AFTER THE FIRE: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast (2013).

AFTER THE FIRE: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast (2013).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

As originally published at Louisville KYBeer.com in December, 2013, and while previously reprinted here at the blog, I've been daydreaming about Real Ale again. Will Brexit have an affect on traditional ale in the UK (or what comes of it)? I've no idea, but let's hope not.

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“The secret of a happy life is to know when to stop – and then go that bit further.”
–Inspector Morse, classic British television police crime solver

The very least I could do during two weeks spent in England’s lovely West Country was to ingest my gout medicine each and every morning without fail – preferably washed down with a pint of cask-conditioned Bitter from one of those pubs nearby already dispensing it, but in a pinch, grudgingly conceding the utility of mere water.

Yes, I know: Fish do IT in THAT. The solution? Eat more fish, especially with chips.

Somewhere a health fanatic reads and brays with dismay, but have no fear. It’s only despairing, defeatist clatter of the sort Winston Churchill wouldn’t have countenanced, even after his morning bottle of champagne, and these naysayers are inaudible to me — fully muffled by the cacophonous sizzle of a traditional English breakfast frying atop the stove, even the waxy tomato from Tesco’s, because it is destined for maximum exposure to hot oil just like all the rest.

Queue the Elgar, and consider this partial list of foodstuffs joyfully consumed during my holiday, including both local “English” fare and widely available culinary options borrowed from elsewhere.

Anchovies fillets (fresh)
Bacon
Baked beans
Bangers and mash
Black pudding (i.e., blood sausage)
Cornish pasties
Crab sandwiches
Egg rolls
Falafel
Fish pie (not Stargazy pie, alas)
Gajrati (regional vegetarian Indian)
Haddock and chips
Pie, mash, eel and liquor (the latter is gravy)
Pizza (loaded)
Smoked salmon
Spanish tapas
Steak & kidney pie
Thai red curry
Yorkshire pudding

Alas, I digress. It generally is my custom to entertain and inform in purely fermentable measures of prose, and yet on this most recent English holiday in July, 2013, I found it quite unthinkable to separate the culinary from the ale-mentary.

Overall, ways of the new were not my objective, and I did not search for top chefs flashing their own branded apron and sauce wear. Rather, my task was to focus on the glories of the much maligned traditional English table, and to accompany them with the native products of classic ale-making.

Mission accomplished. First, let’s review the liquidity to be found in a reference volume.

Just after purchasing plane tickets, and before any other arrangements had been made, I purchased the essential book for ale hunting in the United Kingdom: “Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Good Beer Guide,” edited by Roger Protz, and fully revised for publication each year.

CAMRA is the beer world’s oldest and most doggedly pervasive consumer protection society, founded in 1973 for the express purposes of espousing and protecting cask-conditioned “real” ale from the intrusions of modern times. What exactly is cask-conditioned “real” ale? CAMRA explains:

Real ale is a natural product brewed using traditional ingredients and left to mature in the cask (container) from which it is served in the pub through a process called secondary fermentation. It is this process which makes real ale unique amongst beers and develops the wonderful tastes and aromas which processed beers can never provide.

Just know that traditional cask-conditioned ale is a living entity. It is pre-industrial, “slow” beer at its finest, predating every advance in ease of packaging, and preceding all processing shortcuts undertaken for the sake of modernity.

Consequently, as a product requiring training, thought and effort to maintain and dispense properly, real ale and the pub where it is consumed are inextricably linked. In America, the “coldest beer in town” merely signposts the triumph of refrigeration. In England, the best pint of real ale within walking distance of a bus stop is stirring testament to the publican’s commitment to craft.

That’s why CAMRA’S beer guide is vital. The organization’s local chapter members serve as diligent boots on the ground, studiously analyzing ales and pubs on a daily basis. Their intelligence gathering is the heart of the book, making it the top source of information for the visitor who cares less about his bed and breakfast than finding pints of fresh ale. Which pubs are tops at tending their firkins? What do they usually pour? Do they serve snacks or meals? Are they hosts for discourse in their community? The book provides these answers, and many more.

My first visit to Devon and Cornwall was in 2009, and four years later, there have been changes in the pub scene. Owing to regulatory, political and societal factors too numerous to recount, pubs in the UK are diminishing in number, and that’s a bad sign. At the same time, there are more breweries now at work than at any point in a half-century.

Dozens of newcomers are brewing classic ale styles — Mild, Bitter, IPA, Stout and Porter – alongside newer variations, and they’re supplying local pubs. There may be fewer venues, but the range of choice probably is greater. Session strengths (below 4.5% abv) remain the norm, and while I might drop names (St. Austell, Skinner’s, Summerskill and Bridgetown), it wouldn’t matter, because none of the beers brewed by these excellent breweries are available anywhere close to Louisville KY. This is as it should be. They await your arrival, over there.

On a sunny Sunday in July, my wife’s cousin drove us from the city of Plymouth to the Dartmoor National Park. There, surrounded by rolling, sparse uplands and freely roaming sheep, we dined at a venerable establishment called the Dartmoor Inn in Merrivale. I enjoyed roast beef with gravy, cabbage, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. Two pints of well-tuned local Jail Ale from the Dartmoor Brewery in nearby Princetown completed this time-honored Sunday Roast.

Frankly, I gloried in the ambience: Dark walls, wooden beams, a low-hanging ceiling and a fireplace, with humps, stoops and irregular measurements, and overall, minimal space for a heavyweight like me to navigate. The roasted meal was deliciously overcooked, and the ale’s ideally balanced malt and hops kept my palate sharp amid the meat and butter. It was the embodiment of a lifetime’s fascination with BBC News, “The Last of the Summer Wine” and maritime gin rations.

But what of the calories and cholesterol?

Whenever healthfulness began encroaching, I merely reached for another custard tart, found the closest CAMRA-listed pub, and waited for the feeling to pass.

Brew, Britannia.

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September 5: AFTER THE FIRE: Beer stories and bedtime for gonzo (2013).

August 29: AFTER THE FIRE: In the Red Room, we’re all left – right?

August 22: AFTER THE FIRE: Drink, smoke and enjoy.

August 15: AFTER THE FIRE: Listening to "Dixieland" jazz, and thinking about drinking a beer.

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AFTER THE FIRE: The devil made me drink it.

AFTER THE FIRE: The devil made me drink it.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

One of my wife’s favorite Mexican dishes is Camarones a la Diabla, or Deviled Shrimp. Seeing as this delicious specialty tends to be among the higher priced entrees at local Mexican restaurants, we resolved last weekend to try cooking it at home.

The results were excellent, and it will get better as we dial in the recipe, which was chosen because it does not include ketchup.

Laugh at your own peril. This familiar condiment also is a key ingredient in the appetizer spare ribs served by your favorite Chinese carry-out shop.

Happily, having recently bought a few assorted six packs in anticipation of entertaining friends, there was a beer already in our fridge that was fully appropriate for pairing with our inaugural batch of Camarones a la Diabla.

