Garden 2012: The Ugly Shrubs Are Dead Dead Dead

We each chose a most hated shrub and killed them today. One of the great things about gardening is being that grim reaper who takes away so that others might have a little more light, a sip more water or just the spot occupied by that the ugly thing in the corner by the fence. My own dead semi-tree of choice was chopped and stacked to be replaced by a big pile of sheep poo and peat moss where the squash shall hold dominion this summer. The ground there was a bit mossy and weighed down by clay so I buried a small short gravel and rock drain to draw the water away.

The first effort at starting the Blue Hubbards was a total failure but six others live on the kitchen window sill to be hardened off over the next week. Yesterday, was all planting. Purple fleshed carrots. Multi-coloured Swiss chard. 500 onion sets. And a dump run. There was an hour wait at the transfer station all for the joy of dumping broken foldie-uppie camping chairs along with the remains of a basketball hoop, a deceased elliptical training machine and a load of other crap. Sugar snap peas are up. The leeks look hopeful even if only green threads in their laundry room trays. Purple Cherokee tomatoes are leggy but may make it. Time will tell.

To Be “Shelted” Is Not To Pay A Premium Price

With respect, Lew in this case is wrong:

“Shelted” is a word Canadian blogger Alan “A Good Beer Blog” McLeod made up three years ago, and from the context, I’m guessing it means “being asked to pay a premium price for a beer imported by Shelton Brothers.” (Alan’s a bit obsessive on price/value in beer, and the Shelton line is not noted for being underpriced.) Or maybe something similar, but vaguely more crude; you can do the interpretation.

Sharing: I used “shelted” long before three years ago if only in my heart of hearts and, in particular, long before I knew that the particular bunch in question were so oddly comfortable in being abusive like any one of that certain sort of moron who have built a successful niche in a small market. That is not what drove the creation of the verb. It was created because when I started buying imported good beers in the States I saw that the prices did not always make sense. Here in Canada you can get Orval for under four bucks while it is pushing or over six south of the nearby border. See, I can buy that beer in at least three jurisdictions and be back for lunch. I enjoy a competitive marketplace of sorts. Lew calls that obsessive. Go figure. But it’s neither here nor there. To be shelted is far from what Lew supposes. It means to be stuck paying too much because someone has exclusive control of the importing or other aspects of supply. It is to recognize the monopolist, the tyrant of the marketplace. See, perhaps unlike that lawyer Shelton, I am actually a practicing lawyer who buys a lot of things – from buildings to pencils. I don’t consider lawyers arseholes unless they came to law school as arseholes. But I do understand how prices, markets, law and taxation interact. So I naturally hate the monopolist, even the tiny ones… and especially the ones who are arseholes, too.

Which get us to the context of the need to consider “shelt”-ing this week. From my point of view, if you want to disagree with someone or something, you create a body of knowledge that contradicts the assumptions you are taking on. You build respect by learning how to respect the work and opinions of others. By way of comparison, when you refer to “ill-informed and emotionally fraught bloggers” or otherwise take a position of complaining tantrum-esque weakness you don’t do anything but point out your own failings. And entitlement. I love to see bad lawyers like that across the table. Their arguments are your playground. See, in yesterday’s statement, Shelton Brothers is very careful to play the victim card. They are “ridiculously small guys” and “the little guys” who represent “cute little foreign brewers” when in fact they are market corner-ers who have exclusivity over a large number of brands who the needy beer nerds are trained to covet. Some of the brewers they represent are truly wonderful and worth every penny. Some are not. Yet all seem to demand premium price in the US which I just don’t see being asked of us in Canada – though admittedly the selection is not as rich up here. We don’t have three-tier. And we also seem not to have those exclusive importer deals as Shelton Brothers might enjoy – along with many others – which see unnaturally inflated prices on the shelves. We have less of that “I just got took” feeling after opening another overpriced beer though, more than admittedly, we have it from time to time.

