#273 Dupont – Biere de Miel

Name: Biere de Miel
Brewery: Brasserie Dupont  (Tourpes-Leuze, Belgium)
Style: Saison
ABV: 8%
Source:

Last Tuesday night (yes, I’ve stuffed up the order slightly because I had this before Raffe’s Saison), I went to the Belgian Beer Cafe.

This is how the ordering process went:

Me: I’ll have the Dupont Biere de Miel please.
Waiter: Sure, I’ll be right back with that.

Waiter returns 10 minutes later with a Saison Dupont .

Me: I’m really sorry, but that’s not what I ordered.

Waiter lingers with the beer waiting for me to take it anyway, eventually lets out an exasperated sigh and disappears with it. He returns five minutes later empty-handed. 

Waiter: I’m sorry, we don’t have any Biere de Miel. Can I get you something else instead?
Me: Damn. OK, Lindeman’s Apple please.

Waiter disappears, and returns five minutes later empty-handed. 

Waiter: I’m really sorry, but we don’t have any Lindeman’s Apple. I did find the Biere de Miel while I was looking though, would you like that instead?
Me: Yes! Thank you!
Waiter: Are you ready to order food now too?
Me: I was ready last Christmas. Can I have the metre-long sausage please?
Waiter: I’m terribly sorry, but we’re all out of that. Can I get you something else instead?
Me: Are you sure? Are you sure you won’t find some if you go back and look for something else?
(defeated) No, no, I jest. I’ll have the mussels.

Now, I’m not usually one to complain about bad restaurant service (having delivered my fair share of it myself) but I feel like this happens at the BBC nearly every time I go. And this time I’ve had it – I’m not going back! (At least not until my birthday when I’m eligible for a free meal.)

Oh and I nearly forgot – the Biere de Miel was amazing. It smelled like a field of fresh honeysuckle, candyfloss and musty yeast. In the mouth it was  dry and slightly sour at the finish, but with a nice balance of sweetness. The mouthfeel was lovely – light but not at all watery, and quite spritzy.

It was so delicious that I nearly forgave the BBC all it’s faults, and didn’t bother to complain when I paid. But then as I left I saw at the front of the fridge, prominently displayed, stacks of the Lindeman’s Apple. And I couldn’t help but wonder: was that waiter just fucking with me all along?

#234 Kaimai – Golden Rye Ale

Once again, a regrettable lack of flash.

Name: Golden Rye Ale
Brewery: Kaimai Brewing (Mt Manganui, NZ)
Style: Rye Ale
ABV: 5.5%
Source: Coco’s Cantina on K rd

Something tells me that purchasing a Golden Rye Ale might be a bit of a gamble.

If it is then think I did OK. Mine was good – sweet and tasting of honey, bread (or perhaps rye), and some citrus from the hops. It was clean and crisp, and cut through the amazing Parmesan-crusted polenta chips from Coco’s Cantina (s’cuse the plug) beautifully.

However. I’ve seen other reviews of this on ratebeer.com, and lots and lots of people said it was sour. One even said it was like a lambic.

Either the recipe has changed, my sour-buds have been permanently damaged by last weekend’s Kriek, or some bottles of the Kaimai Rye Ale have been infected, because mine wasn’t so much as a little bit tart.

That said, sour beer is almost impossible to come by in Auckland, so if there are some infected bottles floating around, perhaps I ought to try and seek them out?

More WTF, FAQ, ETC!

Hello there,

So I’m halfway between post 182 and 183, which is sort of like 182.5.

It’s sort of…a bit like…. halfway through Beer For a Year!

“Calm down, calm down”, I hear you saying. “Put your streamers away, take off that ridiculous hat –  you still have ages to go!”

Well I know that (party pooper), but still I though it might be a good time for a little ‘check-in’, and to answer some of the Frequently Asked Questions, some ‘FAQs’ if you will, about Beer For a Year.  Here goes…

1. Is it hard?
Yes and no. Drinking beer is easy (duh), but paying proper attention to each one, and finding the time to post is a bit of a drag. Especially at the moment when it feels like yonks since I started it and yonks till the end.