And no, it wasn’t ice-cold, carbonated urine like Corona or Modelo Especiale. Can we retire the laziest of all foodie saws, the one holding that Mexican beer and food go together perfectly? So does ice water. We should be saving the corn for our tortillas, and drinking beers that bring character to the table.

Like German-style wheat ale (Hefeweizen), which during our meal was Hacker-Pschorr Weiss. Indeed, it's multinational-owned, and I’d have preferred Schneider Weiss or even Aventinus, but the important thing is shift, and nitpicking German-style wheat ales isn’t the point to this digression.

Rather, it is to make the case (yet again – I’ve made a career out of this) that Hefeweizen is a wonderful accompaniment to many Mexican and other Latin American cuisines, something you’d never know judging from restaurants alone, since most of them venture no further than the usual pale, limp, beer-flavored suspects.

It’s so enduringly tedious, but verily, this pairing problem disappears when you cook dinner at home.

To which I say: “Viva la revolución!”

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There was a time when I eschewed Hefeweizen, primarily because whenever I was unable to persuade timid pub customers to move beyond starter wheat ales to a wider range of options, it grated deeply within the cavernous void of my tortured, curmudgeonly soul.

This ideology began eroding when Diana decided that Hefeweizen was one of the few beer styles she genuinely liked. I grudgingly indulged her at first, then one fine day at the German Café in French Lick, she offered me a sip of her Weihenstephaner.

My chagrin was immediate and boundless. I’d simply forgotten how much I liked Hefeweizen, and now it is a beer we can enjoy together.

You’re here to learn from my mistakes, and there’s no denying that German-style wheat ale is a singular classic. Hefeweizen is half (or a bit more) wheat and half (or slightly less) barley, and is fermented with a special ale yeast that imparts fruity flavors and aromas more commonly associated with bananas, apples and cloves.

Significantly, neither fruit nor spice is used in brewing Hefeweizen. It’s all about the behavior of the yeast amid a warm fermentation temperature, and the tasty markers graciously left behind.

In fact, “Hefe” is the German word for yeast, and “Weizen” means wheat. “Weisse,” or white, is often used somewhat interchangeably, as the cloudy appearance of wheat ale once prompted snap descriptions of it as “white.”

This same blurry phenomenon is to be found in Belgium, where “Wit” also denotes whiteness. While brewed with wheat, it bears no further resemblance to the German variety. The Belgians use orange peel and coriander to spice their wheat ale, and these ingredients traditionally have been forbidden by the beer purity laws in Germany, though these bastions may finally be crumbling.

Occasionally, German-style wheat ale can be found in its filtered incarnation (“Kristall”), but this is comparatively rare, and makes little sense in the first place.

Decades into the “craft” beer era, most American-style wheat ales remain resolutely flavorless unless they’re heavily spiced or intentionally hopped-up, as with Three Floyds Gumballhead. These usually are brewed as seasonal summertime thirst quenchers using house ale yeast strains, resulting in clean, competent and thoroughly uninteresting temporary lodgers.

Meanwhile, most authentic Hefeweizens come in shades of gold, although “Dunkel” indicates a variety brewed with darker malts. Schneider Weisse is as dark as Franziskaner’s Dunkel, but the brewery sees no need to tout this on the label, reminding us that beer style categories aren’t always exact.

Traditionally, Hefeweizen was a warm weather libation and generally unavailable year-round, even on its home turf in Bavaria. The style staged a remarkable comeback in the 1970s and 1980s after very nearly becoming extinct. Nowadays, German-style wheat ale can be consumed every day if so desired, throughout Germany and the world.

This brings us back to Mexico.

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Mexican restaurants invariably adorn watery lagers with slices of lime, and just as predictably, I toss them in the ashtray, so let’s be clear about the proper use of citrus fruit garnish in beer.

There is no proper use for citrus fruit garnish in beer.

Period.

If lemons were intended for use in Hefeweizen, then lemons would grow in Germany. They don’t. Do oranges grow in Belgium? No, and they don’t grow in Colorado, either, so they have no place in a glass of Coors’s mock Belgian Wit ale, Blue Moon.

(Blue Moon is a multinational shelf-space colonist, not indie “craft,” so get over yourself and move on to something better.)

When you place a slice of citrus fruit in a beer, whether it is a competently conceived and brewed German or Belgian wheat ale or the soapy lagers brewed in Mexico, you are mindlessly following the marketing dictates of someone at Great Satan Inc. who’ll you’ll never know, and who makes more money deceiving you than you will earn in your entire life.

This said, I’ve forged a shaky provisional peace with Dos Equis and Negra Modelo in the absence of better choices at most Mexican restaurants, but the fact remains that ethnic eateries in general, from taquerias to sushi bars, and from dim sum emporiums to Indian curry houses, would benefit from stocking just a handful of beer styles invariably capable of transforming the dining experience in a meaningful way that lager simply cannot achieve.

At the very least, bottles of American Pale Ale, German-style Hefeweizen and indigenous Robust Porter would transform ethnic dining in the metro Louisville area. Toss in an IPA, a Belgian Saison or Tripel and a German Gose, and we’re getting somewhere.

At the high end, that’s $300 wholesale for six cases of beer. Margins are solid. It isn’t nuclear physics.

Thinking back to Camarones a la Diabla, the “deviled” sauce had a mild acidic bite from the tomatoes, and plenty of pepper flavor. Overall, the dish was restrained in the Scoville context, which makes sense, because you wouldn’t want to overwhelm the shrimp.

My Hefeweizen’s medium-bodied fruit and esters coated the mouth and complimented the peppers. The effervescence acted as the curtain being raised on the flavor of the shrimp. It was hard to tell whether the clove was coming from the beer or the food, and it didn’t matter. It fit like a glove.

The earliest verified written instance of my disgruntlement with the beer status quo at local international restaurants appeared around 2003. Nothing ever seems to change, though I have a bit more time these days, and have found myself guided back into the home kitchen.

Perhaps at long last I can follow up on the imaginary pairings that haven’t always been possible to test. Most recently, it was Greek Moussaka with a Belgian Abbey Dubbel.

If I get around to doing it, I’ll let you know how this meal turns out.

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July 28 (at NA Confidential): ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.

July 25: AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

July 18: AFTER THE FIRE: Moss the Boss, his dazzling beer café, and what they taught me about “craft.”

July 11: AFTER THE FIRE: We are dispirited in the post-factual world.

July 4: AFTER THE FIRE: Euro ’85, Part 34 … The final chapter, in which lessons are learned and bridges burned.

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The PC: Beef Steak and Porter always made good belly mortar, but did America’s “top” steakhouses get the memo?

The PC: Beef Steak and Porter always made good belly mortar, but did America’s “top” steakhouses get the memo?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Once upon a time during a previous life, so long ago that Michael Jordan still played for Da Bulls, I had dinner at Louisville’s branch of Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

The restaurant was (and is) perched on the 16th floor of the Kaden Tower, with a spectacular view of the Watterson Expressway and adjoining suburbs, complete with a hazy filter of exhaust fumes as a soothing background for selfies, which of course didn’t even exist at the time.

