Interesting to note that next week will see the 200th anniversary of the birth of the greatest Nova Scotian and a great if reluctant Canadian, Joeseph Howe. Perhaps in commemoration, I will dig out that book of his early writings I have and repeat all the bad things he had to say about Truro 175 years ago.
My Next Computer
Apparently it will make me use my Red Sox’s cap to move the mouse and that mouse will appear on my forearms. Futurists bust me up. Keep in mind the computer you are looking at is structured 90% like one in a basement in California from 1973 – but for that speed thing.
Belgium: Thinking About Four Sorts Of Brown
Continuing in the style of Four Belgian Blondes and Four Wittes, I am going to try to work through the Belgians I have squirrelled away over the last few months style by style. I also want to avoid one problem that arises doing a side-by-side, especially when you are looking at triples and strong ales. Four of those at 8 to 11%, especially when one or two only come in a quart, can frankly blow the top off yer heed. So, to ensure some benefit of the colour and head comparison, while at the same time avoiding a public display of the ever famous liquid lobotomy, I have decided upon a handy-dandy chart format for these posts. As I open each brew within the set, I will add it to the table with a photo of its label and one of the pour along with some notes. Click on the photos for a bigger view.
The trouble with this first set, however, is that they are not a style all. They are just a grab bag of styles all of which fall under the word “brown” more or less. The Petrus is a tangy Oud Bruin, while the Leffe Brown is something more familiar, a rich brown. The Kasteel is more of a barleywine while Rodenbach Grand Cru is a sour beer gone mad – the best malt vinegar you will ever find. All, however, are forms of browns from Belgium.
| Belgian Browns | Bottle and Pour | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Petrus Oud BruinFlemish Brown |
translucent mahogany |
Lambic-like, sour cherry aroma, refreshing but also, at its core woodsy. Tart orange and spicy but in a good Christmas cake way. The body is not heavy. Slight carbonation – very light for a Belgian. 5.5% in a 250 ml bottle. BAs speak. |
Kasteel IngelmunsterQuadruple or Barleywine
|
Demarrara |
This is a dandy big beer – brown sugar plumy or red grape malty goodness at 11%. Without a trace of orange peel or spice so no hint of a dubble. No sour at all so nothing oud about it. This is surprisingly fresh for its bulk…like me. Rummy. Very subdued hops, only enough to keep the sweetness from being cloying. Here is the brewery’s take on it. A juicy swallow ending in a hot port finish. 330 ml bottle. Advocates comment. |
Rodenbach |
cherry wood patina |
I said that this was the best malt vinegar you will ever taste and I am not kidding. This is pure soured, oak aged Belgian brew. Michael Jackson is kinder speaking of a vanilla-like oakiness, passion-fruit flavours, a clean sharp acidity like sour cream. That is all there but you have to appreciate that the acidity is that of a sub-puckeringly sharp wine. Vineous does not cover how sharp. Tart but only in the sense of King Tart of the Tartonians. Within the tart the is some reflection of spice and certainly a gooseberry-rhubarb custard trifle would go well with this. That acid lingers the palate with the yeast with some deference to richness. It is nice. Try it but prepare to wish for a nice light double IPA as a cleansing light chaser. 6% in a 330 ml bottle.Beertonians blown away. |
|
Leffe Brown Belgian Dark Ale
|
Chestnut |
Hard label this one. It has some rich round brown like the Kesteel and also some tang like the Flemish Browns. Another calls it an almost double and another a dark ale. But labels have a limit. A lively head which leaves a rich foam ring. Medium to strong body. Cream and chocolate with a strong hop edge cutting the sweet. 6.5% in a 330 ml. Great on tap.Beersters consider. |
Forgotten New York
If I haven’t told you who pass by here often enough, please check out Forgotten New York – this week’s post on some of Staten Island’s oldest buildings is a great example of how the web can actually be an amateur interest archive of sorts.
The Cob
This is the TV show I not only want to be in – but host. It may have an alternate title like “What Not To Be”. It is all about the ideal of the average male…or maybe an average ideal about a male.
Here is the premise. Me and portland get a bunch of guys to take the bait and sign up for a reality show. In that show, we promise, somewhat like “The Swan” to recreate you, but as a real guy. Like “What Not To Wear” we promise to renew your ability to interact with humans as a better you – but, unlike these shows, we teach the poor saps who are competing for our good opinion to actually be a good person, not just look like an attractive person. We will not make you richer, get you a better carrer or make your home a mansion. We teach you not to be a jerk or humilate you trying.
