Best Beer Place of 2012: A Tie!

I travelled a lot last year, covering around 70,000 miles by air and plenty more on the ground. Along the way, I visited a lot of beer places and enjoyed a lot of good times with good people.

Such plenitude makes choosing a favourite, or even five favourites, a difficult task, but in the end I arrived at two beery destinations that stood out for me. They are, in some ways, very similar enterprises, and in others quite different. But they share in their hearts a commitment to great food and excellent beer.

They are: The Meddlesome Moth in Dallas, United States, and Bir & Fud in Rome, Italy.

The Moth was the first I visited in 2012, so it shall be the first discussed here. Offspring of the beer bar chain, Flying Saucer, itself with 15 (about to be 16) locations mostly in the southern U.S., the Moth is a creature of a decidedly different sort, with a more formal but still casual aesthetic, a fine list of beer offerings on tap and in the bottle, and a creative menu that veers from basic sandwiches in the afternoon to steak frites and other brasserie favourites at night, each listed with a recommended beer pairing.

Other places do the same, of course, and some execute it with equal or even greater success. But the Moth does it in Dallas, not exactly a long-standing craft beer Mecca, and does it with grace, style – quirky though it may be – and taste. In three meals enjoyed thus far, I’ve yet to sample anything I would consider even mediocre, much less sub-par, and the beer list is always as carefully selected and stylistically diverse as its Texas location allows it to be. Kudos to Moth navigator Keith Schlabs, Chef David McMillan and the whole Dallas crew on a job very well done.

Bir & Food, although showing equal dedication to the victual side of its menu, is the pizzeria yin to the Moth’s Belgian-esque, gastropubby yang. Smaller in size but no less selective in its offerings, it sits on a back lane way in the Trastevere neighbourhood of Rome, almost directly across the street from another great Italian beer destination, Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà, informally known as the “football pub.” It’s sometimes cheek-to-jowl crowded and jostlingly busy, but inviting even on a cool late autumn Roma night.

With fewer taps and a lot less space, management at Bir & Fud has to be circumspect in what they carry, but that doesn’t mean quality need be at all compromised. The eighteen taps pour all Italian craft beer and the international bottle list is judiciously chosen, all waiting to accompany quite excellent pizzas and other dishes. Judging by the crowds on what I was told would be a “slow day,” the people of Rome appreciate the effort.

So, for 2012, I salute two beer places that highlight the joys of great beer and fine cuisine: The Meddlesome Moth and Bir & Fud!

Tomorrow: 2012′s Ontario Brewery of the Year!

Hence My Lengthy Absence…

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post here? Apparently so, but in my defense, with good reason. You see, I’ve been drinking…

Okay, more seriously, I’ve been travelling in support of the North American release of The World Atlas of Beer, which I’m pleased to say has been very well-received by both the beer and general interest presses. Tim and I spent just over two weeks travelling from New York to Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, all over Texas, Denver and finally Chicago promoting the book. And yes, it did involve a fair bit of drinking.

My favourite event? Oddly enough, that came at the tail end of the trip, after Tim had buggered off to Quebec City, leaving me to handle Chicago promotions on my own. My first stop was Rockwell’s Neighborhood Grill, where I hosted a beer and whisky and cheese pairing during which everyone seemed to have a great time, the pairings clicked rather uniformly and rather amazingly no one got terribly drunk. Good hardy drinkers, those north Chicagoans.

Beer finds along the way were numerous and far too many to relate all in detail, but I can say for certain that I won’t soon forget lunch at Bull City Burger and Brewery in Durham – for reasons both burger and beer – and Natty Greene’s from neighbouring Raleigh likewise made an impression with their Minuteman American Rye.

Down in Texas, I had my first extensive sampling of the beers of Jester King and walked away quite impressed, particularly with the brewery’s low alcohol offerings. (Paging Lew Bryson! Lew “Session Beer” Bryson! Please come to the bar.) One day later, new arrival Karbach Brewing caught my attention with a few beers, in particular a commendably restrained Rodeo Clown Double IPA and a wonderfully toasty Karbachtoberfest.

