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Tasting Notes #4: The Irish Stouts

Leading up to St. Patrick's Day, it's nonetoolate (nare too early) for a note on the Irish Stouts.

Guinness from Dublin is, of course, the standard -- a black, dry, smooth quaff like no other and a meal unto itself. My absolute favorite beverage, after water; each pint a priviledge & symbol of hope. My most memorable conversations always seem to have panned out over that creamy head. But some wizened pallets feel it has lost some of its body over the last 25 years.

Here's some useful information for taking your Irish Stouts with food...

By far the best-known black beer the world over, Guinness is considered by some to be the standard by which all other stouts are judged. Others, like myself, may suggest that its character has been dulled over the past decade or so. Regardless of your view, however, it is still a fine, dry, appetizing pint.

Poorer County Cork cousins to that Dublin-brewed juggernaut, Beamish and Murphy's represent two different takes on the Irish-stout style — the former more roasted and firmer than Guinness and the latter more malty and a bit chocolaty. For oysters on the half-shell or smoked salmon, choose Beamish or Guinness, but with roasted or grilled meats from pork to beef, try the Murphy's.

...from Epicurus: read the full article for other recommendations such as Welsh and American Irish stouts.

Personally speaking, my first impression of Murphy's was of its richness -- which put me off. But I didn't think of it with a steak. I'll be seeking Beamish out at my local beer-savvy supermarkets and let you know how things progress.

Philadelphia is a drinking town

I'm sure the same can be said for any town, from the largest metropolis to the one horse town you pass on a secluded Pocono road where if you blink you'll miss it.  But here's what sets Philly apart.

The Irish.  With St. Patrick's Day coming up, the Irish side of the city comes out from their normal Friday night hole in the wall and congregates at the Irish parties that the big pubs throw.  Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day so it doesn't even matter if you are obviously not Irish.  For instance, I already consider Donovan McNabb Irish, because with a name like that, you're definitely not German.  But everyone becomes Irish because goddamn we can throw a party.

Two notable events coming up that I will be attending.  The first is the Erin Express, as far as I know a Philly exclusive.  It has to be on a Saturday because it's an all day thing.  Buses drive people around to different bars, and the buses are paid for by the bars.  There's an Erin Express in Center City Philadelphia that runs on three weekends, but due to the huge Irish population of my area (Drexel Hill, Upper Darby, and Havertown), they have one out here too!  Ours only runs on the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, so.... today!  Woohoo.  I have to wrap this up :)  It's 9:47am and the buses start running at noon.

The next event is held on St. Patrick's Day.  There's this band, and they're pretty good.  Really, to be successful around here, you have to write good beats, lyrics that you can sing along to, and apparently have one guy in your band that the ladies go nuts over.  It just so happens that one of those particular bands is an Irish band.  Blackthorn.  Last year, they held a show ($15 to get in, tickets still available!!) at the Springfield Country Club and are doing it again this year.  I talked about whatever I could muster up from the shallow pits of foggy memory of last year's event on my website here.  The thing that makes them great, and successful, is that their music appeals to all ages.  At other shows they've held, like at Rose Tree Park in Media, it's truly a family / fun for everyone event.  This one is for the 21+ group, but we still get people like my best friend's grandfather, who I had a random encounter with at the last St. Patty's show (my best friend was stationed in Japan at the time, so he wasn't there, which made it more random), and lots of older (50+) people just enjoying the atmosphere.  The music is timeless.  I go crazy when they play Black and Tans.

I describe last year's Blackthorn concert as the drunkest I've ever been :)  Because you don't want to be the dickhead that goes and gets beer and doesn't bring one back for everyone.  So, if you're not quick, you could be holding three beers at one time.

Honestly, I have an Irish name but Irish just makes up 25% of my ancestry.  But, the other 75%, German (50%) and French, are famous for drinking.  Again, though, the same can be said for any town, city, country, ancestor.  It all just depends how you party, and Philadelphia, and it's Irish suburbs, can throw one hell of a party!

Phillies 2007 Preview

The Phillies will win the NL East crown this season. That's right, Mets fans, I said it. Here's how.

Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are the middle of the infield. Last season they both hit 25+ homeruns, which is rare for a SS / 2B pair. They've both had 35+ game hitting streaks in the past season (Rollins' ended at the beginning of last season). Rollins is the best shortstop in baseball, and Utley just signed for $85 million. Think he's about to disappoint anyone?

Shane Victorino is the quiet workhorse that everyone loves.  He can go from 0-60 in 3.8 seconds and has a cannon for an arm. Runners rounding first think twice if they hit it towards Shane. While batting, he overwhelmingly drops in Texas Leaguers and makes it to 2nd before the ball hits the ground ;-)  Look for bunt singles early in the count.

