A Word About Gluten

Some people, still a relatively small but by all accounts growing percentage of the population, have sensitivities to gluten. I know and have known several such people and have seen the effects on their health first hand. Of this there is no doubt.

Others have jumped on the “Wheat Belly” bandwagon and decided for reasons of their own to eliminate gluten-containing grains from their diets. Which is, of course, purely their personal choice and fine and dandy by me.

Although it is the first group that has much more to lose by ingesting gluten, it is the latter group that, to my experience, is more active in questioning issues of gluten in alcohol, and in some instances, perpetuating mythologies. So for the record, here are a few points about glutinous booze:

1) Beer contains gluten. Major brewery beers contain gluten and craft beers contain gluten. Wheat beers and rye beers and stouts and light beers and pretty much any other kind of beer you can name contains gluten. Period.

2) Gluten-free beers are, of course, the exceptions to the above rule. Unfortunately, very few of them taste much like actual beer. (Although not all, as per point 6 below.)

3) Distilled spirits, of whatever sort, do not contain gluten. This is because the process of distillation specifically involves the separation of alcohol from everything else, including the gluten in glutenous grains. But don’t believe me, believe celiac.com!

4) Flavoured spirits may or may not be gluten-free, since said flavours are generally added post-distillation and few offer any details as to what is used in their flavouring. The same applies to liqueurs.

5) Wines are gluten-free, including Champagnes. Since they are made purely from grapes, I don’t understand why some people insist on challenging this fact.

6) Although I have not personally tasted all the gluten-free beers on the market today — as a class, it’s growing almost exponentially — the best I have sampled are those of Quebec’s Les Brasseurs Sans Gluten, marketed under the Glutenberg label. In particular, their seasonal Belge de Saison, a 7% alcohol ale brewed with Meyer lemon, is far and away the finest, more a “good beer than happens to not contain gluten” than any other I’ve yet tried. It deserves to be a widely-sold, year-round brand.

3 Bottles + a Book: Hoppy Bock, Old Red Barn and Beer Crafts

It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time for 3 Bottles + a Book. So without further ado, let’s get to it.

The first bottle up is Hoppy Bock Lager from Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing. Now, I don’t know why it’s called a “Bock Lager,” since pretty much by definition bocks are lagers – unless you count Boston Beer’s Triple Bock or ales brewed in Texas and misnamed in order to comply with some of the most ridiculous beer labelling laws in the United States – and I’m sure that some hopheads out there will be equally curious about the “Hoppy” part of the equation, since this is hardly an overtly bitter beer. But one sniff and you’ll understand that this is more about aromatics than bitterness, and that the moniker is apt.

The nose of Hoppy Bock is one of the most attractive I’ve experienced in a bottom-fermented beer for some time, lightly sweet and floral, with some soft herbals and something almost approaching lavender. The start of the body is a tad more benign, with an inauspicious, slightly watery entry, but grows more interesting with every second it sits on the palate, adding first some very light caramel notes, then green herbs and soft florals, followed but a more significant bitterness and a surprisingly dry and quenching finish. There might not be a huge amount about this beer that I associate with the bock style – maibock at a stretch, maybe – but I certainly do find it most enjoyable and admire the complexity of the nose and finish.

Next is a bottle that arrived only this morning, but which I’ve pushed to the top of the tasting queue because, frankly, I’m curious about it and off to Montréal for the Mondial de la Bière tomorrow and so otherwise won’t be able to try it for a week or so. It’s from Winnipeg’s Half Pints Brewing and represents their first adventure into the wacky world of so-called sour beers, influenced, they say, by a “mixed yeast culture” and barrel aged for two years.

Old Red Barn is reddish auburn in colour, with a huge cherry pit aroma combining vanilla with cherry notes and something not necessarily funky, but more old and musty, although not in a bad way. The body is vibrant and quite tart, a little too much so, honestly. (I prefer to call such beers “tart ales” rather than “sour beers” or just “sours,” but this one is making me reconsider my position.) Beneath the tang there is cherry and plum, plus some woody notes, but while the sourness – ahem, tartness – stops well short of the vinegar I’ve experienced in some such beers, it is still beyond the relative finesse of the best of this class of ales.