It was a fine evening, and while I’ve long since forgotten what I ate and drank that night, there remains one serviceable memory of the occasion: Looking around the dining room and seeing lots of customers in the process of cheerfully dropping C-notes for an appetizer, entrée and dessert, then washing down these fruits of their expense accounts with $5 Miller Lites – often straight from the bottle.

In short, nauseating and revolting, although I’m prepared to concede something important, for the fact that I even noticed this scene probably says a lot more about me and the gnawing of my own resident demons than Ruth’s Chris Steak House or its habitués.

After all, I’m neither a frequent consumer of steaks nor a regular patron of those restaurants specializing in them. It alarms me that so far in 2016, I’ve eaten four hamburgers, which probably equals my total from all of last year.

For me, beef should be safe, legal … and rare.

Accordingly, earlier this month, for the first time in a year, we enjoyed an excellent night out with friends at Z’s Oyster Bar and Steakhouse in downtown Louisville.

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It should surprise no one to learn that such an evening constituted a major splurge, but even if we were wealthy, it isn’t something we’d do regularly.

If for no other reason, my gout medicine soon would be overwhelmed by the blood, shellfish and Port.

Z’s is pricey, and very good. A half-dozen tasty West Coast oysters at a place like Z’s cost more than the entrée at most of my usual haunts, and three hours later, after an entire bottle of Malbec, half of an unfortunate heifer and a glass or two of Graham’s Six Grapes for dessert, with various other nibbles scattered throughout, I was heavier around the waist and lighter in the wallet.

So, for comic relief, here is the Z’s beer list.

Amstel Light 5.95

Buckler 4.5

Bud Light 4.5

Budweiser 4.5

Coors Light 4.5

Corona Extra 5.95

Heineken 5.95

Hoegaarden 6.95

Goodwood American Pale Ale 6.95

Goodwood Bourbon Barrel Stout 8.75

Kentucky Ale 5.95

Kentucky Ale Bourbon Barrel 8.75

Michelob Ultra 5.95

Miller Lite 4.5

Sierra Nevada IPA 6.95 (presumably Torpedo)

Stella Artois 6.5

In truth, it’s a slightly better selection than I would have imagined. Nine golden lagers in varying shades of quantifiably insipid, but two barrel-aged beers and two hops-forward options. To be sure, congratulations are due them for featuring four local beers. All in all, the list could be worse.

It also could be far, far better.

(A disclaimer: In no way is any of this to be construed as a complaint about Z’s. Everything about my experiences there – food, service and atmosphere – have been uniformly excellent. My head-scratching extends beyond a single eatery, to the realm of universals.)

Why is it that the model of “steakhouse” in the context of Z’s, Ruth’s Chris and so many others invariably – inevitably, infuriatingly – shortchanges beer options, which nowadays are plentiful and stylistically varied, but also would immeasurably enhance the overall experience for those so inclined?

Perhaps it’s because there is no documentary evidence to suggest that the customer base of such a steakhouse desires beer choice. Moreover, the profit margin on wine and liquor surely dwarfs the return on beer, so only a few popular lagers are kept around for the die-hards, and that’s that.

I’ve long since learned to mournfully adapt. Precisely because my operating assumption is that steakhouses customarily downplay beer, I harbor absolutely no expectations once I’ve resolved to dine at one of them.

Instead, I generally drink wine, all the while imagining what certain styles of beers would taste like paired with interesting menu items.

Admittedly my sampling is small, and exceptions surely plentiful. Just last week, Brooklyn and The Butcher opened in New Albany, and while the “see cow, eat cow” cognoscenti can debate whether it should be compared with the preceding and other similar establishments, the short beer list at Brooklyn already is certifiably better than the one at Z’s.

Consequently, in the future when a splurge is merited, I know where I’ll be walking.

In the interim, I’m left to ponder examples of how it might be done better, and that’s easy. In my tortured, beer-forward universe, there already exists a model for how this might work.

It’s called Belgium – the country and its beers.

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Specifically, the Café de la Paix on the main square in Poperinge, which I cite here because only a year and a half ago, we ate there. The same is true of the dining room at the Hotel Palace, a scant 200 yards away, but we didn’t make it to the Palace in 2014. Needless to say, there is a corresponding example in every town of size in the country, at large.

Café de la Paix is a full service restaurant, offering an excellent wine list and a full bar in addition to a lengthy beer sheet. Is it the exact equal of Z’s or Ruth’s Chris? I doubt it, but to reiterate, the point is to illustrate how beer and steak go together.

Here is what I had for dinner.

Opener: Escargot with Rodenbach Grand Cru. The oyster-like texture of snails, slathered in garlic and butter, with a classically sour, wood-aged red ale to cut through the richness.

Main Course: Steak (medium rare) with Béarnaise sauce, green salad, frites and De Dolle Oerbier; the latter is malty, fruity and complex, and elegantly fills the slot red wine might otherwise occupy.

Closer: Rochfort 10, and a stolen bit of a fellow diner’s tart. Still one of the top Trappists on the planet, and a dark, rich dessert in a bottle.

Total cost: Somewhere around $50.

Fifty bucks, forty Euros; they’d buy plenty of groceries here or in Europe – and this is utterly irrelevant. It was a special occasion, and cause for celebration. Add my wife’s meal and drinks, recall that the gratuity is included, and know that this wonderful, beer-friendly meal was one-third the cost of our recent Z’s feast … and not only that, outside it was Belgium, not Louisville.

Priceless, wouldn’t you say?

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Last week: The PC: Swill in youthful times of penury and need.

When the Euro '85 series returns: Leningrad USSR. 

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"It is the death of all original thought."

Two brief ruminations about beer, both British, and both finding the center of the target in my increasingly jaded world.

First, the lamentable passing of the neighborhood boozer, and the trend of marketing beer with food.

How to get the Brits to drink more beer, by Henry Jeffreys (The Guardian)

... One of the things I love most about beer is its uncomplicated pleasure. I appreciate the taste but I don’t want to worry about whether I’m drinking the right one with my pork scratchings. As soon as people start trying to match beer with food then it can add a layer of pretension.

I have not disavowed my longtime advocacy of beer and food together, and intend to continue being hedonistic when the mood strikes, but even so, I harbor similar reservations for similar reasons. Balance, I say. Let there be Minted Pepper Saison in the lamb marinade and thimbles accompanying it at the beer dinner, as well as four-deep pints of session-strength Best Bitter ... and public transportation to make it home.

And, let's applaud a boot in the groin of these pub chalkboard images serving as the sole educational outreach of all manner of on-premise establishments on social media. It drives me crazy. Do we educate about anything any longer?

Free with every pint: how about a boot in the groin of the pub chalkboard?, by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (The Guardian)

As a Guardian contributor, there are many things that grind my gears: rampant inequality, the prohibitive cost of quinoa and, of course, the consequences of rewilding in Hebden Bridge. But if one thing is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure faster than you can say neoliberalism, it’s the “humorous” pub chalkboard.

