Of Summer and Secrecy

So it doesn't exactly look like we've been doing our jobs now, does it? I mean, the numbers tell the tale: 7 posts in January, 1 in February, and only 3 each in March and April. And in May? This is the first one. Nope - we're just not drinking enough. Or if we are (and OK, I'll admit it - I am), then we're not writing about it. And that's a shame.

I'll try to have a bunch more reviews and posts up soon. I make no promises, especially since I've already derelict in my duties and it's the 25th. But I'll see what I can do.

As for now, I'm slowly switching back to summer beers. Summer beers aren't always the best tasting: they can be watery, a little sour, sometimes a bit too sweet. They're often pretty low alcohol to accommodate longer drinking sessions that are more apt to take place as the days lengthen. And a lot of the time, brewers think that because there's going to be less alcohol and we're going to drink more of it, there should be less flavor in the beer as well.

And really, that's crap. The fun summer brews are those that have a little citrus, maybe some extra spices, some bracing hop bite. Cascade hops can sometimes mimic the bright flavors of grapefruit; I think Centennial hops can taste quite lemony - both are welcome as a wonderful sour component to a beer that quenches the thirst like a lemonade. In fact, there are a few preparations of lager and "lemonade" that can be quite nice: in Germany, where it was "invented," it's a Radler; in France, a panaché; and in England (where I spent lots of wonderful time and money), it's a shandy. Keep in mind that this is a European lemonade: a dry sparkling lemon soft drink that's like Sprite but without all the sugar. See the Pimm's posting for more. Feel free to mix your own. Under no circumstances should one consume Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, which is a premixed abomination of a concoction in which tasteless lager is mixed with lemon pledge and bottled. Gross.

But last Friday (before a delightful dinner with a good friend), I enjoyed my first Samuel Adams Summer Ale, which is an old favorite. My affinity for Boston Brewing Company is no secret, and I do think that Sam Summer is one of the best summer beers around.

Finally, I had a weekend project last week, and that was to hide a full martini bar inside an innocent-looking briefcase. The results are spectacular, if I may say so myself. I realize it's not exactly fashionable to carry around a hard-cover attache case anymore, and it does make me feel a little dated.

This is like the Clark Kent of briefcases. Totally mild-mannered. Dull, even.

But once I open up the interior, I've got room for all the essentials. That's my gin of choice: Old Bombay (I find Sapphire a little harsh and astringent), a small bottle of Martini & Rossi vermouth, and a cheap but decent Vodka (not for me, but in case I'm feeling hospitable and a friend insists). Incidentally, the NYTimes did a tasting of super-premium vodkas about 6 years ago and threw in Smirnoff just for fun. The Smirnoff beat the Grey Goose, Level, Ketel One, and a few others - nice.

I really enjoyed constructing this. I have also really enjoyed constructing drinks out of it.

I also have a shaker, a miniature bottle of olives, some toothpicks, two shot glasses (for unadulterated drinking) and two collapsible cocktail glasses. And with Ivy League reunions coming up (snob alert!), I'm well-provisioned. See you after reunions.

Pimm's!

Perhaps it's the Royal Wedding talking, the long-awaited advent of spring finally coming to fruition, or just a general sense that I wish I were in the UK in a pub with my friends, but thoughts have turned this past week to Pimm's, possibly the national drink of England.

Pimm's is a gin-based liqueur, of about 25% ABV, and it tastes rather medicinal on its own. But when mixed with "lemonade" (more on this in a moment), it becomes a very basic Pimm's Cup, and is the very perfect thing for a hot summer day. Lemonade, in the British world, is a very dry fizzy drink with actual lemon juice in it. The closest I can come in the US is San Pellegrino Limon, but any of the lemon sodas will do in a pinch. I like to squeeze in some fresh lemon just to cut the inevitable sweetness of an American soda. Pimm's cup may also, incidentally, be made with ginger ale. Or, for a Pimm's Royale, champagne.

Traditionally, a Pimm's Cup is built in a large pitcher, with slices of cucumber and lemon, and topped with borage and mint. I never have been able to find borage, so I use more cucumber, and add orange, lime, and strawberries. So basically, a fruit cocktail in a cocktail. Mix 1 part Pimm's to 3 parts lemonade, add lots of ice, and enjoy, preferably while floating down a river, enjoying a picnic lunch, or overlooking some beautiful slice of the English countryside.

Or whenever. This stuff is great, and 'tis the season.

Illness.

...makes one not wish to drink anything other than gatorade and chicken soup. Sorry.

