This one is being peddled at the LCBO right now for $6.50 for 500 ml. Nice packaging. This is bottle #65180. I have another 2006 hidden away with a 2005. Why? Because I am a nerd.

Tan frothy head over caramel ale. On the nose, just malt sweetness. Rich. Plenty of grain texture all in all and an exceptionally well hidden 8.5% with sweet malt and twiggy and slightly astringent hops on the wash around the chops. There must be more - start again. The nose is more than just sweet. There is a hay loft sort of clean organic smell. Tweedy. What about the taste? Fruit? Sultana and apple perhaps. Maybe one of those green fig varieties as well. Some smokiness as well but gentle. Black tea at the finish with creme caramel.

Some day I will do a side by side. Meantime, pick a few of these up even at this price. Thinking ale. BAers say yes.

I am of two minds about this book. On the one hand it mainly discusses a topic that has not been much written about - the establishment of the macro brewing business within the USA from its first years in the Mid-west German immigrant community to the great days in the 1950s of little taste in little cans that was recently celebrated in the book Great American Beer that I reviewed a few months ago. On the other hand, the manner in which the story is told is so odd as to be frustrating. The reason may be found in two pages of the introduction. On one, we are told when the project of the book began, the author "knew nothing about beer - historical or otherwise" and on the next:

As I dug through the archives and old trade journals, I discovered that almost every aspect of that oft-told tale of skullduggery, greed, and woe was false and that the truth was considerably more interesting and complex.

Frankly, readers are told far too much about the people in these families unless you are a reader who cares to know much about the good and rich and somewhat dull. The writing is a bit ripe and dramatic rather than even-handed which compounds. And as Stan Hieronymus notes in his review the use of the imperative in the historical analysis, that there was no choice as what was was the only thing that could have happened, wears a bit.

But there is plenty of information here and it is used constructively if sometimes perhaps selectively. There are plenty of end notes and I found myself checking for hints as to why things were as described, but found myself by times to be disappointed. At one point trial transcripts of witness were being used as a source of fact. One judge I used to appear before once told a witness who pleaded that what she said was true that he expected any relationship most witnesses have to the pure truth stays at the court room door. Then I noted that the contrary evidence in the trial was not given equal space. Not a way to give great confidence.

Look, there is a lot of good stuff covered here for all the weaknesses. If you want to learn how German lager came to America, the first half is a good introduction. If you want to know about what the rise of micro-brewing in the 70s and 80s and the people involved, this is a good place to start. But I would also encourage you to read Gregg Smith's book as well.

PS: I received another book to review that has far less to do with beer than this one, entitled What to Drink with What You Eat. Stan Hieronymus did a great review of that one, too: go read it.

Weather willing, I am off for a central New York beer quest later in the week, the sort of run to get the stash into good shape for the long winter months ahead. I have been looking around various beer review websites as well as looking back at various winter and Christmas beer posts of the past.

But then I realized I have you. What are you looking forward to? What would you buy?

These five bottles have been sitting around since this time last year when they formed a gift pack offered as part of the LCBO Christmas selection. I trust they have traveled through the last twelve months well as they range from 6.7% to 10.5%.

These beers are made commercially so are "Abbey" rather than "Trappist" ales but they carry on a Trappist tradition that only stopped applying to them in 1992 as they were no longer being brewed within the monastery walls. The beers numbered 6, 8 and 12 are supposed to be continuations of that monkish brew. More on the history here from the brewery itself and here from an article by Michael Jackson. The commercial operation appears to be something of an offshoot of Westvleteren, brewing the beers for the monastery from 1962 to 1992 and then privately from 1992 perhaps with a different yeast strain. Correct me if I have that mixed up. I only have the internet to rely upon in these matters.

