Made it. Fourteen hours door to door to Uncle and Auntie’s. Next day? Children down to the pub. Well, a pub. The Holyrood 9A in Edinburgh’s Old Town. It’s warm. The warmest room so far. Williams Caesar Augustus is a tasty pint. Very full for what would be a light beer at home. Tropical hops, sure, but a good malt backbone balancing them out… well, almost. A venison burger is coming. Half the tables, like ours, have happy kids.
Author: Alan
What A Bumper Crop Of Maris Otter Might Mean
Fabulous news out of England for those few remaining beer drinkers who enjoy the taste of beer:
With much of the harvest already in store, Robin Appel Ltd suggests the low nitrogen levels required by ale brewers have been achieved, with an average of 1.37 – 1.40 per cent against a five-year average of 1.65 per cent. Yields of Maris Otter barley, which normally average two tonnes per acre, look like running at nearer two and a quarter, with good harvests reported from Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Cornwall. Maris Otter is winter-sown, and the damp winter and wet May have ensured good yields. A disease-free growing season has meant the highest ever planted area looked the best in years.
Granted, this might not be of much interest to those watching the North American adjunct market, those day trading in the cherry syrup markets and watching the after hours stemware trading but this should be good news, shouldn’t it? I remember my first bag of Maris Otter like it was yesterday. While other pale malts smelled of grain, this was all summer fields and scything maidens. We cross the big water soon heading to hang out with family for a bit on the sunny south shore of the Firth of Forth. While there, I hope to avoid all contact with DIPAs, miss every bourbon barreled apricot saison and dodge all the pop star brewers. But, with any luck, there shall be the fermented steepings of Maris Otter with nary a cicerone in sight. Can it be done?
And, just to be clear, I have no plans whatsoever to visit the beer can tree of Aberdeen.
A Summer Sunday Beer News Roundup
News round ups are sort of the sweat pants of blogging. A pal calls sweat pants “give ups” and I suppose that might apply to my links posts. Yet, sometimes there are actually a number of things worth noting but not really worth going into in any depth around here. And, yes, I wait with rapt attention every Saturday for the BB version and Monday for Stan’s. So, you decide. Am I watching a baseball game and doing laundry as I write this post half heartedly or am I really paying attention to the top news in the brewing world and sharing them with you… [ooh, Giants on first and second… game might get away from the Dodgers…]
=> I suppose we need to acknowledge the big craft botch of the week. Jordan and Maxand Craig all posted about it, the co-author triumvirate. Me, I think of two things. First, I have not bought a Rogue beer since I read about their employment practices. Second, I stood in a Price Chopper in NNY last Wednesday trying to understand why a Stone mix 12 pack was $24 when all the other excellent craft mix 12 packs were 15-19. Needless to say, I passed. I may not be worthy (like anyone should give a crap) but that was simply not worth it – especially as, when you strip away all the noise, it is for the most part just very decent gas station and grocery beer with hundreds of siblings. I am sure they did not want to come away looking greedy and insulting but they sure have found a way.
=> Not a lot of people who have not earned the right have drained beer from the Stanley Cup. Note the Habs player respected the voodoo by using a straw.
=> By my count, ATJ has been writing an increased number of his wonderful vignettes on the experience of beer and pub lately. His finest so far is last week’s “Brewery fresh” in which a cask arrives and then another.
=> Best news related to opening of Stone City Ales in my own hometown this past Friday goes to Jordan’s tweet: “Mom is already dropping off beer to Stone City Ales in Kingston to get them to brew things she wants to drink. I’ve created a monster.” I had a half-growler of their 12 Star session ale. Delish.
=> If you are going to compare beer and wine, you had best understand the wine side of the equation but seldom seen amongst the chatting beery consultant class. One example of many. The fact is that fleets of bulk cargo carriers’ worth of sauvignon blanc have been delightfully downed with forest of asparagus since, well, since the Romans rules the known world. Wagner points us to the better approach.
There you have it. The weekend is winding up and I thank my lucky stars that I once again missed the TFOB. I love Mr. B’s succinct comparison with the new fest in nearby Buffalo, NY. It’s good getting past such things, now thinking myself too old to, say, hang food about one’s neck… well, at least in public. Not that it’s the worst thing in beer this week. No, this might be that. Or the botch. There. List’s done. Stan’s up tomorrow morning. When there isn’t a distracting ballgame on.
