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We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
Granite Best Bitter mix
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midlife crisis
- Beer Superstar
- Posts: 2009
- Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 7:00 pm
- Location: Toronto
Granite Best Bitter mix
For you mixologists, I had a growler of Granite Best Bitter last night but could only get through three-quarters of it. The remaining beer was too flat this afternoon to be palatable. Inspired by some of the other ideas on Bar Towel, I decided to bring it back to life by mixing it 50-50 with a bottle of Robert Simpson Confederation Ale, which happened to be handy. It worked very well - a very agreeable pale ale.
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old faithful
- Bar Fly
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- Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2003 8:00 pm
It's funny I was just about to post about a half and half I made that is one of my best.
It is Wellington County Iron Duke and Sleeman Porter, about 50/50.
The Duke has a certain profile (candy-like maybe) that is slightly reduced and deepened by the porter. The malt profiles blend really well as do the English hop (or English-type) backgrounds.
In the days when real draft beer was more available in England (cask-conditioned) these combos were common, e.g., half stout and bitter, half mild and bitter, half old and mild, even half stout and half porter (this was called "Cooper" in London). Probably the practice goes back to the pre-porter blending days of "three-threads" (three thirds that is).
The end result of half porter and Iron Duke reminded me strongly of a cask Young's Winter Warmer I had in London last year (at the Running Footman on Charles Street, Mayfair to be exact). Young's may have blended its special bitter and a stout to make it, now that I think of it, but anyway the porter-Duke blending reminded me a lot of that beer.
Blending beers made mainly from one malt type is not that different from mashing those two malts if the hop backgrounds and yeasts are otherwise similar. Broad similarity is often enough for this purpose, I find.
Granite offers on its menu various beer combinations which I order sometimes when there. When its stout is available I like half stout and half Best Bitter.
The idea to add a sparkling golden beer to a half of flattish bitter is also British. I recall once in an East London pub a fellow told me the real "light and bitter" is half lager (any kind) and half bitter. I told him, doesn't "light" mean light ale, the fizzy (bottled) low-alcohol ales you used to see on the back-bars that seem to have disappeared in the last 20 years? He said, "no, I know what light ale is and that is not used for light and bitter: it is lager and bitter only." Who was I to argue?
Anyway Midlife made the old light and bitter and quite authentically since the Confederation is a kind of light ale in the old British sense (actually the Confederation is better than those 3% light ales since it is 5% and has body).
Gary
N.B. The reason I mention historical references is not to justify a practice as such but simply to indicate where I got the idea to do these things. Another source was a 1930's book quoted in an early Michael Jackson text in which the 1930's writer said that porter was being used mostly to "add body" to other beers. He wrote too that porters and stouts were going out of fashion, a prediction that was true for the next two generations but has become slightly less true in the last 15 years or so.
It is Wellington County Iron Duke and Sleeman Porter, about 50/50.
The Duke has a certain profile (candy-like maybe) that is slightly reduced and deepened by the porter. The malt profiles blend really well as do the English hop (or English-type) backgrounds.
In the days when real draft beer was more available in England (cask-conditioned) these combos were common, e.g., half stout and bitter, half mild and bitter, half old and mild, even half stout and half porter (this was called "Cooper" in London). Probably the practice goes back to the pre-porter blending days of "three-threads" (three thirds that is).
The end result of half porter and Iron Duke reminded me strongly of a cask Young's Winter Warmer I had in London last year (at the Running Footman on Charles Street, Mayfair to be exact). Young's may have blended its special bitter and a stout to make it, now that I think of it, but anyway the porter-Duke blending reminded me a lot of that beer.
Blending beers made mainly from one malt type is not that different from mashing those two malts if the hop backgrounds and yeasts are otherwise similar. Broad similarity is often enough for this purpose, I find.
Granite offers on its menu various beer combinations which I order sometimes when there. When its stout is available I like half stout and half Best Bitter.
The idea to add a sparkling golden beer to a half of flattish bitter is also British. I recall once in an East London pub a fellow told me the real "light and bitter" is half lager (any kind) and half bitter. I told him, doesn't "light" mean light ale, the fizzy (bottled) low-alcohol ales you used to see on the back-bars that seem to have disappeared in the last 20 years? He said, "no, I know what light ale is and that is not used for light and bitter: it is lager and bitter only." Who was I to argue?
Anyway Midlife made the old light and bitter and quite authentically since the Confederation is a kind of light ale in the old British sense (actually the Confederation is better than those 3% light ales since it is 5% and has body).Gary
N.B. The reason I mention historical references is not to justify a practice as such but simply to indicate where I got the idea to do these things. Another source was a 1930's book quoted in an early Michael Jackson text in which the 1930's writer said that porter was being used mostly to "add body" to other beers. He wrote too that porters and stouts were going out of fashion, a prediction that was true for the next two generations but has become slightly less true in the last 15 years or so.
When I was camping a few weeks back, I tried a DFH 60 minute w/ a couple of ounce of cider (Blackthorn) mixed in... Nice, nice...
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