Archive for December, 2008
Beer Day: Brewery Creek and Yaletown Brewing
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 | Beer | No Comments
two new additions to my cellar - Phillips Burley Barley Wine and Driftwood Old Cellar Dweller Barley Wine
Yesterday was beer day. Chris and I made a trip to Brewery Creek to stock up for the New Year and stopped for lunch at Yaletown Brewing. And of course we had to stop at the Gourmet Warehouse, even though it’s a bit out of the way. If you like to cook good food, go to the Gourmet Warehouse – it is nothing short of amazing.
This was my first trip to Brewery Creek. Chris was worried that he over hyped his initial Brewery Creek experience, but it was better than I could have possibly imagined. Their beer selection is fantastic with a good range of hard to find beer from local BC brewers. It was nice to see a beer store that tucks the 12 case of Budweiser and MGD into the back corner where it belongs. This is a store for real beer drinkers.
Needless to say, we filled the trunk up with beer and I added two new barley wines to my cellar, Phillips Burley Barley Wine and Driftwood Old Cellar Dweller Barley Wine. Prior to my growing obsession with barley wine, I thought cellaring beer was ridiculous, but I have seen the light. After tasting Thor’s Hammer Barley Wine (aged for 18 months) at Central City Brewing, I can’t go back to drinking young barley wine. Well, I actually can and probably will, but that is beside the point.
Carrying a full box of beer around is exhausting work – we needed food and drink in a bad way. We drove our hungry selves to Yale Town Brewing for lunch and were thoroughly impressed. We arrived and did what most thirsty beer drinkers do – ask for a sample of the seasonal ale. Who doesn’t love free beer? Yale Town’s current seasonal is Le Nez Rouge; a Belgian style ale with a bit of a twist. This beer is impressive to say the least. It is a huge beer with an ABV of 9.5%, but is so smooth you wouldn’t know it. Unlike many Belgian ale’s, the tartness from the yeast is not overpowering, allowing for the malt flavour to show its face resulting in a well balanced beer. Le Nez Rouge has a spicy aroma and flavour with a hint of banana similar to a hefeweizen. I highly recommend this beer, even if you aren’t a fan of Belgian style ales.
After downing the seasonal sample, we ordered food and a few more drinks. I was impressed with their Brown Ale, a nice roasted malt flavour with some nuttiness and vanilla, but found their IPA to be slightly under hopped. Check out beer advocate for a full review of Yaletown’s beer. We left with full bellies and smiling faces. Who wouldn’t be smiling knowing their car trunk is full of beer.
Erik
Review: Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | Review | No Comments
It wasn’t too hard for the guy at Brewery Creek to sell me on a Palo Santo Marron, seeing as I had heard good things about Dogfish Head Brewery and I love a beer with a story. This brown ale gets its name, which literally translates to “Holy Tree Brown”, from the fact that it is aged in Paraguayan Palo Santo wood fermentation tanks, which at 10000 gallons happen to be the largest wooden brewing vessels used since prohibition, or so they claim. Check out this video showing how they make it.
I was surprised to see that the beer poured out jet black in colour. It was this, coupled with the high alcohol content (12%), that got me a bit scared, not that I wouldn’t like the beer, but that it would be too strong for me to finish! I hate wasting beer. The beer itself smells and tastes great, very flavorful. Rich caramel and vanilla malt flavors were present and I greatly enjoyed the taste the wood imparts on this brown ale. What I didn’t like about this beer was the strength. The alcohol content really comes through, that and the heaviness of this beer have me estimating that one 12 ounce bottle is potent enough to satisfy a team of hearty beer drinkers (4-6 people).
I don’t recommend this beer for the average beer drinker, but I do recommend that a serious beer drinker share this with fellow enthusiasts. It is quite the ride through flavor town, but one bottle it is too much for one. That being said, I can see this beer rounding out over time. I am pretty sure that this is another one I should have aged! One day I will learn.
Cheers,
Chris
Lunch
Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 2 Comments
I have a lot of two things in my house at the moment: leftovers and beer. Naturally, I put the two together to make a stew. I love cooking with beer, and a stew is one of the best ways to incorporate beer into food. This also gave me a chance to open my latest homebrew – a Vienna style ale.
Instead of Turkey, I made BBQ ribs for our annual Christmas feast. I can’t say I am a huge fan of turkey – the only reason why people like turkey is because it is perfectly acceptable to cover it in a ridiculous amount of gravy. I had about two full racks of ribs sitting in my fridge on the verge of spoiling just waiting for a stew.
