Food – Page 12 – A Good Beer Blog

It’s Beer And Sausage Week At Finland’s Cottages

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I can’t tell you my Finnish joke because I told you in 2008. It was in a post entitled “Tonight Is The Night To Drink Like A Finn!” but I now understand that this week is the week to drink – and eat – like a Finn:

The amount of sausage Finns consume during the Midsummer week is approximately three times as large as normal. For example the Midsummer sales of the food producer HK’s grill sausages amount to almost a million kilogrammes, reports Antti Paavilainen, Senior VP of sales at HK. And with their sausages Finns want to drink beer. Lots of it. Around 4.5 million litres of beer are sold around Midsummer – about 50 per cent more than during normal weeks.

Apparently, it all happens at the back country cottage, especially in the sauna: “…traditional saunas right down to the wood fire that’s best lashed with beer to give the steam the yeasty flavour of a bakery.” So, you drink beer in a sauna that reeks of beer and, no doubt, soon come to be soaked in beery sweat, too. That does not sound too bad. And that’s not fiery enough, you are supposed to trot off to the bonfire to top off the day before another round of beer and sausage.

This cartoon from a guy called Seppo seems to sum it up.

Do Olde Geuze And Oysters Go Together?

I was out hunting for some Caribbean stout to go with the PEI oysters I picked up at the incredibly jambi Mike Mundell’s shop this afternoon. Without success. What to do?

I love oysters. I used to live in view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on PEI’s north shore and heading over to Carr’s at Stanley Bridge for a half dozen Malpeques to suck back with my home brew. Despite the trade’s odd view of what makes for a benefit, the oysters know not what is done in their name. Quietly in their rocky shells they ignore such things, preferring to be pretty damn tasty and – at a buck and change – a great value.

So, instead of a strong sweet stout, I thought I would try them with a geuze, in the case a half bottle of Drie Fontienen’s Oude Geuze, the beer I had last New Year’s Eve. This one was bottled back on Friday, February 1, 2008 when I was having an Old Guardian for the twelfth edition of The Session. Let’s see what happens in mid-summer two and a half years later..

Wow. That is quite a combination. The barnyard funk of the geuze hits the oyster’s wharfy skank head on in your mouth. One of my more intense taste experiences when I think of it – which is all I can do given it is happening in my mouth right now. All that is missing is an overly aged chunk of blue cheese to make this as overwhelming an experience as it could be. But the aftertaste is creamy, like two waves counteracting each other leading to calm. The oyster brings out the apple notes and places the acidity in context. I am happily reaching for the next meaty oyster.

Success. Each assisted through the difficulties the other can pose. A vital combination.

Friday Bullets For A Week Off In July

It’s been a weird week off. Chopped up. I even had to go to work but that was my fault. Didn’t check the schedule. Picked the wrong week. Assumed. But we carried on. A cold moved through but we carried on. Started in fine style at the Dinosaur BBQ, too. Vintage base ball coming up on Sunday. Spent the week being scared to hell by Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Still ate bacon and green onion cream cheese on bagels from Ithaca Bakery. But I knew it was wrong. And exactly how wrong: real wrong.

Construction paper 1930s Soviet arctic exploration art. Neato.
I don’t write that much about my town. I don’t write much about much come to think of it. But look at the video of Elton John at the rink. Where do rock bands play in towns without hockey teams?
Sox are 4-6 in July. Not pleased. Bought the lad Sox socks at Cooperstown and they play like this???
Still don’t know what to make of Obama. The Gulf oil crisis is his first crisis begun under his watch. If the oil has now actually been capped after 86 days, getting a 20 billion dollar fund mid-crisis is a pretty smooth move. No one is really talking about health care socialism anymore, either. He may pan out OK.

Gotta go get the car in for a tune up. That outta spice things up.

Teach Your Children Well – BBQ Version

Every holiday should include a lunch at Syracuse’s Dinosaur BBQ. I had a Tres Hombre but as I I left meat (I’m embarrassed even thinking of it) I was not as hombre as I might have been. The beer is an Ape Hanger Ale that’s made, I am pretty sure, by Middle Ages as a special house brew. It followed a Syracuse Pale ale that I had standing out in the street waiting for a table. You go to hell and/or prison in Canada for standing in the street having a beer waiting for your table. That was the best Mac and Cheese I ever had, by the way. The lad knew enough to not leave any.

Why Does That Word “Pairing” Make My Temples Ache?