Pitching will be strong this year. Cole Hamels and Brett Myers lead the pack in this bullpen. They both have great control most of the time, and both have a wicked arsenal of pitches. No lefty stands a chance against Hamels if he gets ahead. His deadly breaking ball freezes the best, and he routinely racks up double digit strikeouts.  Myers is a great pitcher, and when he's on, forget about it. The Phils have six legitimate starters, and a decent bullpen.

Howard and Burrell. We are all aware of what Howard can do. Besides being named NL MVP last year, much to Pujols' dismay, he lead the league in homers and RBIs, all the while batting .313!  Plus he plays first base, and his 6'4" frame can stretch for the most askew throws. However, pitchers just figure to put Howard on intentionally (even as the first batter in an inning!!), and strike out Burrell.  Well, have we got some news for them. Burrell has spent much of the off-season practicing!  I always said that he never got enough practice, because he dodges out of the way of balls thrown right down the middle. A frustrating sight. If only he'd seen more STRIKES in batting practice!  Anyway, I am confident that he will be a worthy hitter behind Howard, making pitchers at least pay the price for walking him, and at most, forcing them to pitch to Howard.

Aside from these notables, we have Chris Coste, a 33 year old rookie catcher who batted .376 last year backing up Mike Lieberthal. And Aaron Rowand, the clutch pickup from 2005's Chicago White Sox World Series team, who will risk injury to catch any ball. Ask Chase Utley about it, he'll confirm.  Greg Hobbs and Wes Helms look to be worthwhile additions. It's a shame they both play third base.  It's the only open position in Philadelphia. 

If we had this team from the beginning of last year, we would have been in the hunt. When we traded Abreu, Bell, Thome, Lidle (Rest in Peace), we were simply rebuilding. One trade we could have done without was Placido Polanco, but we had to get Utley playing full time. Any Philadelphian would tell you, move Polanco to third, get rid of Bell, put Chase in at 2nd. If only we were GMs...

The Phillies haven't been to the playoffs since 1993 when they went to the World Series and lost to the Blue Jays. I was only beginning 9th grade then, but a successful (in Philly, making it to the big dance is success ;-) ) baseball season can live with you for a long time. I still think back fondly on that time and remember most of it. But those memories are fading, and it's time for new ones.

Tasting Notes #3: Have a Bud!

My local has the Budvar...ehr ehm...Czechvar!

Loyal readers of Tasting Notes will recall my strong feelings for the Budweiser Budvar brew from the Plzen country of the Czech Republic. Only tangentially did I refer to the Hundred-Year saga of the lawsuites between Anhauser-Busch and Budvar's parent company, Budejovicky Budvar, for trademark infringement.

Well, the case dates back to 1906. In short, Anhauser-Busch was using the name "Budweiser" in 1876, a full 19 years before Budejovicky Budvar began operations in 1895. Legalistically, the St. Louis fellows have a point. Culturally, though, they are all wet, since Budvar's hometown is Ceske Budejovice. In German, that's "Budweiser," or anything that may originate from Budejovice -- and beer from Budejovice has been there since, no one actually knows, since before the Holy Grail. So the bastards from St. Louis have appropriated the name of beer from a small Czech town and the local people, themselves "Budweisers," are supposed to lie down. Puts one in a killing mood.

Now this is merely compelling brew trivia until you recognized the trend: that American companies as well as American policies have a certain, je ne sais quoie, louche way about them, coming in and rearranging the furniture.

So it is with the beer. And keeping it positive and to the point, my passion for the Czechvar is stoked. All the more because it is plentiful at Food Emporium just around the bagel shop.

Tasting Notes #2

Almost left one out.

Among the delicious libations we had, Luscombe's Hot Gingerbeer (non-alchoholic, with real ginger) really rang the bell.

Luscombe of Devon (England) has been around a long time and appears to grow organic drinks with a consistent ethos. Ask your local gourmet deli to stock the Luscombe.

**Highly Recommended**

Tasting Notes

If it wasn't for Florian Reuter, I wouldn't have got so drunk.

We sampled the beer in every quarter of our late-September European trip from Berlin to Frankfurt and on to Brussels and parts West. Florian is an adventurous beer drinker and I must admit that the sense of adventure as we drove the autobahn at no mean speed Eastward through the Weimar country to Berlin with his lovely & excellent wife, Maren, it all about took me over.

I'll cut to the chase. The winner was the original Bud, Budweiser Budvar, from the Bohemian parts of the Czech Republic. I already had known enough from the folk taverns of Bleeker Street to single out Pilsner Urquel as among my very favorite beers in a pinch or with a sandwich -- thick-cut peasant loaf or multigrain & mustard please. Budvar is like that, being from the Plzen area, but it combines that rarity of balance, flavor and lightness, and I have encountered no better blend of these qualities in any beer.

For me now it is the original Bud! The beer of kings (not the King of Beers).