Which gets to the last point. Lew is also quite right. The new New York tax interpretation will lead to paying only a few pennies more per glass. And as New York state is in need of revenue that is a good thing. Time to pay the piper. Being shelted, however, has nothing to do with that. Being shelted is being asked to take your hard earned money and give it to support an importer who thinks you the beer buyer and this the beer buying discourse are unworthy… a crock… a dupe… or whatever an arsehole would call it. So, I have no issue with the call for a boycott for those that feel that way but just don’t do it over this tax ruling, over just Shelton Brothers and don’t go overboard. Get smart and do whenever you feel you have been shelted – whether by this importer or anyone else. And don’t worry if someone might call it obsessive especially when only you care about your own wallet. It’ doesn’t take much. Sure, find the lambics they don’t represent and enjoy that often they are a buck less and as good or better. But also notice how that self proclaimed craft beer guru in your own neighbourhood inflates their price through a swing top bottle with specially embossed glass or through jacking prices two bucks for the joy of having three cents worth of a rare ingredient added. Find the alternatives to the loud proclaimers, the self-defined, the brand conscious. Make a habit of not being shelted. But not because of any tax ruling or because Shelton Brothers have justly protected their interests. You should do it to protect those interests of your own against anyone.

Ontario: Robust Porter, Great Lakes, Etobicoke

I was handed this beer at last week‘s beer event. I just would like to mention that this is one of the best Ontario-made beers I have ever had. Part of their Project X series, it’s on limited release and, sadly, limited production. Too bad. Thick sheeting mocha cream head over deep dark ale. Thick aroma, too. Cocoa and mint. Pumpernickel and cream. If I had thought of a beer future back in the 90s, it might have been this. Before hop mania. Before sour. When malt and roast reigned. This has it. Masses of dark malt with dry roast coffee as well as sticky date and raisin notes all carried along with a rich light sour even yogurty yeastiness. It is heavy. In the best sense. As heavy as you wished your coffee in the morning could be.

I think I recall Troy telling me as he passed the bottle that this was named after Burt Reynolds. Can’t recall why.

Book Review: But Are These Really Beer Books?


ganse1Beer books. I have read enough of them but they are not the whole extent of the books I read related to my interest in beer. One of the most interesting things for me about my interest in beer is how is it woven though the community and through time. On top up there is my recently acquired copy of 1969’s breakout best seller The Gansevoorts of Albany: Dutch Patricians in the Upper Hudson Valley. It does appear on Google books but not much of the text is available. Below that book us the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte. I am hoping each will be, in its way, a book about beer or at least a book that explains how we can think about beer.

First, the Gansevoorts. The most amazing thing about this family for our present purposes is that they gave up brewing in the early 1800s after the best part of two centuries of brewing… in North America. There is a lot to learn about the context of how brewing began and has continued for around 380 years in the capital city of New York state but the main thing to understand is that when the British finally took over the Dutch colony in 1674, it did not remove the population. In a way, it is like a mini-Quebec in that, through the Dongan Charterof 1686, the people of Albany were allowed a level of self-government that continued its Dutch political culture. In roads into that were only made after the French and Indian War of the later 1750s which led to the fall of New France. Interestingly, the indications I have seen of a indigenous strong Dutch wheat beer seem to fade along with that political culture replaced in the first decade of the 1800s with the ranges of small to XXXX ales more in line with the Yankees of neighbouring and expanding New England culture that lived on until swamped in turn by later German immigrants and the advent of large scale lager production. Earlier, under that cultural protection, the Gansevoorts can be traced back to the 1650s when a brewer had a daughter whose husband took up the brewing trade himself, passing the business on to their son, whose beer based position and wealth allowed his sons to prosper and lead the Revolution… and to run the brewery until it was demolished in 1807.

We have data. So much data. But it is out there in jangled family trees, in newspaper ads and in boxes on archive shelves which have remained unopened for years. How to find it all and how to put it into some order? I have an idea for an interactive timeline that effectively displays what otherwise could sit on a wiki like this. But I need help. Hence Tufte. I am thinking of his commentary on the 1869 graphically illustrated map of Napoleon’s doomed march into and out of Russia. Except it would be the Hudson River Valley and it would be about almost four centuries of of beer rather that one really poor military campaign. Something of a cross between that and the schematic diagram of the London Undergroundmight work. Maybe.