The tedious, predictable, cynical, unimaginative, intellectually vacuous cult of the pub chalkboard has become a national problem, and I have reached the end of my tether. Every day on social media ever more specimens seek me out, cynically concocted to maximise exposure. When I walk down the street they sidle up smugly, and I am transformed into a senselessly furious punk. I want to buy a pair of Dr Martens just so I can kick one in its smug, intentionally Instagramable groin, making them all topple like dominoes as I snarl and spit and swear.

Louisville brewers on ideas for beer and food pairing.

Have food, will beer. Or vice versa.

Local brewers talk beer and food pairing, by Dana McMahan (Courier-Journal)

I'm flattered to bat leadoff -- all hail the power of alphabetizing.

Here are the other interviewees:

Vince Cain .. Great Flood
Sam Cruz ... Against the Grain
Leah Dienes ... Apocalypse
Brian Holton ... Beer Engine
Christopher Turner ... BBC
John Wurth ...

My first thought on the matter follows, and I'm sticking to it.

The best way to begin pairing beer and food is to smile broadly in the knowledge that beer’s dizzying stylistic diversity makes the process fun and enriching. As a beverage fermented from barley and other cereal grains, beer functions not unlike bread with a meal, and it’s also carbonated, which expands possibilities with heavier and oilier foods. Beer is bitter and sweet, pale and dark, heavy and light – sometimes all at once. You could spend a lifetime pairing beers with cheese.

It's been a while since my last beer dinner. Perhaps it's time to correct that.

THE PC: Getting in tune with the straight and narrow.

THE PC: Getting in tune with the straight and narrow.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

“You can feel that there’s something coming,” said Johannes Heidenpeter, who opened one of Berlin’s newest craft breweries, Heidenpeters, in the gritty-but-hip central neighborhood of Kreuzberg last December. “I think the time is good to change the taste of beer.”

Mr. Heidenpeter may represent the most iconoclastic and cosmopolitan take on Berlin’s newly developing beer culture: instead of traditional German lager yeast, he praises the aromas from the Belgian and English ale yeasts, and he eschews his own country’s favorite pale lager style of pilsner, or pils. Instead, as he explained when we met up the next day, his brewery offers an American-style pale ale as its standard pint, which uses non-German hops such as Cascade and Amarillo.

Yeah, well – I missed it.

In fact, while visiting the German capital for two enlightening days in September, I missed all the rest of the varied outposts of the Berliner New Beer Wave, too.

However, to be perfectly honest, my neglectful attitude toward this rebellion-in-progress was not intended as an overt political statement of any sort. It’s just that there was no time, this time.

My last visit to Berlin came way back in 1999, and an alarming quarter-century has elapsed since I spent a whole month in the then-divided city, just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. With only two days on the ground in 2014, what my soul (?) needed most of all was a refresher – a worldview booster, an agitprop refresher, and perhaps a final contextual putting to rest of those ghosts inhabiting my beer cultures passed … except that some of them still flourish.

And so it was, quite successfully.

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My 34th in a series of European vacations served both as reunion and greatest hits tour. Little new music was performed, apart from selective embellishments to arrangements tried and true – a new breakfast room at Brauerei Spezial, Schlenkerla’s youthful heir to the crown, and a Belgian-hopped beer and food pairing on the Grote Market in Poperinge.

The rich history of my connections with these beers, places and persons dates back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. In terms of impact on the course of my own beer business career, they were to me what the Ramones and the Clash were to U2 – and like the latter’s new album, it's all about these and other formative influences, invaluable and impossible to overstate:

Berliner Weisse … long before sour was cool, with the many choices of syrup entirely optional.

Those sublime smoked beers in Bamberg, the centuries of diligent craftsmanship they represent, and the local thirsts they slake.

Crisp, subtle Kölsch on a gorgeous autumn day, in the shadow of Cologne’s mountainous cathedral.

The amazing, unchanging Daisy Claeys and her life’s work of art, the seemingly eternal Brugs Beertje café in Brugge.

The stolid crossroads town of Poperinge, observing its hoppy heritage every third year with one of the most genuine and honest fests known to the world of beer.

Food and drink, too, in abundance: Escargot and beefsteak with De Dolle Oerbier; Leberkäse and Spezial Rauchbier; East Prussian meatballs with white caper sauce, beetroot and Berliner Pilsner … pork shoulder and mussels, Mahrs Ungespundet and Rochefort 10, espressos and currywurst, tartare and Hommel Bier, and a Doner Kebab for good measure.

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It seems to me we’re all guilty at times of espousing a false dichotomy, in which there is mass-market corporate swill on one side and exuberant, innovative craft beer on the other, but the problem with hegemonic Cold Beer War dualism like this is that it utterly excludes a beer like Schlenkerla Marzen. Maybe it fits rather comfortably in the same metaphor with non-aligned nations of the 1970s.

Schlenkerla obviously isn’t swill, and it’s hardly innovative in the newspeakable sense of a hyacinth-infused, dry-meringued Triple India Pale Ale. Schlenkerla is as craft-based and traditional as tradition possibly can be, fully guaranteed to offend any oblivious beer drinker who believes that Bud Light represents brewing nobility (tell it to the AB-InBev global shareholders, dumbass), and yet is often ignored by today's hoarding narcissists precisely because excellence on purely traditional grounds isn’t sexy enough for selfies.

Yes, I’m slightly exaggerating, although I believe it to be the immutable case that both here in America and elsewhere, an informed grounding in certain eternal beer truths helps provide perspective when gauging flavors-of-the-moment in an understandably changing world. It’s what I’ve tended to forget, and what the September journey helped me to recall.

It was off the grid. I didn’t carry a phone, and there were no books available to consult. The object was to survey classic European beer styles, in their ancient, preferred public settings (with one exception, an amazing bottled Trois Monts from Northern France, supplied by my friend Jeff), and to go with my gut.

My gut turns out to have remarkably good taste, not that there were many doubts in my other mind.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Naturally, I support the continued innovative advance of “craft” beer. At the same time, it strikes me that the very last thing I want to see happen is every beer drinker in Bamberg waking one morning to the conclusion that India Pale Ale is the only beer for them. It’s a nightmare scenario.

Let there be an artisan working his or her side of the marketplace, providing alternatives for contrast and comparison, but don’t sacrifice those elements of tradition which still function as fundamental cultural markers, especially when they're doing a better job of defining "craft" than the majority of "craft" brewers everywhere.

A damned fine Pilsner still is, and it pulls the Baltic right out of the Matjes herring. If I return to Berlin 25 years from now, I hope the pairing still works, and maybe I’ll have time to visit Heidenpeter’s newer tradition, too.

The PC: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast.

(Published at LouisvilleBeer.com on December 15, 2013)

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England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast

“The secret of a happy life is to know when to stop – and then go that bit further.”

–Inspector Morse, classic British television police crime solver

The very least I could do during two weeks spent in England’s lovely West Country was to ingest my gout medicine each and every morning without fail – preferably washed down with a pint of cask-conditioned Bitter from one of those pubs nearby already dispensing it, but in a pinch, grudgingly conceding the utility of mere water.