2. Have you put on weight?
No!
Oh well maybe just a little tiny bit. But it’s not drinking one beer each day that does it, it’s going to the pub in the weekend and drinking 6 beers and eating a bowl of chips and a burger and then 3 more beers and another burger on the way home. I’ve started running now though so that’s OK.

3. Are you a beer expert now?
Hah! Have you read the blog? No.

4. What’s the best beer you’ve had so far?
Unnnnghh. Ask me at the end.

5. Is it really expensive?
Yes. But some people have blogs about designer shoes! That would be waaaaaay worse.

6. Have you ever missed a day?
No! I’ve come perilously close a few times, but I have definitely drunk a different beer every day so far.

7. Do you get given free beer?
Yes – mostly from my Mum and Dad.  Epic and homebrewers are the only brewers that have given me their own beer to try, but I am very willing for this to change. (Call me.)

8. You do know that next year is a leap year, right? So are you going to do 366 beers?
I… Uh… I think…. Hey! Look over there!

9. Are you sick of beer yet?
NEVERRRRRRRR!!!!!

10. There are no more questions, I just wanted to make it an even 10.
Weirdo.

 

#163 Kowhiti Brewing – Grasshopper

Name: Grasshopper
Brewery: Kowhiti Brewing (Greytown, New Zealand)
Style: Aotearoa Pale Ale
ABV: 5.5%ish
Source:

Hey guys, guys, guys!

Guess what?

I made this beer myself!

The Grasshopper (because it’s hoppy, geddit?!) is my first attempt at homebrewing. I made it with my Dad out in Greytown (his place out there is called Kowhiti), where he conveniently has a cider orchard and so most of the equipment that we needed to make beer.

Neither of us had any idea what we were doing. That was fine though – because I had John Palmer’s “How to Brew”, a great recipe from a book called “Clone Brews” by Tess and Mark Szamatulski, and the most important thing of all – lots of beer to drink while we brewed a Can Do attitude!

The recipe was a clone for Sierra Nevada Pale (which I wrote about here), and used Cascade, Perle and Nugget hops, and a mix of crystal malt and dried malt extract. I got everything from the nice folks at Brewers Coop in Ellerslie – who sensed that I didn’t know anything about anything and kindly steered me around the store finding everything I needed. Because of TGAHS (I hope you remember your acronyms!), we used NZ Cascade instead of American.

Making the beer was really fun. My sister did actually document this fun with photographs – but they’re still on her camera so you’ll just have to take my word for it until I upload them later. The bubbling wort smelled and looked amazing, as did the hop pellets, and even though we botched a couple of things up (straining the wort through muslin was a shitty idea which came close to giving me third-degree burns), everything was A-OK in the end.

I think we feremented it for a couple of weeks, then dry-hopped it liberally and transferred it to a secondary fermenter for another week. In the end we had about 20L, which we bottled in the 500ml glass bottles Dad uses for his cider.

And how did it taste? Only like THE BEST BEER IN THE WORLD!

OK, so it could be a bit maltier. And there’s a bit of astringency at the finish which I’d like gone.  And although Dad disagrees – I think it smells like apples (less so now, a month or two on) which is probably a sign of acetaldehyde.

Despite all that, it has a lovely colour, a fruity aroma (citrus as well as apples), a satisfying chewy toffee malt flavour and a nice crisp, refreshing mouthfeel.

Best of all – we made it ourselves! And that’s why it tastes like the best beer in the world.  (Awwwww.)

 

 

#150-157 More Mexico

Ola!

So this is it – my last day in Mexico and my last shoddy, photoless post about Mexican beers. (Coming up – a shoddy, photoless post about LA beers!).

I´m in an internet cafe right now and there´s a lady mopping the floor around my feet and glaring at me which I think could mean they´re closing, so I´ll just try to get through this swiftly.

#150 Dos Equis – XX Ambar (American Dark Lager, 4.7%). I only had about three sips of this because it was crapola. A standard commercial lager with a bit more malty sweetness. I think I prefer the Dos Equis Lager because at least that´s not trying to taste like anything.

