Beer, Beats & Bites

Halifax Blacks: Garrison Baltic Porter & Propeller Revolution

January 12, 2010 · 5 Comments

The world of beer from Halifax may begin and end with Keith’s for less astute beer drinkers, but those of us In The Know are well aware that some of the best beer in the country is being brewed in Nova Scotia’s capital (which I call “Nova Scotia’s capital” rather than by a cool or historic nickname because apparently Halifax doesn’t have one yet…).

Aside from being the original hometown of the Granite Brewery, one of Canada’s first brewpubs, it also has a couple of great brewpubs, and two full-scale craft breweries – Propeller and Garrison – that have been increasing their profile outside of the province considerably in the last few years. They’re also two of the few breweries that occasionally send me samples – in fact, I’ve received both of their respective winter seasonals recently, so it’s only fair that I give a few thoughts on them:

Garrison Grand Baltic Porter is back for a second year, and it remains a really interesting take on the style. The ones I’ve tried from actual Baltic states have tended to be fairly sweet and malty, but this dark mahogany-brown beer has a really unique, complex and mildly tart fruitiness going on in the aroma and flavour, with notes of prunes, raisins and dark cherry. There’s a subdued roasty malt character, with suggestions of cocoa and hazelnut, even a bit of licorice, but it’s those dark fruit notes that are in the forefront. And except for a short hint of heat in the finish, the 9% alcohol is really well-hidden.

The same can’t be said for this year’s batch of Propeller Revolution Russian Imperial Stout, which comes across a bit boozier than the Garrison despite being 1% lower in abv. It’s also somewhat hoppier, which probably adds to the pleasantly tingly burn in the finish. And here’s lots of other stuff going on in there as well – stuff like molasses, charred wood, coffee, dark chocolate, and other lovely things that you’d expect to whiff and taste in an almost pitch-black Imperial Stout.

Both great sippers for a cool winter night. Nice job, Halifax! (Oh, and thanks for giving me my wife as well…)

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Canada · Halifax · beer reviews · porter · stout

NYE & TNP – OMG!

December 31, 2009 · 2 Comments

It’s the end of the year, a time when people can’t resist the urge to look back and review the last 12 months while anticipating the year to come. This is something I’ve done on this blog a couple of times, but given how infrequently I’ve posted here in 2009, combined with my piss-poor memory, trying a put together a comprehensive round-up of my year in beer would be a relatively hopeless endeavour.

There was my trip to Mondial de la Bière in Montreal, of course, half of which I managed to document. I also drank way too much in Buffalo; went to cask ale festivals at The Victory Cafe (which I wrote about) and Volo (which I didn’t); went to beer dinners featuring beers from Nørrebro Bryghus & Mikkeller (which I wrote about), Allagash (which I didn’t), and Innis & Gunn (which I sort of did); and I’m pretty sure I did lots of other stuff as well, some beer-related, some not so much.

One thing that I do remember quite vividly, however – if only because it occurred quite recently – is a very exclusive little tasting session hosted at beerbistro by Vlado and Liliana of import agents Roland + Russell, featuring perhaps the most infamous and coveted beer on the planet today: Tactical Nuclear Penguin from Scotland’s BrewDog Brewery.

I’m guessing that anyone reading this blog is familiar with TNP and the story behind it, given the flurry of blog posts and news articles that spewed forth when it was released a month or so back. But in case not, this amusing video will explain it all:

Given the beer’s price (£35 per 330 ml bottle if ordered directly, more on the secondary market) and scarcity (500 bottles, apparently), I had little expectation that I’d ever have a chance to try it. But as BrewDog’s representatives in Canada, Vlado and Liliana were able to score a few bottles, and last Tuesday they were kind enough to share some with a small group that included a several beer writers/bloggers and a few beerbistro staff members.

Like any big show, there were a couple of opening acts: Mikkeller It’s Alive! and Meantime London Porter, both from the R+R import portfolio, and both very fine beers that would be the highlights of any other tasting. But with TNP on the bill, they simply had to be relegated to the support slots.