Yes, I know: Fish do IT in THAT. The solution? Eat more fish, especially with chips.

Somewhere a health fanatic reads and brays with dismay, but have no fear. It’s only despairing, defeatist clatter of the sort Winston Churchill wouldn’t have countenanced, even after his morning bottle of champagne, and these naysayers are inaudible to me — fully muffled by the cacophonous sizzle of a traditional English breakfast frying atop the stove, even the waxy tomato from Tesco’s, because it is destined for maximum exposure to hot oil just like all the rest.

Queue the Elgar, and consider this partial list of foodstuffs joyfully consumed during my holiday, including both local “English” fare and widely available culinary options borrowed from elsewhere.

Anchovies fillets (fresh)
Bacon
Baked beans
Bangers and mash
Black pudding (i.e., blood sausage)
Cornish pasties
Crab sandwiches
Egg rolls
Falafel
Fish pie (not Stargazy pie, alas)
Gajrati (regional vegetarian Indian)
Haddock and chips
Pie, mash, eel and liquor (the latter is gravy)
Pizza (loaded)
Smoked salmon
Spanish tapas
Steak & kidney pie
Thai red curry
Yorkshire pudding

Alas, I digress. It generally is my custom to entertain and inform in purely fermentable measures of prose, and yet on this most recent English holiday in July, 2013, I found it quite unthinkable to separate the culinary from the ale-mentary.

Overall, ways of the new were not my objective, and I did not search for top chefs flashing their own branded apron and sauce wear. Rather, my task was to focus on the glories of the much maligned traditional English table, and to accompany them with the native products of classic ale-making.

Mission accomplished. First, let’s review the liquidity to be found in a reference volume.

Just after purchasing plane tickets, and before any other arrangements had been made, I purchased the essential book for ale hunting in the United Kingdom: “Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Good Beer Guide,” edited by Roger Protz, and fully revised for publication each year.

CAMRA is the beer world’s oldest and most doggedly pervasive consumer protection society, founded in 1973 for the express purposes of espousing and protecting cask-conditioned “real” ale from the intrusions of modern times. What exactly is cask-conditioned “real” ale? CAMRA explains:

Real ale is a natural product brewed using traditional ingredients and left to mature in the cask (container) from which it is served in the pub through a process called secondary fermentation. It is this process which makes real ale unique amongst beers and develops the wonderful tastes and aromas which processed beers can never provide.

Just know that traditional cask-conditioned ale is a living entity. It is pre-industrial, “slow” beer at its finest, predating every advance in ease of packaging, and preceding all processing shortcuts undertaken for the sake of modernity.

Consequently, as a product requiring training, thought and effort to maintain and dispense properly, real ale and the pub where it is consumed are inextricably linked. In America, the “coldest beer in town” merely signposts the triumph of refrigeration. In England, the best pint of real ale within walking distance of a bus stop is stirring testament to the publican’s commitment to craft.

That’s why CAMRA’S beer guide is vital. The organization’s local chapter members serve as diligent boots on the ground, studiously analyzing ales and pubs on a daily basis. Their intelligence gathering is the heart of the book, making it the top source of information for the visitor who cares less about his bed and breakfast than finding pints of fresh ale. Which pubs are tops at tending their firkins? What do they usually pour? Do they serve snacks or meals? Are they hosts for discourse in their community? The book provides these answers, and many more.

My first visit to Devon and Cornwall was in 2009, and four years later, there have been changes in the pub scene. Owing to regulatory, political and societal factors too numerous to recount, pubs in the UK are diminishing in number, and that’s a bad sign. At the same time, there are more breweries now at work than at any point in a half-century.

Dozens of newcomers are brewing classic ale styles — Mild, Bitter, IPA, Stout and Porter – alongside newer variations, and they’re supplying local pubs. There may be fewer venues, but the range of choice probably is greater. Session strengths (below 4.5% abv) remain the norm, and while I might drop names (St. Austell, Skinner’s, Summerskill and Bridgetown), it wouldn’t matter, because none of the beers brewed by these excellent breweries are available anywhere close to Louisville. This is as it should be. They await your arrival, over there.

On a sunny Sunday in July, my wife’s cousin drove us from the city of Plymouth to the Dartmoor National Park. There, surrounded by rolling, sparse uplands and freely roaming sheep, we dined at a venerable establishment called the Dartmoor Inn in Merrivale. I enjoyed roast beef with gravy, cabbage, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. Two pints of well-tuned local Jail Ale from the Dartmoor Brewery in nearby Princetown completed this time-honored Sunday Roast.

Frankly, I gloried in the ambience: Dark walls, wooden beams, a low-hanging ceiling and a fireplace, with humps, stoops and irregular measurements, and overall, minimal space for a heavyweight like me to navigate. The roasted meal was deliciously overcooked, and the ale’s ideally balanced malt and hops kept my palate sharp amid the meat and butter. It was the embodiment of a lifetime’s fascination with BBC News, “The Last of the Summer Wine” and maritime gin rations.

But what of the calories and cholesterol?

Whenever healthfulness began encroaching, I merely reached for another custard tart, found the closest CAMRA-listed pub, and waited for the feeling to pass.

Brew, Britannia.

Your chance to support Fred Bueltmann and his book, "Beervangelist's Guide to the Galaxy."

Way back in the youthful daze of the Public House, Fred Bueltmann used to stop in for chats and refreshing libations while he crisscrossed the Midwest for his job as beer rep for Bells. Later New Holland joined him, and I’ve quite enjoyably made it to Holland twice since then to check things out.

Unlike Holland, New Albany has no Dutch-styled windmill, but NABC had a stylish and quickly depleted contingent of New Holland specialties, handpicked by Fred and his team, when Gravity Head 2012 got underway last year.

These days, Fred has been busy with his book, entitled "Beervangelist's Guide to the Galaxy." The e-mail reprinted here tells you all about it, with a link to Kickstarter. I've pitched in, and I encourage you to do so, too. The campaign has less than two weeks to run. All the best to Fred, and he can take it from here.

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"Beervangelist's Guide to the Galaxy." 

The main purpose of this first email is to let you all know about the Kickstarter campaign for the book. I am raising funds to cover the production and publishing costs of "Beervangelist's Guide to the Galaxy", slated to be released in Spring of 2013.  While many years of experience have gone into the content of the book, I've been working specifically on this project for a little over two years, and the time has come to get this baby in print, and into the hands of readers. 

“Beervangelist’s Guide to the Galaxy” shares a lifestyle of quality and flavor. It will quench your thirst for information about craft beer, pairing and cooking, by teaching from a “flavor first” perspective. Whether you are a novice or an expert, “Beervangelist’s Guide” will engage and inform. It is useful and approachable for the novice, expert and professional. It will cover beer in your home, as well as out and about.  From casual, informative tastings like beer & cheese or beer & chocolate, to multi-coursed beer-dinners, it will bring comfort and knowledge to the interested drinker in any setting. The reader will come into the kitchen as well, with numerous recipes and tips including cooking with beer; the home-chef's next secret ingredient.  

