Author: Alan

Knut Goes To Italy

“…L’ultima creazione di Renzo…“
 

The city of Parma is quite sleepy on this spring afternoon. Actually, so am I, I got up at half past in the morning to get there, but that is not the point. The bus stop in front of the train station is largely deserted, too, but a young man from Ghana helps me to find the right platform. The 02:12 bus is not appearing, and not the 02:20, either. I give up and walk across to the taxi stand, and a taxi driver quotes a rate that is quite acceptable for a 20 minute ride, so I get in.

My destination is the Panil Brewery, located in the countryside to the south of Parma, where the flat landscape of the Po plain gives way to small hills. It is a pleasant drive. The poppies are already in bloom at the roadside, and the leaves are a dozen shades of green. The fields smells of manure from the cows and sheep that produce the Parmesan and Parma ham. It turns out that this is a holiday, so that is the reason for the bus not turning up. On Liberation day most things shut down (and a fair portion of the population had turned out to heckle the mayor, according to reports). And I will not go into who they were liberated from. The Italians?

The brewery is in the countryside within view of the picturesque castle of Torrechiara. It sits in an idyllic setting with a few tables outside the shop, a dozen hens of various colours walking feely around the premises. The place is quite deserted when I arrive, although the doors are open. In addition to the brewing, they also make wine from grapes from the area, which I take note of trying out another time.

After some time spent walking around calling out for assistance, I get help from Aba, a lady fluent in English. She tells me that the brewery is run by her sister and her husband, but that they are not around at the moment. She presents the range of beers they have – very much inspired by Belgian styles. There is a pilsener, a blonde ale and a brown ale, and there is a stout in the making which is not bottled yet. The most interesting beers in the range, however, are two ales aged in oak barrels and then again fermented in the bottle – triple fermented. One of them is a sour version of their Barriquée ale, which I have tasted before, the other is the September ale, which is brewed with grape juice blended in – a sort of beer/wine hybrid. She tells me that these beers are mainly for export and sale directly from the brewery, the locals tend to find them too extreme!

I buy as many bottles I manage to carry with me, and I really look forward to trying them out. While I wait for my transport back to town I notice a small restaurant around the corner. The next time I will probably make a day trip out of it and make some time to see the castle, too!

[Ed.: Check here for the Beer Advocate’s take on these brews. Check here for more of Knut’s travels. Click here for Knut’s own blog.]

Is Twisted Thistle An IPA?

twisted1I picked up this beer while on the road and I was immediately in a fix, dealing with cultural confusion. As a son of Scots I know that Belhaven is a fine and reputable brewer of Scots ales bought last year by Greene King… yet I know IPA is not a Scots style. I have discussed this before in relation to Deuchars IPA but this beer – or more particularly the comparison between the two beers makes their labelling as IPAs a wee bit problematic.

Look – here is what I thought about Twisted Thistle. When I had it the other night I wrote:

Caramel ale under light tan foam and a thick cling and ring. A very fruity ale, berry fruity but mainly crusty sweet country loaf of bread. Rich with some smokiness and creamy yeast. Then it opens into light dry fruit apple and raisin with a note of honey. Grapefruity hops balance but in a recessed position, a subordinate role. Definitely more like a pale ale in the zzap-tastic north-east US scale. But richer.

Then note what I concluded about Deuchars in October 2004, a year and a half ago:

You can see they are really different ales, Deuchars being is light and crisp while the Belhaven IPA was to my mind more like a Bombardier with a lighter touch on the same heavy elements, especially the dry fruit characteristics – dry apples and light raisin rather than, say, figs and dates but still dry fruit.

Don’t get me wrong. Both are good bevvies you should try. My point is IPA is becoming a very broad term, so broad I am finding it a little meaningless as an indicator of what I will find when I pour the bottle. Terms like “stout” and “mild” or “dubbel” do not generally pose this problem for the thoughtful buyer facing a new beer. It reminds me a bit of white wine and the labeling of them according to grape varieties which became popular in the early 1990s. People then came to say they like Chardonnay or Merlot but then were surprised when this Chardonnay or that Merlot was nothing like the wine they could they recognized. Like with IPA, too much is due to the actual wine making techniques for the comfort of those wine drinkers relying on the label for guidance. Key terms then become the opposite of what they were meant to be – they come to deter rather than attract.