As for the headliner… well, here’s what I wrote:

Deep brown-black colour with ruby highlights and a very still body. Aroma is outstanding – smoky, peaty, salty, soy sauce, toffee, and some alcohol heat, but not nearly as much as expected. Mouthfeel is smooth and supple, very nice! Flavour is deep and complex with notes of peat, salt, vanilla, licorice, burnt wood, whisky, smoke… and yes, of course, some boozy heat, but as with the aroma, not nearly as much as I anticipated from 32%. A truly unique and absolutely delicious beer that totally lives up to the hype. I would have no problem consuming a whole bottle of this over the course of a long winter’s evening, although it would be rude not to share…

Much respect to BrewDog, then, for creating something that is a whole lot more than just the gimmick it might appear to be. (If you don’t believe me, have a look at what Troy had to say.) And many thanks to Vlado and Liliana for their extreme generosity in sharing their very limited stash of this gem – in a business full of many wonderful people, they’re really a step above the rest.

To them, and everyone else, here’s to a great 2010. Cheers!

→ 2 CommentsCategories: beer reviews · stout · tastings

Half a Year of Beer

December 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Holy crap – I’m posting here two days in a row! Can’t remember the last time that happened.

Although to be fair, this one is a bit of a cheat, as it’s just going to be a list of links to all of the beer & booze-related articles I’ve written for Taste T.O. in the six months since the last time I did this sort of round-up. Which means that some of them aren’t especially timely now, but at least it’s proof that I actual do something useful with my time for at least an hour or two each week:

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Taste T.O. · beer reviews · pub reviews

Innis & Gunn Rum Cask

December 15, 2009 · 1 Comment

This is one in an occasional series of posts reviewing various beers from Innis & Gunn. For the previous post in the series, covering Innis & Gunn Original, click here.

When I wrote my first in this series of Innis & Gunn reviews back in mid-October, I didn’t expect that I’d be posting them on such a glacial schedule. But as is usual for this blog, it’s taking me longer than hoped due to the thousand-and-one other things to which I’ve got myself committed. (Which reminds me that it’s been ages since I last posted a round-up to my beer-related posts on Taste T.O. – I really should get around to that sometime as well…)

Anyway, in the nearly two months between then and now, one of those “other things” that I was lucky enough to do was attend a dinner presented by the secretive underground dining club Charlie’s Burgers that featured Innis & Gunn beers paired with food prepared by Jonathan Gushue and Victor DeGuzman, the Executive Chef and Executive Sous Chef respectively at Langdon Hall, one of the top restaurants in North America. The food was absolutely stellar, one of the most memorable meals I’ve had in my life, and I was especially impressed by the pairings given that the chefs admitted that they’d never done a beer dinner before. While not every match was absolutely perfect, most were excellent, and there were no train-wrecks.

With so many great dishes and solid pairings to choose from, it was hard to pick a favourite. The poached Colville Bay oysters paired with I&G IPA was a surprisingly solid match, and the pure decadence of the Atlantic lobster in hand-churned butter with pig cheek and foie gras torchon would’ve blown me away even if the beer on the side, I&G Original, hadn’t been such a good accompaniment.

Since it was a multi-course tasting menu, there was traditional “main” course for the dinner, but the final course before dessert was an outstanding elk tenderloin served with smoked tongue (better than it sounds!) and several sides, all paired with Innis & Gunn Rum Cask. It was a great match, and while the bottle I had at home a few weeks later wasn’t paired with such an exciting dish – just a couple of pieces of good chocolate – it was still enjoyable.

I&G Rum Cask is currently available in Ontario as part of the I&G “Connoisseur’s Oak Collection” holiday gift pack along with bottles of I&G Original and IPA and a nice branded glass. It’s apparently slightly different from the version that was available in single bottles last December, but my impressions were so close to what I wrote about the 2008 version on Taste T.O. that I might as well quote myself:

It has a much darker reddish hue than [I&G Original], and a deeper and richer aroatma with strong notes of spice, rum and sweet toffee. Rum also comes through prominently in the flavour, along with sweet malt and a bit of oak, and a mild spiciness in the finish. It’s a warm and flavourful beer that could be enjoyed with many desserts and sweets, or just on its own as a pleasant nightcap.

My only criticism, which is the same one I’ve lodged against other I&G beers, is that the fairly light body doesn’t quite hold up to the flavour, although I’m sure that my strong appreciation for the barrel-aged imperial stouts and barley wines that are becoming more and more common in the US craft brewing scene may be influencing my opinion in that matter. To others, it may seem just right. Either way, it’s a tasty winter treat.