Black River Press has signed on to publish the book, and working with an "Indie Label" offers some opportunities unavailable from the bigger houses.  I have an existing and productive relationship with their talented team, and by working locally, I'll have outstanding access to mentoring, editing and good 'ole fashioned brainstorms over a beer or two.  

With two weeks left, we've raised 32% towards the funding goal of $10,000, established to cover the upfront costs of publishing, design and photography.  Once this goal is met, we will be able to deliver a finished book to the distribution channels.  If we pass the project minimum, which I hope to do, additional funds will go towards the task of promoting and selling the book.   Publishing independently with Black River & funding the initial production costs will also allow me to maintain ownership of my publishing rights.

If you plan on buying the book - the best time to order is right now.  If you know someone that's interested, please share these links with them.   If you want your email removed from this list, there's an easy to use unsubscribe option at the bottom of this email.  If you know anyone that should be on the iist, send them to www.beervangelist.net which has a quick subscribe option.

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TheBeervangelist

Kickstarter:  http://tiny.cc/beervangelist

Cheers & thanks!

Beer for Thanksgiving? Why, yes. Someone fetch my slippers and growlers, please.

Earlier this morning, I was chatting about Thanksgiving food and drink pairings with my friend and former beer student, the esteemed local free lance writer Steve Coomes. One thing led to another, and at Steve’s suggestion, I now provide a brief digression on a theme of “Beer for Thanksgiving, not wine?” I posted it at his facebook page, and provide it here, too. As a template, I used a six-year-old posting; to my delight, I discovered that after all those years, I now completely disagree with myself. Well, mostly. Here's what I came up with, bearing in mind my intentional vagueness in citing style, not brand. 

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From the top, it’s important to remember that classic beer style interpretations no longer are the exclusive province of faraway beer lands. Local and regional breweries are doing great things, and taking America as a whole, we’re the best and most diverse brewing nation in the world. Check your locals, and see what they have available in growlers, bottles or sometimes cans.

Considering the Norman Rockwell-issue Thanksgiving meal, I used to favor the full-flavored stylistic approach, one resembling the “big red” strategy of the wine lover.

There are obvious Belgian Strong Dark Ale parallels with cherry, cranberry and spice notes, so long as you remember that Stella Artois, while mass-manufactured in Belgium, is an insipid yellow abomination more suitable for use as pet shampoo than comparisons with the better ales of the genre. But why torture your mutt?

These days, it strikes me that medium-bodied, dry and spicy Belgian-style Saisons of numerous stripes are the sort of style, able to match turkey and dressing rather than overpower it. They’re simply versatile, adaptive food beers, as is the French style known as Biere de Garde.

From the German perspective, a fat mug of Doppelbock would hit the mark, but Marzen/Oktoberfest (amber lager) is less sweet, and perhaps a better meal-long quaffing choice. If you’re going solidly dark, Robust Porter’s your choice, because what could be better conceptually than the roasty, red-tinged black ale brewed by our Colonial-era forefathers like Washington and Jefferson?

For dessert? Perhaps an oversized Imperial Stout, designed to take the place of coffee, cream and pie, though not the after dinner cigar. You’ll probably be chased to the porch for that one.

As a final note: My annoyances are many and well-documented, but foremost among them is the recent trend to release craft-brewed Pumpkin Ales in mid-August, well before the mercury drops anywhere close to suitability for an autumnal libation, and months shy of their ideal application at the Thanksgiving dinner table. If you don’t think ahead to save a few, it might be hard finding them on store shelves now. The theory and practice of Pumpkin Ale are varied, and a little of it goes a long way, but as with Porter, their quintessential Americana-ish appeal should be self-evident.

I hope you all have a great day. Those of a counter-cultural bent should know that in early afternoon on Thursday, I’ll accompany my wife and a few close friends to Vietnam Kitchen for OUR traditional Thanksgiving meal. If you go there and spot me, say hello. I’ll be the one with his face in a bowl of K8.

BSB and Chef Josh Lehman's five-course, fixed price menu for Oaks and Derby.

“One of the grand appeals of the Kentucky Derby is the tradition it carries with it. We pretty much repeat the recipes each year for the sake of carrying on a tradition.”
-- Caroline Harmon

At NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse, 2010 marks the start of our Derby tradition, and speaking personally, I hope Chef Josh Lehman does not repeat the recipes each year from here out, because that would be boring.

We’ll see. This year, Chef Josh is offering a five-course, fixed-price menu for the Oaks (Friday, April 30) and the Kentucky Derby (Saturday, May 1). Each course will be paired with an NABC beer.

Here are the rules:

The five-course fixed price menu will be available by reservation only on both nights. Reserve in person at BSB, or call 812-725-9585.

The Bank Street Brewhouse will observe normal dining and drinking hours, and we will accommodate walk-ins as space permits, but the special five-course menu will be available from 5:30 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. only.

The price for this feast is $60 per person, service not included. Naturally, you must be 21 years of age to drink beer. The state frowns on exceptions.

Don’t forget BSB’s acclaimed Build-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar from Noon to 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 2.

Kentucky Bibb Salad
Maytag Blue Cheese, Toasted Pistachios, Granny Smith Apples, Champagne Vinaigrette (Tafel Bier)

Diver Scallops
Carrot Mousse, Spring Peas, Chantrell Mushrooms, Lemon Brown Butter (Abzug)

Lamb Loin
Ratatouille, Saffron Risotto, Mint Pesto (Dubbel OR Elector, whichever is available)

Filet of Beef
Crispy Potato, Asparagus, Bourbon Cream Sauce (Bob's Old 15-B Porter)

Bourbon Chocolate Mousse
Mint, Candied Walnuts (Thunderfoot)

Recap: Will's and Roger's excellent beer and cheese pairing adventure.

First, Will "Lotsa Pasta Cheesemonger" Eaves and I met at the Public House to do the necessary research for our beer and cheese pairing, which took place earlier this week at Campbell's Gourmet Cottage in Louisville.

Having made the pairings, and now on site, Will had the tough job of prepping and arranging the nine cheeses. I had a cooler filled with beer, and a bottle opener. However, I was briefly useful and filled the baskets with crackers and bread.

Here is Will at work, as conveyed by the classroom monitors. The tasting went wonderfully, and we had a group of 16 in attendance. Owing to availability, a few changes were made, and these are reflected below.

