Author: Alan

BBQ Shack: Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York

I had BBQ and specifically pulled pork three times on the road. State Street BBQ in Watertown, NY. Beale Street BBQ in South Portland, Maine. Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York. I hate to rank good BBQ pulled pork but the Tail O’ The Pup’s sauced take was so soft you could have spread it into a paste with a butter knife. Beale Street’s was hearty and smoky while State Street’s was subtler, like a slow cooked Sunday pork roast. All good.

 

 

 

 

Tail o’ the Pup was also one of those places municipal planning standards would never accept in Canada to our great cultural loss. Part 1930’s roadside cottages. Part beer tent with its own band. Part diner set in the great outdoors.

Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, too. Who rents the cottages? Are there gangs of bikers out there who want that sort of thing? They must be people I would like to know.

A Glimpse Into What The Beer Blogger Is Likely Not

As you may have guessed, I like to think about my relationship to beer and the brewing trade. That is, at this moment, really my prime motivation for this blog. It is not so much that I need to chronical my time with beer. And it is certainly not that I think that I have any right to suggest I write like Pete does, am a beer historian like Ron or knowledgeable of the trade like Lew or Stan or that I even have ambitions to be a beer journalist like Troy. No, if this habit of writing is anything it is about me thinking about me and beer. Maybe that it takes so much writing likely speaks more to who’s typing than what is being considered. I never said I was that bright.

So, being essentially a magazine about me, this sort of blogging sometimes means you have to consider what you are not. Yesterday, I dropped into Allagash to pick up my border crossing quota of a few large bottles and a two-four of their White. [By the way, when I asked for a “two-four” I was first brought a couple of four packs.] I was served a sample of their Black, a very nice stout, by a genial pouring host who turned out to be Rob Tod, owner and brewer. He was speaking with an other at the bar retail store’s bar who turned out to be one of the senior guys who ran Victory in Pennsylvania, himself also on a road trip. We chatted a bit as I grabbed bottles to take with me. About how hard it was to bring US craft beer into Ontario. About how Rob was going to be doing a beer dinner in Toronto this fall. I even mentioned I was picking up another of Allagash’s Victor due to my strong and unexpected reaction which had challenged my thoughts about my own taste. I had heard a new grape had been used and wanted to compare. The comment was received with interest, perhaps given the general positive reaction beer fans often provide, but also with real courtesy. In addition to touching on the challenge of storage conditions, the man from Victory (whose name I will be embarrased to be reminded of I am sure) poiinted out that beer also changes all the time due to the availability of ingredients whether the consumer knows or not. Very pleasant conversation as is usual with both brewers and Mainers. All the while, though, I was noticing that each brewer seemed to have a few more of their staff along in the next room sharing samples – and sharing at a level that was more trade than consumer. Instead of beer geekery, it reminded me more of listening to my pals in the software development business I used to hang out with: a little door was opened before me to a level I likely wouldn’t really get. It wasn’t so much the “hard working people working hard” that we geeks are often reminded of as quality brewers comfortably exchanging ideas.

My options seemed limited. To fawn. Or to buy and leave. I was happy with the glimpse and skee-daddled.

Friday Bullets For The Week At The Beach

Not so much bullets as things noted:

  • Chowder is something to do when it rains.
  • That guy in Double A baseball who is the next big thing may well not be.
  • Banjos can be valued for their good trade-in potential.
  • My feet will freckle if I just give them the chance.
  • Those screams you hear at waterslide amusement parks include the sounds of terrified 46 year olds.

Links? Maybe next week. It’s not like I looked at the internet much this week.

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Gas Station Saison, Utica Club And Fireworks

Apparently wherever I go I pack an extra 5 kilopascals or whatever atmospheric pressure is measured in. The weather has cracked from a month of wet to sunny and dry. Ran into a pal on a CNY backroad gas station three hours from either of our homes and was inspired to grab a 7 puck twelve pack of Utica Club, the local value brew. Then I got a few from Ommegang including their wonderful Hennepin at the corner store near Friday’s hotel. Another local brew. A huge downpour pushed us off the I-95 right at Well, as if Thor demanded I stop in at Tully‘s to see how things were with Dawn’s shop. Bursting at the seams with downeast ales and lagers. The week ahead? I’ll be hunting out Allagash and other Maine brews on tap at the neighbourhood pubs of Portland. It is a tough old life and, as with the scale of the fireworks at the harbour last night, a reminder of what a bigger freer land America can seem sometimes for those from the Great White North.

