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Last time we talked about German Beer and Food (scroll down a couple of posts) we had established some pretty basic truths about the situation in Germany prior to the advent of Oktoberfest. We talked about how the flavours in German landrace hops more or less matched the flavours in […]

On Malt Lightening and the Beer Style Continuum

November 24, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food tagged 19th century malt lightening / Anton Dreher / Beer and a Burger / Gabriel Sedlmayr / Oktoberfest Food by admin

This week in the column, I talked about the growing trend for breweries to produce advent calendars. It’s a fun idea and one that I can get behind. With the short days and cold weather, you want to treat yourself nicely and a single high quality beer a day is […]

Advent Calendars – But What If You’re In Ontario

November 22, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Christmas / DIY Advent Calendars / Fezziwig / LCBO / Ontario by admin

Cask Days is this weekend and for Toronto beer drinkers, that’s an event that is more or less Christmas. This year’s specialties are from California, with nearly 40 beers to choose from. There are also 22 beers from England. As if that were somehow not enough, there are 22 ciders […]

Two historical beers you should try at Cask Days

October 23, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Bar Volo tagged Cask Days / Dring and Fage / Fort Rouille / Helliwell Brewery / Spruce Beer / toronto by admin

Last week (just scroll down a little), we ended up by talking about Oktoberfest and how it’s a sort of benchmark for the modernization of the Bavarian agrarian system. The impressive thing about Oktoberfest is not that it has been going on for 204 years. The impressive thing is how […]

German Beer and Food Part 2: Terrines, Terpenes and Terroir

October 4, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food tagged Canstatter Volksfest / Germany / Herbs / hops / Humulene / Myrcene / Spices / Terroir by admin

(Ed note: This is longer than usual. There are no pictures. Next time there will be pictures. Promise!) When we talk about beer and food pairing, we try to come up with shorthand rules. I’ve heard Stephen Beaumont suggest you treat Lagers like White Wine and Ales like Red Wine. […]

German Beer and Food Part 1: Parliament Frikadeller

September 27, 2014 in Beer and Food / Ongoing Projects tagged Bavaria / Culinary Sociology / oktoberfest / The Peasants Are Revolting / You Said It: They Stink On Ice by admin

When I was working closely with Alan McLeod from A Good Beer Blog on writing Ontario Beer (See right! Buy one for a friend! Buy a dozen!) one of the things that we would disagree on periodically was beer and food pairing. Alan more or less believes that the entire […]

Beer and Food Pairing: A Fresh Start

September 21, 2014 in Uncategorized tagged Bar Isabel / Grant Van Gameren / Pilsner Urquell / Uncle Alan by admin

One of the things I don’t see people taking into account frequently when they talk about beer is time. I don’t mean that you should drink a hoppy beer when it is fresh (you absolutely should) or that a 2008 Thomas Hardy is probably still too young to drink (it […]

Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff

September 8, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Foothills / New Belgium / Permutative Factorial Functions / Time by admin

One of the things that I find frustrating in writing about beer is the insistence by people that brewing is not first and foremost a business. I have written two histories now and I can claim to understand from its outset the development of brewing in North America. At no […]

Stone’s Indiegogo Campaign is Cynical and Exploitative

July 24, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Indiegogo / Stone Brewing by admin

“Such is the uncertainty of Human Life we know not the moment we may be called off – the hand that guides this pen may ear another day be stiff and cold” – William Helliwell. April 7, 1837 These were the words of William Helliwell on finding that a maltster […]

The Ghost Tour

July 9, 2014 in Shameless Plugs / The Ontario Beer Revolution tagged Lost Breweries of Toronto / William Helliwell by admin

It must be fun to end the world. So many authors do it. There’s a giddy thrill that comes through in just about every book that does that and that’s likely the only commonality between them; the desire of the author to play with an entropic collapse. No one who […]

Beau’s MaddAddam Gruit

May 14, 2014 in Uncategorized tagged Beau's All Natural / Gruit / MaddAddam / Margaret Atwood / Pelee Island Bird Observatory / Session Craft Beer Festival by admin

St. John's Wort

Beery Musings And Amusing Beers