St. John's Wort Beery Musings and Amusing Beers

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WURST Calgary

March 18, 2013 12:51 am ⋅ 7 Comments ⋅

When I was in Calgary last month, there was one place I visited that didn’t really fit into the overarching narrative of the beer halls that are springing up there, and this is because it doesn’t really do North American craft beers in the same way that the other beer halls do. WURST is more interested in serving traditional German beers and in creating a somewhat more authentic Bavarian beer hall atmosphere.

__WURST Badge

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t know exactly what to do with what I was seeing within the larger context. All I know is that this sort of thing doesn’t really exist in Toronto in the same way. There isn’t the same dedication to the concept. We have WVRST, which is unrelated and very good, but the selection of beer is wider and the focus of the food menu is narrower.

The first thing that you need to know about WURST is that it’s incredibly tastefully appointed. The main dining room in the upstairs section has gone for a beer garden feel complete with trees indoors and it feels a great deal more like a fine dining establishment than I was expecting. Since I was there on a survey of the Calgary beer scene, we retired to the downstairs section, which is more traditionally a beer hall with long table communal seating and a large selection of taps featured prominently at the bar. One of the nicest features of the place is the set of lockers that is visible as you descend the main staircase. They hold dozens of steins which are reserved for regular visitors to the beer hall. It’s a lovely touch that I’ve seen discussed in other pubs, but never brought to fruition on quite this scale.Wurst 1

The reason I’m writing about WURST now is that they have a launch on the 20th. They’re bringing in Hofbrau Munchen (and if anyone can tell me how to make this keyboard produce an umlaut, you’ll be thanked). I want to suggest to you that these are beers worth trying, and as a matter of fact they’re showing up across the country. I believe we’re meant to be getting them in Ontario shortly as well. Plus, Hofbrau has a new beer hall opening in Chicago. The Germans are an industrious people.

I think that it was because I had not announced a specific agenda that I was poured nearly a half pint of everything that was on tap at WURST and could be said to hail vaguely from the region of Bavaria. This may have coloured my impression of the lunchtime I spent there, as might the fact that they were served by a lovely young lady who looked capable of wrapping a stein around your head if you cracked wise about her lederhosen. I think you want a waitress you can respect (and possibly fear a little).

That said, my favourites were the Ayinger Brau Weiss, which I think is a very underrated beer (four dollars at the LCBO, Junior Rangers!) and the Hofbrau Munich Helles.

You have to understand: A month of drinking discount beer after going for the hoppiest thing going will do interesting things to your palate. If you drink a 60 IBU beer regularly, and that is your baseline… well, I’m sorry, but your palate is absolutely wrecked. The level of bitterness you enjoy has creeped up to the point that you’re probably not a great judge of stuff less hoppy than that. I have come back from February realizing that Black Oak Pale Ale may not be generally considered to be a hoppy brew, but it is. It just is.

At the midpoint, at twenty days of macro lager, Hofbrau Munich Helles was revelatory. It explained so much. Like, “why were the American 19th century breweries trying to copy this” and “why is 90% of the world’s beer lager?” The Hofbrau Munich Helles is just this beautifully poised, wonderfully balanced beer with a slightly honeyed sweetness that fades to increasing bitterness which fades away. The mouthfeel is marvelous. The carbonation is perfect. It’s balanced on the edge of a knife. I have a friend, Greg Sherry, who has periodically worn a Hofbrau Munchen hat to beer festivals. It made him look like Gandalf the Slightly Tipsy. I will never make fun of him again.

I’m sure the dark is good too, but in that moment the Helles was the first beer I tasted and I looked at the rest of the tasting glasses and thought “can’t I just stick with this?”

Truly, a really impressive charcuterie platter at WURST.

Truly, a really impressive charcuterie platter at WURST.

The other thing I should mention is that Grant Parry is doing a really excellent job in the kitchen. The charcuterie and cheese platter was marvelous down to the speck and landjager and this buffalo bresaola that I think he called wunderfleisch. Everything that reasonably can be is sourced locally. Much of the Charcuterie came from down the highway in Canmore. There is some really lovely stuff on offer.

The food that came out of the kitchen looked better than anything I’ve ever seen in a beer hall. Maria Mendelman, their events manager, ordered a Chicken dish that looked fantastic. I asked Grant what they do that no one else does. I should have known there would be trouble when he giggled to himself.

I want to introduce you to the BAVARIAN WING.

The concept here is that you take a chicken wing and bone it out.

They have a special sausage applicator for making the BAVARIAN WING.

They have a special sausage applicator for making the BAVARIAN WING.

Then, you stuff the wing with sausage.

And here it is in action!

And here it is in action!

You poach the whole issue, dry it off and coat it in pretzel crumbs. Then you cover it in hot sauce.

You know you want it. It's delicious. It's a terrible idea, but it is delicious.

You know you want it. It’s delicious. It’s a terrible idea, but it is delicious.

The BAVARIAN WING is a … well, let’s just say that someday it’ll end up in front of a tribunal at The Hague. They come three to an order, apparently. It is exactly the right kind of mistake to make at about 11:30 PM after a long night of hoisting a stein. It is exactly right for the venue, and it is the kind of thing that you need after an enthusiastic evening of drinking Hofbrau Munich Helles.

If you’re in or around Calgary this Wednesday, WURST is where you want to be. There’s food that is some of the best I’ve seen around beer in Canada. There’s a beer that really deserves some attention. And, if you get to the point in the evening where it’s death or glory, there’s the BAVARIAN WING.

If you’re in Ontario, you should also check out the Hofbrau Munich Helles. It’ll be on tap somewhere near you shortly.

Posted in: Reviews, Shameless Plugs, Uncategorized ⋅ Tagged: , ,

Left Field Brewery

March 9, 2013 12:28 am ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅

There are advantages to writing a book with a guy. For instance, it’s a good bet that you’re going to get the first samples of his brewery’s new beer.

