Category: beer and food

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beer and food

Saison — what’s it all about?

Saison 1900 beer in the Dove pub, Hackney, London

“I consider these beers [saisons] truly glorious and endlessly interesting. As with wheels of great artisanal cheese, every bottle of saison is very slightly different — it lives its own life, tells its own tale.”

Garrett Oliver, The Brewmaster’s Table

I’ve only had saison twice — the same one (1900) in the same pub (the Dove) two years apart.

That’s not enough data for me to work with in terms of understanding it as a type of beer.

1900 (like rather a lot of Belgian and French beers) has a somewhat overpowering burnt sugar flavour and, like Altbier, finishes with a kind of metallic, dry bitterness. Garrett Oliver isn’t kidding when he says it tastes better with food: I much prefered it once I’d eaten some flame grilled meat and some salty chips, when it seemed drier and less sickly.

But I’m not blown away. Is 1900 a rubbish example of this type of beer? If not, what am I missing? And if so, which others should I try instead?

Bailey

Categories
beer and food marketing News

Damm launch posh new beer

The Damm brewery in Spain have just launched a posh new beer, Inèdit, which I believe means something like “new” or unknown (pardon my Catalan if not, I’m sure someone will correct!)

It is designed specifically to go with food, “to be an alternative to wine in the best restaurants”. It’s been designed with the help of Ferran Adria and sommeliers from El Bulli, which is supposed to be the best restaurant in the world.

It’s not clear from the Damm press release whether the beer will actually be served at El Bulli — it would look a bit weird on the 150 page wine list. They make a big deal about how this is supposed to be a high end product. That said, the recommended price is starts at 8 Euros for a 75cl bottle — a bargain compared to what Meantime bottles for in London restaurants! The beer itself is bottle-conditioned, containing a mixture of wheat and barley malts, with coriander, orange peel and liquorice flavours.

It certainly sounds interesting. In our humble opinion, Damm already make the best mass-produced beer in Spain, and their Voll-damm (pictured) is an excellent strong amber / maerzen by anyone’s standards. I’m looking forward to reading the first tasting notes…

Story via Culturilla Cervecera – thanks Andres!

Boak

Categories
beer festivals beer reviews Franconia london pubs Snacks to beer

German beer festival at Zeitgeist

What better use of a day’s holiday than to pretend you’re in Germany? And how much easier when someone has gone and laid on a German beer festival for you, complete with many beers dispensed Franconian-style out of little wooden barrels.

This excellent little festival was brought to us by Zeitgeist, a great German pub in Vauxhall, Stonch’s beer blog, and Bier-Mania, who organise beer trips to Belgium, Germany and beyond.

This won’t be a detailed review, as we drank too much to remember many details — as did everyone else, by the sound of it … there are now no more festival beers left.

We remember a large range of beer from the Bolten-Brauerei from outside Duesseldorf, with their Alt being particularly nice. Hofmann Export Dunkel Lagerbier was a great example of the complexity that Franconian Dunkels can deliver. Our stand-out favourite was a Dunkel-Rauch by SternBrau-Scheubel which had a gorgeous Maerzen-like malt flavour and amber colour, with a hefty hoppiness and a subtle but complex smoke taste.

We thought the mix of people and the atmosphere was great – some tickers, some trendies, some locals, but everyone getting into it. It was the kind of place you could bring non-beer geeks to (we did) without worrying about whether they’d have a good time.

Also, the excellent range of Brotzeit really helped line the stomach – Obatzda is an acquired taste, but I love the stuff, and they make it well here.

This was easily one of my favourite festivals of all time. Do it again, chaps!

Boak

For another perspective, see Allyson’s write-up on her Impy Malting blog.

Ron Pattinson blogged about Hofmann here.

Categories
beer and food london pubs

The Duke of Cambridge organic pub

The Duke of Cambridge organic pub's trendy blue barThe Duke of Cambridge in Islington is a restaurant/pub which prides itself on its ethical credentials. Ninety-five per cent of its fruit and veg comes from the UK; everything, from the oil in the candles to the washing up liquid, is organic; everything is Fair Trade.

The place itself is all stripped wood, black ceilings and pot plants, but also full of sunlight and fresh air. The staff were friendly (we got a ‘Hello!’ on entering), even if they did make us feel rather lumpy and unglamorous. The clientele is solidly middle class — so much so, in fact, that they’d passed beyond suits and into expensively scruffy designer casuals.

Bailey’s Dad wouldn’t like it, let’s put it that way.

In line with their ethical mission, the pub’s owners get most of their beer from breweries in the south east of England, namely St Peter’s and Pitfield. We’d never seen Pitfield beers on tap, but were very impressed. These beers do not suffer at all from being organic!

The Pitfield SB (the first organic bitter in the UK, apparently) tasted a little sweet on its own, but with fish and chips suddenly gained a new dimension — drier, crisper and with more apparent hop aroma.

We also worked our way through Pitfield East Kent Goldings (Summer Lightning-like), Eco-Warrior (sweet and citrusy); St Peter’s Organic; and Pitfield lager (fruity, malty, very pleasant).

But the real revelation was a bottle of Pitfield’s N1 Wheat Beer. Coriander seed, orange peel and hops gave it a pronounced Belgian flavour, but darker malt made sure this was no mere Hoegaarden clone. Poperings Hommelbier sprang to mind, in fact.

In short, a lovely place to go if you fancy a treat (it’s not cheap) on a summer evening… of if you’re a ticker missing a few of Pitfield’s beers from your collection.

The Duke of Cambridge is at 30 St Peter’s Street, ten minutes walk from Angel tube station. The photo above is from their website.

Categories
beer and food

Pork Pies

porkpie.jpgZythophile has written eloquently of the history of the ploughman’s lunch. Usually, the main protein component is a big lump of sweaty yellow cheese, but I’m very partial to a piece of pork pie.

So partial, in fact, that I made one.

The plan was to eat this with a nice pint of beer for Sunday lunch. Of course, what we ended up doing was getting a bit tipsy with Stonch at the Betsey Trotwood, and eating half of it at four in the morning…

I got my recipe from Elizabeth Orsini’s The Book of Pies. If you fancy making your own, here’s a decent recipe online.

Bailey