What the Devil Is This?!?

There has been some blog talk lately of the Devil’s Pale Ale 666 by Ontario’s Great Lakes Brewery, and I have been called out, erm, invited by Uncle Jack to offer my view. So here it is.

The Devil’s is certainly a dark pale ale, being somewhat coppery brown in colour, but I put little stock in the stylistic relevance of hue, so let’s proceed with the aroma. There is fruit there, as Martyn suggests is essential to Burton ale, but more so I get treacly caramel, which tarnishes the complexity of the nose with simplistic sugar notes. How this jibes with Martyn’s definition of Burton pale ale I do not know, as his post on the subject does not mention fragrant sugars like caramel, but it differs greatly from enticing, intriguing and, most importantly, wonderfully complex aroma of the Worthington White Shield I was supping last Friday.

On the palate, this beer certainly suggests a mix of fruit and hop, with dark and dried fruits like raisins and prunes holding the former banner and toasted nuttiness (walnuts, perhaps) standing in for the hops. On the finish, there’s a fair degree of bitterness, along with the roasted malt notes that arise in the second half of the taste and a whisper of smokiness.

What I like about this beer is its middle, the point where hops meet malty sweetness and begin the drift towards the bitter finish. What I don’t like is the clumsiness of that selfsame finish, which offers a coarse bitterness that stands in stark contrast with the softer approach of the front end.

As for the question of whether or not it might be in the Burton style, even if unintentionally so, I’d say not, or at least that’s what I’d say when comparing it to what I know of the classic Burton ale, it being White Shield. Which is not to say that the Devil’s is a bad beer – it’s a fine enough ale, if not necessarily one to get too excited about – but rather that the Worthington is an exceptional one.

Diageo UK Trying its Hand at Scrooge

While the global drinks industry may not have been hit as hard by the current recession as have many other industries, there is no doubt the economy is making its presence felt all over these days. Hence this latest announcement from Diageo UK.

According to a story by Janice Burns in the Daily Record, effective next year, Diageo will call to an end its practice of distributing Christmas hampers to its retired workers. Said hampers are said to be valued at about £30 and contain 3 bottles of Diageo booze.

Now, no one is saying that what is, after all, simply a kind gesture on the part of a very large company needs be continued indefinitely, but considering the £2 billion in profits the drinks giant is said to have made last year, this seems petty indeed. Coming on the heels of the company’s announcement of 900 Scottish worker layoffs, their timing must also be considered quite suspect.

Not clever, Diageo. Not terribly clever at all!

Uncle Jack Calling Me Out?!?

Now this is unusual. From time to time, in both the blogs I read and those I stumble upon, I come across a reference to something I’ve written, either recently or in the long-distant past. (When you’ve been doing this beer writing stuff for a couple of decades, there’s a fair amount of “long-distant past” kicking around out there.) But seldom do I get specifically called out, indeed openly challenged to provide a comment on some specific issue.

Yet verily, now is one of those times.

The usually redoubtable if occasionally sartorially suspect Mr. Jack Curtin has called upon me to weigh in on the subject of the Great Lakes Brewery’s 666 Devil’s Pale Ale, a beer with which I’m familiar, but which I have not to date reviewed. Jack likes it, Alan feels it might be quite Burton-like, someone posting under the initials “wk” (aka “silly moo”) doesn’t like it at all and I am now challenged to offer an opinion.

While I do not normally respond to provocation, as it turns out that I not only have a can of 666 in my fridge at this very moment, but was also by coincidence imbibing a classic Burton ale, Worthington White Shield, only a couple of days ago, I shall respond to Jack’s challenge. A little later on, though, as it’s not yet even 9:00 am. Stay tuned.

Food Flags

Nothing to do with beer here, but if you like:

• Clever advertising;
• The innovative and artistic use of food; and
• Cool renditions of national flags;

Then check out this photo gallery of 14 “food flags” crafted by a p.r. company to promote the Sydney International Food Festival.

How I Spent Halloween

There were no costumes and loot bags for this boy last Saturday night. No, instead there were cocktail shakers and cork screws and plates and pans as my wife and I hosted four friends for the first dinner party in our new abode. I was in charge of the menu, and chose an Italian theme.

We started with bowls of smoked almonds and cashews, while sipping on negronis and Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, the former a classic cocktail combination of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari and the latter a most serviceable white.

Once seated, I started everyone off with an antipasti of salami, prosciutto, roasted peppers, Parmigiano Reggiano and roasted artichoke hearts, while keeping glasses filled with  the pinot grigio and an equally serviceable Chianti, Rocca delle Macìe Vernaiolo. Most everybody switched to the Chianti for both the primi of fettuccine puttanesca and the secondi of porchetta with a side of wilted spinach and arugula cooked with walnuts and garlic, and I trotted out a selection ranging from Okanagan Spirits Poire William to Stock ’84 Brandy for the dolci of pear yogurt – it was going to be a sorbet, except that I couldn’t find any no matter how hard I looked, and I wasn’t up to making my own – drizzled with the poire William and accompanied by amaretti cookies.