I’m talking of course about Mark Murphy, co-author of How To Make Your Own Brewskis: The Go To Guide For Craft Beer Enthusiasts. The link is to the right, if you don’t already own a copy of this book. If I may borrow from Douglas Adams, I’ll point out that it has two advantages over Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy Of Homebrewing. Firstly, it is slightly cheaper. Secondly, it has the words “Yes You Can!” in big friendly letters on the cover.

It strikes me that I ought to be entirely honest with you basically immediately. I don’t know how objective I can possibly be when I’m reviewing a beer brewed by a man with whom I have written a book about brewing beer. I would advise you to take my opinion with a grain of salt, although I shall try as reasonably hard to be objective as I possibly can given that it is 11:45 PM and that I have already issued a caveat.

Mark and his lovely wife Mandie have started a new brewery called Left Field. Mark has amassed some not inconsiderable brewing experience over the last few years and Mandie has a lot of experience in alcohol sales and marketing. They’re both incredibly stable people. This bodes well for the brewery.

The brewery is baseball themed. This comes as little surprise to me as I don’t believe that I have ever seen Mark Murphy without a baseball cap. The subtle difference in his appearance tonight when he arrived with sample bottles is that he now has a baseball cap with the logo of the brewery on it. It is a Brooklyn Dodgers era inspired “L”. I like that a great deal, having grown up on Dad’s stories of Duke Snider and Flatbush.

The first beer from Left Field is called “Eephus.” It is an Oatmeal Brown Ale.

This is a nice conceptual effort. I can count on one finger the number of Oatmeal Brown Ales I have ever tried. An Eephus pitch is something you throw when you’re looking to catch the batter off guard. R.A. Dickey, who the Blue Jays have just signed doesn’t quite throw an Eephus, but the principle is the same. He has a painfully slow curveball that drops a foot when you swing at it.  Dave Steib threw Eephus pitches periodically. It’s sort of an attention getter. It messes with the batter’s brain. What’s the guy going to throw next?

This is a good explanation for launching with an Oatmeal Brown Ale in Ontario at the moment. If you consider IPAs a 98 mile an hour fastball, this really is an Eephus. It’s not something that you’re expecting.

To give you some idea, I’m aware of two Oatmeal Brown Ales. One is Cigar City’s Maduro, which I have tried. The other is The Beer Academy’s Oatmeal Brown Ale, which I have not. There are probably more of them, but the fact that I’ve only ever heard of two and have a greater breadth of context than most people makes it about as rare as anything I can think of.

Brown Ale is not something you see a lot at the moment. It’s an underappreciated style. Oatmeal Brown Ale is slightly different because it has a little more body because of the oats in the grist. It’s given a thicker, more substantial mouthfeel. Eephus doesn’t quite get slick in the way an Oatmeal Stout does. I would guess that there are fewer residual sugars to aid that property.

The label boasts that “This American Brown Ale finds its sweet spot with dark, dried fruit aromas, a touch of bitterness and spicy woodiness, and a surprisingly creamy smooth taste.” I’m happy to say that it does exactly what it says on the tin. I’d compare it favourably to Cigar City Maduro, although it’s worth pointing out that it’s slightly hoppier and has a little less sweetness to it.

I also like the label, which is understated and tells you everything that you might want to know about the beer. ABV. IBU. SRM.

I know it's not a very good picture, but you try taking a picture while holding up a bottle with a broken arm. It's fine, thanks. Range of motion is improving, but I'm on the six week DL.

I know it’s not a very good picture, but you try taking a picture while holding up a bottle with a broken arm. It’s fine, thanks. Range of motion is improving, but I’m on the six week DL.

I knew Mark was a good brewer, but I’m pleasantly surprised by the complexity here.

I asked him whether he was worried that the fate of his branding might depend on how well the Jays do in 2013, which is touted by many as the year they might actually do something. Say Encarnacion blows an ACL or something and they slide to third in the AL East by the All-Star Break? Mark was unworried. This was before I tried the beer. I can see why he was unworried.

I asked him whether he had the ability to produce enough beer to keep up with demand if the Jays go on a tear and end up in October. Say Colby Rasmus suddenly has a 40 game mullet powered hit streak. What then? People will order the beer with the baseball themed tap handle. Mark is unworried.

He’s an unflappable baseball-cappable man. It’s one of the reasons I like the guy so much. Stoicism is important in baseball and in brewing.

I have run out of nice things to say about this beer, so here is a list of 10 bad and relatively hackneyed Baseball Themed names he should consider to expand his lineup.

10. Lloyd Goseby

9. Roberto Ale-omar

8. The Ol’ Dipsy Doodle (Barley Wine)

7. Kenesaw Mountain Lambic

6. Citra Gaston IPA

5. Dopplebalk

4. Wit By Pitch

3. Lawrie (Clearly, a Brett beer)

2. Rally Cap (Actually a good name, which would be an excellent playoff beer)

1. Doug Ault-bier.

Posted in: Reviews, Shameless Plugs, Uncategorized ⋅ Tagged: , , ,

So You Want To Be A Brewer: Beau’s/St.John’s Wort Karma Sumac

August 28, 2012 11:34 am ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

Toronto Beer Week is fast approaching, and one of the marquee events, if the lineups from last year are to be believed, is the Barrel Bragging Rights afternoon at The Monk’s Table. The fact that it’s as popular as it is has to do with publican Adam Grant’s special genius for promotion. If you manage to include all of the beer writers in Toronto in an event, you can bet that the hype surrounding it is going to be somewhere near all consuming.

The event is Mike Warner’s brainchild, and focuses around getting all of the interested beer writers in Toronto to team up with a brewery in order to make a beer. The winner last year was determined by public voting. This year, there will be a panel of judges involved to make the voting a little more even handed.