Some Words For Beer In The NY Times Over Time
Interesting to see that “craft beer” is such a post-2007 term – and one that has never quote achieved the heights that “microbrewery” did in the late 90s. “Gourmet beer” never did nuttin’ for no one. Thank God. Glad to see “good beer” has the staying power that simplicity and accuracy assures. Play this game yourself.
Ontario: Uber, Nickel Brook Brewing, Burlington
What a minefield this beer presents me. Not only do I know and like the brewer but his mother lives nearby and his auntie works where I do. How could I possible give an opinion unbouyed by positive thoughts? Then again, it’s not like I am all Jim–junkety or anything. No need to stop using the bathroom mirror. Then, besides that, there is the question of what others might think of me – which can be odd and disconcerting – not to mention likely wrong. How dare I try something not conservative? But more importantly, what does it mean about this style? What does this beer in this place and time mean?
You will recall the the best expression of what style is was Jackson’s first go at it, before he went bad Aristotelian creating the mess we live with today. Originally, a style of beer was stylized after an example, a great beer. I think it is fair to say that practically speaking that example is the Weihenstephen Berliner Weiss I wrote about for Session 19 – if for no other reason that for a long while this was the only example you were going to lay your hands on in North America. That is until micro went craft. So, is this homage or dommage to the style? Should I care?
The beer pours an effervescent clear light gold. No head at all. On the snort, you get apple cider and cow poo of the nicest kind. In the mouth, a light and lightly astringent texture holds flavours of apple, meadow grass, minerals like a good Mosel, fresh lemon juice, a little cream of wheat like a good gueuze and a little little something vegetative like fresh cabbage or cauliflower. A really lovely sipper and at 3.8% a beer you can sip for a good long time.
What a relief! No ethical qualms!! Priced at $7.95 for 750ml, this is about twice as much as the brewers hefty IPA Headstock, one of the best values in beer in Canada. The BAers give it lots of positivitay… which is good.
Al And Max Theatre Presents: “Sandwich Tongs!”
The scene: It is later in the afternoon on a Saturday in summer. Alan sits on a stool hunched at the dark end of the bar back near the hallway to the bathrooms. His face is bathed in the blue glow of the iPhone screen into which he stares. The bar room is busy but he does not notice. Only his fingers move across the little screen. An nearly empty pint glass sits by his right hand.
BARTENDER: Another?
ALAN: Sure, Curator. Same again. Large glass, please.
BARTENDER: (pours beer sets down pint glass two thirds filled) Remind me why do you call me that?
ALAN: (looking up) You don’t really care, do you?
BARTENDER: Not really. Just makes you sound a bit weird and pompous.
ALAN: (face in screen again) Better me than you, brother… (mumbles to himself as he thumb types) Sandwich tongs! Yes! That’s it. (makes little snorting sound.)
BARTENDER: What?
ALAN: Nuttin’.
Alan sits up, stretches and drains half his two-thirds of a pint of something strong and brown and Belgian.
ALAN: Was Max in today?
BARTENDER: (pausing to think for a second) Nope. Not that I can recall.
ALAN: (draining half remaining half of his two-thirds of a pint, digging for his wallet) Who’s playing tonight?
BARTENDER: Against El Glorioso?
ALAN: Yeah.
BARTENDER: No idea.
ALAN: You, you are a beautiful man… (stands up, drains his glass) Catch you later!
Session 89: A History Of The Hop And The Malt And The Beer…
It’s that time again. The monthly edition of The Session. Beer blogging boys and girls gather ’round the coal fired ISPs throughout the world to share their thoughts on a topic. This month our host is the Pittsburgh Beer Snob who writes:
At many points in history you can look back and find alcohol intertwined. A lot of times that form of alcohol is beer. Beer is something that connects us with the past, our forefathers as well as some of our ancestors. I want this topic to be a really open-ended one. So, it should be fairly easy to come up with something and participate. If you were among any readers I had when I posted most of the time you have a very good idea of where I might be going with my post when the time comes. The same doesn’t apply to you. Do you want to write about an important beer event with great historical significance? Famous figures that were brewers? Have you visited an establishment that has some awesome historic value? Maybe a historically-themed brewpub? I wouldn’t be surprised to even see a few posts on Prohibition. It doesn’t really matter when it comes to history!
