Tag: Food and Drink

Sticky Bun Withdrawal

Much sadness met the news last week that Cards Bakery on King Street suffered from a fire. Cards was (and hopefully will be again) the home of the unreasonably large pastry. Like any good bakery they had day-olds for a ridiculously low price which, despite the apparent petrification the high sugar content rapidly imposed on this otherwise delightful cinnamon roll, were rejuvinated with about 12 seconds in the microwave. Shown in only partly grotesque larger format with a mere click upon the image to the right, this puppy weighed in at probably over a pound of yeast risen cakey perfection. Six cost $2.50 as day olds – under 42 cents Canadian each. Nothing.

When I bought this one and the other five that went before it, I joked whether it was scientifically possible to get more sugar and butter into one object. The clerk said that they would give me a side dish of sugar for dipping if I wanted one. Rumour has it there is a branch in the burbs.

Kingston Blogger Meet-up

Last night, we stopped off at the student union center at Queens to drop in on the inaugural Kingston bloggers get together. As it is homecoming weekend, the city is littered with guys my age and older in their own undergrad leather jackets looking for a keg party to crash so it was easy to inconspicuously hang out on campus for an hour with folks yet to make most of life’s mistakes. Except for the Red Sox’s hat. All of a sudden it is ok to shout “Hey! Go Sox!” at the guy with the Red Sox hat on across the street. Fine with me, I suppose, just as long as they don’t try to rub my belly for good luck.

Anyway, as I was taking herself out for dinner, we only had an hour or so to talk blog but we did get to meet the guys behind:

It was interesting to discuss how the move into blogging was something that was growing in part by word of mouth. John of Hypothesis knew, for example, Eve at The Swamp; Matther Matthew of Living in Society help introduced Blackhole of the View from In Here. We had to cut very early and missed the rumoured attendance of Queens alum Joey of the sideburns and yesterday’s Globe announcement. A good first gathering and we may suggest a few gather at the brew pub before Christmas. Still, I had a sense that this was as yet good geekery so my old fart advice was don’t mention if you are single that you blog until the engagement is confirmed.

After, we two ended up at the Toucan on Princess for supper – which was disappointing enough not to warrant a review at A Good Beer Blog. As portland says, the enemy of the good is the excellent and Guinness poured frosty and pot pie and chip that take one hour and fifteen minutes to materialize are no way to win anyone who has been attended to at the Kingston Brew Pub or Pilot House. As it was homecoming and the entire place was staffed by two just waiters, I would still go back as the gravy in the steak and kidley pie was kidleyesque. But re-route that Guiness line around the cooling unit, for heavens sake. The inhumanity of it all.

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.

The National Six-Pack

As I walk through this troubled world hunched over starting at my feet I sometimes wonder things. Things like why do the Red Ensign bloggers let me hang out when we don’t believe in too much in common. Things like why golf is. Things like why can’t Canada make good beer like the British and Americans do. Then I stand up straight and say out loud – “did I really think that?!?”

Through this summer’s examinations of all things aley, I have realized that I am not being much of a homer. Now, to be fair, no one is as attractive as the foreign girl at the party and when you travel it is nice to try different things so it is some what natural that you might pass the familiar confines of the Beer Store and trip down to the LCBO for a daring fling now and then…and who can blame you if you drag some friends news home after shopping. No one can – but now I’m coming home because for the next while, every couple of weeks or so, I am going to buy a six-pack and test it out. And I am going to try them pale (not necessarily my first pick on a trip to the power house) and see if there are any good Canadian ales that I can call my own again. Requests for test drives will be entertained.

The first guinea pig is McAuslan’s St. Ambrose Pale Ale from Quebec available at the LCBO and I think the Beer Store as well. This beer advocatonian hit the nail on the head:

Taste: Biscuity malt goodness with a nice smack of peppery/grassy hops on the finish.

When I think Canadian pale ale, I think pepper and grass thing that a certain type of our barley must add. This has it big time. Tastes like the beer your Dad drank in the 70s…no better as I think that is what I am going to say about Brick Red Cap. No big floral hoop-la over hops either, just a jaggedy bitter edge. The kind of beer that goes with a shot of rye. Grain as much as malt flavoured. Not sweet either. Both English and American pales are sweeter generally. The brewer says:

St-Ambroise Pale Ale is the brewery’s flagship beer. Introduced in February 1989, it is a hoppy, amber, full-flavoured ale. In The Simon and Schuster Pocket Guide To Beer , beer critic Michael Jackson gave it three stars and described it as: “An outstanding ale… amber-red, clean and appetizing, with a very good hop character, from its bouquet to its long finish. Hoppy, fruity, and tasty all the way through.”

Only available in half the Canadian provinces and apparently in Switzerland, too.

