Beaumont DRINKS!

Because life is too short to drink only beer, even only really good beer, my new blog will be devoted to all things beverage, from newly released spirits to trends in beer style, cocktail recipes to grape varietals and wine and food pairings to, well, beer and food pairings! Basically, if it is tasty and liquid, I’ll be covering it, from the point of view of a guy who has spent the past two decades following the drinks business and sampling everything he can get his palate on. So stay tuned and join me soon, as Beaumont DRINKS!

Of course, when BC accomplishes something, you can bet that the heartland won’t be far behind, and so we also have fast approaching Ontario Craft Beer Week. It kicks off June 20, and while details are sketchy, what info there is thus far may be found here.

Of course, like San Francisco in the States, Montreal has had a sort of unofficial Beer Week happening around the Mondial de la Bière for years now. This year’s edition begins June 2.

I was willing to give this a go for three reasons: Innis & Gunn are leaders in pushing Canadians toward the idea that beer and fine dining truly do go together; the recipe was developed by the renowned Langdon Hall chef, Jonathan Gushue; and I had nothing else at hand for dinner Friday. Here’s how it all went down.

Step one, as I saw it, was to make the enoki salad, which really couldn’t have been easier. Chopped parsley, grated Manchego, the enokis, olive oil, vinegar and salt were combined in a bowl and lightly tossed. No worries.

The gnocchi part of the dish proved a bit more problematic, though, as I quickly noted that the basket contained not fresh sage, as one might have assumed it would, but fresh basil. So I was faced with the option of making the recipe with basil – not really a suitable substitute for sage – or running out to get the proper ingredient. I opted for the latter, and so mealtime was pushed back a bit.

Sage obtained – albeit after visits to two separate stores – I set about chopping both the garlic and, quite by accident, the tip of one of my fingers. Much blood followed along with a vigorous debate with my wife over whether the hospital emergency room should be involved – it was a fairly serious cut, but I argued that emerg on a Friday night was definitely not a place I wanted to be – and ultimately a rather bulbous bandage was fashioned and preparations continued. Butter was melted with garlic and sage, cooked gnocchi and more Manchego added, and then the whole thing plated and topped with the salad. Dinner was served!

The dish on its own, we agreed, was good if not exactly mind-blowing. The freshness of the parsley and sage definitely worked in its favour, but I still figured a little extra seasoning wouldn’t have gone amiss. With the Innis & Gunn Original at its side, however, it was a true train wreck, with the oak flavours of the beer stomping all over the freshness of the dish and creating an entirely disharmonious whole.

Paired with the I&G Blonde, on the other hand, the experience was positively sublime, as all the flavours met and meshed and balanced beautifully, with light vanilla embracing sage and fruity malt dancing with cheese. As a good food and beverage pairing should, the whole added up to significantly more than the sum of its parts, even when tasted through the pain.

First, the beer love:

61. Under the heading “Breakfast Twists,” the magazine delivers deserved accolades to the tasty Founder’s Breakfast Stout. Imagine what they might have written had they tasted Canadian Breakfast!

88 – 90. Under “Beer Innovators,” the magazine shines the spotlight on Baird Brewing in Tokyo, Brasserie 4:20 in Rome and the new Moerder Lambic bar in Brussels. The last in particular has me still contemplating a visit to Belgium for the sole purpose of drinking there!

And now, Toronto:

3.  Yes, you read that right, number 3 in the list is Toronto’s secret dining club, Charlie’s Burgers. And based on the lone Charlie’s meal I’ve been privileged enough to enjoy, it is indeed a deserved position of honour.

86. In the “Innovative New Bars” section, F&W gives a shout out to our own Frankie Solarik (pictured right) and Barchef, the coolest bar and bartender in central Canada.

Congrats to all!

Ireland’s Beer Nut offered his rejoinder, decreeing that beer does not truly matter, while young Mark Dredge of the U.K. chimed in with a contrary view and fellow Canadian Alan McLeod offered his view that…well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what his view is. And from the look of things, he may not be, either.

Of course, I couldn’t help myself and felt the need to chime in on my other blog. But I felt that this topic was in need of a distinctly Canadian spin, too, and so I am here to tell you all that, absolutely, Canadian beer needs higher prices and more cult beers. Here’s why.