So try Twisted Thistle. It is not a Scots style /80 or wee heavy or an IPA or like Deuchars IPA. But it is really really pleasant.

Sports Pool 2006 Points Table

I have created a table for points for the pool and another complete table for all picks data. The data one needs me dropping in more of the picks so will take a little more time but it has the NHL picks in now. Make sure I have it right – even though this may be ultimately useless. And, yes, all manual so this year we will not have running totals.

And if anyone can figure out why there is this gap in between the text and the table please let me know…Got it! Just some unnecessary break tags at a few points.

~
NHL
Playoffs
Other
Hockey
World
Cup
Other
Fitba
Baseball
Other
Sport
Total
Hans 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Alan 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Rob 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Scott 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Ranald 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
CM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Don 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mike 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Matt 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Marcia 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

Belgium: Goudenband, Brouwerij Liefmans, Oudenaarde

goudenLight tan foam over fairly lively chestnut ale, this Flemish oud bruin has a tangy vinegary sweet aroma. This beer is far less sharp than my previous Flemish experiences of this sort from Rodenbach Grand Cru yet bigger than the other Flem I have known Petrus Oud Bruin. There is a creaminess with all the acidity that is really surprising. “Vineous” may work with other examples of this style but this one is clearly ale, even if quite tart. If you go with it, it is also quaffable…maybe if you transpose from fruit juice as it is somewhere between granny smith apple and pineapple juice just in terms of tartness. But, with all that, there is also cherry and oak and vanilla and maybe the best Pepsi you have ever had as well as even dried fruit like prune and fig and molasses. Yes, as complex and balanced as a fine wine if you need to compare.

This is perhaps the best chance you will have to taste what a medieval ale was like. $4.95 for a 330 ml at the LCBO. Try one and a half in a hefeweizen glass if you can. BAers generally on board.

Now Returning You To Your Normal Programming

I’m still trying to think about what to do with this place. I thought about it a lot on the trip which is sort of odd but I spend a lot of my time writing away here and reading what you leave it is respectful I think to have a think. Despite the numbers, I think blogging is way past the stale date and, if activity on many of my favorites from when I started writing is anything to go by, so do a lot of other bloggers. Yet it still chugs on, eating up the work day, proving once again that the greatest product of time-saving devices will always be more slackery.

One think that is nice to see is the demise of the A-list. Except among techie geeks, there is not many now running to read what X or Y said about something as if they have special authority on a subject. Many of them have actually been assimilated in to the grown-up real money paying media. The rest have been gently, quietly discredited and no longer hold conventions about themselves. Similarly, the idea of corporate blogging has died a natural death. Just as there is no new law and definitely no new economy, no new race of men of enterprise has arisen willing to share business secrets openly, risking discrediting the firm through describing the downside. Nothing has really changed and that is good. While we hear words about business reaching out to customers in real time and providing an on demand product it is all the blah of IBM commercials and, when stripped, is no different than the purchase of a can on beans at the store. Note again as well that none of you buy your cans of beans anywhere but at the store. Because you like going to the store where the people are. You like to have a good look at the can first.

No, it has resolved itself nicely into a more genial hobby, sort of like group penpalsmanship. This is good. People should speak freely with each other in a medium that allows for speedy cross-referencing from an archive as well as easy participation from anyone interested. Even if you make a little money on the side, as I am happy to do now, no one has illusions anymore that there is a private career around the corner. I used to question those who spoke about making community but now I think that that is one of the few claims about blogging from, say, 2002 that has actually stuck. People like to chat about stuff. That is why parties have not stopped.

But it is not a collaborative community. This is something that has disappointed me. People really do not use blogs to write something together, to figure a problem out collectively. These spaces are only like light bulbs. Certainly light bulbs more than lighthouses, let alone factories. Your town is full of people relying on 27 cent light bulbs to get ahead in their day to day lives. But no one thinks it is a miracle anymore and few devise ways to make their millions off of them.

