Roast Beast

I love Fall. As a New Englander, I was raised on the magic of watching leaves turn fantastic colors and the smell of burning leaf piles across the suburban landscape. What I really love about Fall is that the lower temperatures make it less of a bummer to turn on the oven and roast. Summer grilling is fun and whatnot, but only a hearty hunk of roast beast brings back all of the warmth of home. I apologize for my absence - several large projects intruded onto my time. I won't let it happen again.

I should mention, by the way, that the warmth of home thing is a total fiction - as an Asian-American, the closest my parents got to roasting on a regular basis was, maybe, a turkey at Thanksgiving, and reheating a giant honey-baked ham for Christmas. Dad's steamed fish and a big pile of authentic chow mein - that's comfort food.

But yes, roasting. I've loved roasting things since my time in the UK, where I first made a personal friendship with my butcher and discovered that meat didn't necessarily have to come in flat slices from the supermarket. So when my girlfriend and I figured on dinner options last weekend, we decided a roast would be right to christen the season. And where there is a nice English roast (with Yorkshire pudding, natch), there must be dark English beer.

Fuller's London Porter - A delicious dark beer.

I've always been a fan of Fuller's London Pride - I find incredibly drinkable, and has been a favorite since my time in the UK. This time, I tried Fuller's London Porter, which was deliciously dark. It pours ink-black, with a very shy tan head. It's got a light aroma and a flavor of full bitterness that tastes almost of burnt sugar caramel. Its great malt foundation gives way to coffee and chocolate notes. It went beautifully with sharp cheddar, as it was like a slice of toast in beer form. Most porters are a little too smooth and sweet, but this had a very pleasant and refreshing astringency at the end of each sip. The whole package gets even better when the beer warms slightly and approaches a proper serving temperature.

Roast Dinner, with Nut Brown Ale

Of course, we ended up drinking the London Porter well before the roast itself was done, being as we are gluttons. Thankfully, we had purchased a backup in the form of a Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale. This is a prime specimen of an English brown ale, with absolutely fantastic malt flavors and wonderfully subtle bitterness. We could not have been more pleased. The yeasty ale was a perfect match with the delicious Yorkshire pudding, while the malty caramel sweetness worked as a counterpoint to the deliciously salty crust of the beef roast. I could say maybe that the peas and roasted potatoes and onions picked up the herbal grassiness of the beer, but that's total crap - it was just good eating.

Saison du Buff. Paid $3.45. Overpaid.

I should mention also that we tried a the Saison du Buff, a special beer collaboration by Stone (Escondido, CA), Dogfish Head (Rehoboth Beach, DE), and Victory (Downington, PA). A saison beer is generally low-alcohol and very refreshing, to reflect a beer that could be drunk as a mid-day refresher during the Belgian late summer harvest season without completely wrecking the imbiber, but modern Saison beers are generally around 6%, which this one was. "Buff" is an acronym, for "Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor," but for once, I wish that they had exercised some restraint. This is brewed with the haunting combination of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, but all I got was the sage. It's a cloudy golden beer, with a light fluffy head and a distinctly floral nose. The herbage comes through at the back of the nose, which is dominated by a musty passionfruit aroma and sweet citrus hop notes. Sadly, the flavor is entirely different, with a lot of sage and bitter hops. Wet sage really dominates, and it's not terribly attractive as a beer flavorant: sage is a wonderful herb, but when it's mistreated, it can smell almost moldy - that's a lot of what I tasted here. The thyme and rosemary disappear, and what's left smells like roses that have been left too long in the vase, or old lady. It's pretty gross, and I don't recommend it.