Grill, Shed, Steak, Rain, Bieres de Garde And Saisons

The trouble with charcoal grilling is that when the rain comes you can’t turn it off. Propane, on the other hand, has a nice dial that has a “0” setting. But there is the garden shed and, when it rains and you have visitors, it can turn out to be a delightful place to while away a late afternoon hour reading last week’s newspapers in the recycling bin, listening to AM radio and comparing a few examples of bieres de garde and saisons.

We opened the Ch’ti Blonde from Brasserie Castelain à Bénifontaine first, a gold ale called a saison (though French not Belgian) by the BAers but a biere de garde by Phil Markowski in his book Farmhouse Ales under a white mouse head that resolved to a froth and rim. It was the favorite of the set with cream malted milk, pear juice and nutty grain. Very soft water. I actually wrote “limpid cream of what graininess” but I am a little embarrassed by that pencil scribble. It gets a fairly poor rating from the BAers but maybe that is because they were not in a shed when they tried it. Castelain’s Blond (no “e”) Biere de Garde was drier but still creamy fruity, not far off the greatest example of a Canadian export ale. Light sultana rather than pear. Also dry in the sense of bread crusty rather than astringency. Lighter gold than the Ch’ti but, again, the rich firm egg white mousse head and far more BAers approve. By this time the shed dwellers had decided that steak could in fact be finger food and also that these ales were an excellent pairing with chunks of rib and New York strip. The Jenlain Ambree by Brasserie Duyck was another level of richness altogether, the colour of a chunk of deep smoked Baltic amber, the richest lacing I have ever seen left on a glass. Hazelnut and raisin, brown sugar and black current with a hint of tobacco. Lately I have been thinking that amber ales are the one style that could quietly slip away and never be missed. Placing this in the glass in the hand in the shed as the rain thumped on the roof and steak was eaten was an instructive treat as to what ambers can be, though 6% of BAers hesitate to be so enthusiastic.

I think this is the worst photo I have ever posted so I will keep it tiny unless you choose to click on it for the full effect. Apparently there is a limit to the beery photographic arts and I have made it my own. The 3 Monts to the left was picked up at Marche Jovi in nearby Quebec for a stunningly low price of under six bucks. Plenty of malteser and pale malt graininess with yellow plum and apple fruitiness, straw gold with more of the thick rich head, cream in the yeast. The water was not as soft was either beer from Castelain but all BAers love it. By Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre who also made this biere nouvelle. To the right, the Fantome Winter was one of the stranger beers I have ever had and, frankly, a disappointment. All I could taste was radish, sharp and vegetative, over and all around the insufficient malt. In my ignorance, I didn’t realize that was likely quite an aged beer as the happy BAers explain. Neither the cork or even label, with its unmarked best before portion, give a hint as to the year but that is all right as I suspect I will consider this just a lesson learned even though I generally love Fantome.

By this time there were stars and a breeze as the cold front finished moving through.

Scotland: Paradox Springbank, BrewDog, Fraserburgh

1208“It smells like the granary when it’s filled.” I think that is what I was told but it makes sense.

It pours – imagine – rather deep brownish and has a rich mocha froth and foam. The nose in delightful. Fig and chocolate, milk and bread crust. Like a rich child’s breakfast in 1710. The mouth expands with both smooth and whisky sharp. Not Lowland, Campbelltown. Barely a “hodge yer whisht” from the land of my forefathers off the far eastern side of Arran. An amazing swishy mouthful of softness, grain, roast and shadow of burn. Batch 17 in the Paradox series. “Awfy braw” were Oor Wullie asked.

BAers don’t do subtle. The lips tingle from the water of life.

Book Review: Hops And Glory, Pete Brown (Part 4)

hag1Well, I finished the book on Wednesday watching kids softball practice. The short message really is that if you are reading this blog you should buy the book. Well written, informative without being stuffy, funny yet quite personal. Likely the best beer book of 2009.

And I checked. I didn’t make the credits. I didn’t think I would but you never know. You never know if you are going to see a note about the whack job who was emailing about the (Inter-)National Toast for Michael Jackson on 30 September 2007, a few days into the tall ship portion of the trip. But no. No, I got something better. On page 248, when he was ten days from Brazil, experiencing one of his lowest points of the entire trip what did he write?