• Pater 6: a light chestnut ale under a rich rocky tan head. Interestingly, somewhat creamy and dry at the same time. Plenty of dark maltiness with figgy, plummy notes as well as rough grain. Additional roughness from aged low-acid hops. There is also a black cherry note in there. More attic than burlap in the mustiness. Only 1% of BAers give a thumbs down but they do make some valid observations - it is more rustic than elegant and there is a coarseness to the hopping. With a swirl of the yeast, there is a little more milkiness smoothing it and something of a dry cocoa effect - especially when you shake out that last dribble of pure yeast. More pumpernickel than Christmas cake but still a very nice dubbel.
• Prior 8: another light chestnut ale under a tan head - but the head is finer, billowy rather than rocky. Maltier and richer, though still with grain - more of the familiar dubbel like a Chimay Red or maybe like Ommegang (or even maybe the Harvey's Elizabethan Ale I had two years ago...maybe, maybe, maybe...). Spicy and plummy - also fig, date and licorice some white pepper from the hops but mainly dry, barky. Soft water and more burlappy than #6, spice rather than herb with a bit of buttery biscuit back there. Very good and a nice warmly enveloped 8%. On the swirl, again, yeast like cooled scalded milk and a bit of chocolate rather than dry cocoa. Again, 99% of BAers approve.
• Watou Tripel: gold ale under a stiff fine mousse white head. Slow fine multi-bubbly carbonation. The aroma is all pear juice. In the mouth cream rich pear, white pepper heat from the 7.5%, honey and a slight nod to cotton candy. Fresh, smooth and bright. Subdued fine herbs - lavender and rosemary. Well balanced and fairly sweet for a tripel. On the swirl the chalky milky yeast smooths even more. 3% of BAers do not like, fining it too sweet or the yeast too chunky but these things are fine with me.
• St. Bernardus Tripel: A finer more subdued tripel. Straw slightly greyish coloured ale under fine while lacy head. In the mouth, soft water cream, a little heat, a tiny bit of white pepper and twig herbs. A very low general volume setting for flavour, rich but quiet. Fruit? Apple and peach but low acid. No real Belgian candi sticky feeling you get with some tripels. Somewhere between comfort and elegance. On the swirl some banana and tangier peachiness and it falls a bit from grace. 99% of BAers approve.
• Abt 12: A huge rocky tan head over cloudy red-tinged mahogany ale. Masses of lace as the head recedes. Funky burlap with rich malt nose. In the mouth, again smooth and soft water comforty. Spices - nutmeg and all spice - in and through the dark raisin and date malt as well as a tiny nod to some twiggy herb, most like rosemary. The 10.5% is more noticeable in belly warmth than heat in the mouth. This is well balanced and perhaps not that greatly challenging but at the end of the day (especially at the end of the day at the end of the weekend at the end of the year) does every beer have to be a challenge? This is worthy of the 99% approval the BAers give.

I received word of this news from Chris Hadden, a beer label designer from Portland Maine:

On Thursday, the Maine Civil Liberties Union Foundation filed a lawsuit claiming government censorship after the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement refused to allow Massachusetts-based Shelton Bros. to sell Santa's Butt and two other beers with label illustrations that the agency deemed "undignified or improper." The MCLU claims the denial is a First Amendment violation restricting freedom of expression. State law requires beer distributors to register labels with the liquor enforcement bureau. Maine State Police Lt. Patrick Fleming said the agency reviews 10,000 to 12,000 applications a year and typically denies about a dozen. Applicants who are denied are given a chance to alter the label and reapply, he said. The Santa's Butt label depicts Santa Claus from behind, sitting on a barrel. It is intended to have a double meaning, Shelton said, in that "butt" is also a term used to identify the 126-gallon barrel on the label.

If artwork can be banned because it looks "undignified or improper" at what point does subjectivity reach the ranks of the absurd.....What if a label has a guy standing there with his hand in his pocket? What is he doing?...the slope seems slippery one....but we're dealing with a much larger issue, we're creating an environment where beer drinkers could end up with distorted ideas of sex and sexuality and body image. ....we all don't want that to happen to beer drinkers..do we!

...an advertisement that, directly or indirectly, depicts family scenes that in any way involve the use of liquor, including any group of adults accompanied by children.

Time to have the regulators butt out.

An odd bit of public welfare notification giving from the PEI Liquor Commission, an organization I recall as lacking a strong leadership role in public awareness on the risks associated with the product:

The 24-page guide, released in time for the holidays, gives tips on planning a party, recipes and bar-stocking ideas. It also includes sobering information on a person's liability as a host, and dispels myths about alcohol consumption. The guide notes a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that social hosts don't have the same burden of responsibility that bars and restaurants do in ensuring guests do not leave intoxicated.

"A social host at a party where alcohol is served is not under a duty of care to members of the public who may be injured by a guest's actions, unless the host's conduct implicates him or her in the creation or exacerbation of the risk," the top court ruled. "Short of active implication, a host is entitled to respect the autonomy of a guest. However, the PEI Liquor Control Commission's booklet says, the Supreme Court ruling does not provide a carte blanche."

• At para 26 the court says:

  I conclude that the necessary proximity has not been established and, consequently, that social hosts of parties where alcohol is served do not owe a duty of care to public users of highways. First, the injury to Ms. Childs was not reasonably foreseeable on the facts found by the trial judge. Second, even if foreseeability were established, no duty would arise because the wrong alleged is a failure to act or nonfeasance in circumstances where there was no positive duty to act.

  So where the wrong is an omission, a not doing of something, there is no duty.
• Key facts by the trial judge found include the following at para 4:

  The party hosted by Dwight Courrier and Julie Zimmerman at their home was a “BYOB” (Bring Your Own Booze) event. The only alcohol served by the hosts was three-quarters of a bottle of champagne in small glasses at midnight. Mr. Desormeaux was known to his hosts to be a heavy drinker. The trial judge heard evidence that when Mr. Desormeaux walked to his car to leave, Mr. Courrier accompanied him and asked, “Are you okay, brother?” Mr. Desormeaux responded “No problem”, got behind the wheel and drove away with two passengers.

  So the hosts were not piling on the drinks, they were not serving the drinks, they were not "operating the bar". They were not "acting."

To be very fair, I have not read the booklet and the news item says they have confirmed it is not a free for all. But be as careful as before. Take prudent advice. Don't consider anything has changed when you are pouring the drinks. You may well still be as responsible as before in another set of circumstances. Do you want five to ten years in a court case that goes to the Supremes to find out?