Shifting gears in a fairly dramatic fashion, bottle number three is Poit Dhubh (“Potch Ghoo”), a blended malt whisky from the Gaelic Whisky Collection. Composed of unspecified whiskies, but said to have Speyside and Islay characteristics, which give you some clues, it is unchillfiltered and aged for 8 years, partly in sherry casks.

The nose sits right where you might think the median between Speyside and Islay might be, a little oily and iodine-ish, but also creamy and a bit floral, caramel making an appearance and a hint of kiwi, as well. The body is slightly on the rough side, as you’d expect of a whisky so relatively immature, but forceful in its personality, with caramel and overripe fruit up front yielding slowly to a seductive smokiness and a dry, almost ashen finish. This is not a massively complex single malt, but at just over half the price of ten year old Ardbeg, it provides budget friendly solace for peatheads. (For Ontario readers, this has arrived, at the LCBO at a price of $52.25.)

Today’s book arrived out of the blue a couple of weeks ago and I must admit that its appearance was not greeted with enthusiasm. Beer Crafts by Shawn Gascoyne-Bowman is all about making artsy, tacky things out of beer paraphernalia, and that is definitely not my thing. But perhaps there’s more to it.

The back page photo of a PBR carton cowboy hat put me immediately off, as did the first page I turned to, which detailed how to make “Bekki’s Beer Can Crocheted Baseball Cap.” I would not be caught dead wearing either, and neither would I fashion a “Beer Can Lantern” or a “Bottle Cap Headband.” But perhaps you would, in which case you might appreciate the instructions contained within this book, which appear to be fairly detailed and precise, even if some begin with the clichéd “first, open a beer,” apparently to absorb space in what are really pretty basic instructions.

Still, I digress. The bottom line for Beer Crafts is that if you’re the type of person who would make and use or wear stuff make from beer packaging, then you’ll love this book. If you’re not, well, we can chuckle over it all at the pub, but you’re buying.

3 Bottles + a Book: Heart of Gold, Shakespeare and More

Next week, I’m off to spend a few days prowling around the Mondial de la Bière, so I though it appropriate to begin this new regular feature with a Québécoise beer, one I’ve known since it was first brewed by a father and son team in Boucherville, Québec.

Seigneuriale was originally conceived as an Orval-esque ale, which it was, and a very good one, at that. Then Laflamme père et fils, who founded the brewery of the same name, sold to Sleeman and Sleeman sold to Sapporo and Seigneuriale ceased to exist for a long period. (In truth, there were several different Seigneuriales, including a Blonde and a Tripel. I’m assuming this is meant to emulate the original flagship brew.)

The revived beer pours a hazy golden brown despite having been refrigerated upright for a couple of days and displays a nose of brown spice, dried and baked apple and a light tanginess. The flavour begins with a hint of dryish caramel-chocolate, moving quickly to a drier, quite spicy and mildly hoppy middle with some fruity apple and banana notes, finishing very dry, modestly bitter and spicy. Not quite as I remember it, Seigneuriale is nonetheless a fine beer, but one thus far lacking the panache that I think would take it to excellence.

Bottle 2 is a beer I sampled recently in New York City, although it had travelled a long way to be there. Hitachino Nest Daidai IPA is a new one from Japan’s Kiuchi Brewery, and although I tasted it with Toshiyuki Kiuchi, the man behind the brewery, I must confess to being a bit uncertain as to some of the details to this ale. I do know that it features a new hop strain out of Germany, and I believe also some actual mandarin orange, the specific type of which I remain unsure.

The nose is curious, fruity of course, but also with an oddly sweet funkiness about it – nothing I’d associate with Brett or any other wild yeast, but more along the lines of an appealing mustiness. The body is so fruity my notes refer to it as being evocative of “a hop-infused orange juice,” which Kiuchi said was roughly what he wanted. Equally curious is the finish, which dries out quite thoroughly. I found the Daidai to be a fascinating and wonderfully flavourful ale, but I fear that in the U.S., at least, it will suffer from having the letters “IPA” on its label, since it’s a descriptive many will find quite at odds with the taste.

