Good reading today in the Toronto Star's regular beer column by Josh Rubin. It is an honest description of Toronto's Festival of Beer, held last weekend, which makes one wonder why the event is held at all:
Whether it's the long lineups for admission and sample tokens, the drunken frat boys or the fact there isn't much shelter from extreme weather, Toronto's Festival of Beer has a few problems.
Most – like the half-hour token lineups at the 12th annual festival at Fort York last weekend – were just annoying. One problem, however, was bigger. Though the festival boasted more than 200 beers, you could count on one hand the beers that weren't otherwise available at the Beer Store or LCBO.
For anyone trying to sample something they wouldn't otherwise have access to, it was a weekend-long exercise in futility.
Despite the obvious use of the venue as a promotional tool for that uniquely monopolistic entity in Ontario called "The Beer Store" or to those in the Ottawa Valley "The In and Out Store", Josh was able to find a few pleasant surprises among the disappointments.
How does one graciously respond when you ask the waitress what style a beer is that you’ve not heard of and you’re trying to pick a pitcher for three people and her response is, "it’s an ale." All I could think was that doesn’t help me and I ordered it anyways.
This scenario would never have happened at one beer store/bar I discovered on my brief vacation. Tucked along the waters of the Cape Fear River just off the beaten path in historic downtown Wilmington, NC sits Cape Fear Wine and Beer, a tiny eccentric beer and wine store/bar boasting the largest beer selection in Wilmington - click on the image for a bigger map. The majority of the store is taken up by three large coolers and shelves filled with beer and wine. The rest of the small space is occupied by a small bar that seats about six and about four armchairs. With one beer on tap, the bartender’s choice of tunes (in our case punk covers and german beer hall music) and only a handful of people the hole place breathes of intimacy and a bit of funk. After browsing the selection of German, Belgian, and British imports as well as American microbrews you’re free to either enjoy your beer at the bar in the appropriate glassware or straight from the bottle if you see fit, or you can take it back to your home, hotel, or cooler.
With the ability to split up six packs of anything besides their one selection of macro brew this bar offers a great opportunity to sample beer that the price of a six pack has kept you from trying before. While there I was able to sample, the Aventius Eisbock a thick rich banana filled beer, a Doppel Hirsch (a Bavarian doppelbock) a thick chewy malty tobacco tasting beer, a Rochefort 6 quite possibly the best beer I’ve ever tasted, a nice balance of fruitiness and malt, and a Stille Nacht a wine like beer that I did not fully appreciate. The bartenders are friendly, knowledgeable, and happy to give recommendations. More than likely the owners will be around either working or drinking after work with their friends and coworkers giving the place a community feel. Whether or not Cape Fear Wine and Beer has the largest beer selection it is certainly an excellent place to enjoy some conversation and beer sipping.
[Alan here: that looks like an interesting spot but the reviews on RateBeer and Beer Advocate are all over the place. One guy on RB says its half beer store, half bar and a little tattoo parlor. That sounds good to me.]
Spending an idle holiday Monday as any sensible person would, I was reading Stonch's beer blog and saw his post about playing pub skittles. He's included a short and sensible video explanation. Pub skittles is a old pub game that depends on a small ball hanging by a line from a stick and a swinging action with which the ball is sent into nine pins. The whole set up can sit on a table three foot by three foot square.
That is a good game. But the game I generally want to try is not pub skittle. That game is London Skittles. London Skittles is like pub skittles that has met Alice in Wonderland after drinking the drink that makes things ten times bigger. I mentioned it in the first Pub Games Project post and even got an invite to play the game from one of the guys who plays it at the one English pub still playing it. Given that I live an ocean away, even though it is described in the excellent Pub Games Of England by Timothy Finn, the best I have been able to come up with is the video below from a UK TV show with a demonstration of the game:
One of a number of siblings to the previously reviewed Insanity, the brewer tells us that Prophecy is their tripel, Merry Monk's Ale, aged in bourbon barrel. I liked Merry Monk's ale is Weyerbacher that I tried in a group in early 2006 along with a bunch of their other brews - but I liked their Quad the best...and I appear now have a bottle of that in the oaked version in the stash under the name Blasphemy. Maybe this will end up a double review...except that those two 22 oz bottles equal about eight standard beers. Maybe not.
The beer pours the deep straw of colour of vintage champagne even if a slight bit, but only a bit, less effervescent. A fine white merenge head maintained by all those bubbles. Candy, apple juice and heat on the nose while in the mouth, this is definitely a triple - with a stone hardness to the ale as well as plenty of petrol that reminds me of dry riesling. What does the oak do? Well, there is some tempering of the white pepper sharpness, definitely a whiskey earthiness and some vanilla. But does it also takes away some of the quieter flavours, too. I did note whiskey in 2006 in the unoaked version but I also noted peach. The vanilla really replaces or covers that up. Has the wood, by mellowing, also made it a little less complex? Has it made the petrol stand out too much? I would only know by doing a side by side.
The BAers give this one a harder time than they give Merry Monk - 14% thumbs down compared to 12%. For me, the white pepper burn plus gasoline is likeable but it clearly could justify that degree of dissatisfaction.
Mid-week, I was contacted by Troy with some great information about the beer bars he loves. He, like me, is a Maritimer who has moved to Ontario. Unlike me, he has taken the time to make notes on many of the pubs out east that he loves. Before I could create the article I was thinking of posting, Tory posted his own work on a great new blog called Great Canadian Pubs and Beer. Great photos - like the one above of an old favorite brewpub, Rogue's Roost in Halifax. Nice to see Lorne is apparently still brewing. Troy's even got a review of the Gahan House in PEI whose stout I used to sup before I moved here to Easlakia.