Originally, I was of the opinion that, having been to brewing school, I should come up with a recipe and brew it myself, without the assistance of a brewer. The truth of the matter is that I don’t have a brewery, and I’m pretty sure that attempting to serve homebrew at a pub is at least moderately illegal. That would have been bad.

Also, the fun of the thing is getting to hang out with brewers and learn from them. I wanted an excuse to work with a specific stunt brewer that I hadn’t worked with since my first public brew nearly two years ago.

Some say that he ate John Bonham’s heart in order to gain his facility with a snare drum. Some say that he can control the direction of the whirlpool with his mind. All I know is that he’s called The Bartle.

The Bartle, in a rare moment of contemplation.

The difficulty here is that The Bartle is currently a graduate of Niagara College and works at Beau’s. Beau’s is in Vankleek Hill, which is just outside the range of my decrepit Schwinn fixie. Also, there was the problem that the Barrel Bragging Rights uses barrels that are about 38 litres in size. Beau’s doesn’t really have a pilot system. We discussed the brew at the National Capital Craft Beer Week festival last weekend and decided that we would simply do a double brew on a homebrew sized system at the Beau’s brewery.

It was going to be straightforward. It was going to produce the exact amount of beer needed for the event and no more than that. It was going to contain pilsner malt, wheat and Staghorn Sumac. I don’t know if the world is ready for Staghorn Sumac beer, but I see all the Quebec brewers making White Spruce Beers with yeast from the vaults of Jean Talon and I’m darned if I’m going to let them have all the fun with indigenous scurvy fighting ingredients. My entry for this event last year had sumac as well. It was called Manitou and it was brewed with the inestimably talented Paul Dickey. I like Paul so much, I’m throwing in a cheap plug for Cheshire Valley in a post about another brewery.

Spent grain and sumac.

The Bartle is more frenetic than Paul Dickey. The Bartle makes Animal from The Electric Mayhem look like Gary Oldman as George Smiley.

Beau’s seems to have their planning meetings on Fridays. I was getting ready to go down to Vankleek Hill when I received the news that we were not going to be brewing on a homebrew scale after all. Instead, it was going to be 15BBL of beer. Beau’s has undergone some changes recently. They have a new wing with several 240BBL fermenters. There’s a new 60BBL brewhouse that has been installed very recently and which is apparently just getting under way. By the time I arrived, they had done two brews on it. This means that the 15BBL system is more or less their “pilot system” at this point.

The new 240BBL fermenters, which live in their own wing of the building.

15 Barrels is something like 17.5 hectoliters. That’s about 30 58.6 litre kegs of beer (minus QC sampling and general spillage). So far, at this point in the ol’ collaboration regime (which has worked out pretty darned well) I think the total volume that I have brewed is something like 4 hectoliters. If you include the batches I was brewing in a student group at Niagara College, we’re looking at maybe 6 hectoliters. Staghorn Sumac is an ingredient for which there’s no real literature to draw upon, so it’s hard to say how it will work. Also, Beau’s, in their six years of operation, has never lost a batch.

What’s the old punchline? “Bring me my brown trousers?”

Rakau hops going in at the start of the boil.

I was worried until I got to the brewery, at which point it became obvious that everybody was really excited about using Staghorn Sumac as ingredient. Some serious contemplation had gone into what could be done with it to make it really work. It ended up being a more complex beer than I had originally envisioned. There was going to be Belgian yeast. We were going to use Agave Nectar in place of Cane Sugar. New Zealand Rakau hops throughout, with some low alpha Belgian Cascade hops for aroma, eventually reaching around 30 IBU. It’s going to be higher in alcohol than we thought. It’s going to be dry and lemony, because of the puckering sumac tartness. The sample we took from the line for a gravity reading sort of looked like a Hefeweizen with a pinkish tinge around the edges.

As I was raking out the mash tun, I realized that I have no idea what style the beer is actually going to be. Moreover, I don’t care. You can’t go into this kind of experiment paying attention to BJCP categories. Well, you could, but that’s not very much fun. I guess I’d probably lump it in under Belgian Strong Ale if I had to choose a category. The Bartle thinks it’s a Belgian Golden Ale. He might well be right. It will, at the very least, be interesting.

It puts the trub in the bucket!

We played with some creative names, but in the end, we decided on Karma Sumac. It will be available at The Monk’s Table during the Barrel Bragging Rights competition. It will also be available during Toronto Beer Week at any bar crazy enough to take a chance on a Sumac beer. Thanks to the great people at Beau’s for getting excited about what is a potentially insane thing to attempt.

Posted in: The Ontario Beer Revolution, Toronto Beer Week, Uncategorized ⋅ Tagged: , , ,

Molson’s New Packaging Line

June 28, 2012 6:44 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

I have a mildly complicated relationship with Molson.

This is probably because reality isn’t white hats and black hats. Craft beer isn’t Alan Ladd and Macro isn’t Jack Palance. Molson has a lot of strong points. They employ a number of immensely talented people, some of whom I like personally. My co-author Mark Murphy works out there, and he’s a heck of a guy. Also, most of the PR team people seem like nice folks who understandably remain vigilant about what they say around me.

They make beer extremely consistently in huge volumes, which is not an easy thing to do. Some of those beers are not to my taste, but you’ve got to respect that effort. I will admit that there’s nothing wrong with an ice cold can of Coors Light on a really hot day. You could do better, but you could also do worse. It was good enough for Burt Reynolds.

It’s also worth mentioning that I like their long term strategy with Six Pints. I believe the thinking is that promoting all beer is better than warring within the industry over a couple of points of market share. Plus, their management strategy seems to be that they should take the talented microbreweries they buy and throw resources at them to make their lives easier and their products better.

