Tag: 100 words

A good Tripel demonstrates how a beer can be balanced without being bland or paltry. Sweetness reined in by bitterness, richness met by high carbonation, with spice and spicy yeast pulling it all together.

Complex without drama. Subtly luxurious. Affordable art.

Yes, very affordable: you can still buy some of the highest-regarded examples for less than three quid a bottle, and a suitable glass for not much more.

Tags 100 words, tripel, westmalle

opinion

100 Words: Beer Strictly for the Geophages

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 25th August 2017
7 Comments on 100 Words: Beer Strictly for the Geophages

Illustration: mud texture.

We’ll take murky beer but not muddy.

Murk is usually superficial, but sometimes softening, sometimes silky. It leaves room for other flavours. Light likes it.

Mud is taste and texture. It is dirt, the riverbed stirred up — chewable, unclean, silt between the teeth.

Mud is why you leave carp to swim in a clean bath before eating it — one degree away from… Well, you know.

Beers that look murky are more likely to taste muddy, but don’t have to. Clear beers can be muddy, we think, but it’s a clever trick.

Murky wasn’t meant as an insult. Muddy always is.

Tags 100 words, cloudy beer, quickies, tasting beer

Blogging and writing

100 Words: Fine is Fine

https://twitter.com/BoakandBailey/status/774678065066672129

Ah, So Very British™ — saying things are Fine when you really mean they’re awful.

Except that’s not what we mean.

When we say Fine, we mean Fine — that is, adequate, the mildest form of Good.

Fine-not-fine scale with 'fine' on the positive side.

And you know what? We drink a fair bit of beer that isn’t Fine. It’s not Awful or Dreadful — it’s just, like most stuff, floating around in the middle, stirring little beyond a shrug, an appreciative nod or a momentary frown.

We like to keep something back for the gold medal beers, and for the absolute stinkers.

The rest of the time, Fine is OK.