Belgian Dark Strong Ales

beldk1This is a very pleasant pastime this comparison of Belgians which is already into its third month. To say pacing is required is more than stating the obvious. These are big big beers with two of today’s selection coming in at over 10%. Good reason to have a get together.

Just as one observation on the photos I like to add to these posts, this was a very hard grouping to shoot as the paint on the Terrible by Unibroue is actually mirroring silver while the bottle is black glass. There was no way around using the flash, which I do not think provides you with the best photo of glass. So that being noted, here are my notes on the three examples of this style I have gathered:

  • Gulden Draak: A true Belgian, 10.5% 330 ml from a variety six-pack from Van Steenberge sold during the pre-Yule rush by the LCBO. The first thing you notice is the malty heat from the dark candi sugar – tastes of fig, pepper and prune. Also, it is surprisingly juicy very nice, grapy and there is a bit of milk chocolate truffle in the centre. Unlike a dubble there is no burlap or oaken notes or orange peel and spice. This is all about the malt, like a barleywine stripped of the English hops. The yeast is prominant as well, butter pastry and cream. It is all like a tart of prunes with whipping cream dolloped on top. The hops balance rather than cut the malt, providing structure but it is all about the malt.Advocates say yeah.
  • Dogfish Raison D’Etre: An entry from Dogfish Head of Delaware in the USA, this beer is 8% and 12 oz. sold by the single bottle at the LCBO. This one is lighter and somewhat reliant on the addition of grape juice to the beer but the result is surprisingly similar to the Gulden Draak. The yeast is bready rather than pie crusty and the hops are even more subdued. The rich core is more about dried apple more than prune. With its fairly soft water profile and relative simplicity it is still very pleasant. I am coming to think that these beers are also like Scotch heavy ales without the smoke of the barley and that northern strian of ale yeast. Soft blankets of malt. Some advocates disappproveciting poor head and thinness yet it was awarded American Beer of the Year 2000. Can’t we all just get along?
  • Unibroue Terrible: Canada’s entry is again fantastic – lush, juicy and more-ish. Amazingly, at 10.5%, there is no heat. I am recalling that Terrible is less complex as well than the Unibroue’s Trois Pistoles, their other Belgian dark strong ale. [By the way – imagine a brewer in North America selling two Belgian dark strong ales. I hope Sleeman knows what it bought.] There is some orange but it is more as juice than peel. Big malt but the least signs of dark candi sugar than the Gulden Draak or Dogfish. A little figgy, a little leathery, smooth. Some dried cocoa like a can of powder for baking – dusty and light. Perhaps a recollection of black cherry. The yeast is milky rather than butter or cream – not rich and it adds to the juiciness. Hops again are structural rather than bitter. BAers approve as all but one.

I see that this style is just all about the capacity of belgian pale malt if concentrated. These are ‘s beers. This is what beer imagines it could be if it only put its mind to it, think of the big picture.

Atlantic Canada is Right II

Today’s Globe and Mail (subscription required for access to the articles so they are not linked) contains two facts that confirms that, especially for the case of Newfoundland, the national perception that Atlantic Canada does not need a new deal is just wrong. These two facts are in addition to the current call for equality in tax sharing on resource revenue placing Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on a equivalent footing with the idle shieks of Alberta who lecture us on fiscal responsibility from the spewing tap of oil revenue which they sit upon solely through fluke of natural history.

The first fact is set out in a chart at page A4 of today’s edition. It shows that in 2002 the Federal Government sends $2.485 billion into Newfoundland while $2.187 is sent from Newfoundland into Federal coffers. The difference of 298 million is less than the transfer from Ottawa to PEI, is half the amount pledged for tsunami relief in another country, is roughly less than the annual budget of the City of Kingston. Hardly a national shame. Further, it is a 2002 figure which, following the preceding decade’s trend, might actually be no longer in deficit at all now into the third fiscal year after the chart’s end.