I Get Questions

In the email this evening was this crisis of the soul:

I’m participating in a disc golf tournament tomorrow at Jacques
Cartier Park in Gatineau and one of the side contests is a closest to the pin contest. Since disc golf is for hippies and hooligans who don’t like the cost and snobbery of “real golf” (refered to by disc golfers as”‘whiteball” whereas disc golf is “flatball”) the closest to the pin contest involes beer. Basically, everyone who wants to participate chips in a can or bottle of decent beer (it can’t be anything from a twelve pack or a domestic 6 pack) and the person who lands the closest shot to the designated hole/basket during the day takes home all the beer. There are 72 people playing and I suspect at least half will donating beer for the cause.

This is the long way of saying that when I was at the LCBO this evening I was looking for a beer to donate and a couple to try and couldn’t recall any of your reviews. I wanted something novel for the contest so I grabbed something I hadn’t seen before: Monty Python’s Holy Grail which is “tempered over burning witches.” Have you ever heard of it? It’s approved by Monty Python and friends and is brewed by the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham, Yorkshire. My second choice was fairly safe because I’ve heard a friend describe it as his favourite European beer- Czechvar. Any thoughts? My third was based on packaging as much as anything and I had a vague feeling you’d reviewed it recently, or at least something by the company. I grabbed a bottle of St Peter’s Summer Ale (strong ale, 6.5%). the flask shaped bottle and simple label sold me. Have you had it?

I suppose the most important question is, which are worth sipping this evening and which should be given away. The Monty Python beer is a great novelty contribution but I’m tempted to try it myself. Of course if I win the whole lot of beer tomorrow it won’t matter.

I am honoured to be asked and advised to move on the St. Peter’s. Quality. I am a little less than a fan of the Monty Python – balance lacking as I recall. I also recommended the Fuller’s 1845 and got this response right back:

The 1845 was right beside the St Peter’s. I almost got it instead.
I’ll put it on my list for next time. Thanks. Go Sox!

I am verklempt. Helping others is what I do. Helping others with beer decisions is what I was born to do. Three university degrees and 24 years of schooling and I know my strengths, my bliss. Go Sox indeed.

Rogue Chocolate Stout

I mented in a post below how I am amazed how the LCBO – Liquor Control Board of Ontario – cannot stock shelves better than a decent corner store in the USA. With the monopoly of 12 million people behind it, the LCBO is the greatest buyer of beer, wine and spirits in the world. The biggest used to be Sweden until that was privatized. Now it is where I live. What drives me nuts about it is the LCBO’s ability to master routes of distribution, bring in wines that sell for 20 USD and put them on our dinner tables for 12 Canuck bucks yet they cannot go out and obtain good ales and lagers with the same intellegence. It sells Genessee Ice but not Cream. That in itself is an indictment.

Another is the mere presence of a product by Rogue, one of the great US brewers, without sharing shelf space with five or ten others. At Halloween we get a small number of Dead Guy Ale and in March their St. Patrick’s day issue dry stout. For the rest of year, nuttin’.

So it was with excitement I saw the quart of Rogue’s Chocolate Stout before me. Rogue is a producer of perfection. Click on the picture below right and see for yourself the pride in product – they actually tell you what’s in it. They tell you what happens when they put what’s in it together: 19 IBU is a measure of bitterness, “international bitterness units”; 15º plato is a measure of potential alcohol strength at the start of fermentation; and 135.45º L is a measurement of darkness of hue. This tells you is is moderately strong, quite bitter and very dark.

What it does not tell you in itself is its loveliness. This beer could be reduced over low heat to make a syrup you could bake into a cake, it could stand alone as a marinade for ribs and it could fill an evening with friends whether in front of the TV or as a fine dessert over nuts and blue cheese. It is fulsome in its chocolate flavour but bitter like a fine dessert chocolate cheese cake, the bitterness laying entirely in the natural hops chosen by the brewer – woodsy, rich. The style is an odd one little brewed, being an offshoot (maybe what apple orchardists would call a “sport”) of oatmeal stout. Youngs of England has a famous one, Double Chocolate Stout, that takes pride in its natural manipulation of the barley, through malting and roasting to create chocolate malt, a nuance of flavour that needs no extract or kidding one’s self. Of its own version, Rogue says:

The recipe for Rogue Chocolate Stout was created several years ago for export to Japan. The exported twelve ounce Chocolate Bear Beer bottle label is in Kanji and features a teddy bear with a pink heart on his belly. Chocolate Stout was released for Valentine’s Day in 2001 in a twenty-two ounce bottle for the US market. The label features a Roguester (Sebbie Buhler) on the label. The bottled of Chocolate Stout is available on a very limited basis in the US, so get it while you can! Hedonistic! Ebony in color with a rich creamy head. The mellow flavor of oats, chocolate malts, and real chocolate are balanced perfectly with the right amount of hops for a bittersweet finish…. .