Lunch
The stew consisted of bacon, onion, carrot, sweet potato, BBQ pork ribs and Vienna Ale. The starch from the sweet potato was not enough to thicken the stew on its own so I did have to throw in a small amount of all purpose flour. This is my favourite way to cook – using whatever is on hand, toss everything into one pot and let the flavours come together.
The Vienna Ale was also terrific. I used Vienna Malt and 2-Row Barley Malt in equal parts, Cascade and Amarillo Hops, and Nottingham Ale yeast to create my own spin on a Vienna Lager. The beer has a sweet but not overpowering malt flavour coming from the Vienna Malt. The sweet flavour is further supported by the Amarillo hops, which tend to impart a somewhat sweet citrus flavour in young beer. This sweetness will dissipate in one month or two; although, I think Amarillo’s unique flavour tastes great in young beer.
I have no shame in promoting my own food and drink – It was delicious.
Erik
Review: Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2008
Friday, December 26th, 2008 | Review | 1 Comment
This years 2008 Fuller’s Vintage Ale is the eleventh annual release of it’s limited edition bottle conditioned ale. I’d seen them in stores and in Erik’s cellar before, but this is the first year that I bought one. Being a bottle conditioned ale, yeast remains in the bottle in dwindling quantities, meaning the beer changes (gets better) over time. Fuller’s states on the box (yeah, it comes in a cool box) that they can only legally recommend aging the beer for three years, insinuating that this delightfully crafted ale will last much longer and improve with advanced age. I showed absolutely no patience or self control by opening mine last Tuesday. How could I resist not opening my individually numbered bottle, one of only one hundred and forty four thousand, for any length of time?
It felt good to take a beer bottle out of a box and peel off a “limited edition 2008″ label to get at the cap. It was also comforting to know that this level of snobbery is the exception and not the rule when it comes to beer. Upon opening the box, I also noted that there was a pamphlet enclosed describing the previous ten vintage releases. I thought that was pretty cool. The beer itself had a lovely medium brown, amber color and produced minimal head. What I noticed right away was the delightfully rich malty, fruity smell. This is by far the best and most powerful smelling beer I have had the pleasure of sniffing. The taste was similar to the smell, with a rich malty and fruity flavor. What struck me about the taste was that the high alcohol content really came through. I really enjoyed the taste at first, but after a few more sips all I could taste was the alcohol, which lessened my enjoyment of this beer. Upon reading the enclosed pamphlet, I learned that the alcoholic taste would smooth out over time, like say a year or two of aging.
I can tell for certain that Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2008 will be much improved in 2010, which isn’t to say that it isn’t drinkable or enjoyable now. Hopefully by then I will also have garnered the self control needed to save drinking a Vintage Ale for two years down the road. Luckily for me, Erik bought me another one for Christmas. I do believe I will abandon my childish ways and adopt his practice of buying each year’s Fuller’s Vintage Ale and saving it for two years before drinking. Check out Beer Advocate’s tips on beer storage if you, like me, have also never had enough patience to save beer for any length of time.
Cheers,
Chris
Merry Christmas, Have a Beer
Thursday, December 25th, 2008 | Beer, Review | 2 Comments
Santa's Private Reserve
It is Christmas and surprisingly the ground is covered in snow – that means its time for a warming Christmas Ale. Christmas Ales and Winter Ales vary a great deal in style but they all tend to be malty and big, typically above 6% alcohol by volume. Some are spiced while others let the combination of malted grains, hops, yeast and water do all the work. No matter what style the Christmas Ale is, it should be warming and well suited for drinking during the holiday season.
After taking my dog for a walk in the snow this afternoon, I opened up Rogue’s Santa’s Private Reserve Ale with high expectations; I am a fan of Rogue Ales and have heard great things about their Christmas Ale. The first sip (more like a gulp) was a bit disappointing – the beer tasted like a pine tree. I looked at the beer, it had great colour looking similar to a Vienna Lager, and it had a thick frothy head, but still tasted foul. I couldn’t figure it out, I know that certain hops have a piney aroma and flavour, but this seemed a bit much, even for a brewery from the hop heavy Pacific North West. I continued to nurse my beer and within 15 minutes realized that I was making a terrible mistake. The problem did not lie with the brewer but with the drinker, the beer was just too cold.
The tongues taste buds are numbed by cold beer – this is a problem when it comes to a malt forward beer such as a Christmas Ale. As my beer continued to warm in my glass, the malt flavour became far more pronounced, balancing out the bitterness from the hops. In North America, most beer is consumed cold, but colder is not always better. Beer’s bitterness manages to shine through even the coldest beer, but the sweetness from the malt becomes almost nonexistent when served cold.