Up in Denver, there were beers aplenty, but one that stuck out as particularly memorable was the Odell Porter aged in barrels formerly used to mature a fernet-style amaro made by the local distiller, Leopold Bros. Herbaceous, piney, mint and of course roasty, it was a love-it or hate-it beer for certain, but I fell resolutely in the former camp.

Then, in Chicago, there was that beer-whisky/whiskey-cheese thing at Rockwells. Let me tell you, if you ever get the chance to sample together  Knob Creek Bourbon, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout and the French cheese known as Brillat Savarin, aka “sin,” take it! You will not be sorry.

In Praise of Light Beer

No, silly, I don’t mean that kind of light beer, the “lite” sort of stuff. Rather, I come to sing the praises of simple 4% alcohol ale, what Lew Bryson has been championing as session beer and others have been alternately glorifying and vilifying.

Even more precisely, and at the same time more generally, I want to talk about the pint of Harviestoun Natural Blonde I enjoyed at the Tennents Bar in Glasgow just a shade over a week ago.

Before I begin, however, I should mention a couple of things. First off, what I remember of that fine pint of cask-conditioned ale is precisely that, what I remember. I had just come from a rather large dinner at an Indian restaurant and as such my palate was in less than fine fettle, so no written notes were made. And secondly, although I believe that the Summer Blonde to indeed be a very lovely ale, in this instance I see it as more a composite of many such ales on cask in pubs across the United Kingdom.

Now, back to that pint. It was, as its name suggests, blonde of hue. It had a bracing and refreshing, even stomach-settling, twang of American hops in its aroma and flavour, hops I later discovered – thanks to Harviestoun’s annoyingly slow-moving website – to be Cascades, although I would have guessed as much. It had a lightness of character that suited it equally to the consumption of several pints over the course of an afternoon or evening and the slaking of a pepper-and-salt-induced after-dinner thirst.

It was, in summation, the ideal beer for the moment. And for me, it proved several pints points.

First and most obvious of these is that it is entirely possible to make great-tasting, characterful beer at 4% alcohol by volume. Hell, it’s possible to do so at even lower levels of strength, although it probably gets quite tricky below, say, 3.2% or so. This is not to say that such beers are the be-all and end-all, or that they are what I want to drink all the time, but I’m happier knowing that they do exist.

(I knew this before, of course, from many trips to the U.K. and more than a few pints and half-litres of lower strength ales and lagers, but it’s nice to have that moment of pure clarity from time to time.)

Point number two is that British brewers tend to use American hops in cask-conditioned ales more effectively than do American brewers. This only makes sense, as they have more experience with creating cask-conditioned beers of all stripes, but it also reinforces the relative novelty of such ales on North American shores and their – again, relative – newness to brewers on this side of the proverbial pond. Nothing wrong with keg beers, says I, or the fact that it serves many North American ales much better than does cask.

Finally, and on a very much related note, the Natural Blonde reminded me that Cascade and other C-hop varieties work so well over here in part because of the quenching nature of their citrusy character. A well-Cascade-hopped ale can be a most a refreshing animal, whether poured from the keg or cask, and when the temperature soars well above normal Scottish or Yorkshire summer levels, or the three-pepper-symbol curry was the choice for dinner, that quality is very much appreciated.

Looking Back at the Brewer’s Plate

You might recall a while ago – long before my curmudgeonly rant of last week – I posted about an event called the Brewer’s Plate. If you’re on Twitter, you may have seen the tweets, as well. And you may have wondered what it was all about.

Well, much like the upcoming, and sold out!, Savor event in Washington, DC, the annual, Toronto-based Brewer’s Plate is a beer and food partnering event, featuring local breweries and some of the top chefs in town. This was my third Plate, and I think the best thus far.

Note the “thus far,” part of that line above. Because as good as the Brewer’s Plate has become, it’s still not where I think it can be in terms of quality and effectiveness. Here’s why.

The Venue: No room for improvement here! Roy Thompson Hall is an ideal setting for events like the Brewer’s Plate – and the upcoming Spirit of Toronto – and should be held on to with an iron grip.

The Beer: The local angle is good, but limiting. There is now great beer available in Toronto from across Canada and around the world, in styles local brewers have not yet even attempted, much less mastered, and the inclusion of some out-of-province brands would surely benefit the scope of the Plate.