We drank fresh 2-pint pitchers of Budvar on the breezy terrace of the Mud Dock over the canal in Bristol with a sunset and a view of the colorful Dutch barges tied up that serve as floating apartments for a few of the citizenry. You could see a row of connected Georgian houses painted in lively pastels on a cliff opposite and at the base of the cliff's limestone facade there were small apertures, doors with wrought-iron gates and limestone steps which one imagines lead back and under the houses for carting provisions up from the canal. Knowing locals indicated these passages are the telltale remnants of Bristol's role in the slave trade (Bristol is typically first associated with the Port wine trade), a shameful reminder that the Germans aren't the only people with a heavy legacy.

The beer, though, diverted our minds from dour thoughts, from the painful past, as we tried hard to think through potential business models that might flourish around the OpenDocument Format (people don't pay for a standard, they pay for software). Gulping Budvar and eating tappas, Florian -- opposite -- who is a kind & considerate travel companion, was unaware that my mind at that moment drifted back to the late 1980's to my Fuqua finance professor and rugby teammate, the indefatiguable Australian, Tom Fletcher, who had an amusing story ready when some of our class was having trouble understanding bond-yield math (Price moves inversely to Yield, girls and marketing majors seemed to have difficulty with this concept).

Fletcher, though a professor, was one of those people easily underestimated: approachable with an extremely sharp mind, though aggressively self-effacing. Then, he was verging on portly but he was swift to the gap with the ball on the wing in Sevens, darting-quick and hard to stop. He's one of those rugby players that you would follow blindly, quickly into any ruck because something unexpected would be coming. Killer instinct. Tom said,

"Back in Australia, my mates & I when we come to a difficult problem we can't solve straight off, we put it all down and have a Foster's." (I paraphrase. Tom's office fridge was well stocked and certain of us had unlimited access while on "research projects".) He said, "If after a while we still can't think of the solution, we'll have another. Eventually, everything sorts itself out."

Words to live by. Never more so than when trying to make money in Free Software.

Before Bristol, O'Reilly's EuroOSCON '06 brought us to Brussels. The Belgian beers I generally find too sweet and overbearing. I have sampled Hennepin in the quart bottle with a cork (brewed from the original Belgian recipe in Cooperstown, New York) -- too rich for my taste. Duvel, too, although it is less imposing. But I learned that, like the French who eat cheeses with their wines, the Belgians eat cheeses with beer. This puts the Belgian trappist ales in a whole new light; so I am willing to go back for another try, with fromage. (Notice that the well-known Chimay label is also a maker of fine cheeses.)

I had a Chimay Bleue, which is so dark and sweetly pungient that I nearly gagged -- though I was a big boy and finished the whole thing. My friend Andrew spares no expense to stock the Chimay, and I admit to being taken in by his enthusiasm. In the comfortable Le Plaza Hotel bar, where the waiters seemed to have a big problem with Americans (what they couldn't appreciate is that so do I), Florian had a Westmalle -- coming from one of the seven Trappist establishments, this one in Antwerp, Holland. This I tasted on Florian's excitement; it is a unique beer for its extreme sweetness and champaign-like bubbliness. Women are believed to like the Westmalle brew. Myself, I'll take a Westmalle Tripel only on occasion, though it should be quite something with a correct cheese.

My favorite of the Belgians -- perhaps because it is rather less-Belgian -- was Leffe (pronounced, lef'). The Blonde was what I had, late at night at an outdoor cafe on a busy avenue. Less overwhelming and fresh it was, indeed. Good balance, though still sweet and lots of flavor -- almond you might say. Leffe is one of those beers widely available in France and Belgium based upon its quality and not so much on marketing.

Onward from Bristol to Dublin traveled our caravan, Van Morrison's wonderful tune in my head. It was to be none other than Guinness, supplemented at O'Sullivan's Bar outside the gates of Trinity College with several Bushmill's -- neat.

In Dublin, when not with the KDE aKademy's ODF Day, generously sponsored by Intel among others, we were blessed by the good recommendations of Paul Thorne, who's Decent Cigar Emporium on Grafton Street will be your stop too for Cigarillos Habanas. I approached Paul in his nicely appointed upstairs shop with palms upraised for a recommendation, something medium or heavy. Exclaimed Paul, reaching for the Partagas, "Now this is something I insist upon." Paul pointed us to McGuire's on Baggot Street with an open smoking area in the rear and a word that McGuire's is "not complete without attractive European ladies." At McGuire's we pleasurably quaffed Guiness, had our smokes and caught Hamburg v. CSK Moscow in the Champion's League on HD.

Now, these are a few of my favorite things.

For more background on the amazing Plzen culture, see Evan Rail's wonderfully readable story, "The Ultimate Beer Run in the Czech Republic," from August in The New York Times.

Around Europe, a handful of beer trails have already emerged, like the lambic breweries of the Senne Valley in Belgium, the seven Trappist monastery breweries of Belgium and the Netherlands, and the dozen or so Kölsch beer makers of Cologne. But the Czech lands are, in some ways, the birthplace of modern beer making, with a brewing history that dates back more than a millennium.