As it turns out, Rogue’s Christmas Ale has been my favourite beer this holiday season. When this beer reaches a cool cellar temperature, 10 – 13 degrees Celsius, its pine like bitterness is balanced nicely by its rich malt flavour. As you reach for your favourite holiday beer this Christmas, let it sit and warm up – you will be glad you did.
Erik and Chris enjoy Rogue Santa's Private Reserve this Christmas
Merry Christmas!
Erik
Balance in the world of beer and bread: Sourdough Bread
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 1 Comment
The last bit of sourdough bread
The world of beer and bread once again has balance – the sourdough bread trial was a success and it was a good chance to learn about yeast. I didn’t have enough patience to let my sourdough starter sit for long enough to develop a strong sour aroma and flavour but it still tasted pretty good. The sourdough starter I used for the first loaf of bread is still fermenting away so the next batch will have a much more developed sourdough flavour.
I always thought yeast was yeast when it comes to making bread and that it doesn’t matter what kind of yeast is used – I couldn’t have been more wrong. Just like beer, bread gets its flavour and texture from three key ingredients: water, grain and yeast. Standard grocery store bread yeast is designed to ferment quickly and impart very little flavour. This allows bakers to turn out a loaf of bread in 3-4 hours start to finish, but at what cost? Well, there is a hugs cost – lack of flavour and texture!
I am by no means a bread expert, but I have been eating bread for long enough to have a strong opinion. Most grocery store bread tastes like a fluffy cloud of nothing. Just like those who think all beer is supposed to be clean, crisp, light and flavourless – I thought bread was supposed to be light, fluffy, white and flavourless. This needs to change.
By using wild yeast, bread can reach its full glory and become much more than a sandwich holder or sauce sponge. Sourdough bread has a nice chewy texture, a unique flavour and a solid crust that can be achieved without the use of bread improvers/adjuncts. To me the most important part of sourdough is its flavour. Every region of the world has different kinds of yeast and bacteria floating through the air – each one producing a different flavour. My sourdough bread will not taste the same as sourdough from Halifax because of the different yeast used to leaven and flavour the bread.
Good bread is made with patience and good ingredients – many good things cannot be rushed. Generally speaking, water, grain and yeast should be the only ingredients needed to make a diverse range of amazing breads. All I ask of you is one simple thing – if you are enjoying good beer, please also enjoy good bread.
Erik
Brewery Creek Liquor Store is heaven on earth
Sunday, December 21st, 2008 | Beer | 1 Comment
I currently reside in the Fraser Valley and used to make most of my beer purchases at the BC Signature Liquor Store in Langley. But that was then and this is now; things have changed. I recently learned of Brewery Creek Liquor Store, which is conveniently located near my place of employment. Thank you CAMRA Vancouver newsletter for enlightening me.
Brewery Creek has the best beer selection I’ve seen in this province of ours. It was overwhelming walking in there. I wanted to buy one of everything, but managed to restrain myself. There was a great selection of west coast and belgian beers, a lot of stuff that I’d heard of but never seen in a store before. I ended up leaving with a Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve, a Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron, and a Phillips Burley Barley Wine. Visiting Brewery Creek will surely become a weekly lunch hour activity for me.
It seems that others love Brewery Creek as much as I do. It’s received glowing reviews on Beer Advocate. It also has it’s own Facebook Group. I have enjoyed the weekly Facebook message they send to tell members about new releases! The bottom line is, if you live in or around Vancouver and you love beer, then you have to visit Brewery Creek; you won’t be sorry.
Cheers,
Chris
A bad experience with Russell Brewing
Friday, December 19th, 2008 | Beer | 18 Comments
Note: I’ve since written a follow up post, check it out here.
This past summer Russell Brewing sponsored the World Ultimate Frisbee Championship held in Vancouver. A friend involved in the tournament let me know that Russell was selling leftover Russell Cream Ale at a cut rate price. I enjoyed a Russell Cream Ale every now and then and so did some of my friends, so I bought five flats of it. I appropriated these flats of beer to myself, Erik, my soccer team, and some other friends. No sooner did we get into the beer, we noticed that it had an odd sour taste. It had gone bad and was virtually undrinkable. Understandably so, my friends, soccer team, and Erik were none too pleased with me.
In one fell swoop, I had turned twenty of my fellows into Russell Cream Ale haters. That did not sit well with me and I wanted to give Russell a chance to redeem themselves. I emailed them to let them know what happened and to ask them if an exchange of my skunky beer for their fresh beer could be arranged. This is what I received back from Russell:
Once in a long while, our cans of beer can go sour. This can be for a number of reasons.