History is good. I am actually of the opinion the best histories of beer and brewing are yet to be written. But I also believe the best beer writing, thinking, constructs, descriptions and criticism are all a fair ways off, too. We wallow in times of self-satisfaction. Would you just look about you at the works so far, Ozzy?
Anyway, that being or not being the case, what to make of the state of brewing history? I have written a bit of my bit to be sure but I am still not satisfied. I have come across beer in the Arctic in the 1570s, the 1670s and the 1850s. Fabulous facts. Beer for those living on the edge. Why? Because it kept them alive. Happy and alive. Billy Baffin, that giver of what I think the most Canadian surname, on his fifth voyage in 1616 got into a real pinch and had to hightail it to an island off Greenland and make a tea to keep he and his crew alive:
Now seeing that wee had made an end of our discouery, and the yeare being too farre spent to goe for the bottonie of the bay to search for drest finnes ; therefore wee determined to goe for the coast of Groineland to see if we could get some refreshing for our men ; Master Hei’bert and two more having kept their cabins above eight days (besides our cooke, Richard Waynam, which died the day before, being the twenty-six of July), and divers more of our company so weake, that they could doe but little labour. So the winde favouring us, we came to anchor in the latitude of 65° 45′, at six a clocke in the evening, the cockin eight and twentieth day, in a place called Cockin Sound. The next day, going on shoare on a little iland, we found scuruy great abundance of the herbe called scuruie grasse, which we boyled in beere, and so dranke thereof, using it also in sallets, with sorrell and orpen, which here groweth in abundance; by meanes hereof, and the blessing of God, all our men within eight or nine days space were in perfect health, and so continued till our arrivall in England.
God is good, indeed. Beer is a bounty that is provided to us for health and joy and the lessons of history prove it. Yet, history also proves the wages of not only drunkeness but seeking out the best and brownest. Beer is neither benign or neutral but a powerful tool. That is what history teaches us. It can trace empires for us. Fortify a frontier. Collapse a region. Give hope. And bring despair.
Considering The Role Of Ale On This Canada Day
Nine years ago, back around those heady days of political blogging, I wrote a series of posts on a fictitious Atlantic Canadian separation movement focused on a mde-up new capital called Tantrama City. One post set out details of the Canada Day celebrations under the new governmental order and featured the photo of Neil and Larry above. I have no idea who these guys are but I love it. It may be the most Canadian image I have ever seen. The nutty bow ties in the national colours, Neil’s boring earnest shirt and Larry drinking a Bud. And the fact they don’t give a crap and are just having a good time.
Is there a Peru Day or a Norway Day? Canada Day is such a politely bland concept but, this being a confederation with lingering prickly regional identities, it suits us. We are the country that cancels recreations of historic events. Why recall past unhappinesses? What we remember in particular is the formation of one semi-autonomous colony out of three in 1867 (or was it four… Canada was sort of split into Canada East and Canada West but had formerly been separately Lower Canada and Upper Canada from 1791 to 1841), two of the invitee colonies not joining in until six (PEI) and eighty-two (Newfoundland) years later. My particular part of the nation remembers the events with mixed emotions.
So, on this we day celebrate the fourth version of Canada after the one that was otherwise a bit chunk of New France up to 1760, then the one with the Upper and the Lower, then the one that didn’t work from 1841 to 1867. And maybe the one from 1763 to 1791, too. OK, maybe this is the fifth Canada. Most of all we recall the man who is attributed with bringing the four colonies together, Sir John A MacDonald. Larry and Neil might well have been making a joke or two about him – as the founder of a large part (but not all) of our current constitutional structure (yes, it is a bit messy) was a bit of a drinker. A bit of one. Consider this description of one of the planning sessions from the pre-Confederation years:
“…The Council was summoned for twelve and shortly after that we were all assembled but John A. We waited for him till one – till half past one – till two – and then Galt sent off to his house specially for him. Answer – will be here immediately. Waited till half past two – no appearance. Waited till three and shortly after, John A. entered bearing symptoms of having been on a spree. He was half drunk. Lunch is always on the side table, and he soon applied himself to it – and before we had well entered on the important business before us he was quite drunk with potations of ale.” But, after two and a half hours of debate, the wound up their discussions of the constitutional changes and agreed on the course to be followed…”
So, we are a nation imagined and brought into being by a drunk. That is the story we are told. Historian Ged Martin in 2006 published this detailed study of the record of Macdonald’s drinking patterns which both confirms the fantastic level of consumption, his personal struggles as well as the possible causes. It is a very sympathetic piece. If they read it, I am sure Larry and Neil would like him more… and raise another beer to the nation imagined mid-spree thanks to potations of ale. They’d probably raise an American one come to think of it. But only if it was the nearest one. We are not that fussy.
