On toddies

I’ve been making toddies with powdered spices, rot-gut bourbon and geriatric lemons. And they’ve still been great.

Philosopher’s stone? Not really, as after a few, I lose the capacity to philosophize.

On being tardy

Something like a month ago, I promised a review of Rodenbach’s Grand Cru (site in French; désolé). And then I…well, I failed to blog, and got sick–twice–and traveled, and…

But you’re interested in the beer, right? (All two of my readers. Well, all one of my readers…I guess I don’t count.)

Rodenbach’s Grand Cru is a blended beer, made from 1/3rd young beer, and 2/3rds “older beer”–in this case, beer that has been resting for two years in oak barrels. A similar production method would be that employed in the making of geuze, which is a blended beer made from lambics from several years. This is not to scare off those not addicted to beers with sour or barnyard notes, for as a beer, Grand Cru is much more approachable than, say, Cantillon’s gueuze; it’s merely a note on the similarities in production styles.

The young beer in the Grand Cru would be rather fizzy and a bit tart; the older, more seasoned beer more complex and smoother. Together they reproduce some winey and fruit flavors (cherry comes to mind, as does something of lemon) without being overbearing or too dense. The bubbles both carry and cut the flavor, bringing a crispness to the whole that I found quite delightful.

I opened this bottle as an accompaniment to raw oysters, and was not disappointed, as the beer drank like a ruddy, slightly vinegary champagne.

A new month, a new NyQuil

I decided it would be fun to have two colds in the space of a month. In the spirit of continued exploration of a company’s offerings, I decided to try a new NyQuil.

.

I thought the label said “non-drowsy,” but that’s not how it’s been working out for me. I also thought the label said “NyQuil,” but I guess I’m wrong there too. Deliciously, deliciously wrong.

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On a more serious note: tonight I’m breaking out the cheap stuff, and making myself a few toddies.

Review: NyQuil Cold & Flu – Tastes Better Than Ever

Actually, it does taste better than ever. I wouldn’t drink it for pleasure, but it was not as horrible as the last version. Since I loathe licorice-flavored things, I really despised the previous versions of NyQuil…and, needless to say, Jagermeister, to the horror of my good friend.

The new NyQuil didn’t knock me out quite as quickly as the old formula, though. Perhaps great taste is…oh, I don’t know, less filling?

On the joys of not drinking

It seems my waistline has swelled to what are to me unacceptable proportions. Since I’m pretty sure a notable proportion of my calories comes from alcohol, this means I’m going to take the next couple of weeks off from drinking alcoholic beverages.

In the meantime, I can recommend the coffee from Valhalla Coffee Roasters, which is delightful and locally roasted. It’s not Stumptown, but it’s still quite nice.

During this dry period, I will also review my last beer for a while, a Rodenbach Grand Cru, which I consumed with my partner and some very good friends as we slurped down oysters and picked apart a tomato-mozzarella salad.

Tacoma Craft Beer Festival

I won’t be attending the Tacoma Craft Beer Festival today, as I have guests in town, but I wish the organizers the best of luck.

EDIT: One suggestion to the organizers, though: cast your net further afield when looking for breweries, and I’d gladly pay $18 (or $20 at the door) to get in. Since the festival was top-heavy on local brewers–though, to be fair, there were some entries from outside the Pacific Northwest–, there was less of an incentive for me to have attended had I been uncommitted.

On not seeing the glass through to the end

I have not finished two beers as of late. The first is the aforementioned Avery Reverend; the second, an Alaskan Baltic Porter. When I went to The Spar last night with my partner and our friends from out of town, the place was crowded. And a bit darker than usual. And it was hard to see the labels on the taps. So I thought I was getting the Smoked Porter, even though I was told, “It’s more like a barleywine; is that OK?” Apparently, it was for my partner, who was tipsy after a quarter of a pint glass.

Mental note: for people who ask you to select their beer, order schooners.

In any case, the beer was like a barleywine in only a couple of senses. There was a density to the dark chocolate-colored liquid, a hint of syrup, and a fair amount of wallop (9.9% alcohol–which I estimated, by taste, within one tenth of one percent). There were faint traces of the alcohol in what I refer to henceforth as “a Playdough flavor”–but again, that flavor itself was an undertone. The more predominant flavors were ones…

…well, reading the tasting notes on BeerAdvocate, I wondered if I had quaffed a different beer, one smokier, one more charred than the one everyone else seems to have had. I did not get heapings of cherries and vanilla, though I did enjoy the beer quite a bit while I was drinking it. Perhaps my expectations for a smoked porter convinced me that that was what I was having.

In any case, I left the pint glass about a fourth or fifth full. Too full of good food and good beer to continue.

I think I’ll head back to The Spar sometime soon, to get a schooner for another taste test.

Disappointment

It seems that in the brief history of this blog, there have been more failures than successes–or, better said, that the failures have weighed heavier on my mind. I’d like to think that I’m not what I drink, but perhaps I attract beverage failure. Maybe I need…an exorcism of some kind. A blessing, perhaps.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to the wrong place. The place I (metaphorically) came to is Avery’s Reverend. The description sound scrumptious, right?

Well, I feel the same way about this beer that I feel about transparently thin monks. There is much alcohol to this beer, ’tis true, but little body. It’s not the sort of quadrupel that makes me rejoice; instead, it leaves me puzzled.

I’ll admit, I was expecting some of your standard Belgian flavors, accompanied by a beer to hang them on. And it’s not that I didn’t get them, but the flavor profile wasn’t as complex as I might have hoped, and the beer didn’t finish as big as I would have expected.

One of the beer’s saintly virtues, though? It hid its alcohol well.

Dry Fly’s gin…

…is, perhaps, better than the vodka. It’s hard to call it a gin in the traditional sense, however, as the recipe contains mint, hops and Washington apple.

In any case, a damn fine product. One that has inebriated me thoroughly.

In which I defridge a bottle

I purchased several bottles of Deschutes’ The Dissident in 2008. It was a delightful beer when I bought it, but I was worried that my cellaring it at a lower temperature would affect its flavor. I was also curious to see how well it was standing up, over a year later.

The head was strangely absent in the pour (just under room temperature into a tulip glass), but the beer came out a tawny-ruby color, shifting in the light. The nose seemed remarkably similar to what I remembered, if attenuated–a whiff of barnyard, a touch of cherry, and a hint of a…creamy sweetness.

On the tongue, the beer is rather…well, less than what it was. It’s hardly the brash, assertive young thing I had a year ago, full of a redolence and bite that reminded me of the kohlrabi pickles that we make at home, with the sour of the brine cut by the starchiness of the kohlrabi’s white flesh. It’s more stately than that younger beer, more refined. It’s like a striking elderly person, in a way…you can see where the lost beauty was.

Though it seems I am here to bury The Dissident in faint praise, I’m here to do the opposite. The Dissident is, even with the lost luster, is a better beer than it was a year ago. It’s not as bold, but it is more consistently enjoyable.

Were I to have to give an introduction to someone who had never tried sour beers, I’d start them off with a year-old Dissident. Not that there aren’t great Belgian sours that one should sample, but the smoothness of the aged Dissident makes it more accessible to those who aren’t ready to have their taste buds assaulted by too much pucker.

EDIT: The colder the beer, the more noticeable the pucker. I’m having some well-chilled today, and it’s a more assertive beer than it was last night.