Next up: I&G Triple Matured. Watch for it sooner than two months from now, hopefully…

→ 1 CommentCategories: UK · ale · beer dinners · beer reviews · food pairings

Movember: The Evidence & A Final Plea

November 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Only one more day in the month of November, which means one more day of Movember, which means I’ll be able to shave this goddamn beer-foam-catching thing off my face in 24 hours or so.

In the meantime – I need to make one final plea for donations. ‘Cause I didn’t grow this ’stache just for the fun of it. And all those cancerous prostates ain’t gonna heal themselves!

If you’d like to make a donation, please click here to support me and my mustachioed team, and help to raise awareness and money for the fight against prostate cancer. If enough of you come through for me, I promise that I’ll try and actually write a couple of proper blog posts later this week!

→ Leave a CommentCategories: administrative

Movember

November 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

If you’ve noticed a number of your usually clean-shaven male friends and acquaintances growing moustaches in the last couple of weeks, it’s probably not a coincidence. While some of them might just be getting ready to keep their upper lips warm this winter, most are probably participating in Movember, an annual event where men worldwide help raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer by growing a moustache.

Yes, really.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of facial hair. When I was young(er) and stupid(er), I did have something on my chin for a few months that I called “a goatee” and my girlfriend (now wife) called “that fucking thing on your chin”. But until a couple of weeks ago, when one of my co-workers convinced me to join in on the Movember fun, I’d never considered growing a ’stache.

Now that I’ve done so, I understand why, as it’s started bugging the hell out of me and looks kinda ridiculous. Although that latter problem is mostly due to the fact that I’ve foolishly opted for the full-on trucker/porn star/Hulk Hogan style. But what the hell, it’s only for a month, and it’s for a good cause.

Speaking of which – the main point of me growing this monstrosity is to raise some bucks for prostate cancer research, so I’d be much obliged if you click here and donate. If enough of you do so, I might be convinced to post a photo of myself at the end of the month when the mo’ should be getting nice and shaggy.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: administrative

A Pair from Propeller

November 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

propeller_pumpkinandhefeweizen

Yes, I know that promised a series of Innis & Gunn review posts, and they’ll be coming soon eventually, and more as well. But I wanted to get this post up quickly while at least one of the beers is still in season.

The trigger for this was a package I got from Propeller Brewery in Halifax a couple of weeks ago with some bottles of this year’s batch of their Pumpkin Ale. It’s a beer that I liked a lot when I tried the 2006 version, so I was happy to give it another go, and even happier to find it just as good as I remembered it. In fact, based on this tasting notes from back in ‘06…

Hazy light gold with a massive rocky white head. Big pumpkin pie aroma – cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mutmeg, pumpkin – very nice! Body is quite aggressively carbonated at first, but mellows as it warms and flattens a bit. Flavour of a pleasant, well-made golden ale laced with pumpkin and spice, and a dry finish with an interesting lemon cookie note. Very refreshing brew that lacks the cloying character that taints some other pumpkin beers I’ve tried.

… it appears that it hasn’t changed much since then. Which is perfectly fine.

And since I was in a Propeller mood tonight, I reached further into the fridge for the bottle of Propeller Hefeweizen that my friends Jeremy and Karen passed on to me a couple of months ago. I really should’ve had it sooner, as it was already 4 or 5 months old by then, and hefes are always better fresh. But it was still in OK shape considering:

Cloudy golden with a medium white head that recedes to a thin film that sticks around through the whole glass. Lightly yeasty aroma with hints of lemon and pineapple. Good mouthfeel with a nice level of carbonation. Flavour is a bit muted, but what’s there is pleasant, with nice tropical and citrus fruit notes, some crispness from the wheat, and a mildly spicy and yeasty finish. Based on the label, it looks like this was bottled back in April, so drinking it six months later I’m obviously not getting it at it’s prime. It’s still a decent hefe, though.

I briefly considered making it a Halifax trio and cracking the Garrison Hop Yard I’ve got chilling in there, but it’s getting late. So I decided to hold off, and will perhaps bring it out along with a bottle of the Ol’ Fog Burner Barley Wine that I’ll be reviewing later this week for the next issue of TAPS.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: ale · beer reviews · seasonals · spiced · wheat

Innis & Gunn Original

October 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

innisandgunn_original

I have too much beer.