EIGHT CHEESE AND BEER PAIRINGS

Delice de Bourgogne / rich and decadent triple cream cheese
Maredsous 10/ effervescent and deceptively strong Tripel from Belgium – Tripel, with triple cream cheese

Caciotta Dolce (goat cheese) / locally made semi-hard cheese from Sapori d'Italia, paired with peach and coriander jam
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale / made distinctively “American” by the liberal use of citrusy west coast Cascade hops

Cahill’s Farm Porter Aged Cheddar / Irish cheddar marbled with Porter beer
NABC Bob’s Old 15-B Porter / the style of dark ale that begat Irish stout, with notes of roast, chocolate and coffee

Widmer Farms Aged Brick / classic American washed rind cheese
Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen / beechwood smoked amber lager from Bavaria

Epoisses / THE stinky French masterpiece
NABC Hoptimus / double strength India Pale Ale, brewed with 4 additions of bitter Nugget hops and citrusy Cascade to finish

Grand Cru Gruyere Surchoix / Wisconsin's excellent take on the Swiss classic
Saison Dupont / hoppy, peppery farmhouse golden ale from the French-speaking Belgian province of Hainaut

Chimay Fromage Bier / Belgian monastic cheese, washed in the monastery’s own Trappist ale
Chimay Premiere (red label) / classic Belgian monastic amber ale, certified Trappist

Moody Blue / light blue cheese smoked with sweet fruit woods
Kloster Ettaler Doppelbock / sturdy Bavarian dark lager originally formulated by monks as a dietary supplement for Lent

BONUS PAIRING

Red Dragon / Welsh cheddar laden with strong English mustard … "the dragon bites you back"
Cantillon Gueuze Lambic / THE funky Belgian masterpiece, naturally fermented with wild yeast

Original posting: Will's and Roger's excellent beer and cheese pairing adventure at Campbell's Gourmet Cottage, Monday, January 11.

NABC Solidarity with meat-laden pizza, tonight at BoomBozz.

NABC Solidarity will be tapped at BoomBozz Taphouse tonight (Wednesday, December 16), and my thoughts have turned to pizza options to accompany my jar.

Currently personal tastes are running toward garlic cream sauce, bacon, anchovies and prosciutto. That's because Baltic Porters typically like meat, and the more strongly flavored flesh, the better. If BoomBozz had duck or venison on the menu, I'd try them. However, it's a gourmet pizza menu, which does just fine by me, and choices need not be restricted to meat.

I believe that our Solidarity can be taught to co-exist quite well with garlic, so I may add fresh garlic to the pie, too.

Cabbage roll pizza, anyone?

A Philly beer dinner has me thinking.

I don't usually tout beer dinners in far-off (for the Curmudgeon) Philadelphia, but the press release below pushes more than one button -- and makes me salivate, as well.

First, it's Victory Brewing Company, and that's quality, period.

And: It's "Latin-Asian" food, and both of these generalized world cuisines are grievously under-served (and under-estimated) when it comes to matching with worthy beer styles. In turn, this neglect is due in part to such beer styles seldom being available at the sort of places that specialize in Latin and Asian cuisines.

For the Louisville-centric reader, two establishments spring to mind: Red Pepper and Seviche. Some sweet day, whether with NABC alone or selections from all Louisville area breweries, we'll make something happen at one or both, and it will be very, very good.

CHIFA TO HOST VICTORY BEER DINNER

PHILADELPHIA, PA – On November 5 at 7 pm, superstar Chef Jose Garces and local brewing powerhouse Victory Brewing Company will partner for a one-night-only Beer Dinner at Chifa (707 Chestnut Street, 215-925-5555), Chef Garces’ Latin-Asian restaurant. The event will feature five courses of Chifa’s inspired cuisine paired with Victory beers, and will be the premiere food event featuring its newest offering, Yakima Twilight, a double IPA. The cost will be $55 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. Space is limited and reservations are required.

“The distinctive, often unusual flavor pairings in our dishes at Chifa are an ideal mate for artisanal beers,” says Chef Garces. “Victory’s beers are flavorful and diverse, much like our cuisine, so they complement each other perfectly.”

The menu, featuring Chef Garces’ signature small plates style, will include: Hiramasa with aji Amarillo leche de tigre, passion fruit and roasted corn paired with Prima Pils; Octopus Ceviche with purple olive and avocado paired with WildDevil; Grilled Thai Sausage with tamarind chile sauce and jasmine rice paired with Golden Monkey; Smoked Rib Eye with revuelto de chorizo and huacatay chimichiri paired with Yakima Twilight; and for dessert, Coconut Tapioca with semisweet chocolate cremeux and quinoa chicaronnes paired with Baltic Thunder. Victory Brewmaster and Owner Bill Covaleski will be on hand to discuss the beers and offer helpful hints for those who are new to pairing beer and food.

Chifa opened in early 2009 to critical acclaim; The New York Times praised the restaurant’s unusual ability to “kill two cravings [Asian and Latin] with one dish,” while Philadelphia magazine called Chef Garces’ innovative interpretations of Peruvian cuisine “a cross-cultural thrill ride…A meal at Chifa is a night out, a form of entertainment, an infusion of world culture, a culinary education, something to brag about the following day.”

Chifa is open for dinner seven days a week beginning at 5 p.m.; dinner is served until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 12 midnight on Friday and Saturday. Chifa is open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For more information, or to make a reservation, please visit www.chifarestaurant.com, or call (215) 925-5555.

The NABC beer weekend to come: August 14 and 15.

This Friday night (August 14), and in conjunction with a Louisville Restaurants Forum off-line gathering, I’m making a long-awaited first visit to the Kentucky BBQ Company on Frankfort Avenue in Louisville for fun times pairing barbecue staples and sides with tuneful, appropriate craft beer (and a few well chosen imports).

Make no mistake, meat lovers: These guys have good craft beers for pairing. Here is the KBBS draft list, as reported on July 24 (some may be different now):

Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
St. Bernadus Wit
Breckenridge 471 (Double IPA)
Great Lakes Eliot Ness
Bell's Expedition Stout
Young's Double Chocolate Stout
New Holland Existential
Great Divide 15th Anniversary (oak aged)
Fuller's E.S.B.
Bell's Oberon
BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout
Schlafly APA
Founders Red's Rye
Drifter Pale Ale
Woodchuck Cider
St. Bernardus Abt 12
Houblon Chouffe

The only dog is Woodchuck. Not bad at all, although I may petition to be allowed to bring a sour ale, perhaps Jolly Pumpkin.

This gathering isn’t going to be very scientific, I hope – at least not the first time. Participants will be buying, eating, drinking and theorizing. Perhaps later there will be conclusions, although it would be nice to glean something for next week's LEO column.

If you read this and are thinking about going, you should go to the forum, register (c'mon, you should have done this a long time ago) and join the thread to add your name to the RSVP list: Barbecue and craft beer pairing. KBBC Aug. 14.

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The American Cancer Society’s Taste of the Grapevine fundraiser will be held on Saturday, August 15 at Louisville’s prestigious Seelbach Hotel, and NABC will be here, presumably in a rented tuxedo and sneaking beer through the kitchen entrance.

Here's the scoop:

The American Cancer Society invites you to enjoy a memorable evening featuring local eateries, caterers and wine, beer and spirits vendors. Guests are invited to try out specialty dishes, gourmet cuisine, imported and domestic wines, micro brewers and a variety of spirits. Local restaurant owners, chefs, caterers, wine specialists, distillers and brewers will be available to answer any questions about the food and spirits. Guests will also have the opportunity to bid on silent auction items and purchase the much sought-after "grape bags." For more information or to purchase tickets, please e-mail. Cost is $50 per person in advance, $75 per person on event day.