This has bugged me for a while. And that it bugs me bugs others, too. Here is what I know. Someone somewhere in the last few years decided we needed to “pair” beer with food. Prior to that, people just drank beer with their food and were generally happy with the many ways that great beer goes with good food. But one of the greatest turns of a consultants’ art is taking the obvious and often done, repackaging it and selling it back to you. That is what I suspect is going on with this “pairing” idea. Not that I have any issue with people being sold what they already own. It’s just not something I like to have done to myself. So, I worried when I read the very worthwhile Mark Dredge at the very interesting Pencil and Spoonwrite this over the weekend:

Today’s post is about pairing beer and food and is a simple overview of the tricks which beer can play that makes it a great companion to your lunch.

To which I asked “as opposed to the centuries of simply eating and drinking that have happily served mankind?” and to which Mark responded “Yes. Exactly opposed to that.” I have no idea what that means. What is the opposite of eating good food with good beer that still includes eating good food with good beer? When hasn’t beer been “a great companion to your lunch”?

Me, I’ve been happily eating food for almost my whole life. You should see my baby pictures. And since I was in the later end of high school, I have been drinking beer and pretty much as early as I could get away with it, I have been enjoying the consumption of good food with well made beer. I was lucky growing up in a seafood producing area of Atlantic Canada as my 1980s college days, among other things, were filled with regional beers with mussels in taverns as well as lobsters boils and early efforts craft beer. On UK trips and into the 90s, I liked plowman’s lunches with English style pale ales of brewers I could find to like those at Kingston Brew Pub or The Granite Brewery or Rogues Roost. As I moved on, moved out and got mortgaged, I baked breads with beer in it as well as New England baked beans and Texas chili. As access to good beer increased along with my interest in beer, I was quite happy to pull out old cheddars, blue cheese and even things that came out of a goat and try them with any number of brews. They all went pretty well… as did most roasts, most seafoody things and a lot of other things. In fact, I have now established that gueuze goes with everything and if it doesn’t, well, that thing is out of my life as long as the gueuze is in view. Get me in a room with a bunch of pals, a bunch of great beers and a pot luck of any types of food and I am happy to explore.

But I would never, you know, pair. I’d never get into that monogamous mindset where “this matches that” because we all should be aware that “these really go with those” and, if we are honest “all this pretty much is great with all that.” Did anyone really not know this? I have had the occasion to point out to food professionals that real hefeweizen goes really well with eggs and bacon and that flavours stouts created, among other things, to go with chocolate do actually go with chocolate – but it’s hardly the deepest thing I’ve picked up about beer. So, if it is not difficult information and it is something I’ve known for yoinks and most I know who like good beer have known for yoinks – what is all the interest in “pairing” based on?

Indiana: River to BBQ to Notre Dame to Silver Hawks

Such utter tourist we were yesterday. From walking by the river killing time before a hall of fame opened, to sucking back fantastic BBQ (the barnyard special at the Double T), to wandering around Notre Dame, to hitting the ugly hotel swimming pool with the eastern European 1973 paint scheme, to taking in another ballgame. All good. The equinox of the trip is upon us and we slowly turn back east north east.

BBQ Shack: Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York

I had BBQ and specifically pulled pork three times on the road. State Street BBQ in Watertown, NY. Beale Street BBQ in South Portland, Maine. Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York. I hate to rank good BBQ pulled pork but the Tail O’ The Pup’s sauced take was so soft you could have spread it into a paste with a butter knife. Beale Street’s was hearty and smoky while State Street’s was subtler, like a slow cooked Sunday pork roast. All good.

Tail o’ the Pup was also one of those places municipal planning standards would never accept in Canada to our great cultural loss. Part 1930’s roadside cottages. Part beer tent with its own band. Part diner set in the great outdoors.

Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, too. Who rents the cottages? Are there gangs of bikers out there who want that sort of thing? They must be people I would like to know.

Grill, Shed, Steak, Rain, Bieres de Garde And Saisons

The trouble with charcoal grilling is that when the rain comes you can’t turn it off. Propane, on the other hand, has a nice dial that has a “0” setting. But there is the garden shed and, when it rains and you have visitors, it can turn out to be a delightful place to while away a late afternoon hour reading last week’s newspapers in the recycling bin, listening to AM radio and comparing a few examples of bieres de garde and saisons.