Growlers are not common in Canada. A few micros are now selling them at the brewery but nothing like in NY state where any decent beer store has a few good beers on draft for the customers to fill half-gallon jugs with.
This beer pours deep cola brown under a mocha loose large bubbled rim and foam. Dry cocoa overwhelmed by ground coffee with a seam of what everyone at the garden party thought was dark maple. A very soft water beer and a definite touch of roastiness lighter than a stout. Succulence from Rohrbach.
Here we are. A Friday night in a summer that is drawing to a close - at least up here in Canada. Time to get out some summer bombs out of the stash.
First up is far southwestern New York's Southern Tier's Hoppe, an imperial pale ale. Wow. A drier 10% imperial extra pale ale. Not an imperial IPA. An imperial EPA - got it? Something a little different that Southern Tier calls its ale of simple composition. It's very nice. A lightly peached amber ale with an off white rim and foam. Cream at the outset resolving to a fairly dry finish without the tell tale Imperial Double IPA bag of sweets to get you from A to B. Still rich and candied, mind you - just not so sweet. Lots of malt: sultana, whole kumquat, musk melon, maybe yellow plum with something between French bread and a shortcake biscuit. Subtle and big - which sounds dumb, yet is only half-dumb. The finish is arugula, white pepper but mainly honey. Perfect love from the BAers. Hmmm...what next?
How about Pennsylvania's Sly Fox Odyssey? An Imperial IPA but one with a definitely if slightly lighter body than the STEPA...you are keeping up with the acronyms, right? Darker, with a nice medium amber body and a tan head that keeps at about a quarter inch. Definite Sunmaid Raisin raisin flavour, the flavour that launched a million lunch boxes. Also some British ale aspects...not far off Wells Bombardier, though brighter. Plus a big grape juicy core and its big weedy hops are green but less tea astringent - a little bit of the MacDonald green label unfiltered tobacco. Again, very nice. Sadly, this is my first and only Sly Fox (despite their amazing breadth of creations) that I have on hand. The other bought on my recent road trip committed beer-a-cide, leaping from a shelf the other night, only to be found alone, cracked and emptied on the concrete floor the next morning. Again with the absolute BAer love. So...now what...
Last, Michigan's Founders Centennial IPA. A plain amber ale under plain white foam. On the nose, freesia and marigold florals. A fabulous celebration of hops as flowers. Creamy and even soda-pop-ish where the other bigger bombs are hot, heavy and sticky. The malt is under the thick June ditch weedy green and hot over top of malt is that is pure peach juicy. A real treat and a beer that could really destroy some BBQ ribs. Sadly 1% of all BAers are not loving this one. Fools.
That is it. Time to pay a little more attention to the ballgame. It is, after all, Friday night.
Jay is hopping mad over MADD's hopping mad initiative to react to the initiative to let the adults of the USA who can go to war also have a beer when they feel like it by lowering the drinking age from 21 back to 18. Like in Canada, the drinking age, however, is not a matter of Federal law and there are local variations. A few weeks ago, I mentioned how much I liked the law of Wisconsin which includes a prohibition with a very interesting exception at section (or title...I am not sure with the US) 125.07(1)(a)(1):
No person may procure for, sell, dispense or give away any alcohol beverages to any underage person not accompanied by his or her parent, guardian or spouse who has attained the legal drinking age.
This is the height of civilization and a happy medium that more states might go to. It is one step farther than we find in Maine which doesn't allow minors to buy beer yet the bar on consuming liquor also does not reach into the family due to the exception for drinking "in a home in the presence of the minor's parent, legal guardian or custodian." This is in line with the law in Ontario which contains the following exception to the prohibition against supplying to a person under nineteen:
This section does not apply,
(a) to the supplying of liquor to a person under nineteen years of age in a residence as defined in section 31 or in a private place as defined in the regulations by a parent of the person or a person having lawful custody of the person; or
(b) to the consumption of liquor by a person who is supplied liquor in a manner described in clause (a), if the liquor is consumed at the place where it is supplied.
The right of a parent to override state interference in the home appears to be to be the perfect answer even as an intermediate step. Why should the state get to tell me, a parent, when I can share good beer and wine with my kids...which I think should be well before some guy at a party or behind the bleachers decides the time is right.
Even in the new world, there is obviously something old time about brown ale in the sense that there is a reasonable argument that it is the predecessor or even mother of all styles. In 2004 - and again last week as it happens - I enjoyed a Smuttynose variety pack that included the junior version of this beer, Old Brown Dog Ale. Nice that Smuttynose allows us to compare the stats of the their beers...except there are no stats that I can see on the website for only this one brew. So I will have to tell you it is very similar with a nice thicker biscuity dry cocoa seam through the middle. Around it are wrapped some dry fig and date fruitiness and then a touch of espresso and some sharp green weedy hoppiness. Milk yeast. The enhanced but not huge alcohol of 7% is there, neatly filling a void of lightness noted in the standard weight version. A deep chestnut ale under a rich cream honey tan head.
4% of BAers do not like this one, which surprises me given its flavourfulness. Is it just a problem that it is a similar beer with the volume turned up? I find that an act of confidence myself. But this is not an old ale as plenty BAers suggest. No tang, no stockiness, no wall of malt. Just a beefy brown.
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Evan Rail is our man in central Europe and the author of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide: Prague and the Czech Republic, a guide to the beers of his adopted home. Read more about Evan here.
Alan is apparently a Gen X-er who has hit 40... err...44... err... 45... YIKES... 46 ... ZOW-WEE!! 48 and edits and writes about other stuff at his personal website Gen X at 40. Please email Alan or any of the authors at this blog's gmail account - please write if you want to join the ranks of authors of this site or just want to send in a story on your favorite beer or photo of your regular pub.