The Food: Here’s where I think the most work needs to be done. Not that any of the food I tasted was sub-par or even ordinary – all the dishes I sampled were at least good, sometimes very good and occasionally great – but more effort needs to go into matching beer and food, in my opinion. At too many of the stands was I told that “any of these beers” will pair well with the food, regardless of how disparate they may have been in style and taste, and too often I heard the tired old refrain that Dish X was cooked with Beer Y – usually in some innocuous way, such as using it to colour a sauce or braise a meat – and thus is also paired with Beer Y. That may have flown in the mid-1990s, but certainly we’re now sophisticated enough that we can and should expect more of a food and beer partnership.

The Organization and Service: Again, I thought everything was superbly managed, after the slight confusion at the door when the event first opened, and the service was first-rate.

So there you have it, Brewer’s Plate. Work on the food, perhaps add a bit more beer and I think you have the potential to lay claim to one of this country’s best beer events.

In Which the Stars Align and Mr. McL and I Go Head to Head…

In Which the Stars Allign and Mr. McL and I Go Head to Head…I mentioned earlier an upcoming Toronto event called The Brewer’s Plate. It is an excellent occasion and one I have enjoyed greatly in the past, even when I was wishing the assembled chefs had paid a little more attention to the beers with which their foods were being partnered.

Well, I hear now that not only will this year’s edition be held in the most comfortable confines of Roy Thompson Hall — where, by the by, I shall be again in May with the* Spirit of Toronto — but also that my frequent food and beer pairing foil, Mr. Alan McLeod, shall also be present. Yes, the Good Beer Blog curmudgeon and frequent beer and food sceptic, oft-referred to in these pages as Mr. McL, will be in attendance. At a food and beer pairing event. Will wonders never cease.

I have yet to determine with certainty whether I will be in Toronto or Dallas on April 18, but it’s looking much more like the former than the latter at this point. And if I am in Toronto, rest assured I shall also be at The Brewer’s Plate. And I shall dog Mr. McL’s every step, or alternately stay one step ahead of him, until I hear from his locavore lips an admission that at least one food and beer pairing was to his taste.

* Unfortunately cancelled.

Sh*t Bartenders Do (But Shouldn’t), Pt. 2

1. Give a knowledgeable customer a hard time about returning a beer. It slays me how waiters will take back hundred dollar bottles of wine without comment, but tell some bartenders that a $6 beer is skunked or oxidized or riddled with diacetyl and you’re in for the fight of your life. Key words: “I know this beer and it’s really not supposed to taste like this.”

2. Pour a draught to overflowing and then set it down in front of the customer without a coaster or cocktail napkin (or three). My shirt may not be fancy, but it’s usually clean and I like to keep it that way.

3. Ignore a customer who just sat at your bar so that you can finish chatting with the waiter at the service bar. Gaz Regan calls it “mindful bartending,” and the man has a point. Pay attention, and if you can’t get to someone right away, at the very least make eye contact.

4. Garnish a beer without asking first. I know that some places like putting lemon wedges on hefeweizens and orange slices on Belgian-style wheats, but that doesn’t mean every customer wants it. Particularly when fulfilling at order at the bar, it takes no time at all to ask if i want fruit or not.

5. Serve a bottle of beer and then walk away without even asking if the customer might like a glass. Because, you know, not everyone wants to swig from the bottle all the time. Or ever.

All You Need to Know About Beer for Thanksgiving

Turkey. Great stuff. I think it’s a damn shame we tend to only eat it a couple of times a year, although not so much so that I would resort to cooking those horrible, grotesquely large “turkey breast roasts” they sell year round in supermarkets.

So, Americans, you have one of your great turkey-eating opportunities approaching next week, and if you’re a fan of matching good beer to your food, you’re probably already wondering what to pair with your bird. Lord knows there is no shortage of stories in print and online offering you advice, from wines like riesling (a safe bet) to zinfandel (whaaa?) and beers from Sam Adams Boston Lager (more safety) to Rogue Dead Guy (double whaaa?).