Well, OK, that’s not entirely accurate. I only have about 100 bottles on hand right now, which is a small drop in a large bucket compared to a few people I know who have beer cellars that are large enough to be worth more than the GDP of a small country.

The problem, though, is that between the ol’ day job and a deluge of dinners, tastings and other things I’ve been attending recently, I’m rarely drinking any beer at home. And when I do get the chance to do so, it’s usually when I’m taking advantage of having a bit of down time to watch TV or a movie, and I don’t want to drink anything that I need to think about or take notes on.

As a result, I’m faced with a backlog of brews that I’ve received or picked up to write about. And in the case of the stuff I’ve been sent, I’m starting to feel guilty about letting the bottles sit and wait to be consumed and reviewed.

This is especially true of the assorted Innis & Gunn beers that their Canadian rep Nicol Rennie passed on to me a couple (or more accurately, a few) weeks ago. Nic was kind enough to give me a couple of bottles of their Triple-Matured version which recently hit the shelves in Ontario, as well as their upcoming holiday gift pack which has bottles of I&G Original, IPA, and Rum Cask editions along with a lovely glass. So having them sit undrunk for so long is making me feel like a bit of a schmuck.

Keep reading →

→ Leave a CommentCategories: UK · ale · beer reviews

Chill Out

October 12, 2009 · 2 Comments

miller_chill A few weeks back, I did a write-up for Taste T.O. on Moosehead Light Lime and Red Baron Lime, a pair of beers that hit the shelves in Ontario in the dying days of summer, attempting to ride to coattails of the incomprehensibly popular Bed Light Lime. You can click through to read the whole thing if you’d like, but the condensed version is that neither of them is especially good when judged purely as a beer, but the Red Baron was at least a drinkable and somewhat refreshing beverage.

Soon afterwards, I got an email from Adam Moffat, a rep from Molson who I’ve met a couple of times, with an offer to send me a sample of Miller Chill. While not available in Ontario, Molson has recently introduced it into the Alberta market, and Adam was curious to know what I might think of it, even given my general dislike for the lime beer gimmick. I took him up on the offer, making it clear that he shouldn’t expect a glowing review, and he followed through with a delivery a couple of days later.

In my typical fashion, I stuck a bottle in the fridge and then promptly forgot about it until this evening when I found it stashed in the back. With the temperature outside hovering down near the freezing point, it’s certainly not ideal weather for what’s supposed to be a summer quaffer, but I’ve never been one to worry about that sort of thing. So let’s get this done…

It pours a pale gold with a small white head that disappears remarkably quickly. The aroma is initially not so pleasant, offering that stale malt and wet corn husk smell that I get from many mass produced lagers, but that slowly clears and is replaced with notes of candyish lime. The body is thin and crisp, as expected from a light lager, and the flavour holds very little that can be described as “beer-like” – it’s more reminiscent of Sprite with a very, very faint wisp of malt.

Bottom line: Like the three aforementioned products, this is not a brew for serious beer drinkers. It’s for people who want to throw back a few lightly flavoured and slightly sweet alcoholic beverages on a patio, or at a party, or in other situations where people drink a lot without really thinking about what they’re drinking. Regardless of how much it may offend my pretentious beer geek sensibilities, there obviously is – and always will be – a large market for such beers, and for better or worse, Miller Chill serves that market well.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: beer reviews · fruit beer · lager · macrobrews

A Taste of Niagara’s Best

August 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

niagarasbest_gianttap

As I’ve mentioned previously, the wife and I don’t get out of the city very often, so we were glad to have the chance to take a quick day trip down to Niagara Falls earlier this month with a couple of friends (and fellow beer geeks) to check out the recently opened Niagara’s Best Brewery & Pub.

Folks familiar with the very mainstream and somewhat unexciting Blonde Ale and Logger Lager brewed by Niagara’s Best at their previous brewery-only location in St. Catharines might wonder why we would drive for a couple of hours to visit the new place, and if that’s all they had on offer, we surely wouldn’t have bothered. But brewer Ian Watson has taken full advantage of the increased flexibility offered by a brewpub operation and has developed a line-up of nine regular brews plus a rotating “Brewer’s Special” tap, so there was much more incentive to make the journey.

Keep reading →

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Ontario · brewpubs · travel