I'm better than Kathie Lee Gifford

well.... for at least one evening I was. after seeing Kathie Lee drink Dogfish Head on the Today Show, I had to treat myself by drinking some high end beer. did I accomplish this task? you're damn right I did - one evening and three beers all rated in the 97th percentile or higher on RateBeer.com. first up was Alesmith's legendary Speedway Stout. only a myth until now, this 12% chocolaty stout lived up to the hype with a well balanced, yet uber-flavourful beer. the more it warmed up the bigger the taste was. I tasted chocolate, coffee, toffee and some vanilla. it was delicious from start to finish, but unfortunately this bad boy hasn't been brought into any of the Vancouver specialty stores, so you'll never be able to contradict me.

Tippler Ben was riding the stout train, so I hopped on board with him and tried some Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast. all I can say is, "choo, choo!". I've had this one once before, but I forgot how great it was. while Alesmith makes a stout with loads of flavours, Mikkeller makes theirs focused on one - coffee. and they do it very well. if I had more money, I would dedicate a fridge shelf to it. but, at $10 a bottle, I'll have to settle with having it on special occasions.

last up was Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace. this is a saison that uses just one hop varietal; Japanese sarachi hops. all the saison characteristics were there, pale yellow and a thin head, wrapped up in cloudy unfiltered goodness. there was some lemon and a bit of banana in the taste, but what I remember most about it was this beer's incredibly dry finish. Tippler Ben may be able elaborate a little more on this one as, for some reason, my memory of this one is hazy. I do recall stating that Big Love would love this beer.

there we go. three awesome beers in one night... I'm waaaay better than Kathie Lee.

Alesmith Speedway Stout - 750ml, 12% alc
Mikkeler Beer Geek Breakfast - 500ml, 7.5% alc
Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace - 750ml, 7.6% alc
(I think I'm going to to abandon the A to F school grading system for these ones as they're all exceptionally good beers.)

PS. I just remembered that we had some Stone IPAs afterward. that's another one hundred percenter on RateBeer. Kathie Lee and her Dogfish Head look pretty damn lame now.

Québécois Beer & Italian Pubs - Tipplin' in Ottawa!

in general, finding good beer in Ontario is harder than it is in BC. sure, it’s slightly cheaper, but The Beer Store is more for getting your twofour on rather than imbibing some quality beer. the great thing about Ottawa, is that the city borders Quebec, so you can skip The Beer Store and head straight to the supermarché. ah, La Belle Province - where the beer is cheap, there’s loads of selection and it’s sold everywhere. to my delight, Tippler Ellie and Tippler Jeff had stocked their fridge to the teeth with a huge variety of beer, namely ones from Montreal’s Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!. all four of the beer that I sampled from this brewery* were absolutely delicious. the two that really made my taste buds do a double take were their hemp ale, Fumisterie [Smoke Screen], and their bottle conditioned hibiscus white, Rosee d’hibiscus [Pinkish Hibiscus].

about ten or twelve years ago, a number of local breweries were putting out hemp beer. I remember buying them, drinking, and enjoying them, but I don’t really remember them being anything of note. if these beer had been anywhere near the quality of BDC!’s Fumisterie, I would've started a campaign for Bowen Island Brewery to bring back their Hemp Cream Ale (remember when Bowen Island had decent beer?). anyway, Fumisterie has a very nice velvety mouth feel and buttery taste. I don't mean that the taste was smooth like butter, it actually tastes of butter. very pleasant and very luscious. the Rosee d'hibiscus is the other beer from BDC! that I really enjoyed. this delicate wheat ale is brewed with the petals of hibiscus flowers that give it a beautiful pink colour. the pink hue is more evident due to the cloudiness of this unfiltered ale. the obvious floral tastes balance out the citrusy ones that are present and common to whites like this. truthfully, the crisp, floral taste was a bit tiring by the end of the bottle, making me not want a second one. but, this isn't a session beer. this is a once in while, palate cleansing beer.

I wish that I could tell you a lot more of the following Ottawan drinking institution, but I went to Pub Italia after a multi multi multi course meal at Atelier and was struggling to ingest anything more. I can tell you that the bar seems to have a bit of an identity crisis as it's an Italian pub, with a shamrock logo complete with a Belgian abbey to drink in - not that I'm complaining! I can also tell you that the liquid selection on their "beer bible" is awesomely overwhelming, boasting 35 taps and 20 or so pages of bottles. I tried out the cognac infused X.O. Beer from France, which (from what I remember) was just okay. it's an 8% beer that tastes like a 10% one and the taste of cognac just flat out doesn't do it for me. I have no regrets in choosing this one as I figure how often are you able to choice a beer that's been infused cognac? I tried a little sample of Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast, a coffee stout from Denmark. I just had a taste, but was really surprised and pleased that the mega dark malts and high level of coffee didn't overpower this stout. the mellowing hops really balanced it out. I'll be nagging my local beer store to start stocking this one.

Fumisterie A- 355ml bottle, 5.5%
Rosee d’hibiscus B+ 355ml bottle, 5%
X.O. Beer C+ 355ml bottle, 8%
Beer Geek Breakfast A 500ml bottle, 7.5%

*the other two were Blanche du Paradis [Paradise White] and La Paienne [The Pagan]

I got 99 problems, but a beer ain't one

Brooklyn Brewery

I didn't plan on this being a 9/11 tribute beer, but while watching tonight's live Jay-Z benefit concert, the headliner asked the crowd before Brooklyn: Go Hard, "is Brooklyn in the house? is Brooklyn in the MFing house?". the crowd cheered to reveal that Brooklyn was indeed in the MFing house and to my surprise, Brooklyn was also in my MFing house too - in the form of Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout. I have kept this lone bottle in my fridge since last winter and finally all things pointed towards drinking it. I should denote that I generally love stouts. for me, the two best things about fall and winter are sweaters and stouts. so, I may be a bit biased in my opinion. that being said, let's look at this bottle.

this stout poured like most, extremely dark with a thick 1" head. the head wasn't as fluffy as say a Guinness, but it performed the same, in that it lasted the duration of the tasting. the aroma came off a bit sweeter than expected. there are, of course, chocolate notes along with some burnt coffee, plums, and caramel. with the colour of used motor oil and an ABV of 10% (!!), this imperial-style stout may send liver shivers to some, but I couldn't wait to put pint glass to mouth. the deep roasted malts hit you first, then the malts sweeten up for a second and there's a nice little bitterness at the finish. I definitely tasted coffee and some chocolate, but the finish left a Marmite taste with me (a good thing, in my books). I'm guessing that there is a huge amount of hops used in the brewing process to counteract the heavy roast malts, but it never feels that way. I liked the overall balance of tastes at play in this one and made this as smooth an imperial stout as I have had (even at 10%). a visit to the Brooklyn Brewery has now been added to my Brooklyn to-do list after first going to Williamsburg to make fun of hipsters and then seeing a Mos Def show in his home borough.

A

I should mention that in addition to this being a great beer, it is of exceptional value too. I picked up this 355ml bottle at a BC liquor store for $2.75. if you break that down into a price to alcohol ratio (and the Scottish side of me will), it is the same price as the cheapest beer sold in BC.