I do have a bit of a rant, just while I'm at it though. Last week, a bunch of us tried to make a reservation at Sushi Azabu, and while we were rebuffed from the sushi restaurant below, we did have a lovely meal of "Japanese-inspired-Italian" on the ground floor. What threw me most was that our bartender, very meticulously and neatly dressed, poured our beers into stemless wine glasses. Everything else was just-so, but beer in a wine glass, particularly one without a stem? Bullcrap.

Look, I'm not indifferent to the desires of Belgian beer aficionados who demand their beer in a goblet or snifter or some such glass. I've experienced it and I love it too. But when serving a middling Japanese macrolager like Sapporo, put the stemless wineglasses away and give me a pint glass - something I can comfortably hold, that doesn't make me feel like I'm drinking out of a red plastic cup. Frankly, I'd even have preferred the red plastic cup.

H.R. 1161

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) went on record last summer arguing against frivolous House resolutions congratulating sports teams or other trivial business that he calls "terribly frustrating."

So I guess I'm a little peeved that Rep. Chaffetz is sponsoring H.R. 1161, which does nothing but reaffirms laws that are already in place. 1161 "reaffirm[s] state-based alcohol regulation," meaning that the States get to place restrictions on the interstate commerce of alcohol, even in the face of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, which puts that power in the hands of Congress.

The NYTimes has an interesting op-ed piece on the subject. I think some of the restrictions are completely asinine. A friend of mine couldn't get Domaine de Canton in Michigan because there was no in-state distributor that had been OK'd by the state liquor board for that purpose. Yeah, like we're all going to go out on ginger-flavored-liqueur-fueled bender and tear up Southeast Michigan, but for the state liquor board holding us all in check. At any rate, it's spring in New Jersey and New York, and I can't get my beloved Oberon, which was the summer tipple of Ann Arbor life. So now I have to drive to Pennsylvania to pick some up. Lame.

Beeramisu and other delights

I don't cook with beer enough. Generally speaking, I'll happily crack open a beer while I'm cooking, but it's rare that the beer goes into the pan or pot, instead of into the chef. Chili is one dish that I put beer in. A few weeks ago, I made one with one of the Revolutionary Rye Ales I reviewed previously. My girlfriend thinks my chili looks too much like stew. She is wrong.

Mmm... Chili...

So when I discovered a way to use beer in a dessert, I was psyched to try it out. In launching forward to St. Patrick's Day, Serious Eats published a recipe for beeramisu.

Beeramisu, pre-devouring.

Take a regular tiramisu, swap out coffee for stout, swap out madeira for Bailey's, and you've got yourself a deliciously booze-tinged dessert. Instead of Guinness, which I find a little watery (I mean, hello, it floats on the top of a black and tan), I used Black Hawk Stout. On its own, Black Hawk is creamy, rich, and bitter, with very little carbonation. It's ink-black, with deep caramel and burnt sugar flavors, so I thought it might substitute in well for the coffee. Indeed it did.

It wasn't exactly easy to slice, but the flavors were nice.

The recipe I used from Serious Eats could use some tweaking: I'd cut back on the Bailey's being sprinkled over each layer, and go with more of the stout, as the final product needed a little more bitterness than a six-count dunk provided. This dessert got devoured, and rightly so: it's fantastic.

On a completely different, but just as delicious, note, I happened across three bottles of Coedo beer and was struck by how much these really looked like a Japanese knock-off of Chimay.

Japanese attempt at Chimay?

I drank the Beniaka this past week and was rather stunned by how nice it was. It's not the typical Japanese lager that makes one think fondly of Coors. Instead, it was a nice deep red, and had wonderful layers of caramel malt sweetness.

Apparently, brewed with sweet potato.

According to its website, which I will not send readers to because it is loaded with nonsense music and flash crap (google it if you must), "this premium lager features an aromatic sweetness in its amber tones [and is] a rare combination of high quality malts and 'Beniaka,' the roasted Kintoki sweet potatoes of the Kawagoe region." I'm not sure I tasted sweet potato, but I definitely tasted sweetness, and a depth of flavor I wasn't really expecting. I'm looking forward to trying the other two sometime soon.

Irish? Sort of?

St. Patrick's Day, that much-maligned, much-slighted, much-misunderstood holiday has come and gone, and with it, its poignant mix of the ridiculous and the sublime that reached its pinnacle this year in a lightly-accented Indian investment banker wearing a bright green Dartmouth sweatshirt and gaudy aviator sunglasses messily drinking out of a bag at 10 AM on the PATH train from World Trade Center to Hoboken while loudly discussing how much he loved reading Dubliners in college.