#151 Calavera - Smoky Scottish Ale  I don´t think I´ve ever tried a smoked beer I didn´t like, and this was no exception, but it wasn´t anything to write home about. (Except of course, I am). It had a really peaty smoked aroma which didn´t come through as strongly as I would have liked on the palate - a bit like Rex without the attitude.

#152 Minerva – Imperial Tequila Ale  (American Strong Ale, 7%) This pretty much fulfilled my wildest fantasies about Mexican beer. It was aged in oak tequila barrels, which gave it a wonderful woody, rich, chardonnay-ish quality, and had a fruity hop taste that reminded me of Epic Armageddon. There wasn´t enough bitterness at the finish,  but this was still one of the most interesting Mexican beers I´ve tried.

#153 Grupo Modelo - Victoria (Vienna, 4%) From the makers of Corona comes yet another lager which tastes like nothing.  A little maltier than Corona, but still boring boring boring. Best turned into a Michelado!

#154 Calavera – American Pale Ale (5.4%) American hops! It felt like ages since I´d tasted them, which might be why I really enjoyed this one. Predominant flabours were grapefruit, honey, and a light herbiness, and although it was too sweet/unbalanced, it seemed like a good crack at the style.

#155 FEMSA – Sol Sal y Limon (´fruit beer´, 4%) Here it is folks, THE WORST BEER I HAVE EVER TRIED! It came in a can and was supposedly a Sol with lemon, but I´m fairly sure that it was just straight poison. Sol is terrible to start with, but if you can imagine drinking that with citric acid and a little lemon-scented laundry powder added, then  congratulations, you never need to try Sol Sal y Limon.

And that brings me up to date! Which is just as well because the lady who works here is turning off the lights and looks about ready to spit on me. The next post will be from LA, unless I drink too much beer and Pulque tonight and miss my early-morning flight. Quite likely.

Mexico!

I’m going there. Today. For three whole weeks.

Will this affect the blog? Definitely. Will it botch it up beyond salvation? Err, hopefully not.

I’m not sure if this is really obvious or not (I would have explained on the ‘about’ page, but this ill-chosen wordpress theme doesn’t allow it), but I’m not just drinking 365 beers in a year, but a different beer every day for a year. That means that I’ll need to find a new beer for each day that I’m in Mexico, with no catch up beers when I get home allowed.

That might prove difficult given that Mexico is not exactly known as a craft beer mecca, and then on top of that there’s the small matter of time-differences and missed days on planes. On top of that there’s the fact that I don’t reeeally want to spend an hour of each day at an internet cafe blogging.

How will I get around these things? I don’t know. But I will. I may end up lumping several beers into single posts to save time, and I may end up venturing into the terrifying world of vlogging once again (though I hope for everybody’s sake that it doesn’t come to that.)

Anyway, it’ll all be fine so stay tuned – and the next beer I drink will be in MEXICO CITY!

Actually no – no it will be at Auckland airport. And then the next beer will probably be at LAX.

But then after that – MEXICO CITY!

#118 Coronado – Islander IPA

Name: Islander IPA
Brewery: Coronado (Coronado, CA, USA)
Style: IPA
ABV: 7%
Source: Regional Wines

Here I am, on the road again, blogging from the phone. Technically I’m actually on the sea, somewhere over the Cook Straight, but y’know.

Back to last night though, when I was still at Dad’s place in Wellington. I had this Coronado IPA – and it’s about bloody time, because I’ve already mentioned it in at least four posts before this one.

The first time I had this it was at Galbraith’s on tap, and I was so taken with it’s luscious fruit and intense caramel that I declared it the best IPA I’d ever tasted.

I’ve had it a few times since then, and while it’s always been delicious, it’s never quite lived up to the legendary status of that first one. Funny how that happens so often.

Last night it was the same. It poured a lovely colour, and smelled of juicy grapefruit, pineapple, pine and melted marshmallow.