One is the improper storage of the beer. We don’t pasteurize our beer or use preservatives, so the beer is more affected by temperature changes. However, this also means our beer has the best possible flavour.
Regardless, I’m sure we can work something out.
I thought that was pretty cool of them to get back to me so soon. I emailed them back, a few times actually, but never heard anything again. I was pretty choked by that and have since not purchased any Russell products. Neither have any of my friends involved, as far as I know. I don’t really have a problem with Russell’s beer (save their lemon ale, not my bag), just a sour taste in my mouth, literally and figuratively.
What I ended up doing was taking the beer back to my local BC Signature Liquor Store, where they let me exchange it with no questions asked. I used my store credit not on Russell products. I actually had a lot of fun spending my store credit on my favorite beers. Yes, I would like liquor store gift certificates for Christmas.
I don’t really have anything against Russell. For all I know, the beer could have been baking in the sun all days, thus spoiling it. What I do know is if they are brewing their beer right, that it should last for years under the right conditions. Another certainty is that the word is out and spreading that Russell Cream Ale is no good, because I’m sure I wasn’t the only one affected by this.
Cheers,
Chris
Beer & Bread
Friday, December 19th, 2008 | Food and Recipes, Homebrew | 1 Comment
I have been unemployed for three weeks now and have a lot of free time on my hands. With nothing else to do, I started to bake bread – I love bread. So far I have made quite a few loaves of focaccia bread, a loaf of braided French style bread, dinner rolls, croissants and standard white bread. Baking bread is dead simple and incredibly satisfying, plus it will make your house smell amazing. If you haven’t made bread before you must give it a try.
Making bread is very similar to making beer. In ancient Egypt, it is suspected that brewing and bread baking took place is the same place and possibly by the same people. In Egypt, a brew master would also be a baker. After all, the ingredients are almost the same, including grain, yeast and water. Hops are the only ingredient that separates beer from bread; however, hops are a recent addition to brewing and would not have been available to Egyptian brewers.
Baking and brewing, siblings at birth, have sadly been torn apart for thousands of years, and now I, Erik Wolfe, am going to reunite them together again. We shall once again have balance in the world. To do this, I have decided to go back in time and use the same baking & brewing techniques that Egyptians may have used thousands of years ago.
The first bread ever eaten would have been an unleavened flatbread made from an ancient grain such as farro. Without cultivated yeast, which was not available at grocery stores back then, bread will not rise and beer will not ferment. Fortunately, wild yeast is floating in the air all around us just waiting to eat some sugary grain. Early forms of leavened bread and beer would have been fermented with wild yeast. In present day, bread made with wild yeast is called sourdough bread and beer fermented with wild yeast is called a lambic beer. Once a baker or a brewer has fermented their beer or bread, they can cultivate the yeast by continuing to feed grain (sugar) to the yeast, allowing the yeast to be reused again and again. In the form of bread, this is somewhat difficult without refrigeration, but beer is easy to store and is shelf stable at standard room temperatures. By adding beer, instead of water, to grain flour the bread receives a healthy dose of cultivated yeast allowing it to rise and turn into bread.
Beer-Sourdough Bread Starter - Yum!
To recreate a piece of food history, I made a sourdough starter by adding 1 part wheat flour to 1 part beer, my own home brew of course. The starter has been sitting and being fed grain for three days and is bubbling away nicely smelling just like fermenting beer – only brewers enjoy the smell of fermenting grain. The yeast from the beer will continue to eat the flour creating more yeast. Once it has been a few more days, and I have a good amount of yeast in my starter, I will add it to a standard bread recipe and make bread as usual. I will keep you all posted, including the recipe when it is complete.
Erik
Christmas gift idea: The Beer Belly
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Beer | 2 Comments
Wondering what to get for the beer lover this Christmas? Why not get them The Beer Belly! A camelfront(?) beer dispenser that covertly disguises itself as a beer belly. Useful for “bar-b-ques with the in-laws, sporting events, parades, political rallies, weddings” and more. It holds up to two liters of beer, is made of neoprene to keep the beer cold, and costs just $39.99!
I came across this hilarious invention in last week’s CAMRA Vancouver newsletter and kind of want one. The idea of paying $10 for beer for consumption at a sporting event and getting more than a Dixie cup is compelling. At the same time, I’m pretty sure my wife would never actually let me use this. Also, drinking out of a fake gut isn’t exactly how I usually go about enjoying beer.
On second thought, you probably shouldn’t get this for a beer lover, maybe for a frat boy though? If you do need a gift for that beer lover in the family, I recommend going to a store specializing in beer and asking the resident expert to recommend you something interesting.
Cheers and happy holidays,
Chris