Doin’ What Comes Natch-ru-lee

It’s sad to wait for the last day of your 43rd year to find your calling in life. Now I have to get subscriptions to Banjo Man, Banjo Now and other cool magazines. I’ll have to ask the Flea for tips and drop by unannounced whenever I need to run a new plunky lick or two past him.

But where will I find the time to write here if I am learning to make myself into both Pete Seeger and Glen Miller? We will have to see. Writing as a habit is a good thing but I must say, like Ben, the big news posts are getting dreary. Why? Everyone is always wrong, that’s why. And – however pleasant the discourse – nothing ever seems to be achieved. Maybe this will become a banjo blog. The beer blog thing has taken off so well maybe this space should be all banjo, all the time. Then I can get ad revenue from the big eastern banjoing establishment and get review copies of banjo strings for free in the mail. That would be sweet.

Friday Chat From The Road

Here I am in the lobby of the Comfort Inn in East Greenbush NY a little east
of Albany (an excellent
spot I might add) when what do my eye’s perceive? Gary’s
lament:

(trembling slightly….)
but, Alan, if you’re on
the road…wh-wh-ooo wiiilll run Friday chat? We, we we gotta have our
fix…..
(shakes, shudders, pale trembling face…)

So it is both
with a warm heart and yet a feeling somewhat like coming to terms with one’s
stalker that we have today’s Friday chat from the road:

  • Highway hotels are a favorite thing of mine. They play much the same role as
    airport terminals. You are in transit. It is not like a resport hotel or one in
    your favorite destination for an urban fix. Gotta have a pool, gotta have
    snacks, free breakfast and a gas station nearby that doesn’t give you the
    creeps. This particular gas station here has large bottles from nearby Ommegang
    as well as a Dunkin Donuts outlet. You got to love that: local craft for the
    beer during the Phillies and Braves and generic international for the morning
    zap. This sort of travel is also something in that style of being nowhere and
    anywhere. I really have no time to learn anything about East Greenbush NY and I
    do not want it foisted upon me. I want pleasing dislocation because by 10 am
    I’ll be gone. Like a Gordon Lightfoot song with someone who will bring you more
    pillows if you just dial the front desk and ask.

  • While on the road, even if just since 4 pm yesterday, you immediately get a
    sense that you don’t know what is going on. US sports talk radio doesn’t help.
    Why Canada can’t sustain a sports talk radio network when every city over 75,000
    in the US has its own local guy going on about the local team is beyond me.
    Yesterday I got a very good hour from WHEN 620 on the AHL team for
    Syracuse, the Crunch, and their prospects in the upcoming first round of the
    playoffs against the Mantiboa Moose. Imagine the guy in Syracuse who is fixated
    on taking apart the Manitoba Moose in four: Crush them! Crush them!

  • Apparently, according to Dick, George gave Dick and George the right to
    declassify information in an executive order. But
    Dick won’t say when they used it, who else has the general power and won’t (I am
    assuming maybe) show anyone the actual executive order. This is a lot like a
    general warrant, something barred by the US constitution, which was an
    appointment of an officer by the British pre-Revolution to search anywhere
    anytime on suspicion. It is much better for accountability and transparency to
    make folk write down on a piece of paper what facts exist and why they are
    relying on a power in like of those facts so that there is something to test the
    use of the power against. One would hope that the executive order would contain
    a test as well – a purpose which justifies declassification – so that if the
    purpose does not exist then a declassification would be unwarranted. And the
    scope of the disclosure as well. Not defining who gets to
    know     is fairly stunned, like the time Dad let the mouse out of the cage
    without shutting the door to the room. Lots of scurrying where you never
    expected you’d be scurrying.

  • If the Jays really are good this year, I know I will bandwagon with the best
    of them, I will say I liked them when – and frankly having watched them when
    there was nothing else to watch during the Jose Cruz Jr era I am owed that
    right. But it sure is depressing listening to them beat
    the Red Sox     for the second night in a row. Tonight, however, Ichiro is
    at Fenway. I love Ichiro. I try to excell at all things in life if only to be
    like the tiniest speck of grey in the shadow of the man that is Ichiro. I will
    drive though southern Vermont and New Hampshire today on highway 9 in an
    Ichiro-like manner.

Well, there you are time to get the DD java and
wake everyone up. Miles to go before I see the sea.