In one episode, we take apart the jerk who treats pals’ sisters like crap and leave him a whimpering ball of jelly at around 23 minutes past the hour. We break in on a date gone wrong with the girl of his dreams, show how a slob can treat a lady right (portland’s talent shining here) and leave him in our tracks begging to learn the secrets of being decent. But 57 after the hour, we do. In another show, we start by taunting pro-bowlers from the stands about spending more time with their families instead of on the lanes of mid-sized Mid-West towns. They learn to get real if dullish jobs with reasonable long-term prospects and get a hobby involving something actually useful like homebrewing. I can do that. In the grand finale, we teach a group of the quiet and shy to rock-out, live on gin and condiments for a week and finish a big night out having eggs on toast at dawn in a town where no one speaks your language or takes your currency. The winners of every episode compete for a big final prize at the end of the season, which we award arbitrarily to someone who shares the cash with us as a lesson that life is not based on merit.
It could happen.
Mp3 = Bad Sound
This is news? One of the reason I cannot get excited about iPod – or however you misuse capitalization – is that the quality of the audio is awful.
Quick Note: Labatt Porter
While on the road, I chanced by a depanneur near the pulp mills in downtown Hull and found an artifact, Labatt Porter. This beer is a vestige of an earlier style of Canadian beer which died away as lagers came on to the scene. Old lumberjack taverns up the Outaouais may still have old sign for porter painted on their outside brick walls. Ten years ago Molsons still produced a competing beer under the brand Champlain Porter. Now only this one is left and likely has one of its few remaining bases of popularity, such as it is, on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. It is really a sweet milk stout. It is chocolatey, lactose sweet, a bit like a richer cola with low carbination and the aroma of new baked bread and caramel. It is not hoppy like the Sleeman Fine Porter or roasty like Cooperstown Benchwarmer. Not profound but comforting. Probably the best tasting beer for style Labatt still brews – which is not a great compliment. It may be gone itself in another decade. Click on the photo for a better view.
The Pixies in Hull
In the late 80s there was an echo of punk that came to be grunge. Nirvana and Pearl Jam came out of Seattle and the Pixies came out of Boston. Like 70s punk with its intellectual anger, these bands spat loud about the question “why?” or rather “WHY????“. Of them all, the Pixies were the most surreal but also presbyterian. At one and the same time the world is not as it is and not as it ought to be.
I know them only through their most popular record Doolittle but I knew a part of my younger life would be renewed by hearing Frank Black scream “and if the Devil is six, then God is seven, God is seven”. I was right.
Some admissions. We sat at the back, my older brothers and I. I wore ear plugs. We left a little early to beat the rush. These were the accomodations of the years and I was not about to go through five days of ear ringing like I dealt with after last year’s Sloan concert. Plus, given the hockey rink setting, the concrete floor and the metal ceiling, it was all distortion falling over itself. Probably the worst venue for a band I have ever been at. The opening acts – one whose name we didn’t even bother catching as well as a quite respectable The Darkness-esque (with out the irony) called The Datsuns – did not get the idea of controlling the wall of sound to meet the venue. They were just loud. The Pixies were loud, too, but sometimes at moments not loud.
It was at first something of a wait for their hits “This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven”, “Debaser” and “Here Comes your Man” [6.9 MB 19 second short] – perhaps waiting most of all for the spectacle of a throat ripping yell from Frank Black (not nee but was Black Francis). But I was struck by the sharp needling guitar of Joey Santiago and the pounding red-hot bass of chain-smoking Kim Deal.
They were very tight and discomforting. Here are some murky photos from the show, including one of the incredibly busy beer vendors right in front of us.
Buying Beer In Quebec
[This post was written by Blork…]
The workers of the liquor stores in Quebec are on strike. In any other place in Canada that would cause a small crisis, but Quebec is distinct in Canada for several reasons, one of which is the retail sales of beer and wine. While spirits can only be purchased at the government-run retail stores (the Société des alcools du Québec, or SAQ) beer and wine can be purchased at any grocery store or dépanneur (convenience store).
To my knowledge, the only other place in Canada where you can buy beer in convenience stores is Newfoundland. In that case it is only selected stores (I think) and you have to buy a “package.” Here in Quebec, beer and wine is available in every dépanneur, and you can buy individual bottles, not just packages.