That’s right, not a drop of beer was poured! (Actually, one guest who is not a big wine aficionado, and was driving, had a couple of bottles of Black Oak Pale Ale during the dinner, but that wasn’t part of the plan.) And not because I didn’t think my guests would appreciate it or that I couldn’t find a suitable style or brand for each course, but simply because it wasn’t what I wanted to serve on that particular night to accompany that particular menu.

So you see, wine and beer (and cocktails and spirits) can peacefully co-exist!

Puritans Everywhere!

Lest you think the Yanks are the only ones overreacting to alcohol references, my friend Pete Brown reports in an aptly titles blog post of two similar stupidities in England.

Please, people, get a fecking grip!

Funny or Sad?

I’m not sure which it is, but it’s certainly over-the-top! From the good folks at Associated Press – reporters Gregory Katz and Clarke Canfield, to be exact – comes word of the latest American overreaction over alcohol, this one occurring in Maine.

The state has banned sales of Fentimans Lemonade to minors. The reason? A trace alcohol content of less than 0.5%!

They’re serious, folks. The story quotes Houlton, Maine, Police Chief Butch Asselin as saying: “It wasn’t so much that we were trying to give Fentimans a black eye. We just want to make parents aware it contains alcohol. I’ve never had it; it’s probably very good, but their Web site says it can be used for mixed drinks.”

The Chief continued voicing his concern, saying that since a Google search of “Victorian lemonade” turned up recipes calling for it to be made with gin, he worries that young people will read those recipes and add gin to their Fentimans.

By the way, Chief, if you search “orange juice” on the web, you’re likely to arrive eventually at a reference to vodka and orange juice, so maybe it’s time you started controlling that o.j., too.

In the “Well, Duh!” Department

This from an Associated Press story about the new wave of low calorie and, it might well be added, low taste beers flooding the market these days. Speaking about brews like MGD 64 and Select 55, which respectively have just 64 and 55 calories and 2.8 and 2.4 percent alcohol, Mindy Rotellini from St. Louis is quoted as saying, “I just have to drink more, and then it’s going to equal the amount of calories in a regular beer, so why not just drink a regular beer?”

Why indeed?

Further on in the story, referencing the difficulties the major breweries are facing trying to produce ultra-light beers that have actual taste, the story quotes Thomas Shellhammer, professor of fermentation science at Oregon State University, thusly:

“You start producing something that could taste very, very thin. That would be the challenge for the brewer, to produce something that still tastes like beer.”

Presumably Professor Shellhammer has little experience with British milds, like the positively delicious Black Cat from the Moorehouse Brewery in England, which was proclaimed Champion Beer of Britain in 2000 with an alcohol content of just 3.4 percent.

And finally, adding a note of sanity to the story, beer aficionado John LeMasney offers,  ”I’d rather spend 200 calories and get something I really enjoy.”

Amen.

Kiuchi Hitachino Beers

I just completed my notes on a pair of beers from the Kiuchi Brewery of Ibaraki, better known as simply “the Japanese ‘Nest’ beers.” I had tasted each before, but never gotten around to sitting down conducting a proper tasting, as I have now done.

In honour of the beers’ Japanese origin, allow me to present those notes in haiku form.

Hitachino Nest Beer Weizen

Bavarian weisse
Meets Berliner weisse and sets
sail for the Far East

Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale

Cedar notes in beer?
Yes, but in this case it works
A classic, indeed

I’m Back!

My week’s worth of “radio silence” was the result of a relocation of home and office last Thursday, a disruption now thankfully ended. Or at least, more or less so, my office and a few other aspects of our condo being still very much works in progress, albeit manageable ones.

I mention the above purely as an excuse for not having posted for a while and not because I think that you, dear reader, should care one iota where I live or how messy my office is. Still, what the move did bring about was cause for celebration, and you may well wonder with which beverages I did celebrate?

And the answer to that query is threefold. To mark the end of the moving day and the assembly of bed and desk, I trotted out a bottle of Avery duganA IPA, about which I can’t tell you much because I have said beer only to fulfill my duties as part of All About Beer’s “Beer Talk” panel, and it would be unseemly to spill the beans before the issue of the magazine containing the review hits the newsstands. It was certainly the hop blast I was craving, though, and very much appreciated.

The organization of our living room my wife and I toasted with glasses of Vineland Estates 2007 Brut Reserve, a sparkling wine from Ontario’s Niagara region that even the Champagne-o-phile lady in my life can appreciate. And finally, when the main organizational work of the day was done, I kicked back with a martini made of my latest gin obsession, Sipsmith London Dry Gin from London, England. Wonderfully spicy and aromatic, and a prefect blend with a 5:1 ratio of vermouth, this is a bottle I will dearly miss when it empties, as at present it is only available in the U.K.