The second and more important point is made in Rex Murphy’s column in one sentence: “Churchill Falls alone nullifies the equalization ‘debt’.” In terms of gross provincial product, Newfoundland suffers from a legal falsehood, a valuation of the price of the electricity it exports through Quebec due to a sweetheart deal more imposed than negotiated soon after the nation of Newfoundland merged with the nation of Canada in 1949. Generally, throughtout the North American electrical grid, power generated in one place is “wheeled” though the transmission lines of others for a fair price to reach the customers of the generator. Under the Churchill Falls deal, there is a contractual deeming of the value of Newfoundland’s electricity which is vastly below fair market value. Hydro Quebec (I believe it is HQ) then sells the electricity on to New York state, Ontario, etc., effectively as if it generated itself and sells it at market value. It is a windfall to Quebec which Murphy values at over a billion dollars a year. Ottawa saves on that effect as Hydro Quebec is owned by the Porvince of Quebec and its windfall revenues off-set otherwise required transfers fom Canada. It is a loss to Newfoundland that swings it from a have to a have not province.

What is the effect? This chart shows one of them: Newfoundland lost 2.9% of its population from 1991 to 1996 and another 7% of its population from 1996 to 2001. Depopulation of those who are able to go. The capable. Without respect for the value of the resources, those who are able to run the province leave creating a vicious circle of dependency and creativity export and a perception that you have to leave to get ahead. What other province would put up with an economic situation which undermines its ability to continue itself?

Danny Williams is right.

Japan’s Beer-Like Substances

This is somewhat depressing news given my inclination towards quality real ale:

Kirin to enter market for ‘3rd-category beer’ this springThursday, January 13, 2005 at 07:00 JST
TOKYO — Kirin Brewery Co said Wednesday it will join three other major Japanese breweries this spring in offering a product known as “the third-category beer,” a beer-tasting alcoholic beverage that is in a lower tax bracket because of its ingredients. The beer-like beverage accounted for about 5% of sales of beer and the like in 2004, underlying a growing demand for the new beverage, said Kirin President Koichiro Aramaki. (Kyodo News)

Once can only presume that the 3rd level is below discount. Can any Asian correspondents enlighten us on this? Interesting to note that the Asia Times is reporting a concurrent decline in overall Japanese beer consumption and a move to the third way as an effort to get around taxation. Guinness, one of the great beers of the world in both an economic and quality sense, was created for the very same reason when Britain moved to the taxation of malt included in beer rather than the final alcohol content (if I am recollecting correctly…I did! See here). The result was a beer high in unmalted raw rolled barley and blackened but raw roast barley and a resulting low-carb profile. I suspect the Japanese will not come up with such a happy outcome.

Kingston Brewing Company, Kingston, Ontario


Readers in the local area may have noticed I have yet to write about the Kingston Brewing Company, more commonly called the Kingston Brew Pub. It’s just that I have not got a set of photos that capture the place more than anything but I popped in mid-afternoon today and made a start.

I have been going to the Kingston Brew Pub for more than a decade. When we lived three hours drive away, during LBK (Life Before Kids) we planned long weekends around meals there. Now I work a block away and am happy because of it, even to pop in for the lunch special or a cup of coffee mid-afternoon. The beers on tap are mainly their own but they do have McAuslan Oatmeal Stout and Guinness – based on the belief, I think, that now one can improve much on these examples of the styles. There is a bloggers meet up tomorrow evening there at 5 pm so I will have more thoughts and notes on a couple of ales after that.

Later: Ok. I never took any notes. I blabbed about blogs and failed to note the Winter Whallop or the Dragon’s Breath IPA. But I did get a couple of pictures of the upstairs.




Royalty Dork

I can recall, twenty odd years ago, at a Kings College fancy dress up during undergrad telling the jerk to leave who thought dressing like a Nazi was funny. The bar refused him service, no one suggested there was any excuse and it was done. Why did no one assist Prince Harry with that simple truth?

Second Third in line, eh? A republic is looking better and better.

Sadness

I do not write much about work because I quite like my work and it is usually not that good an idea to write about your work. But I would be missing a great sadness not to note the very surprising passing of the CAO of Kingston, my boss’s boss’s boss, Bert Meunier, whose obituary in the Whig-Standard this morning captures many of the qualities I got to know in working with him. Here is the Whig’s take on his career, much of which is a noting of events before my time. If I was to add anything it would be that, as set out in the articles, the principles that he clearly fought for have been adopted and are being brought into day to day action.