Unfortunately, the selection of beers and wines at most dépanneurs is not great. In the case of wines, there is a clear distinction between the wines of a dépanneur and the wines of the SAQ. Essentially, wines that are shipped to Quebec in bulk to be bottled locally are sold in dépanneurs. Most are quite bad, although some — notably the ones from Chile — are serviceable as table wines. “Real” wines are only available at the SAQ.
As for beers, most dépanneurs handle the usual array of standard domestics — Labatt and Molson products, perhaps some Sleeman’s, and a few others. Most dépanneurs have a few “imports” which are invariably Grolsh, Heineken, and Corona. Dépanneurs in urban areas usually carry a selection of Quebec-made microbrews (usually from Brasseur du Nord and McAuslan), but the farther you get into the countryside the fewer you see of these — unless you find yourself in an enclave of urbanites in exile.
This system has the immediate benefit of having wine and cold beer available within walking distance of any home until 11:00 pm seven days a week. However, it is not without pitfalls. For example, the dépanneur wines are not only of lower quality than SAQ wines, but they seem, quite naturally, to be less expensive. Not necessarily, however, given that SAQ prices include all taxes and dépanneur prices do not include 15% sales tax. Most dépanneur wines are priced between $8 and $12 before tax, which I find outrageous. It is still possible to find a quite drinkable wine at the SAQ for under $11. Some dépanneurs — such as ones that are far from any SAQ outlet — gouge the consumer by cranking the prices even higher. I once was asked for $17 (after taxes) for a bottle of wine that usually retailed for about $10 (and was worth half of that in terms of quality).
In terms of beer, the SAQ handles an interesting — but not exhaustive — array of imported beers, and does not carry domestics. Thus, if you want to try something interesting from elsewhere, the SAQ is usually your only choice (but not always — more on that in another post). However, you can imagine my surprise when I found cans of Japanese Sapporo beer in my neighbourhood grocery store last week, stacked next to jars of mustard and cans of tomatoes. Sapporo is quite well known, and easy to find, but I have not had it for some time, so I bought one — partially because I’m rather fond of the heavy aluminum can in which it comes.
I cracked it open last night over a dinner of guacamole, artisanal tortilla chips, and home-made chili. It was much as I remembered it — a good sturdy lager with a nice lacy head and golden color. Sort of a summery beer, but robust enough to stand up to my beefy meal. Then I looked closely at the can and was shocked to see that it was made in Ontario by Sleeman’s, under license from Sapporo! Quel shock!
And there lies another pitfall of dépanneur shopping. A quick visit to the SAQ’s Web site revealed that “real” Sapporo from Japan is available in some SAQ stores. Those who like the convenience of dépanneurs, however, must bear with the imitations.
Since both are available, perhaps I should set up a taste test…
Names for the Glass
A reply to Bruno’s post at his blog alerted us to the problem:
Heu… Un demi c’est 250ml, soit 1/4l, soit effectivement a peu pres une demi pinte.
This is the problem at set out in the post below:
…in France, when you order beer, the usual glass is the demi. France invented metric system, but some remains of the old days are still alive. A demi is in fact about half a pint, rounded to be 125ml. While a pint is being named distingué, and a liter of beer is a formidable (which I think means “smashing” – who knows why?)
That will soon read 250 ml. An email came flying across the Atlantic and, as it should, it has gotten me are talking about it.
For me a “glass” of beer is a specific thing, a 8 oz glass which kind of looks like a butt end of a baseball bat (shown right). You only order them in pairs except when an additional small can of tomato juice is allowed. These were the rules of the Jerry at the Midtown and they are alright by me. By comparison, a “pint” should be a straight-sided 20 oz glass with a bit of a wow up near the rim to give a bit of grip (shown left). Not that weird barrel-shaped dimply thing with the handle. In Holland, you ordered trays of small round glasses with about 5 ounces of liquid and five of foam, passes the tray around and drank them before the foam dissipated – “dead beer” they called one without a head even if there was plenty of carbonation. Never caught the name of that glass, though Alfons might know.
But both Bruno and I are mere amateurs in the world of beer glass names – even with the excellently named formidable for a litre – compared to Australians who have different glasses and different names for those glasses in each state. I have known an Aussie who owned a pub and apparently this is a matter of great importance. Ordering the wrong schooner in the wrong town in the wrong way apparently can cause variation in your sperm count level and that of those with you.