This is an amazing drink. Painted bottle, too. Beauty. Beer Advocatonians approve.

Assorted Darks

Three New Yorkers and one each from England, Quebec and Ontario
 

Here are six dark ales which I have stuck away over the last while to describe some of the differences. This is a special message to Nils who I think can start his hunt for a beer he likes with some of these.

If you were buying beer in 1880, these might appear ranked on a brewer’s list they are degrees of the same thing. On the light side in the latter part of the 19th century, pale ales ranges from light (dinner ales) through bitter/pale ale, extra special bitters, India pale ales to barley wine. Similarly we have the dark range from mild, dark, porter, stout (porter), extra stout, Russian/Baltic/Imperial stout. Gradations were marked by combinations of capital letters the most well known of which would be of the “XXX” label which would be a fairly strong pale. On top of that, just as browns are not all the same, neither are stouts. There are dry dry stouts like draft Guinness, extra stouts like Guinness in the bottle, strong stouts like Trinidad’s 7% Lion Extra Stout, milk stouts like Lancaster Brewing produces and Sweet Stouts which can be a light and 2.9%. Oatmeal stout, like these, is a sub-class all its own.

McAuslan’s St-Ambrose Oatmeal Stout: second from the left. When I see adds that make fun of American beer I think – what Canadian beer do I actually drink? This is it. From Montreal, St. Ambrose from McAuslan is on tap here in town at the Queen’s Grad House and at the Kingston Brew Pub, this stout had big body and the velvet touch. Tied with the products of Unibroue, also from Quebec, I cannot think of a finer Canuck brew. Licorice, coffee and chocolate in a sip that approaches thick and textured like espresso. McAuslan says:

At the World Beer Championship in 1994, St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout received the second highest rating of the over 200 beers in the competition and won one of only nine platinum medals awarded. Brewed from 40 percent dark malts and roasted barley, this intensely black ale carries strong hints of espresso and chocolate. Oatmeal contributes body and a long-lasting mocha-colored head to this well-hopped beer.

Paddock Wood reminds us that rolled oats are added pre-gelatinized directly to mash. It “improves head retention, body, adds grainy flavour” all of which is on display with the McAuslan – very highly rated here, too.

Wagner Valley Caywood Station Oatmeal Stout: far left. This beer from Lodi New York in the Finger Lake district makes for a great comparator with the St-Ambrose as it also an oatmeal stout – which is really not a very popular style. The brewery says of the beer:

This robust, full-bodied oatmeal stout is rich in highly roasted malt flavor, rounded off by a touch of oats, caramel malt and Fuggles and Willamette hops… This robust, full-bodied oatmeal stout is rich in highly roasted malt flavor, rounded off by a touch of oats, caramel malt and Fuggles and Willamette hops.

Comments here include “like a mouthful of dirty pennies” and “silky smooth and sumptuous”. This stout is a little less carbonated than the St-Ambrose, which is good. Carbonation, along with acidic water, is a way of creating mouthfeel without spending money on hops or grain. If I have a complaint with the St-Ambrose, it is the carbonation level in the bottle that is not present in the draft. Wagner Valley does not have that. Not as death by mocha chocolate rich, it is nonetheless a fine example of the style.

Fuller’s London Porter: third from the left. A full pint sets you back $3.20 at the LCBO but it is worth it as there are few real porters going around and this one is one. Porter brewing was the vanguard of early industrial standardized production capturing much of the English speaking world’s beery imagination from around 1720 to about 1840. Just one London brewer in 1820 produced 300,000 barrels – nine million US gallons in a city of around 2 million. In 1814 one single vat of porter burst flooding local streets and drowning eight people.So when you drink porter, you are drinking history. As stated above, stout was originally stout porter and side by side it is clear. Where stouts rely on the darkest malts, the burnt flavors of black malt and roast barley, porters use chocolate malts and brown malts to provide a similarly big but more mellow flavour. As a result, hopping is also lighter than, say, Guinness Extra Stout which is one of the most highly hopped common traditional beers there is. It is still a mouthful, however, as Fuller’s example shows. Coffee with a hint of licorice, unsweetened cocoa, pumpernickel. Fullers says:

Fuller’s London Porter is a superb, award-winning beer. We’re proud to have won gold and silver medals at the 1999, 2000 and 2002 International Beer & Cider Competitions. The origins of Porter date back to London in the early nineteenth century, when it was popular to mix two or three beers, usually an old, well-vatted or ‘stale’ brown ale, with a new brown ale and a pale ale. It was time consuming for the publican to pull from three casks for one pint, and so brewers in London tested and produced a new beer, known as ‘entire’, to match the tastes of such mixtures. Using high roasted malts, ‘entire’ was dark, cloudy and hoppy. It was also easily produced in bulk and ideally suited to the soft well-water of London. Very quickly, it became popular amongst the porters working in Billingsgate and Smithfield markets, and gradually, the beer took on the name ‘Porter’, in recognition of its main consumers. Fuller’s London Porter captures the flavours of those brews perfectly, although you won’t find a cloudy pint these days! Smooth, rich, and strong (5.4% a.b.v.), our London Porter is brewed from a blend of brown, crystal and chocolate malts for a creamy delivery balanced by traditional Fuggles hops.

