beer & food

Session #24: A tripel to Twitter for

The SessionThis is my contribution to The Session, today celebrating two years of beer bloggers (and now Twitter users) writing about the same topic on the first Friday of the month. Visit Musings Over a Pint for the roundup. To follow it “live” on Twitter head to that site and search for #thesession.

Today the theme for Session #24 is “A Tripel for Two.” Host Dave Turley asks that we pick a Belgian-style tripel to review, and to tell “us why it’s your pick to share with that special someone.” After all, Valentine’s Day is only eight days out, although I don’t expect it to be a beery day. We have reservations at Cochon in New Orleans and I’ll be surprised if their beer menu equals their wine list.

But a good tripel, or what I’d call a good tripel, matches such a range of dishes it works well at almost any table. Of course I like my tripels sneaky bold, without the obvious alcohol or lingering sweetness that some prefer, with spicy yeast character usually accented by noble hops. Earthy and dry at the finish.

Captain Lawrence Xtra Gold, for example even though it blatantly breaks the noble hop rule. I don’t have a glass of it in front of me, so my drinking notes are from the fall of 2007, when I wrote about the beer for All About Beer magazine’s Beer Talk.

Here’s some of what I wrote for AABM:

Were there orange or mango groves in the flatlands east of Antwerp you sense this is the beer the monks of Westmalle might have come up with. Appropriately sub-titled an “American Tripel.” Citrus aromas and flavors from Northwest hops blend seamlessly with juicy orchard fruits and a bit of candy sweetness. Bready and yeasty on the palate, standing nicely against substantial alcohol. Hop flavor throughout, though in no sense bitter, tart and dry at the finish.

That’s more than 140 characters, so I guess I have to work on the Twitter version.

 

Italian craft beer . . . in one photo

Given the sudden outbreak of tales about Italian beer (see below) and the reality I should save something interesting for a couple of print assignments I’m going to write a lot less here than I planned for Italian Beer Part II.

Instead I’ll steal an idea from this wine blog, which reviews wines using a single picture instead of traditional tasting notes. The new wave of Italian beers can’t be represented by a single image, but I’m suggesting this is a start:

Italian craft beer

The photo was taken at Pompeii. I didn’t choose it because it expresses something “classic,” but because of the balance and texture it shows. Those components are essential in any beer we might call exceptional. One complaint about the big hoppy beers that emerged in the United States and now the sometimes offbeat beers of Italy is that the colors sure are bright but they often clash.

Not every Italian brewer has it figured out, but there are enough to set a good example for the others.

Here’s one example. KeTo RePorter from Birra del Borgo, located about 70 kilometers east of Rome. The beer is a rich porter spiced with tobacco leaves (added during the final two minutes of the boil). Several other Birra del Borgo beers are available in the United States, however this one has had a little trouble getting label approval . . .

Anyway, perhaps we should considered the power of persuasion, but KeTo seem to have a little pipe tobacco sweetness in the aroma and flavor and surprising spicy notes that set it apart from other porters. You may or may not like this, you may or may not think it is worth the price, but Italian small-batch brewers must ask more for their beers (they are spending 40 to 50 percent more than large brewers for ingredients) so they better be offering something different.

That’s the easy part. Balance and texture are the things not even a volcano eruption can destroy.

Further reading

As noted last week, Evan Rail’s New York Times article nicely captures what is happening in the north and the beer/food connection in Italy. And Charlie Papazian, one the heals of Salone del Gusto in Turin, offered a whole series of posts on Italian beers. (Start here.)

Since like Papazian I noted that finding craft beer in Italy is still a challenge in some areas, such as Florence and Venice, I must agree that sometimes you have to work to find these beers. However, after I wrote that post I learned that 300 bar/pubs in Rome serve craft beer and that a growing number of bars, led by the pioneering Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’, specialize in flavorful beer.

Also, I have to correct Papazian when he writes, “Are any beers being exported to places like the USA? Very, very few.” If you live in the right parts of the United States it is easier to find a range of Italian small-batch beers than in most cities in Italy. Importer B. United International has a dozen Italian beers in its portfolio, listed here.

 

A little more about Italian beer

We’re far enough south in Italy right now that we’ve spotted the water buffalo responsible for Buffalo Mozarrella. I’ve learned that Italy grows 300 different kinds of chestnuts and that Italian brewers make at least 40 different chestnut beers.

More later, but if you need to read more about Italian beer now, check out Evan Rail’s New York Times story Savoring Italy, One Beer at a Time.

Makes me want to swing back north and visit the spots we missed.

 

Before the seagull attacked

Peggy's Cove lighthouse?

Not sure if the seagull adding a pastoral note to this photo taken at Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia is the culprit, but yesterday we got dive bombed by a gull determined to eat some of our ice cream.

First it swept over me (and missed), but it doubled back and nailed Daria’s cone as well as a bit of her finger. Right near this spot.

She’s got the whole story on the Slow Travelers blog.