And now for Bottle 3, one I’ve anticipated having for review since I first experienced John Hall’s “Deconstructing Forty Creek” tasting, in which he presents the different whiskies he uses to make his Forty Creek Barrel Select, including one damn fine rye. Heart of Gold is that rye, or rather, it sort of is and sort of isn’t.

A whisky-maker who operates as a wine-maker, it isn’t Hall’s style to make a straight rye, so what he’s done instead here is craft a “mostly rye,” with barley and corn whiskies to round it out and add some of that trademark Forty Creek softness. The advance tasting sample I received last week has hints of rye’s characteristic spiciness on the nose, but not assertive and peppery like, say, a Rittenhouse. Instead, it’s more herbal spice and peppery vanilla, with caramel and bitter orange notes. On the palate, it’s relatively soft and sweet up front, growing steadily more spicy as it rolls across the tongue, finally revealing and reveling in the raunchy, aggressive pepper-ginger-brown spice I associate with a proper rye.

Overall, this is a tricky whisky, one which lures you into a comfortable cocoon of vanilla and caramel before slapping you upside your head with bold and beautifully unsubtle flavours. Consider it an intro to straight rye, or perhaps the midpoint between bourbon and rye, or maybe just the cornerstone of what might become your go-to Manhattan. Reservations for numbered bottles – in Ontario only – begin next Monday, May 27.

This week’s book is the latest from Pete Brown, newly published and available in North America courtesy of St. Martin’s Press. Now, I won’t lie, Pete is a friend of mine, but also a friend I consider to be a damn fine writer, and as such, if he had veered off his game with this, his fourth book, I’d be the first to call him on it. Luckily, that’s not the case here.

Originally published as Shakespeare’s Local, the book has been retitled Shakespeare’s Pub for the North American market and dressed in a pretty ghastly new cover. (I’m no great fan of the original, which is rather too busy for my aesthetic tastes, but the new one makes me expect the contents to be some sort of graphic novel about Shakespeare’s life, perhaps reimagined as a beer-chugging superhero.) Pete presents a synopsis over here, so I’ll leave you to click over to that while I relate what the reading is like here.

As with Brown’s other work, Shakespeare’s Pub has a distinctly English form to the narrative, both in many of the expressions the author uses and, necessarily in this case, with reference to most of the historic and geographic references made. In fact, unless you are a frequent traveller to London, I’d even go so far as to suggest that it’s a book best read with a map of the city at your side. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

Caveat aside, this is a rollicking good read. Brown is a very personal writer, even when he delves into history, as he does here, and that makes Shakespeare’s Pub a book that ventures well beyond “Six Centuries of History,” as the British cover claims, to aspects of past and modern pub life, what it’s like to live in London today, Margaret Thatcher and some girl-pop group called Sugababes, and what can happen when two notable beer writers inadvertently wind up drinking at the bar alongside prominent members of the National Front.

Like Brown’s last book, Hops and Glory, this is a title that will be notoriously difficult to classify, kind of like a barrel-aged IPA fermented with a Belgian yeast strain and seasoned with rose petals. It’s historical, yes, but also beer-related, semi-autobiographical, sociological and occasionally comedic, especially when Brown lapses into his barely-controlled obsession with footnotes. Above all, however, it’s a fun and entertaining read, suited to the approaching summer reading season in a fashion that few histories can manage.

One word of warning, though: It will have you jonesing to drink at a London pub in general and a place called the George in particular. Or at least, that’s what happened to me. I leave for Heathrow on June 25.

3 Bottles + a Book: A Wednesday Feature

In an open attempt to make myself blog more – like, at least once a week! – I’m introducing “3 Bottles + a Book,” a feature that will continue to run weekly until: a) I run out of bottles (unlikely); or b) I run out of books (far more likely)

Check back tomorrow around midmorning for my first installment, featuring a Pete Brown book newly available on this side of the Atlantic and the long-anticipated Canadian rye from Forty Creek!

Live-to-Blog Review: Great Lakes My Bitter Wife IPA

I’ve been overly negligent in my blogging lately, and am running behind in my beer reviews, so I thought I’d review this beer straight to the blog, just for something a bit different.

Billed as a no doubt tongue-in-cheek “tribute” to Carrie Nation, the mad woman of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, this limited edition beer from Ontario’s Great Lakes Brewing is a big IPA,  with 7% alcohol by volume and, judging by my first sniff, a boatload of hops.