Ask almost any Canadian craft brewer and they will tell you how hard it is to survive in the current environment. Margins are tight, they’ll say, and distribution is difficult unless you make a ton of any one brand. But that’s because most of them are producing solid but generally unremarkable ales and lagers. I say that more of them need to think like American craft brewers!

(Which is why, incidentally, I’m delighted to see a strong Ontario contingent en route to the Craft Brewers Conference in Chicago this week.)

Especially around our major urban centres, which is where most craft brewers are based, there now exist more than sufficient beer fans who will travel distances and pay good money for special releases and one-offs, à la Dark Lord Day. Hell, the LCBO in central Toronto sold 20 cases of $18.40 a bottle beer in a matter of hours without any advance press whatsoever! You think a whole whack of extraordinary, limited edition bottles of some bizarre but delicious hybridized style of over-the-top barley wine or IPA or Belgian-inspired lunacy wouldn’t sell just as well? Of course it would.

And here’s the kicker: such special releases not only add to the bottom line, they also tend to attract the media, thus resulting in great publicity. It’s the exact strategy pursued by Boston Beer in the U.S., and they are now the largest craft brewer in the country.

Brewers get money and hype. Beer drinkers get greater variety and more exciting brews. It’s a classic win-win!

As much as I appreciate it when Canada’s craft breweries celebrate important anniversaries, I can’t help but feel a little old when they do. After all, when I wrote the first Great Canadian beer Guide, Alley Kat did not even exist, and their groundbreaking Old Deuteronomy Barley wine was not even a glimmer in the eye of founding brewer Neil Herbst. (Okay, maybe it was, but I’m betting he was thinking more about his soon-to-be-born breweries initial two offerings, a soon-to-be-discontinued amber lager and wheat ale, than he was about a 10% alcohol barley wine.)

Congratulations Neil and Lavonne. I won’t be in your area tomorrow, but will lift a glass in Toronto in honour of your birthday.

Okay, so maybe it’s not ideal cigar-and-beer weather, since sitting outdoors – so as to either comply with the law or not stink up the abode – would still call for a warm jacket in the evening. But the idea is not without its charms, even as just the briefest taste of spring.

Yet, what beer? It would need to be sturdy enough to stand up to cigar smoke, potent enough to warm the soul in cooling temps, and yet refreshing in the way that a good cigar beer needs be. Doppelbock, perhaps? Or better still…

Garrison Grand Baltic Porter!

If you pass by the corner of Spadina and Front in downtown Toronto this eve, look up and see the jacketed outline of a soul with a glass of something black in one hand and a smoking Cuban in the other, well, that will be me, and that will be the beer.

So congratulations Vancouver! Well done, Canada!! And thank you to all the athletes, Canadian and otherwise, who put years of heart, soul, toil and effort into creating an event for the ages!!!

And just to provide a little beer content for this post, I started yesterday’s game with a Blanche de Chambly and ended it with a Czechvar.

Apologies are unnecessary. Their lone mistake was not having more flavourful beer, but since Molson is a big sponsor at these Olympics, I’m guessing that was because Canadian was the only beer around. And as for the “controversy” over goal-scorer Marie-Philip Poulin being only 18, or in other words not of legal drinking age in BC, that serves only to cast light on how ridiculous arbitrary legal drinking ages are.

Congratulations, ladies. You won well and celebrated well.

According to info culled from the website of Delancy Direct, Martin will be visiting Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina over the course of a one week visit, hosting events that are both trade only and open to the general public. (Please see Delancy’s website for details.)

I had a chance to sample three of Martin’s beers this past week and awarded each a most respectably scoring. The Vinter tastes to me like schwarzbier tending a bit towards a Baltic porter, with an appealing aroma reminiscent of hot chocolate left to cool and a flavour marked by notes of burnt toast, liquorice and mild dark chocolate. The Imperial Stout is a bit on the light and thin tasting side for the style, although at 9% alcohol hardly a gentle and unassuming beer. It offers a yeast nose underscored by notes of chocolate biscuits and fresh hops, followed by a palate containing roasty flavours of 90% cocoa content chocolate and espresso, with American hop characteristics rising throughout the taste. And finally, although presented as an IPA, I would characterize Grilløl instead as a very good pale ale, with 5% alcohol, a fragrantly nutty-fruity aroma and a well-integrated nutty-citrusy bitterness that rises through the taste to a dryish and bitter finish.

But you needn’t take my word for any of this. Go out to see Martin when he comes to town and taste for yourself!