Windsor's "Farmers Market" original post updated to include beer and wine dinner pairings.

The beer and wine pairings for the Windsor's dinner this Monday night have been added to the original post, which you can read here:

Windsor's "Farmers Market" beer and wine dinner coming on Monday, July 27.

I'll be there, and I hope to see some of you.

Recap: VIP Brewmaster's dinner in Indy, July 17.

The following link leads to an accurate account of Friday's VIP Brewmaster's dinner beneath surprisingly chilly tents at Opti-Park in Broad Ripple. There'll never be another 70-degree daytime high on a Friday in July in Indianapolis, will there?

Brewmasters' VIP Dinner at Opti Park (including a mention of NABC's Jared Williamson).

The second annual Friday dinner gathering wasn't quite the inebriated scrum of last year's inaugural event, at least for me, but it was an excellent meal with plenty of beer on hand. My favorite of the bunch? Our 21-month old anniversary ale was quite good, having aged into something suggesting the flavor, if not the alcoholic strength, of Calvados, and Lafayette Brewing's Tippecanoe Common ("steam" style) was the perfect foil for the main "Hoosier" course.

Good eating, good drinking, and a decidedly relaxed atmosphere. I'll be there for number three in 2011.

Fondly remembering barbecue and beer on July 4.

Belated thanks to Ronnie and Katie for their stellar Fourth of July barbecue and beer get together in New Albany.

Paired with multiple helpings of ribs, pulled pork and delectable smoked beef were diverse beers, ranging from the "new" Schlitz in cans to Clipper City's Loose Cannon Hop3 in bottles. I enjoyed Brian's delectable "imperial oatmeal milk stout" from Browning's, as brought in growlers, and finished the night with Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron.

Looking forward to next year!

Tale of two meals.

The first two photos are of bouillabaisse and pork shank, just prior to being rather joyously consumed last Friday evening at the Bank Street Brewhouse. I planned on having only one beer with the meal, and waited for the pork to order a Hoptimus. A delightful pairing, indeed, as the pork is fully capable of battling the hop to a standstill.

This last photo was taken on Sunday night at the house. The missus made a low-calorie pasta somewhat along the lines of puttanesca, and we opened a bottle of Aglianico from the Carousel Winery in Bedford, Indiana. In retrospect, a milder red might have been a better pairing even though I enjoyed the richness and alcoholic heft (16% abv) of the wine. Afterward, the remainder of the bottle was apt accompaniment to a good cigar out on the porch.

Good beer, good food, a thread and a beer dinner at Corbett's.

I'll try to make a long story short.

Earlier this year, there was a spirited discussion at Robin Garr's Louisville Restaurants Forum: Can a great restaurant serve mass-market beer? This was followed by an article here at PC. Here's the link, followed by an excerpt:

A thread: Can a great restaurant serve mass-market beer?

Can you give me some examples of what would be high quality beers that should be served at a high quality restaurant?

I've thought about this a lot at various times, and the answer tends to change based on recent experiences. The fundamental thing is to offer a variety of styles, not just a variety of labels/brands. Knowing the difference between styles and labels is the first jumping off point for me.

I'm returning to this thread for two reasons. First, my current commission for "Food & Dining" magazine is to write 900 words on the topic, so I've been reviewing source materials.

Second, there is to be a beer dinner March 4 at Corbett's "An American Place", a new restaurant in Louisville that somewhat inadvertently was drawn into the original thread about good beer and good food.

PR: Belgian beer dinner March 4 @ Corbett's (forum posting)

Corbett's "An American Place" invites you to an evening of Belgian Ales and lambics paired with Chef Chris Howerton’s cuisine. Hosted by Pete Larsen of Wetten Imports.

Tuesday March 4th at 7 p.m.
Reservations 327-5058
5050 Norton Healthcare Boulevard

The cost of this one is $55 per person plus gratuity, and I don't yet have a food menu, but Wetten has excellent Belgians: The Delirium line, Gouden Carolus ales and Kasteels.

Looks like another combination of business and pleasure coming my way. Aw, shucks.

A thread: Can a great restaurant serve mass-market beer?

There's been an interesting thread going at the Louisville Restaurants Forum: Can a great restaurant serve mass-market beer?

Here is one question asked, followed by the answer I provided. It isn't tremendously grammatical, but I was in a hurry.

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Can you give me some examples of what would be high quality beers that should be served at a high quality restaurant?

I've thought about this a lot at various times, and the answer tends to change based on recent experiences.

The fundamental thing is to offer a variety of styles, not just a variety of labels/brands. Knowing the difference between styles and labels is the first jumping off point for me.

So ... in no particular order of preference …

Lagers (bottom fermented; clean character)

A true Pilsner with hop character, i.e., Pilsner Urquell; fewer micros attempt this, but if we could get Victory's Prima Pils ...

Dark lager with balls, like Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel. Amber and malty Oktoberfests fit here, too, but probably should be seasonal.

Doppelbock: Rich, sweet, malty, meant for meat. You haven’t lived until you’ve enjoyed Bavarian-style pork knuckle with Doppelbock.

Ales (top fermented; far wider potential flavor spectrum)

Belgian-style Wit (white/wheat), and Blue Moon does not count. Hoegaarden remains serviceable. Citrusy; hint of sourness.

German style wheat: Schneider or Weihenstphaner, although I suppose Franziskaner is acceptable even if the character is too mild for me. Cloves, apples and bananas.

Belgian Trappist (Chimay red or blue, et al) ... dark, bottle conditioned, vinous, complex malt.

Assorted Belgians and French Bieres de Garde. Among the former, sour reds (Rodenbach), eclectic Wallonians (La Chouffe, McChouffe) and wondrous Saisons (Dupont the finsets example); the French beers are criminally underrated and simply wonderful with many dishes. Ask Chef Clancy if you don’t believe me. American examples of both Belgian and French styles include Ommegang Hennepin, Jolly Pumpkin’s line and Two Brothers Domaine Dupage (sic).

Imperial Stout. Thick, black, intense, oily, viscous. Many good microbrewed versions. Functions much like Port with assertive cheeses, and modifies sweet desserts.

American-style hop bombs, double IPA, etc. Bitterness for contrast, and can also be quaffed sans food.

Local microbrews. To me, preferably on draft, and maybe rotating. Louisville is blessed with excellent small breweries (and there’s Alltech, and many more in Indiana, as Shawn noted).

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Think in terms of style and the possibilities are endless. I didn’t mention everyday dry Stout of the Guinness mold, which remains beautiful with shellfish, and I’m assuming that there always will be a few yellow Eurolagers around for the plain fearful; as I wrote previously, you simply don’t need Budweiser if you have Stella or Spaten.

The point remains that a very good 15-20 beer list can be constructed from what is available locally, and it will cover most of the contingencies. Seasonals can make up the difference.

Earlier someone brought up Maido as an example of a great beer list, and I agree 100%. Using conventional wisdom, you’re washing down diverse sushi and voluminous wasabi with weak golden lager, but chase them with Stone’s hoppy Ruination Ale and it’s a religious experience, indeed.