New York: Post Road Pumpkin Ale, Brooklyn Brewery

Now that the Yankees are out of the playoffs, I can admit again to my enjoyment of things New York…more upstate than anything but, as the City and upstate have a mutually vestigal relationship, there is much of the City to be found upstate. One great thing is the New York Times, another is the effect of the Brooklyn Brewery and its range on intellegent challenging beers. I reviewed the Brooklyn Brown in August and, when last in Syracuse, I picked up a six each of the two fall specials, Octoberfest marzen and Post Road Pumpkin Ale. Such is the integrity of the head brewer of Brooklyn, Garrett Oliver, that he has started a line of historic beers of the US. One is Post Road Light Dinner Ale, a remembrance of a late 1800s middle class urban style. The other is Post Road Pumpkin Ale, a tribute to earlier colonial pioneer brewers.

The aroma is pumpkin patch, autumn frost. The taste, pumpkin pie spices. Its light body makes it an easy drink but the nutmeg backed with cinnamon makes it a bit dry for a quaffable, sipping or session beer, compared to say a rich spicy thang like a Belgian dubble say Unibroue’s Maudite. Brooklyn’s web site says:

Post Road Pumpkin Ale is a revival of a beer brewed by the early American colonists. Pumpkins were plentiful, flavorful and nutritious and they blended nicely with barley malt. Hundreds of pumpkins are blended into each batch of Post Road Pumpkin Ale, creating a beer with an orange amber color, warm pumpkin aroma, biscuity malt center and crisp finish. Post Road Pumpkin Ale is spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.

The other day I roasted a lamb’s leg and basted it with half dark maple syrup and half this ale. It was good, candied up over 4 1/2 hours. I used to make a roasted pumpkin porter with Ringwood yeast. While this is a much lighter take, the idea is there – the summer’s work saved in the celler. Advocatonians have their say.

Smuttynose Variety

Now that I have spent more than a year having made up with New Hampshire, I can enjoy Smuttynose as I should. These variety packs are great. They introduce you to a brewery’s product for under 20 bucks Canadian, 14 US. Smart marketing. Good labels, too. The two old guys on lawn chairs on the IPA are reason enough to buy that brew.

  • Old Brown Dog Ale: Like Rogue, this brewery displays the smarts to know we, the consumers, also have smarts on things brewing. This info is included on the website:

    VITAL STATISTICS
    OG: 1060, TG: 1016
    Grain Bill: Pale Brewers, Munich, Crystal 60°L, Chocolate
    Hops: Cascade, Willamette
    IBU’s: 15, ABV: 5.7%
    Color/Number: Deep brown-amber, 25°

    I can read this and think – umm. This gives enough to start the homebrewer off to replicate their product. Why? I’d bet it’s because they can figure it out anyway so why not make a pal?

    So what to make of the beer? I’d call it a lighter version of the American brown but still nicely balanced, a notch more than a mild ale. Nice fruity notes, too, almost cherry pie between the bisuity thing and the nutty notes. Nice pale tan head. I talked up the first one I popped over here. I would be very interested to compare it with the Brooklyn Brown, side-by-side, contemporaneously as it were. By gumbo, someday I will.

I will report on the lager, pale ale and IPA later.

Game Seven

Good thing I had one 22 page document to draft today, straight through short break for lunch. Driving home it felt like mid-week halloween with the anticipation of big doin’s tonight. I will try to stay tube-bound. I have a bad habit of making myself busy elsewhere during big moments in sporting events, by the radio.

I fear Boston’s pitching will throw me off. I hope Lowe, left, can pull it off but this is going to be a full bullpen event for both sides. Wakefield will cover two. Foulke one. Who else?

At 8:19 pm, half an hour, the world stops again for four hours. What I have to put up with in the meantime [144 KB .wav file]


12:10 am this morning, men in red hug again.

Half Life 2

Appparently it is coming out in a month. I had a weird experience with my glacial attempt at the original Half Life. I was half way down the collapsed building fighting evil things when 9/11 happened. I just couldn’t pick it up after. Maybe now I will be ready to beat shin-high brain/chicken monsters with a tire iron again. Maybe now that I have kids who can turn on the computer I won’t.

US Election Pool III

Don’t forget to get some picks in for the elction pool. I know I said there was a deadline but seeing as the web is full of rightists and I am picking Kerry – and – as it looks like Kerry may actually win…well, I am just looking forward to the gnashing of teeth, the neo-con v. Tory accusations, the chicken little dire predictions.