…And even if I had been successful, so what? Who would actually have cared apart from a handful of blogging beer geeks? What was I going to do?

I was verklempt. When one feels like an utter loser and that one’s mission is a dud who springs to mind? Beer bloggers, that’s who. I am sure it was really thoughts of Knut rather than me that steadied our man Pete in that hour of darkness upon the high seas but it’s the general idea, right?

You should buy it. So, go buy it – still 50% off at amazon.co.uk. Review part 1, part 2, part 3.

Book Review: Hops And Glory, Pete Brown (Part 3)

hag1OK, we have moved from page 145 to, what, 332? Yes, that’s it. So, I’ve work through almost central half of Hops and Glory this weekend – still 50% off at amazon.co.uk by the way – and our lad, Pete, has gone on a cruise liner, a tall ship to Brazil and then a container ship to India. As before there is a patch of the life of Pete Brown, then a patch of the history of the English beer trade to service the East India Company’s needs. Pete, beer. Pete. Beer. But then something funny happens. From 237 to 306 the pattern is dropped. Not much history. Mainly just Pete and his boaty bits.

“What was he doing?” thought I. If I use the hockey analogy and, being Canadian, I will – it gets a bit second period. A bit “boy not yet realized which girl he really should love” if we analogize to date movies. Which got me thinking about Tristram Shandy, that odd proto-novel-deconstruction thing from 1759 or so which I now know is just three years after “grog” was set out in British navy regulation. It’s an interesting book, Tristram Shandy, because it is self-conscious and is a bit about what a novel would be if one could not suspend one’s imagination or if one did entirely or something like that. Eighteenth century literature class was 26 years ago, you know. I’ll let you can judge the value of the academic investment. It’s also about the bleaker end of age of enlightenment as was, we learn, the East India Company.

Anyway, the point is that for 237 to 306, Brown takes us into his internal experience – into the doldrums of the sailing ship and then into the small heart of darkness that is the international shipping trade today – by seemingly forgetting to slip back into the history. It’s a good technique. It weighs a bit, wears a bit. But it still takes us along as if to say “it’s alright, Al, no need for you to ever go on a container ship from Brazil to India all alone for five weeks… I’ve done it… don’t bother.” Thanks Pete. I won’t. It’s off my to do list.

Book Review. Part 1. Part 2.

Friday Bullets For The Last Of Spring

So how did spring 2009 turn out? We hardly judge them, springs. They are a gift after the bleak second half of winter. They convey none of the foreboding that can even creep in around mid-July. It’s all give, give, give. Except it was cold. We had the air conditioning on for one day the whole time. I fully expect to be obviously sweating in public by the end of May. Not pretty but it’s what I’ve come to expect. Nature can be so disappointing.

  • Married Priest Update: but this time it’s OK.
  • I do hope they ban Cheddar soon in Quebec, too, as the particular tang of English cheese might also lend some support to the destruction of culture as we know it.
  • Zombie croquet
  • The level of dumbness that arises of not having a two-party state in the culture can be quite startling.
  • I don’t particularly have a hackle raised by the theocrats of Iran (subject to bombing any nuke-ish facility without notice) but the clerics do look a bit silly when they try to explain themselves. But I like this slogan: “Every single Iranian is valuable. Government is a service to all.” Nothing like a chill down the spine to clarify the mind.
  • I wouldn’t aim a missile at Hawaii. Not me. No good comes of that.
  • Heard on NPR this morning: the trillion dollar health bill adds up to three boxes of girl guide cookies per person per day. Plus it is an extra trillion over ten years representing a 100 billion annual increase on 2.2 trillion annual health spending. thought it was a trillion over one year. I am still not sure if it is net or gross costs. No skin off my nose but that waitress in Maine who said she was spending $650 per month on health insurance back around 1994? It’ll matter to her.

Must run. Learning day. Fridays are so much nicer when there is less learning.

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The Problem With Averaging

This is the problem with averaging: June’s more than half done which means it’s almost over which means it’s almost July which means the year’s half done which means which means it’s almost over which means it’s almost 2010 which means the decade without a name is almost over. By this logic I am already dead but as the pace of the years picks up as – in where the hell did 2000-2009 as a ten year span go – that is exactly what seems to be happening. So In need a counter-pressure. I need to imagine the process in reverse where nothing quite achieves itself. Then I’ll slow time. It might be easier in the southern hemisphere. Simple.

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