There are a lot of problems with Molson as well. They are owned by Americans, which I wouldn’t mind so much if the transitive property didn’t dictate that The Beer Store is currently experiencing 0% Canadian ownership. That’s not any one person’s fault, so it’s hard to get angry. It is problematic, though. You have to assume that they know there’s a coming push to review that situation and you have to assume they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep the 48% or so they own. They’re sort of obligated to. Doing anything else would be silly.

I think one of the reasons I have a decent working relationship with Molson is that I’m honest about the fact that they’re pretty largely a bunch of decent folks operating under a corporate mandate, and not some kind of dragon to be slain. Because of this, sometimes I get invited out to the Downsview plant to cover events and have a look at their new toys. The first time I went out there was to get a sense of the place. Craft brewing is all well and good, but a 10HL brewhouse is a human scale. To get a sense of what Molson does daily, you really need to stand next to a row of fermenters you could hunt for Red October in.That was not a press event. That was a personalized tour, which doesn’t seem to happen very much.

This was a press event. There were cameras and dignitaries and high ranking officials within the company. It was all to show off Project Acrobat. Project Acrobat is a 13.5 million dollar project that involves transforming an area of the Downsview Molson plant into the home for a new Krones flexible packaging line.

The new Widemouth bottle is a screwtop kind of thing.

I think that for most of the journalists and dignitaries in attendance, the story was about the economic development. Molson employs 1400 people in Ontario alone, which is pretty neat. The Downsview plant produces 45% of their national volume. 13.5 million dollars is a lot of money. All of this is good news for the economy in a vague, “look, people are still investing locally” kind of way that is reassuring even though it’s not specifically obvious what it will do in the long term. In order for it to seem important, you need the specifics.

It’s a 473 ml package, essentially meaning it is the same size as a traditional can, but with a gimmick.

Here they are:

The flexible packaging line is a beast. It’s all sleek stainless steel and precision calibrated automation. The installation took approximately 2.5 months beginning in February and included fixing up the environment the line would go in with new floors and stripped, cleaned and repainted ceilings. It can package in a number of different formats, including bottles, cans and the new widemouth aluminum bottles, which were on display at the event.

The automated 120-head filler can manage 300 units a minute. It is currently being operated on a single shift when needed, which can process 100,000 HL a year. According to Martin Gonzalez, who is currently in charge out at Downsview, if it went to three shifts, it could go as high as 350,000 HL annually.

When I saw the counter on the can QC, it had processed something like 160,700 units of which 54 were duds. That’s a success rate of something like 99.9997%. Jeff Nancekivell, who was giving me the detailed tour was quick to point out that that was “40 too many.”

That’s practically a Charles Bronson line. Jeff is awesome.

The press release and the dignitaries talk about innovation. That’s not entirely what this is about. This is about flexibility to respond to the market. If you have brands like Molson Canadian and Coors Light, which are key to your success, you can’t change them. The best you can do is figure out which way the public best enjoys them. Are bottle sales up over the last three months? This machine lets you produce more bottles. Are people buying the 355ml cans? Well, normally, with your canning line going at full tilt, you’d be hard pressed to keep them on the shelves. Not so in this case. Just use the flex line for more cans. It even introduces a third packaging option: the widemouth aluminum bottle. Maybe it will go over big with the public, maybe it won’t. The point is that the flex line ensures that even if it falls flat on its face, the production capacity won’t be wasted.

Because they’re the same size as a can, they palletize easily.

This is about Molson becoming lighter and quicker. They’ll be able to respond quickly and quietly to what people want based on sales data. In an era with giant monolithic brands, this is what catering to public taste looks like. It’s a clever way of maximizing the efficacy of your production capacity, leading presumably to less loss of volume through old product on shelves. It will save money and provide flexibility to move against AB InBev, who are their real competition. That’s why it’s important.

If the mayor drops by, people come to see the speech, even if they’re up in the rigging, so to speak.

On the widemouth bottles, I have an observation, and it is not really about the beer. I had Molson Canadian out of the widemouth bottles, and my feeling is this: You can actually drink out of them, which is what they’re designed for. You don’t get the metallic can taste you might from the lid of a can. The odd thing is that I, at least, felt compelled to screw the top back on to the bottle after each sip. I did it without thinking. I guess it might be a holdover from when you’re drinking a bottle of water. It’s a pretty odd sensation that I neither like nor dislike, but mention by way of pointing out that I think it means the packaging will sell.

People are used to the sensation of a 500ml screw top.

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The Brewer’s Plate 2012: A Shameless Plug

April 12, 2012 12:42 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

While I have a moment here this afternoon prior to attending a launch for Alexander Keith’s original cider, I’d like to bring something to your attention. We have a relatively unique beer event coming up on the Toronto calendar, and it’s one that you’re definitely going to want to attend. The Brewer’s Plate is coming up on Wednesday the 18th of April, and it’s just a corker of an event. I attended last year, and it was one of the highlights of 2011 for me.

This year should be a particularly interesting edition of The Brewer’s Plate because the venue has been moved from  the Wychwood Artscape Barns to Roy Thomson Hall. The venue is larger and has a few more amenities, and as such should result in a less crowded event that is more thoroughly enjoyable.

General admission is $125.00, but if you feel like blowing the bank on it, you can upgrade that ticket with an optional master class in beer tasting. The tasting is in September 2012 and costs $100.00 by itself, but you get $25.00 off if you buy now. Clearly, that’s the kind of thing that you’ll want to do if you have that kind of money lying around and love beer.

You may think that’s expensive, but a lot of the proceeds go to Green Thumbs Growing Kids. This is a program that teaches kids all about sustainable gardening. Initially, the name confused me and I was worried about pod people, but I have been assured that this is in fact about local seasonal food.

Jamie Kennedy has been named as Patron of the event this year. According to my post from last year, he had the best individual dish, but did not pair most successfully. There are about twenty brewers taking part. There are a number of talented chefs including Brad Long, Lora Kirk, and Mark Cutrara who squared off last year. There’s new blood as well. There are about six chefs that weren’t there last year.