Beer books? Two wonderful books and each can tell me plenty about beer or about thinking about beer at least.

Garden 2012: The Return Of The Risk Of Frost

We were fooled. Warm has been replaced by cold. Next week there is a risk of frost. Fortunately, we did not go too far down the road of planting. The peas are just taking their first peak above soil and the blue hubbard squash has been transplanted into pots that can be brought inside. Seeing as I have not even done the taxes, this is good timing. The Arkansas leeks and Cherokee Purple tomatoes seeds were only planted in the trays yesterday waiting down in the basement to decide when it is time to sprout. Very early days.

Lots of time for digging, however. Me and the lad were out this morning digging out a root ball of an ex-shrub. It took secateurs, shovels and an axe but the score ended up Nature 0 Mankind 1. I appear to be at the one shrub stage of life. Whacking away at the damn thing did not exactly set stars spinning about my head but a second might have. I wonder at what point the gardening shifts from telling me how out of shape I am and move on to letting me know the effort is worth it.

Garden 2012: The Return Of The Risk Of Frost

We were fooled. Warm has been replaced by cold. Next week there is a risk of frost. Fortunately, we did not go too far down the road of planting. The peas are just taking their first peak above soil and the blue hubbard squash has been transplanted into pots that can be brought inside. Seeing as I have not even done the taxes, this is good timing. The Arkansas leeks and Cherokee Purple tomatoes seeds were only planted in the trays yesterday waiting down in the basement to decide when it is time to sprout. Very early days.

Lots of time for digging, however. Me and the lad were out this morning digging out a root ball of an ex-shrub. It took secateurs, shovels and an axe but the score ended up Nature 0 Mankind 1. I appear to be at the one shrub stage of life. Whacking away at the damn thing did not exactly set stars spinning about my head but a second might have. I wonder at what point the gardening shifts from telling me how out of shape I am and move on to letting me know the effort is worth it.

None

Do I Really Want to Show You How Good Beer Can Taste?

Really? I mean I am a fan of good beer as much as the next guy but do I really want to show you how good beer can taste as suggested by this article entitled “Craft beer aficionados want to show you how good beer can taste. Trust them.“?

Those friends who sold me on craft beers are now trying to sell the entire Pittsburgh population on them. Today marks the start of Craft Beer Week, organized by the nonprofit Pittsburgh Craft Beer Alliance. Local breweries, distributors, bars and restaurants throughout the North Hills and the metro area are featuring tastings and special events to spread, as they say, “the gospel of all things craft beer.”

The funniest thing, of course, is that if this theory is true all Pittsburgh Pirate fans should become Yankee fans, right? And you will all listen to The Decemberists and you will all know the reference in the band’s name and know why you have to be taught Dostoevsky when you are 20 from a guy who knew Pasternak… because of you don’t understand things on as many levels as I do you really can’t have passion. You won’t really be able to suck the marrow out of life and giggle as it drips down you chin. Because you won’t have passion. Like me.

To hell with that. Passion is that employer of the young who saps their joy for life. Passion offers periodic Google ad cheques in return. It asks you to be the unpaid brand ambassador. On Wednesday night, a intelligent and eager young person suggested to me that my interest in good beer was pure passion with a certain honest excitement. I took the time to gently crush that moment like a mouse under my heel. It was information, I said. Information and interest. Passion? I have children for that. I have my future. Most of all, I have awareness that we all face the grave and am informed of that by the smell of the forest or by the way ocean waves entrance you if you just stop and watch. That’s passion. I don’t buy passion by the six pack and I sure as hell don’t run into it at either the gala or during the week’s worth of events put on by the local brewers’ association.