I’m here to tell you, though, that for your Thanksgiving table you need know only one word: Gueuze. Or rather, make that two: Oude Gueuze. Because that “old” designation means that it’s traditionally crafted, unless it’s a Cantillon Gueuze, which are all traditionally crafted and so see no need to add the “oude” modifier.

I’ve been testing beers with turkey for years, and I can assure you that nothing pairs with a roast turkey better than a dry, tart, sparkling gueuze. Even if you think you don’t like gueuze, and I know there are plenty of you out there, even among die-hard beer aficionados, one sip alongside a forkful of turkey and savoury stuffing will change your mind. Trust me.

 

Pubs in the News

The British pub has been in the news a couple of times lately, once for what it’s not, or at least not anymore, and another time for apparently what it is but shouldn’t be.

On the first front, the word “gastropub” has evidently now been exorcised from the vocabulary of the British Good Food Guide. The Independent on Sunday has the details:

But Elizabeth Carter, consultant editor for the guide, believes that the term had become a byword for an establishment’s ambitions and, at a time when pubs have been hit hard by the recession, this inflexible attitude was becoming a thing of the past. “Our feeling with the gastropub was that it was a bit of a bandwagon that a lot of people have jumped on to. A lot of chains have taken that gastropub style.

As usual, Martyn was on this story straight off, and his commentator Curmudgeon has, to my mind, hit the nail right on the head:

Perhaps it is more a case of “we are all gastropubs now” and so the term is no longer needed to distinguish some pubs from the general herd. I certainly don’t see any sign of a swing back towards a more drink-focused offer. If anything the pendulum is still very much swinging the other way.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, however you may feel about resto-wannabe pubs and places – real or imagined! – where drinkers are pushed to the side in favour of diners, the last two decades of the gastropub in the U.K. has resulted in an immeasurable rise in the quality of food offered at the average pub, and for those who might occasionally want a bite with their pint, that is an unqualified positive.

The second reference I’ve come across lately is in the usually reliable pages of Simon Difford’s Class Magazine. The latest issue features a “Hall of Shame” posting on pub cocktails:

While some have clearly upped their game in wines (including Geronimo), we still wouldn’t go near cocktails in most pubs. With the exception of a handful of venues, most pub staff we encounter wouldn’t know one end of a shaker from the other, let alone be able to differentiate a Martinez from a Martini. Apart from the attraction of higher cash margins and GP (our two highballs were £6 each), why they even bother is a mystery to us. The wider problem is they don’t exactly sell the whole cocktail concept to consumers making their first steps into mixology.

The commentary concludes thusly:

Pubs should stick to what they’re good at and leave cocktails to the experts.

Now, when I’m in a pub, I’m generally drinking ale, or occasionally a single malt. But I’m partial to a good cocktail now and again and I don’t for the life of me see why pubs should forego offering the option. You don’t have to be a cocktail “expert” to mix a decent martini or Manhattan or daiquiri, any more than you must be a beer expert to pull a decent pint.

What’s needed is not the abandonment of cocktails, but rather the training of bartenders so that they can mix their wares with precision. And so, in my estimation, rather than dissing the obviously lacking efforts of pubs like the Builder’s Arms, Difford and co. should be busy selling mixology training programs to the companies which own them. Then we can all be happy, cocktailian and beerophile together.

Wine For Pork? Try Beer Instead!

One of the organs for which I regularly toil, Nation’s Restaurant News, yesterday delivered to my in-box a story on wine pairings for pork as chosen by members of the Court of Master Sommeliers were featured.

(You may need to register to see the story, but it’s here.)

Now, I have nothing but respect for Master Sommeliers, and know quite a few of them personally. They’re smart individuals who work very hard to attain what is a most impressive credential. And I thoroughly enjoy wines of many different styles, qualities and price points, from summertime vinho verdes to status Bordeaux and Californians. But really, pork? That’s definitely beer territory.

The dishes cited range from spice-rubbed spare ribs with bourbon barbecue sauce – surely a potential disaster for even the best-case wine scenario – to pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon. And as I read through the list of their suggested pairings, one word resonated in the back of my brain: Bavaria!