Anyway... As previously mentioned, I managed to find the "American Originals" sampler pack from Sam Adams. As a lover of variety, I enjoy sampler packs, as it allows me to try a multitude of tipples without having to buy four or six of everything. Two of everything is sufficient for me, and I have to say, this might be the first Sam Adams sampler that has really nothing to be ashamed of. The summer sampler has that noxious Blackberry Witbier, the winter sampler used to have a truly foul Cherry Wheat, and replaced it with a similarly bizarre (but not quite as mind-blowingly terrible) Chocolate Bock.

Sadly, not made with scotch.

But this one? Nice work. I really like the Scotch Ale, which pours a nice deep amber, and a suitably herbacious head. I liked how caramely malty it was, and how smoky the finish got. It's apparently brewed with peat smoked malt, which explains the smoke flavors, but there's also some nice hop bite that cuts through the haze. This was really very delicious.

Not very Irish. Also, not very red.

Not quite as delicious, but still good is the Irish Red. I would have liked a little more red color in this one, as the roasted quality of the malt was not readily apparent on the tongue. I drank this on St. Patrick's Day, or as we Bostonians like to refer to it, Evacuation Day. On it, we Bostonians celebrate the departure of General William Howe and his Redcoats from the City of Boston.

Anyway, the Irish Red is a little thin and watery, with a reasonably smooth yeastiness that adds a sort of buttermilk twang / cream thing. The hops weren't too aggressive, so a sweetness came to the fore as well. Now, to be sure, the Irish Red is kind of the runt of the litter for this particular sampler, but the fact that the schwag of the sampler is still plenty drinkable says volumes, when you think about the utter garbage that Sam Adams has produced in the past.

Session Beer

I remember in one of my first beer columns for my old school newspaper, my editor flagged the term "session beer" as a possible typographical error. Now clearly, I don't make errors. But aside from that, I'm not sure "session beer" is a terribly familiar term in the US. A session beer is a beer that's light enough to make a leisurely afternoon drinking without becoming too intoxicated, but that's got enough flavor to support sustained interest as well. Usually this means under 5.0% ABV, though the UK definition is actually under 4.0%. There are plenty of American macrolagers that will satisfy the first requirement (Bud, Coors, Miller, and their light equivalents), but would you really spend an afternoon drinking Budweiser? Me neither.

The challenge is getting a clean hop crispness that stimulates the palate without overwhelming it. Old Speckled Hen is a favorite of mine, but only on tap, where it registers only 4.5%. The bottles and cans, it's 5.2%, which is fine, I suppose. It's bright and flavorful, but a little too malty to be fully refreshing. I do appreciate that it reminds me so much of my time studying at Oxford, and its increasing availability in the US is wonderful news.

My first real session of session beers occurred at the seaside town of Levanto, in Italy. I was there on a singing tour, but we had a free day, so my friends and I found a nice cafe on the boardwalk.

Peroni on the boardwalk: Levanto, Italy.

Ultimately, we drank through their supply of Peroni over the course of four hours. Peroni's not a great beer, but it's crisp enough to sustain interest. We were drinking the regular Peroni - the Peroni Rossa is darker, more malty, and a little too flavorful for a session (though in a one-off setting, I'd take the Rossa, as the classic feels a little watery at times).

Full Sail Session Lager

Now, Full Sail, out of Oregon, has two great session-style beers. I say "session-style" because neither is technically under that 5.0% ABV threshold. Nonetheless, they're really tasty, and because their bottles are smaller, there is less alcohol in each glass. Session Lager is a wonderful little beer with good hopping and clean grassy hops. It's got a light bitterness that's super drinkable, and it's both tasty and reasonably light. Also, the short stubby 11 oz. bottle makes drinking a lot more relaxing.

Full Sail Session Black: A full bottle pour.

And Session Black makes for a wonderfully drinkable dark beer that isn't too heavy. To be sure, I have had some lousy luck with black lagers - usually they're syrupy, sweet, and kind of unpleasant. But this one was great. Despite its much darker color, I found the flavor differential quite mild - yes, there's dark roasted malt and grain, but the flavors aren't so saturated that they overwhelm. Instead, there's a very refreshing finish to this beer that made me want to continue drinking.

I should mention, incidentally, that the undersides of the caps have Rock-Paper-Scissors logos on them, providing a convenient way to decide who buys the next round. And as for Rock-Paper-Scissors, it also shows a fun playfulness and whimsy. Nice job.