These guys like it – here is a good comment:

The mouth feel at the end is water which leads to a high drink ability, smooth and almost creamy. They way that all the flavors blend smoothly and subtly together in this beer is what makes it great. One that will fool people who don’t know that dark beer doesn’t necessarily mean strong and bold flavors. This is what I would call a perfect intro to porters.

I used to brew a pumpkin porter that needed a few pounds of roasted mashed pulp to show up in the flavour profile rather than just add body – bodacious it were, by the way. If you want to try a dark beer and like a good black coffee, you can’t go wrong with Fuller’s London Porter. A standard in the fridge around my place.

Southern Tier Mild: second from the right. Well I never expected this. A pale mild. So it is definitely the far end of the scale of darks. Why so? Because it is soft, it is lightly hopped and it is built for a session. Other pale milds I can think of are Manchester’s Boddingtons and Newfoundland’s Black Arse Horse. All look like a pale ale but are so recessed in flavour you would think you were drinking a light ale. Then you notice it taste good. Then you realize that your beer is not largely made up of Irish Moss and other seaweeds. Then you think mild is interesting after all. Maybe there’s a hint of orange peel and a little honey and a little sugar cookie – but only a little of each.The brewer, Southern Tier (of the very lower corner of western New York) says it is a beer that “deserves to be imbibed often”. As it had a little sweet, a little hop, a little grain, low carbonization and a soft water background that is a pretty good recommendation. These guys talk about its biscuit malt, doughy, bready. A small beer but that is what it wants to be.

Waterloo Dark Ale: far right. This is a beer I have liked but, like most Canadian micro-brews, is lighter in taste than the US brewers would make. How odd given our mass produced stuff holds itself out as being stronger than our southern cousins. Brewed by the Brick Brewing Company of Waterloo Ontario, who says:

A dark beer can be a very scary thought to some people. Surprise, surprise. There’s no other beer quite like Waterloo Dark, refreshingly light and delicate in taste but rich in colour. Don’t be afraid of the dark. surprise yourself.

Hmm. Not very hope instilling. Well, it is a dark…but a dark lager. I would have thought it was a dark ale, a little brewed style that is way less than a porter but bigger than a brown. No hop imprint like a US brown would have. A little molassas and a little brown sugar and a little lighter mahogony in hue than a cola: “After seeing this dark colour, I expected quite a bold, rich taste…” was a particlarly prophetic comment. Beer advocate gives it a 74% thumbs down. Yikes. They also categorize it as a Munich Dunkle lager, not something I would say I have had a large acquaintance with. I think that is actually pushing it. As I think this is really a pale ale with some caramel and maybe some other malts added. Watery end with a sour tang left in your mouth. I can leave it with this wag’s comment:

I’ve come to the conclusion that from my experience their beers seem to be very lacking in flavour and body. I do however love the stubbies though.

I do like stubbies, too, but from now on I will stick to Brick’s original Red Cap revival in the little tubby bottles.

Southern Tier Porter: The last of the set. It has sat for weeks in the back of the fridge, the ur-porter incarnate…or at least the ur-porter of the back of my fridge. Smelly of coffee and licorice. Tastey of coffee and blackberry and cocoa and tobacco. Easy-peasy good beer. Big and fresh. We like that on the committee. I did tell you there is a committee behind me, right. Anyway, the advocatonians say this, including the following:

After a hard pour, beer produces little to no head, and is not quite as dark brown/ruby as is to be expected by the style. Too much light gets through this one. Sweet roasted malt and chocolate are the predominant odors. More reminiscent of a milk stout than porter. Smokey in character, with a definitely sweet malt presence on the tongue. Not as complex and chewy as I like my porters, but thoroughly drinkable.

I have had smoked porter and smoked herring and smoked cheese so I am a wee bit surprised by the call that this is a smokey beer. A wee bit less than smokey but the faintest hint might be there. I do not know why a call can be made that something is more milk porter yet also smokey but go figure. The brewery talks about “overtones of chocolate ans espresso beans” – a bit blabalonian for me. It is bigish and yupping. Eat steak, drink this, live long.