This year I’m looking forward to watching two veritable titans of the beer industry square off as Stephen Beaumont attempts to get Alan McLeod to admit that he likes a beer pairing. I plan on observing them and amusing myself by providing a running commentary in a hushed, breathless imitation of David Attenborough.

Go! Buy a ticket! Do it! Do it now! You know you want to! Go to their website and hope they’re not already sold out! Woe betide you if they are! They’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!

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The Death March of the Poinsettia

December 23, 2011 4:38 pm ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅

For the last few years, the company that owns the building I live in has decided to have activities to celebrate their tenants. This works out pretty well. Once a year in the summer, a truck with some pretty impressive built in grills shows up and everyone gets to have burgers. It’s nice. I still don’t know anyone in the building, so there’s a lot of polite smiling and nodding. No one pretends to know anyone’s name and we all get along fine on the basis that there is nothing involved in the situation other than happily eating a meal we didn’t cook ourselves.

It’s the building management company that’s responsible for my sole annual Christmas tradition:  The Death March of the Poinsettia.

Because Christmases are a year apart, I always forget that at some point in early December one of the building’s superintendents is going to be tasked with going door to door with a cart and dropping off what is essentially a festive Mexican shrub. In years past, they would post a notice saying that you could have one if you wanted one. Recently the Poinsettia has become more or less mandatory, like a dysfunctional office holiday get-together.

Phase one is upbeat. It’s nice to come home to any kind of present. Usually, if there’s something sitting outside my door, it’s a beer delivery, but a cheerful red plant is nice too. It’s joyous and it’s attractive and it’s pleasantly wrapped in festive ephemera. It’s kind of fun, and a reminder that the Christmas season is coming down the pipe. There will be candy canes and dinner with family and evenings with friends. Everything will be pleasant, except for the fruitcake, which will be consumed out of a grim sense of obligation.

Phase one, if you’re a bachelor type person who is in the middle of commuting four hours a day to brewing school at an improbable distance, ends with setting the Poinsettia down on the kitchen counter and then proceeding to ignore it intensely for the immediate future. The form that this ignoring might take differs greatly from year to year, depending upon your obligations and interests. Maybe you’ll be playing a video game instead of enjoying the Poinsettia; maybe you’ll be learning how to use a financial calculator. All that matters is that the Poinsettia will sit untended for a good solid week. Extra points are awarded for completely failing to take it out of the protective sleeve that it came in.

Phase two might come at any point after the first week or so. Maybe you have a moment free and begin to think to yourself, “Now, I know there was something I was supposed to do.”  Typically, this happens early in the morning because the Poinsettia occupies a space next to the coffee maker. Sufficiently caffeinated to face the responsibility of owning a plant, you are finally ready to come to grips with the Poinsettia.

Because you’re caffeinated, rather than just watering the plant and putting it next to the window so it can get some sunlight, you become an expert on Poinsettias by dialing up Wikipedia. You learn that it has a latin name(Euphorbia Pulcherrima), and the reason that it’s associated with Christmas (apparently, it bloomed as a Christmas miracle for an impoverished Mexican girl), and that it was named after the first U.S. Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. You also learn about the care and handling of the Poinsettia. That watering it too much will lead it to wilt; that not watering it enough will lead it to wilt; that putting it in anything other than direct sunlight will lead it to wilt. You become concerned about the fact that putting it next to the window means that it will be directly above the radiator and that it will be too hot.

Finally, having carefully removed the protective sleeve and having watered the plant, you elect to place it next to the window on top of the bookshelf, where, by your estimation, it will get the light it needs, but not be too hot. Unfortunately, this is out of your eyeline on a day to day basis, and you will therefore immediately go back to ignoring the Poinsettia.

Somewhere in the week before Christmas, I hit phase three. Phase three is a good reminder of why it would be a very bad idea for me to own a pet. I get emotional about the Poinsettia, you see. I look up from playing, oh I don’t know… Skyrim, and see that the petals and bracts on the Poinsettia are starting to get tired. Maybe a leaf has wilted so completely as to fall off and the white sap that courses through the plant has dribbled out. It’s a sad looking plant at this point, not unlike that last ratty Christmas tree left on the lot at the end of the day.

I take pity on it and water it far too heavily, thinking to myself, “Well, this is no way to treat a living thing,” and I chastise myself for not taking better care of it. There’s some guilt, but also a certain amount of anger about the fact that I never asked for the Poinsettia. It just showed up outside the door one day. The death of this plant is not on me. It is not my fault that some well meaning person has completely misread my ability to care for an exceptionally hardy shrub.

And eventually, I think back to childhood. I think back to sitting on the sill of the picture window in the library at our house, next to the Poinsettia which would inevitably arrive before the Christmas tree did as a result of whichever worthy charitable appeal was hawking them that year. I remember the sense of satisfaction of knowing that some things would always be a constant. Christmas would always be magical. The presents would always be what you wanted. The turkey might be dry, but no one would care. Someone else would take care of the Poinsettia and water the Christmas tree.

Unfortunately, by this point in phase three, a level of existential doubt has crept into the proceedings. You wonder what your worth can possibly be if you can’t even water a plant. You also wonder whether man is doomed eternally to participate in endeavors that he does not choose.

Phase four is solemn. It involves the disposal of the now dead Poinsettia into the dumpster out back of the building. This calls for a gentle touch, but the walls of the dumpster are too high to deposit it lightly within. While hurling it over the side of the bin, it’s hard not to note that everyone else’s Poinsettia has survived. Depression sets in briefly, until you realize that you’re free.

You have escaped the trappings of Christmas that have been foisted on you by an extremely caring and generous corporate entity. You’ve managed to avoid a tradition that you don’t really understand. You promise yourself that in future, you’re only going to participate in the traditions that you want to participate in at Christmas: Only the things that make people happy. That’s what’s important. Good food, good conversation, time spent with loved ones. You’ll feel good about yourself, and you’ll buy people just the right presents and everything will be beautiful.