We opened the Ch’ti Blonde from Brasserie Castelain à Bénifontaine first, a gold ale called a saison (though French not Belgian) by the BAers but a biere de garde by Phil Markowski in his book Farmhouse Ales under a white mouse head that resolved to a froth and rim. It was the favorite of the set with cream malted milk, pear juice and nutty grain. Very soft water. I actually wrote “limpid cream of what graininess” but I am a little embarrassed by that pencil scribble. It gets a fairly poor rating from the BAers but maybe that is because they were not in a shed when they tried it. Castelain’s Blond (no “e”) Biere de Garde was drier but still creamy fruity, not far off the greatest example of a Canadian export ale. Light sultana rather than pear. Also dry in the sense of bread crusty rather than astringency. Lighter gold than the Ch’ti but, again, the rich firm egg white mousse head and far more BAers approve. By this time the shed dwellers had decided that steak could in fact be finger food and also that these ales were an excellent pairing with chunks of rib and New York strip. The Jenlain Ambree by Brasserie Duyck was another level of richness altogether, the colour of a chunk of deep smoked Baltic amber, the richest lacing I have ever seen left on a glass. Hazelnut and raisin, brown sugar and black current with a hint of tobacco. Lately I have been thinking that amber ales are the one style that could quietly slip away and never be missed. Placing this in the glass in the hand in the shed as the rain thumped on the roof and steak was eaten was an instructive treat as to what ambers can be, though 6% of BAers hesitate to be so enthusiastic.

I think this is the worst photo I have ever posted so I will keep it tiny unless you choose to click on it for the full effect. Apparently there is a limit to the beery photographic arts and I have made it my own. The 3 Monts to the left was picked up at Marche Jovi in nearby Quebec for a stunningly low price of under six bucks. Plenty of malteser and pale malt graininess with yellow plum and apple fruitiness, straw gold with more of the thick rich head, cream in the yeast. The water was not as soft was either beer from Castelain but all BAers love it. By Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre who also made this biere nouvelle. To the right, the Fantome Winter was one of the stranger beers I have ever had and, frankly, a disappointment. All I could taste was radish, sharp and vegetative, over and all around the insufficient malt. In my ignorance, I didn’t realize that was likely quite an aged beer as the happy BAers explain. Neither the cork or even label, with its unmarked best before portion, give a hint as to the year but that is all right as I suspect I will consider this just a lesson learned even though I generally love Fantome.

By this time there were stars and a breeze as the cold front finished moving through.

Friday Bullets For Tra-la It’s May!

I was not so much in a production of Camelot as I was part of the production. OK, I raised curtains. I sat in a closet for a week’s worth of evenings when I was 14 and raised curtains. But I heard the “tra-la, it’s may song” more than most humans have and I really don’t mind it that much. I bet Iggy is saying tra-la this weekend. It is sort of like listening to Robert Goulet, so manly and mapled. By the way, when preparing for a conference I spoke at this week, I was quite pleased to learn that, no, I did not have a head shot for the materials. Why do people lean at a 17% angle for promotional head shots?

I am not sure whether buying a bit of Chrysler is a good idea for us all. I mean, I have not been in one since the old Dodge Diplomat died around 1993 – no, not true – I drive an inherited van here in 2003 before trading that in at Ford.
How to deal with invasive species – eat them. Shows them who’s top of the food chain.
I had no idea that the Edwards Opera House was so close. Now that I have a passport I may nip over for a bluegrass Saturday night sometime. Which reminds me – we are weeks away from the Watertown Wizards.
Stephen Fry on something other than Twitter – thinking about himself at 16.
Ted Reynolds, CBC 70s and 80s sports reporter and part of my youth passes away.
Why isn’t PEI just a column in the paper every day like “your daily smile” except it would be “look what happened in PEI today!” and it would have a story like this one about the Environment Minister telling everyone how great it was when he was a kid and dynamited beaver dams. And they sell citizenships for profit, too!
The season finale of Private Practice last night was the worst hour of TV ever but it was like watching a shopping mall burn – can’t stop staring as careers are destroyed.

That is it. Vintage base ball tomorrow. A three team event, too. We even have hats this year. And I will be sporting a hurlihee and a part well to the side. Huzzah.

Belgium: Amber Ale, Brasserie Caracole, Falmignoul

Arrosto misto. That is what the Jamie Oliver book I was thumbing through this morning called it. Mixed roasted meats. What better way to see out January, that month that begins with a hangover and ends with February. The meats were rolled in olive oil with rosemary, lemon and a little smoky chili. They were also wrapped in lean pancetta. Including the sausages. A worthy addition to my life. All slow roasted with thick slices of onion, apple, lemon and carrot. The side dish is a sort of scalloped spud, mushroom and anise thing I made up.

I needed a beer to go with it and the earthiness of Caracole’s amber ale was just the thing. It pours still with a quickly resolved head giving it the appearance of scotch. On the nose, plenty of nutmeggy spice as well as sweet malt. In the mouth, fall apple, cream, nutmeg, raisin with a solid level of twiggy and slightly minted hopping. Really lovely and very good with the smoky, meaty, root veg meal. BAers give solid respect.