Amber-hued and just on the hazy side, the nose straight out of the fridge is ruby red grapefruit and a hint of pineapple, growing a shade oniony and more piney mango as it warms. It certainly hits the palate with a nice hoppy glow, and then grows steadily hoppier from there, segueing from peach and pineapple to grapefruit juice and lemon zest, with slight malty underpinnings of canned peaches and apricots. The finish is where the hops really assert themselves, however, with a strong and rather intense citrusy bite.

This is one of those IPAs that is not for the faint-of-heart. I enjoy it right through to the swallow, but am somewhat put off by the concentration of bitterness on the finish, and if I feel that way then I’m guessing all but the committed hophead might be at least a bit overwhelmed by its hoppy aggression.

Belgh Brasse Roars Back

If you lived in or visited Québec a little over a decade ago, you may remember Belgh Brasse. Based in Amos, near the Ontario border in the Québec northwest, the brewery opened with significant fanfare, much of it playing upon the purity of brewing water available from the Abitibi esker, and a purportedly Belgian-influenced ale called 8.

8 was, ultimately, a dud. I tasted it a couple of times and was left unimpressed, while others complained of the beer’s inconsistency. It died. A resuscitation of the brewery followed, with an even less inspiring pale lager called Taïga. It also died.

Now Belgh Brasse is back for a third kick at the can, and in this case it appears that the third time is indeed the charm. I have sampled two beers from the new Mons line of “Belgian-Inspired” beers, the Abbey Witte and the Abbey Blonde, and was impressed by both.

Sandy gold in colour with a slight haze, the Mons Abbey Witte has a sweetish, perfumey and lightly peppery lemon aroma, accented by candied orange peel and perhaps a hint of cinnamon, and a rounded and citrusy, light-bodied middle and a drying and faintly spicy-peppery finish. Belgian-inspired, for certain, it has a decided lemony note to it that makes me think just a bit about Berliner weisse, as well. It might lean a bit too hard on the sweet and fruity side of things, but is still nicely refreshing and quaffable.

The Mons Abbey Blonde is certainly a fruity ale, with dried apricot and canned peaches in the nose and a malty, dry caramel and lightly spicy body with some tropical and peachy fruitiness. I sampled it at cellar temperature first and refrigerator temp second and found it more expressive and robust when colder, although not so cold as to suppress the fruit and spice.

I’m told now that the brewery has a dubbel out and a stout on the way, and is for sale in the U.S. as well as in Québec. Based on these first two tastings, I’d say that this time Belgh Brasse might be sticking around for some time to come.

 

Tasted!: (The Surprising) Abita Lemon Wheat

As a serious beer person, what would you expect of a beer called Lemon Wheat? And what if, like me, you have been universally disappointed with every beer I have yet tasted with the word ‘lemon’ in its name? (I’m looking at you, Lemon Lagers…!) And don’t get me started on the “marriage of lemon and wheat,” which has beget that curious practice of serving wheats with a lemon wedge! That stuff belongs to beers with no taste, not ones that already have a refreshing and lemony crispness, not to mention a bunch of other spicy and fruity flavours.

And so, Abita Lemon Wheat. I open the bottle with trepidation. I expect little. I anticipate sweet and sickly lemon-ness.

More fool me!

What Louisiana’s Abita has done here is take pilsner malt and wheat mash, hop it with Centennial hops, ferment it with a bière de garde yeast, and finish the whole thing with lemon peel. The net effect being that this little 4.4% alcohol brew is a crisp, flavourful, utterly refreshing delight!

Light and hazy gold in the glass, it starts with an aroma that somehow manages to hit the nose sweet, but almost immediately turn more dry and perfumey, reminding me in the end of what I think limoncello should smell like, as opposed to what it usually does smell like.

On the palate, a just off-dry maltiness hits first, followed by lemon zest and a bit of lemon juice, then back to a biscuity maltiness alongside a rising spicy-citrus hop, and finally a dryish, mild to moderately bitter finish. Lemony, yes, but first and, I think, foremost a flavourful, well-structured quaffer.

Congratulations, Abita, on not only a great summer beer, but also proving that, like a book, it’s best not to judge a beer by its cover!