It’s a promise you make to yourself that will last until next December, when all of the above events will recur.

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The Brewer’s Plate 2011 edition: Top Chef St.John’s Wort

April 6, 2011 10:58 pm ⋅ 5 Comments ⋅

Oh yeah. I guess it was a TTC barn.

This was my first year at the Brewer’s Plate dinner. I have to say that my experience of events like this is coloured somewhat by the fact that I watch a lot of Top Chef. Regular, Masters, All-Stars, I’ll probably even watch the Canadian one when it starts up on April 16th. I know some chefs, but it’s not like I’m talking shop with a lot of them. Mostly, I read. Bittman, Bourdain, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I own Nigella Lawson cookbooks, and I’m not ashamed of it. While the camera on her show may be in soft focus, her prose is sharp and entertaining. I once checked Fergus Henderson’s book out of the TPL. He writes like a particularly sinister Neil Gaiman character.

I like this stuff. I just don’t have the budget for it, what with being a quasi-legitimate journalist.

This year the Brewer’s Plate was at the Wychwood Artscape Barns, which aside from doing a pretty good Pink Floyd album cover imitation, is also a farmer’s market during the summer. I knew it was going to be a good night. If you’re being consoled about breaking a glass by a man on stilts who is dressed in a tuxedo before you even have a drink in your hand, you’re probably in good shape.

Could someone please photoshop a flying pig into the background?

First off, there’s no way to talk about an event like this one comprehensively. For instance, most of the breweries had more than one beer on offer, so there’s no point in trying to do a recap. My colleagues mock me gently periodically about the length of my blog posts, and if I tried to talk about the beers on offer, this would be somewhere in the vicinity of a Coelho novel (Veronika decides to drink?).

For this reason, this post is hereafter: TOP CHEF ST.JOHN’S WORT!

For a lot of people, the highlight of the evening was Chef Tawfik Shehata’s battered fish taco. It was served with a smoked tomato salsa and what was apparently a candycane beet slaw. Personally, I felt that the batter, which involved Steamwhistle, could have been a little crunchier as a textural element. I understand why people liked it. It stood out as one of the only light dishes in the building. It worked well with the beer pairing, mostly due to the fact that there was a little acidity to the tomato which contrasted the slight sweetness and crisp finish of a Pilsner.

Fish Taco!

Another reason that this dish worked particularly well was that it was served on a corn husk. I’m not sure whether you’ve ever attempted to navigate a room of 400 slightly inebriated jostling people with a full sized plate and cutlery, but it’s an unenviable and awkward task.

The majority of the dishes were late winter fare. One of the problems in using local seasonal ingredients in early April is that you end up seeing a lot of radish and watercress as garnish. It is what it is.

Perhaps the hardest dish to actually consume was Chef Brad Long’s stew. I believe I heard that the protein was Muskox. While it was served on a full size dinner plate, and I had to get my blogger friend Matt Caldwell to hold my beer, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Mildly gamey, and the root vegetables held their texture very well. It was also fairly heavily seasoned, which helped it stand up to the Beau’s cask Beaver River IPeh. As you can see, I neglected to take a picture until after starting in on it.

The stew of a neglectful photographer

I did not try Brook Cavanagh’s buffalo ricotta stuffed morel, although, I think it was probably the most intricately plated dish at the event. It seemed to have a large number of elements in play. Shaved radish, shallot confit and preserved Brussel sprouts all seem like they may have been extraneous to the core of the dish. It was paired with Wellington’s Russian Imperial Stout. Points to La Palette for attempted complexity.

A whole lotta garnish.

I think the dish that worked best with the beer pairing was Lora Kirk’s Black Oak Nut Brown Ale braised pork belly. The confession I have to make here is that I had never actually tried pork belly before despite cheering on Kevin “Pork Jesus” Gillespie for much of Top Chef season six. I think the sweetness of the brown ale worked nicely with the unctuous fattiness of the pork belly, and it complimented nicely the crispin apple slaw which she had somehow imparted with a smokiness that I didn’t expect. I went back for seconds on this one and that’s probably the reason that I’m going to slip into a coma as soon as I upload this post. Also, the cheddar biscuit was a nice touch. You can rarely go wrong with a cheddar biscuit.

Lora Kirk's Braised Pork Belly

The only dish that I didn’t think worked was Michael Steh’s cheddar and broccoli soup. It was a composed dish with a sort of barbecued or pulled pork on the bottom and pork crackling used as a garnish. I think that the intention was for the fattiness of the pork to work with the slight saltiness of the cream soup. I didn’t care for it, but I’m not a soup guy. Also, I’m not a food writer, so y’know, caveat emptor.

Michael Steh's Cheddar and Broccoli Soup

The more I think about it, the best dish of the evening was Jamie Kennedy’s. I don’t know from Jamie Kennedy. If you asked me opinion of Jamie Kennedy, I would say he was quite tall. But on this occasion, I think he probably created the best standalone dish. It was a Tortiere Strudel. I know. More pork. In this case, it was served on a base of thinly shaved pickled celeriac, carrot and ginger with a sort of mustard relish. Taken by itself, the tortiere was fine; it had all the spicing you’d expect from a standard French Canadian tortiere. As a composed mouthful, as a single bite, the other elements brought some brightness and acidity that elevated the dish.

Also, there was chocolate. And tiny cupcakes. And maple sugar. Did I mention the inevitable food coma? I think I did.

Chocolate! I didn't have any, but the layout is tasty.

I cut out of Brewer’s Plate early in order to go get an espresso. As soon as I saw someone in a papier mache replica of the Fox mask from the cover of Genesis’ seminal album Foxtrot, I knew it was time to call it a night. Surrealistic whimsy is a great thing, but not when you’re blissed out on pork belly.