Beer? It is tasty. It can even be fun. But let’s keep some perspective. Worrying too much about the taste in other peoples’ mouths should only really lead to something more sensible like this.

Do I Really Want to Show You How Good Beer Can Taste?

Really? I mean I am a fan of good beer as much as the next guy but do I really want to show you how good beer can taste as suggested by this article entitled “Craft beer aficionados want to show you how good beer can taste. Trust them.“?

Those friends who sold me on craft beers are now trying to sell the entire Pittsburgh population on them. Today marks the start of Craft Beer Week, organized by the nonprofit Pittsburgh Craft Beer Alliance. Local breweries, distributors, bars and restaurants throughout the North Hills and the metro area are featuring tastings and special events to spread, as they say, “the gospel of all things craft beer.”

The funniest thing, of course, is that if this theory is true all Pittsburgh Pirate fans should become Yankee fans, right? And you will all listen to The Decemberists and you will all know the reference in the band’s name and know why you have to be taught Dostoevsky when you are 20 from a guy who knew Pasternak… because of you don’t understand things on as many levels as I do you really can’t have passion. You won’t really be able to suck the marrow out of life and giggle as it drips down you chin. Because you won’t have passion. Like me.

To hell with that. Passion is that employer of the young who saps their joy for life. Passion offers periodic Google ad cheques in return. It asks you to be the unpaid brand ambassador. On Wednesday night, a intelligent and eager young person suggested to me that my interest in good beer was pure passion with a certain honest excitement. I took the time to gently crush that moment like a mouse under my heel. It was information, I said. Information and interest. Passion? I have children for that. I have my future. Most of all, I have awareness that we all face the grave and am informed of that by the smell of the forest or by the way ocean waves entrance you if you just stop and watch. That’s passion. I don’t buy passion by the six pack and I sure as hell don’t run into it at either the gala or during the week’s worth of events put on by the local brewers’ association.

Beer? It is tasty. It can even be fun. But let’s keep some perspective. Worrying too much about the taste in other peoples’ mouths should only really lead to something more sensible like this.

Brewers’ Plate 2012 And My Happy Schooling

What a pleasant Wednesday. I ate. I sipped. I asked myself a lot about how people in downtown Toronto spend their Wednesday evenings. I did not think I got swept away in pairing mania but, and it is a subtle but so bear with me, there were many wonderful combinations to be found.

For example, Beau’s Mates with Dates and the cheese made from water buffalo milk from Montefort Dairy was a really interesting side by side but it was not one of the proposed pairings on offer. Similarly, a deftly tucked away bottle of Ten Bitter Years from Black Oak went very well with the dessert crepe being given away in a booth but that was not the beer on offer because the crepe had Ontario black walnuts. The chef and I talked about the weirdness of the texture of the crepe and nuts with a very bombish IPA. But we agreed that there was a twigginess in the hops of the beer that worked with the walnuts which tasted like you face would after an hour of chainsawing hardwood.

So did I pair? Probably. Was the event a good one. It really was. I am going to just post this now but add some more thoughts as my day’s class on contract drafting proceeds. Unless it is riveting. Which it could be. You never know.

Garden 2012: Today I Did Dig And Split The Rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of my favorite things. Spring food. Sour and astringent. It makes the years since childhood contract. A cup of white sugar into which a raw stem was rammed, the stalk chewed as if on a dare. Stewed rhubarb leading to the earliest bowel related humour at our table, pretend mad dashes for the washroom mid-dessert. Pies. Lard rich crust glazed with a crackle of rhubarb filling. Later, as a young married couple, we made weak rhubarb juice on a slow simmer that was cooled then mixed with cheap Ontario white wine as a particularly fine weekend drink. Today, I dug up and separated the rhizomes, halfway between thick carrots and thick sweet potatoes. I separated them in the patch where the compost bin used to sit and gave them a long soak of water from the hose. What was one plant should now be six. If I had a farm, I would have a rhubarb house. I understand the best in England are built over coal mines with only the light of one candle to ensure the stems are as pale as possible.

No yard should be without rhubarb.