In the mouth there was loads of caramel upfront, but at the back of the palate it turned bitter – which is where I don’t like it so much. It was an orange seed, pine needle bitterness, and it lingered forever in the mouth.

As Kjetil, the Nogne O brewer said the other day “at the end of a beer you should want to drink another one” (or something like that), and with this one the harsh bitter finish meant I didn’t.

I was pondering this, and the fact that it impressed me less than it had the first time, and I wondered if (dare I say it), my love of uber-hoppy IPAs might not actually be waning a bit.

And on that cliffhanger ending (“Has she fallen out of love with IPAs? If so who for?”), I leave to disembark at Picton – gateway to the Land of Craft Beer. Uh oh.

#113 Fullers – Past Masters XX

Name: Past Masters XX Strong Ale
Brewery: English Strong Ale
Style: English Strong Ale
Brewery: Fullers (London, England)
Source: Regional Wines (Wellington)

This is a beer that’s been sitting in my cupboard for a few weeks, but which I’ve been putting off drinking for two main reasons.

One is that I was intimidated. “XX Strong Ale” sounds like something a pirate should drink – and although I do have a pet parrot that sits on my shoulder a lot of the time, I do not have the drinking capacity of a pirate.

Reason number two is that this was a beer that Kieran at Regionals (who has picked out lots of great beers for me to drink so far) really really loves, so I knew it would be great. Truly great beers require long blog posts and creative use of adjectives, so they can actually be kind of a pain in the ass.

Anyway, I got home last night and I just thought “f*ck it, I’m ready” and slammed my Big Boy pint glass down on the bench. Then I poured it carefully and took a picture.

As you can see, it poured an almost ruby-tinted amber colour with a loose, fluffy tan head.

On the nose I got sweet, Mackintosh toffee malt, and some hop fruitiness – maybe peach. In the mouth it was really malty and sweet with a spicy little hop bite at the finish.
There were glimpses of raw alcohol which I didn’t like so much, but the otherwise pleasant taste and luxurious mouthfeel (soft and creamy) more than made up for it.

I probably don’t like this beer as much as Kieran does (but then, I am a complete n00b by comparison), or even as much as as the Fullers IPA I had the night before, but offer me another and I’ll happily hold out my glass. (Obviously I will hold out my glass for almost any beer so that doesn’t mean much, but actually this is real yum.)

PS – Just kidding about the parrot! I wish.

Vote for Beer for a Year!

Hi guys,

I’m just going to interrupt regular programming for a second here to ask you all a big ol’ favour.

Beer For a Year is a finalist in the food and beverage category of Concrete Playground’s “The Bloggers 2011″ competition – and I would really really like to win.

Partly for the fame and fortune that I assume comes with winning such an event, partly because the prize is beer-related, but mostly because it would be a bloody good thing to have on my CV when I apply for that illustrious job title of “Professional Beer Drinker”.

So, if you think she’s worthy, please do head to: http://auckland.concreteplayground.co.nz/thebloggers/vote/food-and-beverage/ - and click ‘like’.

That’s all you have to do. You’ll scroll past a lot of other great blogs, but just stay focussed.

Beer For a Year – ‘Like’.

Thanks very much!

Alice

#99 Renaissance – Marlborough Pale Ale

Name: Marlborough Pale Ale
Brewery: Renaissance (Blenheim, New Zealand)
Style: Imperial I.P.A
ABV: 8.5%
Source: Beers, Wines & Spirits (K Rd, Auckland)

I’m just about to jump on a plane to Paraparaumu (I know, right? The life I lead!) and am blogging from the phone again so will be breif.

I picked this up last night at “Beers Wines & Spirits”, which I’m pretty sure is the best place to buy beer on K Rd.

It was, to put it succinctly, real yum. But because I probably have to say more than that, it smelled and tasted of candied grapefruit peel and bitter pine hops, with a big, syrupy malt backbone. It was full and tasty and devilishly clever at hiding its booze.

This beer deserves more, but it’s time to board! It looks like I’m getting on one of those miniature 12-seater jobs, so if post #100 doesn’t appear you’ll know what happened.