Most of what you need to know is here at the Electoral Vote Predictor 2004. The rules once again are as follows with my picks as an illustration…

1.  Electoral college overall: 50 points for being spot on, one point lost for every electoral college vote off +/- for the winner. No points for being 50 or over off score. Total 538 so 270 needed to win.

My picks:  I say…um…285 Kerry and 253 Bush. I do not care if that combination is actually possible. Nearness is what matters.

2.  President: 30 points for naming the winner.

My pick: I obviously say Kerry…not because it is obvious he will win but because I gave him the most electoral votes.

3.  Key States: 10 points for picking the winner in the following states correctly – Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Missouri, Colorado.

My picks: Kerry: Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio; Bush: Maine, Colorado.

4.  Senate: 20 points for for being spot on, four points lost for every senate seat off +/- for the final count of the majority.

My picks: 49 Democrats, 50 Republicans and 1 Independent.

5.  Wild card: Pick your own non-Federal race at any level down to local district attorney for an incumbant to lose. 20 points if you picked right.

My picks: hmmm…this is tricky. I think in the 49th District of the New York State Senate, the Democratic Candidate David Valesky is goin’ to Albany!!!

He’s goiing to win because the right has split the vote with both Republican incumbant and Independent Conservative candidates. Has the right learned nothing from Preston Manning???

Did I mention there are prizes? I always give out prizes. More info here and here.

Stouts: Freeminer Deep Shaft, Gloucestershire, England

dss1Who can resist when one reviewer says: ” Very possibly the darkest beer in the world.” Well…I suppose lots of people who do not like dark or black beer. But for people who understand that Guinness is actually red, this kind of line makes an ale very attractive.

Freeminer Brewery is one of the small brewers in the Wessex Craft Brewers Co-operative, a shadowy group that appears to make – or perhaps only bottle – fine traditional West Country English ales through some sort of equipment sharing. RCH Brewery, Ash Vine Brewery, Hand Brewed Beers and Freeminer Brewery all appear to have been part of the co-op. Ash Vine, makers of the excellent Hop and Glory pale ale which the LCBO carried in the spring of 2001, went under a couple of years ago. RCH started in a Hotel serving only the clientele. Small timers.

But small is good. The advocatonians rate it 4.31 out of 5 which is the only stout ahead of Guinness at 4.27. Which is all very nice but I have yet even to open the bottle, so verklempt I am over the Sox and Yanks going into the 10th inning as I type. The head is mocha and below, inky. The stout fan I married…yet did not buy a second of these for…equates a good stout with a good chocolate and that is there, fine graininess like espresso or dark chocolate. Raisins from dark crystal malt. Like Shipyard IPA, it only uses the woodsy Fuggles hop, so less minty than Guinness which uses Northern Brewer. The brewer says:

Guardian Bottle Conditioned beer of 1996. Not for wimps! Everything a BCB should be. Packed solid with malt, hops, and oats. Possibly the darkest stout of all time, a single varietal beer, made only with Fuggles hops, packed with bitterness, and brimming with aroma hopping, a deep and complex beer, worth taking some time over, and exploring the Hampton Court like maze of complex flavours. Initially, the dry, biscuit flavour of roast barley attacks the palate, soon to be replaced by the soothing Fuggles balm of rich smokiness, and then layer upon layer of malted oats, rich dark malts, and an unidentifiable eutectic¹ finish of pure stout character. The definitive stout for the discerning drinker, dive in and explore!!

Expensive at 4.99 USD for a single pint but this is pretty much the premier grand cru classé of stouts. If you were to look for a more available comparable stout you could try Royal Extra from Trinidad but you have to remove its sweetness and replace it with about 27 other layers of flavour. And that is impossible.

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¹Loverly word. “The lowest temperature at which a mix of two materials will melt. Often the temperature is an anomaly, that is, it is much lower than the melting temperatures of only slightly different mixtures. Lead-tin solder is an example. Lead melts at 327C, tin at 231C. The lowest melting combination is 67 lead, 33 tin (180C). Non-eutectic mixtures have a melting or softening range. Such mixtures do not flow well until thoroughly heated past the softening range. This softening phenomenon is what makes glazes hang onto the ware.”

Ne Drubbé Pas


The Beauty

I am getting a life-size statute of Ortiz for my living room and one for portland, too, to stand next to the illuminated full-size goose. I was all prepared for a black bordered bosox cap on the front page of this organ when I heard that in fact we won in the 12th. OK- I fell asleep listening to the game on WTIC 1080. Those waves of propagation are so soothing. Now we are on a role and…oops…Mr. Who’s your Daddy v. Mussina, whose head hovers smilingly to the right. Oh me nerves. Has Derek Lowe reconstituted himself in water? Has he added to the inevitable mid-winter trade value he will bring in?