’s – very pleasant nut brown with what I thought was an interesting subtle spiciness in either the hop or yeast selection. At the Blue Tusk I settled into an extended relationship with Dogfish Head 60 Minute Ale, the intermediary between their Shelter Pale Ale and 90 Minute IPA which sits in what I now think of as my happy place. There are snugs at the Blue Tusk, those little rooms off rooms that give you a quieter spot, time to talk and listen. The one farthest from the bar sits eight in benches like slightly reclined pews.