Stan Hieronymus

Why drinking beer is better than delivering beer

We’ve taken all you’ve given
But it’s gettin’ hard to make a livin’
Mr. President have pity on the working man
                   – Randy Newman

Talk about a job that sucks.

Conversation overhead this morning at the gas station/convenience store between a delivery man for the local Anheuser-Busch distributor and woman behind the register.

Driver: So does that mean you want them stacked five boxes high? Six? Seven?

Woman: It needs something on the top that looks special.

Driver: The price is the price. That’s where it has to go.

Woman: He said he wants it to look like a display. If it doesn’t then we’re going to take it out and put something else in. You’ll have to ask him.

Granted you may not care if this gas station has a pile of Bud Light and Budweiser cases (which it always seems to) or Miller Lite or boxes of Coors with a train running across the top. And we’re pretty sure it won’t be cases of Sam Adams or Fat Tire no matter how great the display might look.

But I see a guy checking his watch. He’s supposed to be headed on to his next stop.

He already knows he’s going to be late getting home, and it’s Valentine’s Day.

Hardly seems fair.

Scallop Stout: What’s next? Monkfish?

Out of hops? Try scallops.

British brewer Shepherd Neame has used them to make Scallop Stout.

“There’s a hint of smokiness and a slight taste of the sea but no fishiness. I can find no scientific reason for why it works, but it does,” brewer Stewart Main said. The newspaper report states the 3.7% abv beer “is made using traditional methods but with a handful of scallops thrown in for an hour.”

Bivalves and stouts aren’t exactly strangers. Not only have Guinness and other producers long advertised serving oysters with stout but once in a while brewers even tossed them into kettle.

Guinness oysters ad

It can get confusing. For instance, Marston’s Oyster Stout contains no oysters.

Writing about oyster stouts several years ago, Michael Jackson made it clear (“Heaven sent – downing oysters by the pint“) there is a balance to be struck, be it stouts with oysters included or in finding the right stout to go with oysters.

A stout must lean to the dry side if it’s to accompany oysters. Despite its fullness of body, Guinness’s Dublin-brewed, strong (7.5 per cent) and quaintly named Foreign Extra Stout does the trick. especially if it is lightly chilled. The regular bottled or canned stuff is arguably too sweet and the jury is out on the draught version.

Murphy’s and Beamish are barely dry enough, but there is a case for the peppery, spicy Cain’s Superior Stout, from Liverpool. I have long loved the toasty, faintly anise-like porter from Harvey’s of Lewes, East Sussex.

Not sure what he would have written about Scallop Stout.

However, What to Drink with What You Eat includes a story from Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver:

“One of the funnest dinners I have ever done was with the Westchester association of country club chefs. I paired seared diver sea scallops with brown butter sauce with a Taddy Porter from Samuel Smith, which is a dark beer with a buttery, residual sugar and caramel taste to it, and a slightly chocolatey aroma.

“They were surprised to see a light dish with a dark beer. We deconstructed the scallop, which is sweet, with a caramel sear, and the butter in the brown butter sauce. With the beer, I am delivering a round, soft buttery flavor with caramel.

“You have carbonation that scrubs the palate and removes fat and oil. This audience of chefs was shocked, and said it was one of the best food and beverage combinations they ever had.”

Laugh so hard beer comes out your nose

Child at barWe’re yukking it up in beer world today. (Except for these guys.)

– First, Bill at It’s Pub Night put an empty bottle of Deschutes The Abyss up for auction on eBay.

You know the drill from Tomme Arthur’s article, “The value of the item is in the collectible container, blah, blah, blah.”

Somebody bid on the bottle. Conversations broke out at Beer Advocate and at Rate Beer.

Go read it.

Laugh.

Me, I’ve got to go dig out my bottle of The Abyss. When I wrote about Lost Abbey The Angel’s Share for The Session somebody asked me if I was going to put the empty bottle on eBay. I laughed. I recycled. What a dunce.

– Moving along. Stephen Beaumont figures out what to do with a press kit that showed up on a variety of doorsteps last week. Including mine. This came in a nifty wood box, black wood on top and light on the bottom (it promotes a “Black & Tan”). Looks to me like a prize for the New Mexico State Fair beer competition.

The kit introduces us to the concept of a “brolly.” What? Google sent me to Wikipedia.

Being a bolder journalist, Beaumont sets out to use the instructions that came with the kit to pour a Black & Tan. Reading his description makes me think it would be a video on YouTube.

1) Pouring Bass or almost any beer, directly down the center of the glass, as the instructions suggest, is an idiotic move. I wound up with about a quarter of a glass of beer and three-quarters of foam, forget having room for stout or even the “Brolly.”

2) After I poured the Bass in correctly – ie: down the side of an angled glass, allowing for one to two fingers of foam to form – I put the “Brolly” in place and immediately overflowed its sides, causing the predictable mixing of the beers. “Slowly” is obviously a key part of the instructions.