Here’s the verdict.

Jamie Kennedy: Best Standalone Dish.

Lora Kirk: Best Pairing.

You: Buying a ticket next year.

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All The Beer In The World

March 19, 2011 5:42 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

Dateline – Weehauken, New Jersey

According to his blog, All The Beer In The World, Steve Hackenbush of Weehauken, NJ has today completed his quest to sample and rate all of the beers produced by mankind.

This seemingly impossible achievement marks the end of a thirteen year project for Hackenbush, aged 37.

“Well, one day back in ’98, my boy Lumpy Mike said I should get a beer while we were out at T.G.I.Friday’s. I didn’t want a beer, you know? Mudslides were more my thing. But when I got back from the bathroom, there it was,”said Hackenbush when reached for comment.

“I guess he didn’t know what he was getting in to.”

Currently, Hackenbush has amassed over 165,000 ratings on Judgebeers.com, a prominent site frequented by beer enthusiasts. According to the website, he has given all of the beers ever brewed an underwhelming average rating of 4.73/10.

“Well, you know. Some of those mass produced beers from China just suck. I mean, have you ever tried that fermented Yak’s milk  beverage from Tibet? I have. Not pleasant.”

Upon the revelation of the completion of all of the beers available on the planet, Steve’s controversial blog post “I Win At Beer” was revealed to be little more than a tirade aimed at “Lumpy” Mike Colaggio, including phrases like “Well now who’s a pussy, Lumpy Mike? That’s right! I drank the beer. I drank ALL the beer.”

Judgebeers.com forum member P1NT_D4DDY69 immediately questioned the legitimacy of Hackenbush’s accomplishment: “That’s not even possible. He must have had 40 beers a day! And how did he get them all? I can’t even track down a 2003 vintage Thomas Hardy. It completely violates the laws of physics and causality. He even has a rating for one released exclusively on tap in Oregon yesterday! I’m calling bullshit.”

“Some of those beers are pretty high in alcohol. By all rights he should be dead,” opined visibly repulsed nutritionist Debbie Wilcox. “A Healthy diet is all about moderation, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Sure, some of those beers are served with orange wedges, but that hardly counts as a serving of fruit.”

“Haters gonna hate,” stated Hackenbush from his parents’ basement in Weehauken. “At least I finally showed that jerk who the real man is.”

Michael Colaggio, a successful office manager and father of two now residing in Salinas, California was shocked to discover that this grudge still existed after thirteen years. “I had forgotten all about that. I left him a voicemail the day after it happened to apologize. I had had a few too many drinks and I was trying to impress the waitress by getting Steve to drink a beer. Man, that guy hated the stuff.”

“I said I was sorry. At least I got her number.”

Judgebeers.com’s owner, Jay Stafford, has hired accounting firm Deloitte and Touche to conduct an audit of the 165,000 plus ratings, citing the fact that the work of verifying their authenticity was far too tedious for one man. At the time of writing, the outlook is promising, despite some repetitive language in the reviews. The adjective “hoppy” has been used 77,483 times with “fruity nose” running a close second at 42,896. Third place is occupied by the phrase “maybe this’ll show that douchebag.”

When asked what was next for him, Hackenbush replied “I should probably get into the office and start working on that Y2K thing.”

“Maybe I’ll take a nap first,” he added.

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Whiny, Petulant Man-Children

March 4, 2011 5:42 pm ⋅ 4 Comments ⋅

An article in the Globe and Mail was recently brought to my attention, titled “If you really loved Ontario families, Mr. McGuinty, you’d kill the LCBO.”

It’s essentially an example of how not to be taken seriously and a petulant tantrum on the part of the columnist.

He starts out with concrete assertions of Dalton McGuinty’s lack of manliness, asking whether he had purchased a set of testicles. This is, of course, the best way of getting people to take you seriously. If only someone had asked William Lyon MacKenzie King whether he was on crack, I’m sure that the political discourse of the day would have advanced significantly and that he would have stopped holding seances. Start with a personal attack. Yeah, that’ll definitely ensure that you’re not simply dismissed as a whiny crackpot.

The most embarrassing part of this article is the almost complete lack of self awareness involved. Mark Schatzker (see smug file photo) is framing his desire to be able to purchase alcohol in a corner store in an argument which largely seems to blame his children for making him drink.

And I quote:

“For example: When an Ontario toddler melts down at dinner because his parents insist he at least try the homemade meatballs that his Ontario father slaved over, it would be nice if it were possible to procure some beer (which, studies show, can prevent heart disease when consumed in moderation) within, say, a streetcar stop of said meltdown.”

Which translates roughly to: “Waaaah. My kids don’t like my cooking. I need a drink, but I don’t have any beer on hand and the liquor store is too far away.” This behaviour seemingly justified by the idea that he’s somehow combating a mild setback in his personal life with drinking on the basis that it may have some long term health benefit.

And:

“Similarly, when a four-year-old informs her Ontario family there’s going to be a clown performing at the birthday party they’re on their way to, and it suddenly dawns on her Ontario parents that maybe they should have brought a bottle of wine, it would be nice if it were possible to stop on the way to get such a bottle of wine without making a 15-minute detour.”

Which translates roughly to: “My kids are going to a birthday party. I can’t deal with clowns without being slightly inebriated. Oh God, why is there no wine? This is going to be the worst hour and a half of my life!”

He seems to have had a traumatic experience with someone in a red shock wig and rubber nose as a child and feels the need to self medicate or he seems to consider bringing wine to a party solely for his own benefit.

The real problem with the article is that he has managed to frame a reasonably sane request (Allow sales of beer and wine outside of officially approved LCBO outlets) in the most childish, selfish, petulant manner possible. Completely ignoring the idea that there might be long term consequences to getting rid of a very profitable government venture (the proceeds from which almost certainly benefit actual families in a real and measurable way) he seems to feel that provincial law should be changed due to his slight inconvenience

In the words of Charlie Sheen: Plan Better.