It has been said – by me, and often – that the Bavarian brewer whose beers don’t pair well with pork won’t stay in business for long, and it’s something I firmly believe. Pig is close to a gastronomic religion in Germany’s south, so it stands to reason that its beers would find harmonies with pork dishes of all sorts. More so, I’m afraid, than wine. Much more.

For ribs, which is a bit outside of the Bavarian zone if familiarity, I’d pick a beer that is likewise not quite indigenous, such as pilsner, preferably of the Bohemian sort, with a greater malt content than its northern German kin, while grilled or roasted loin is a great fit with märzen or dunkel weizen.

But really, when you’re talking pork, you can pretty much safely reach for any Bavarian beer style, and for considerably less than the per case prices quoted by my MS compatriots.

Tasted!: More New Glarus

Back before the holidays, I mentioned a bunch of New Glarus beers I had received and promised more in the way of reviews a little further down the road. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to further down the road.

In a way, this is little more than a tease for most of you, since New Glarus beers are scarcely available outside of Wisconsin. But the brewery has some kind of chops, so just in case you find yourself within arm’s reach of any of these, here are some thoughts:

R&D Gueuze: This is part of the brewery’s experimental series and, according to label, has been spontaneously fermented for a year outside the brewery. The colour is a rich gold and the nose certainly speaks to funky Brett, with notes of citrus, underripe pear, oak, dried hay and herbs and a little barnyard. The body has the character of a Belgian gueuze in its dry, tart profile, but the flavours are completely different – not surprising when you consider that a whole different batch of yeasts were at work. The start is lemony and almost a bit sweet before the dryness really kicks in with a strong lemon and lime juice character carrying very restrained floral notes – rose water? – and hints of digestive biscuits and melon. The finish sees the emphatic return of lime — peel, pith and juice — with lingering herbaceous notes. A fine effort which seems to speak of Wisconsin farmland.

R&D Golden Ale: Another experimental brew, this one crafted as an homage to Orval. The nose has plenty of horse blanket notes, just like Orval, but is less dry and with tropical fruit notes lurking beneath the funk. The start conveys a lot of that fruitiness, with pineapple and kiwi notes, before drying somewhat into the body and adding both hoppy bitterness and tart spice. The drying continues into the mild to moderately bitter, still funky finish. Like the Gueuze, this is a beer inspired by Belgium but decidedly of New Glarus, in which fashion it represents some of the best of Belgian-influenced brewing in the US.

Dancing Man Wheat: I’ve had this strong (7.2%) weizen before and was only too happy to give it another go. The nose is bubblegummy with a strong sugary edge tempered only slightly by some clove notes, but the start surprisingly shows more spice than sweetness, with strong notes of clove immediately asserting themselves in advance of a fruity, malty, peppery body with complexity that stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of the aroma. I get barbecued banana, lots of clove, some white and black pepper, perhaps a bit of plummy and grapey fruit, all ending in an off-dry, spice accented finish. An impressive if unorthodox effort.

Staghorn Oktoberfest: “Wisconsin’s Real Red” is perhaps a jab at Leinenkugel, but this beer is more a deep coppery gold than an amber or a red. The nose is a rich toasted cereal grain with a hint of smoke and perhaps a whiff of hazelnut, while the body starts just off-dry wwith a suggestion of buckwheat before growing a little sweeter and faintly smoky, with a toasted rye bread character and firm maltiness. The difference between this and Munich Oktoberfest beers is the dryness and the use of toasted malt, which gives it a flavour more approaching a Vienna than a sweeter helles.

Back 40 Bock: About to tuck in to a sandwich of kielbasa and cheese, I reach into the fridge for a beer and discover…a bock, of course. What could be more natural? Deep brown with an off-dry aroma of roasted chestnuts, light chocolate, a hint of licorice and just the faintest whiff of campfire, this beer holds out promise of equal parts satisfaction and quaffability. The flavour, however, delivers on the latter but skimps on the former, with a surprisingly light body and only very modest complexity, featuring some toasted grain (à la Ovaltine), gentle nuttiness and subtle hints of roast, ending in a dry and faintly cocoa-y finish it. The label says “without pretense,” so perhaps this is what they meant to craft, but I find it lacking the excitement I expect in a bock.