It made me laugh.

And wonder what an empty bottle of Bass would bring on eBay.

About that mom breast-feeding at the bar

Child at barFull disclosure: Our daughter had been in more than 100 breweries before she was two years old. Not that she remembers any of them. Not everybody thought this was a good idea, but we sure learned some interesting facts about strange state laws, such as in Washington.

So stories such as yesterday’s in the New York Times about a Brooklyn bar posting a sign that reads “Please, No Strollers” get our attention, particularly with a catchy headline like, “Look Who’s Getting Rolled Out of the Bar.”

The story also makes reference to Wetherspoons in the UK implementing a limit on how many beers parents could drink in a pub. Which gives me an excuse to point to this quotable commentary from Stonch:

Presumably this is aimed at reducing the number of ankle-biters in your local ‘Spoons. Lots of people would prefer to ban children from pubs altogether, so perhaps the policy will have its supporters. However, there’s something annoying and petty about it. Back in September, we had a discussion about daft rules in pubs. I’d like to add this one to them.

The Times story explores pub culture, but considerably more, including the Gen X lifestyle (attention, Alan).

Which is probably why it kicked off an incredible long conversation. There should be more than 300 posts by the time you get there, and they are all over the map.

Worth reading, although I must admit my favorite doesn’t necessarily advance the discussion. I don’t care. Read it and smile.

“This is outrageous. Divisive issues such as this threaten to tear the Democratic party apart. We need to show a united front to the GOP, yet our very babies and being used as would be badminton birds. Anyway, why strollers? In my day, we lashed our babies to our bodies with rawhide strips. Babies could gnaw on the strips when teething time came around. When the strips rotted away, the baby fell to the ground and toddling time began. The toddler was given a crust of bread and sent out to make his way in the world, coming home for snack time and story time. Having a baby lashed to you means your body gets toned like no pilates workout would. As the baby gets bigger and bigger, you get stronger and stronger from the increasing resistance. The great world champion Bulgarian powerlifters of the 1970s pushed this technique to the limit in their training and kept their children bound to them well into their teenage years. We should not argue with their success. If these mothers would use these traditional methods, combined with a serape to conceal the baby, this would be a non-issue. For the sake of Democratic unity, I implore the mothers of Brooklyn to use the time honored method of rawhide strips and serapes, and let the healing begin. A ravaged nation awaits your decision and salutes your sacrifice.”

Surely “Contemplator, Kansas City” is a beer drinker.

Monday musing: UK’s good beer news overlooked

Roger Protz rightfully asks why the British press hasn’t been all over the news that beer sales by members of the Society of Independent Brewers were up nearly 11% in 2007.

This stunning success story – at a time when giant global brewers are reporting a sharp downturn in sales in Britain – has been met by a resounding silence by the media.

Michael Hardman, SIBA’s press officer, tells him, “This is a great British success story – but nobody wants to know.”

Protz pulls no punches:

The reason is not hard to understand: the media is obsessed with “24-hour” drinking” and “binge drinking” and doesn’t want to write about a good beer story. As Hardman adds, “If you substituted ‘beer’ in the report with the word ‘wine,’ the media would be falling over themselves to write glowing stories.”

It’s not like the ongoing success of “craft” brewers in the United States doesn’t get pretty good coverage.

Philly Beer Week– I’ve tried not to spend too much time looking at the Philly Beer Week schedule. I know my head would blow up were attending an option. And that’s a best case scenario. If it didn’t then I’d surely destroy at least some of my internal plumbing. They should call it Philly Hedonist Week. Best I stay here in New Mexico.

But it does make you think about Philadelphia boldly declaring itself “America’s Best Beer-Drinking City.” This has led Stephen Beaumont and Don Russell to debate Philadelphia’s beer cred in Ale Street News. (So far just in print, but look for the story to pop up online.)

I’d say I was staying out of it, but since last week I casually mentioned that any such debate begins and ends with Portland, Oregon (see, Jeff, I wrote it again), I’ve already taken a stand.

Were I getting further involved I certainly would use Russell’s post Saturday about the demise of Ludwig’s as evidence for whatever other side. Geez, if Gibson City, Illinois, can support a German restaurant with a solid beer selection shouldn’t America’s Best Beer-Drinking City?

– Conversations here sometimes go directions I would not have anticipated. One last week about buying habits of Gen Yers turned into a discussion about authenticity. Enough to talk about that Lew Bryson then added much you should read at his blog, including an important comment.

I meant everything I said at the beginning of the post about what “authentic” means to me, and that’s what I want…but I want to define it for myself, and I would just as soon not see claims for it made by brewers when it’s not clear what it does mean.

A reminder we all our own definitions, and biases. Me, when I read something like this from Beerdrinker of the Year finalist Matt Venzke I want to shout hallelujah:

“Small breweries are one of the few remaining vestiges of local uniqueness. Internationally, breweries reflect the local character, history and flavor.”

Your mileage may vary.