It’s not as though he hasn’t lived his entire life under these rules. Buy some stuff in advance, you whiny schmuck!

The most glaring part is the infantile attitude of the article, and the way in which he is mirroring the behaviour of the child who refuses to eat meatballs. That child will almost certainly be given something else to eat. Mark Schatzker has declared that he is not about to eat the LCBO’s meatballs and is now waiting for Dalton McGuinty, who he refers to as “Premier Dad” in a manner that suggests some worrying freudian issues, to make him something else.

Public discourse does not work for the benefit of any one person, no matter how badly they may want a drink after putting training wheels on a bicycle. Schatzker has declined to point out how something like this would come about and has declined to think about the long term consequences of that action. He just wants a cookie. And he wants it now. He feels he deserves that cookie because he had a bad day at school.

If I were the Globe, I would have been bloody embarrassed to print that.

 

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A Brief Interlude from Writing About Beer

February 23, 2011 12:50 am ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

Ed. Note: Sometimes, just sometimes, you realize that there are topics other than beer available to you to write about. Periodically, they may show up here. We will almost certainly return you to your  regularly scheduled beer blogging in the next couple of days.

From my balcony. Yesterday. Lunchtime.

A couple of years ago, one afternoon when I was sitting on a downtown patio enjoying a pint and waiting for a friend to show up, I looked up into the sky and saw a very large bird. It seemed odd at the time, mostly because I’m used to seeing starlings and pigeons at Yonge and Bloor. I still sometimes tell the story of a man whose lunchtime activity was apparently to feed pigeons with breadcrumbs and then have at them with a nine-iron when they got close enough. For an animal murdering psychopath, he had a nice backswing.

This bird, on the other hand, was very much larger than a pigeon and it described a lazy gyre over midtown. It barely flapped its wings and seemed to hover in the sky. At the time, it was all I could do not to hop over the patio railing in order to get a better look, since it kept disappearing behind the edge of the building. I didn’t, for the reason that I was the only one looking up and everyone else on the patio would have thought I was unbalanced; that, and the fact that I didn’t want to give up the table.

The bird was a Peregrine Falcon.

There are a number of them in Toronto at this point, which frequently amazes me. Aside from Douglas Adams’ Last Chance To See, I haven’t really paid a great deal of attention to conservation efforts. I’m relatively sure that as a child some aged relative may have sponsored a zoo animal or a parcel of Amazon rainforest in my name as an alternative to giving me more lego for Christmas. It never really caught my imagination. Even a couple of years ago when a girlfriend lent me a copy of Carl Hiassen’s Hoot, a children’s novel about burrowing owls being ousted from their natural habitat by a crooked real estate developer, it never really dawned on me why people got worked up about conservation.

That was before these birds made the apartment towers at Yonge and Davisville part of their hunting territory. If you can look out the window and see bloody great birds of prey going about their business, it’s the kind of thing that’s at the very least worth a google.

Peregrine Falcons were endangered until 1999. The amount of DDT in the environment had a Silent Spring sort of effect on them. They were at the top of the food chain and everything below them in the chain was full of detrimental man-made chemicals. Organochlorines would build up in their body fat and their eggs would become brittle because of the lack of calcium in the eggshell that that caused.

Despite all that, here they are, adapting to the landscape. I don’t know where they nest, exactly, but I see them perch on the roof of the building across the way.

It makes sense that they should hunt in the area. There’s a steady supply of nearly inert feral pigeons. The primary indicator that the falcons are out and hunting is when the pigeons begin to panic in mid-air and run into each other. No matter what you may read about biological swarming, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t seem to happen outside my window. The pigeons just bolt in whatever direction is available. You would too, if you were a pigeon.

The average pigeon weighs a little over a half pound and has a wingspan of just over two feet. The Peregrine Falcon, on the other hand, might weigh three times that much and have a wingspan of over a meter. It’s a raptor and has evolved to the point where its entire job is to kill and eat small birds. If you’re an urban pigeon, your primary defense mechanism is pooping on statues and walking along the sidewalk bobbing your head. You don’t stand a chance.

The Peregrine Falcon has been recorded at just under 252 miles per hour in a high altitude dive. That’s nearly 400 kilometers an hour, making it the fastest animal on the planet. And it is aiming for your wing, since its hunting strategy is to cripple you as quickly as possible without any collateral damage and then feast on your entrails. This drama plays out daily, as evidenced by the bloodstained pigeon tracks on my windowsill.

It’s no wonder the flocks of pigeons start to behave like Abbot and Costello confronted by the mummy.

I would be terrified out of my tiny little lizard brain too. It’s worth noting that they have the same effect on people. I saw a woman drop her bags outside the Sobey’s the other day when one of the Falcons cried. It’s a legitimately terrifying sound even if you’re not in any real danger.

I don’t know why other people are interested in conservation. Some are probably interested because the animals are cute. In the case of something like the Western Lowland Gorilla, there’s the potential for psychological and behavioural research and the fact that they’re one of the species that most similar to us and therefore there’s a sense of obligation from a neighbourly perspective. For the most part, I suspect it’s because biodiversity makes things more interesting and that homogeneity is dull.

All I know is that the efforts of past conservationists mean that I get to see a life and death drama play out on a daily basis from my balcony. I get to enjoy whatever cunning the pigeons are able to muster when the falcon stoops. I get to stand gazing in awe at the majesty of this incredible predatory bird that is causing people to hide their very small dogs. I get to see the double takes people do when they realize that the silhouette they’re seeing in the sky isn’t a very large crow. It’s the kind of thing you look forward to on a day to day basis, and it has me seriously considering donating to further conservation efforts.

Next time you’re out walking in the downtown core, keep an eye out for them. You’re almost certainly not hitting your majesty quota.

 

 

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