Ontario: Conductor’s, Junction Craft Brewing, Toronto
This was the beer that caused a slight rift in the fabric of that great evening three weeks ago with Ron, Jordan and Peter. We were at the end of the middle act of the night at 3030 when we all had this same one last beer, brewed within walking distance of the bar. “Mmm… sweet malty goodness,” says I. “Yik, crystal malt,” said another. And we were off. The brewery says of this beer: “Our signature brew is Conductor’s Craft Ale, a ‘hopbacked’ hybrid ale utilizing British, German and American brewing techniques.” I can see your furrowed brow. Me, too.
The beer pours a pleasant clear filbert paper brown under a rocky egg white head. Plenty of nut aromas. In the mouth, this is quite interesting. More nut than dried fig along with a crusty brown breadiness and a touch of dry cocoa. The whole thing is framed by a really clever hop choices: black tea and twiggy, then a bit of steel and then spicy pine resin at the end. There is a lot going on. When I described some of these flavours, Ron suggested disapprovingly it sounded like Wells Bombardier, a beer I wrote positively of a a decade ago. This one has more acidity and complexity than likely you would find in Bombardier now.
The main thing I thought the beer illustrated were the off pale malts, maybe the lightest of the crystals. In certain circles, these are unfashionable flavours in beer right now. Beery flavours. Boethius would understand. Perfect match for a plain Snappy Griller with its white pepper jag on a billowy bun. I look down at the average BAer’s view.
Reasonable Evidence The Older Stuff Was Quite Strong
An interesting tidbit from The New York Times of 6 February 1858 in an article entitled “An Important Question Decided“:
It has long been a disputed point whether lager bier can be properly classed among toxatious drinks, but yesterday, Judge Strong of Long Island, decided, in the case of Jacob Staats, who was indicted for selling intoxicating liquors on Sunday, that lager bier is not an intoxicating drink. If the question had been whether lager is a stupefying drink, or not, the decision would probably have been in the affirmative. The decision is a very important one, and it will have a decided effect upon the habits of a very large class of our population, to whom lager bier has become almost a necessary of life. There will be great rejoicing over the decision of Judge Strong by our German population, and the “saloons” where their favorite beverage is sold will be crowded to-morrow with thirsty devotees.
There some interesting things in there. Is “saloons” in quotation mark to challenge the use of the term? Were they then too lowly? There are certainly plenty of stories in the newspapers of the period of dark deeds done in the lager saloon. And on the scale of words for drunk wouldn’t “stupefying” represent a higher state of affairs than “intoxicating”? A reminder to be wary of familiar words arising in other eras. The ruling ended up not deciding the matter. More court cases would follow as the role of the new lighter German style beer was assessed. Not just drinking on the Sabbath but drinking after midnight. Theater owners complained about entertainments in beer gardens, not required to pay the same license fees. Evidence is given of astounding feats of consumption over and over, of drinking 30 quarts in two hours… without “intoxicating” effect.
The stories are laced with an undertone of cultural conflict and, as part of that, an understanding of what beer is. To those writing the laws and drinking older styles, beer is stronger and something that could not be downed in such volumes. Beers like the over 8% Albany ales needed legal regulation even before the full rise of the political power of the temperance movement. In the 1850s, “lager bier” is a new social technology that doesn’t fit and may threaten. By the 1870s, however, Germans are presented as the model immigrants, supporting savings banks and charities even if they still have their lager bier saloons. If there had been a culture war, they may well have won.