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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!
What're you drinking right now?
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Fashionelle
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:58 pm
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icemachine
- Beer Superstar
- Posts: 2637
- Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:20 am
- Location: Aurora, ON
- Contact:
Doing a side by side with my last bottle of 08 John By and my first bottle of 09. The base doesn't seem much changed, while the year of aging has muted some of the strong bitter chocolate and barley roast characteristics, the biggest difference is the noticable alcohol in the 09 and the slightest old ale tang in the 08. The 09 has perhaps a slightl more viscousness, the carbonation of the 08 is just a little less, both produced nice dense heads that slowly gave way to a a ring of lacing.
"Everything ... is happening" - Bob Cole
Samuel Smiths Winter Welcome Ale. A bit of a dissapointment actually, as I found it a bit bland and watery for a bitter, much less a winter warmer. In fact, I thought I was trying for the first time, but when I went to enter it on my list, I see I had already tried it a couple years ago, and gave it a fairly low rating then as well, so I guess it wasn't very memorable.
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G.M. Gillman
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1489
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:24 pm
Pearl River IPA on cask in New York, with a pronounced orange rind-like hop note and fresh yeast characteristics. Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter non-cask, Nogne Christmas and Gouden Carolus ditto, all on the flight system at Gingerman. All superb.
I must say in general, the APA style does not seem to reach the heights of English IPA and Pale Ale. The malts are fine but those U.S. hops need careful attention to bring the best out of them.
Celebration and Sierra Nevada Ale do it for me, also Smuttynose IPA and Pearl River's mentioned above.
A stylish pint at the Oyster Bar (Grand Central Station) was Palm Ale with a complex maltiness and aromatic character. It reminded me of George Killian in France or some English pale beers. It really is a revelation when sampled fresh.
Gary
P.S. I would say just about the best use of American styling in pale ale is our own Mill Street Tankhouse Pale Ale. In my view it is better than almost all APAs I've had in the U.S.
I must say in general, the APA style does not seem to reach the heights of English IPA and Pale Ale. The malts are fine but those U.S. hops need careful attention to bring the best out of them.
Celebration and Sierra Nevada Ale do it for me, also Smuttynose IPA and Pearl River's mentioned above.
A stylish pint at the Oyster Bar (Grand Central Station) was Palm Ale with a complex maltiness and aromatic character. It reminded me of George Killian in France or some English pale beers. It really is a revelation when sampled fresh.
Gary
P.S. I would say just about the best use of American styling in pale ale is our own Mill Street Tankhouse Pale Ale. In my view it is better than almost all APAs I've had in the U.S.
Gary Gillman
Reading through Ben McFarland's World's Best Beers: One Thousand Beers From Cask to Glass while drinking an Alley Kat KGB Russian Impy Stout. McFarland's book is interesting because it chooses to profile some of the rarer, less widely distributed beers from various brewers. The KGB is deliciously fruity, dark and rummy. Too bad it's only a one-off.
The Grand Central Station oyster bar is a must-visit place every time i'm in the big apple. it's especially civilized around 3 p.m. (after the lunch rush and before the evening commute chaos). I like Palm when it's fresh, but personally, with oysters I prefer a nice, crisp pils. Matches the flinty character of some of the oysters quite nicely.G.M. Gillman wrote:
A stylish pint at the Oyster Bar (Grand Central Station) was Palm Ale with a complex maltiness and aromatic character.
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G.M. Gillman
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1489
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:24 pm
Usually I dine at the Oyster Bar but didn't the other day. When I do I usually have the Chimay White or Brooklyn White on draft - white ale is not something I generally drink but for some reason when there that is what I choose. I like too the bar's Chelsea Red Sunset ale, which reminds me of Mill St. Tankhouse - both are an ESB-type taste but with fine American hops. One thing about the Oyster Restaurant Bar is the high turnover ensures always a great glass of beer.
Gary
Gary
Gary Gillman
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G.M. Gillman
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1489
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:24 pm
Still on holidays and picked up two strong porters in a grocery in the East Village that advertised Polish beers.
There were numerous brands I didn't know but I went only with strong porter, Zywiec's, and Black Boss Porter from Witnica, a brewery which started in 1848. The beers cost only $2.00 each which is a bargain indeed for 500 ml. of strong beer.
Both have a "national" (Baltic) molasses-like keynote in the nose and taste. Both are rather strong (around 9% ABV). There are roasty notes too and each is reasonably hopped. I wonder if Baltic breweries hung on to mid-1800's porter recipes, i.e., from a time when porter was a big import from England. If so these can be viewed as typical of strong porter of the era. I think probably they represented one type of porter available then irrespective of strength, namely "mild" porter (i.e., beer not attenuated highly by continued yeast action). But we know that much porter then was tart and even "sub-acid", so probably then as now there was a range of flavours. Perhaps the Baltic taste tended toward the sweet side and that has been preserved in its tradition of these beers. Okocim's version is similar. Of course, Royal Dragon and some other strong stouts from the Islands can be sweet too, so again probably the sweet malty side was one iteration of strong porter of the 1800's.
I like the Black Boss for its estery notes, almost Madeira-like (but not oxidized in any way).
I think of the ones I've tried broadly from this tradition, Sinebryhoff (Finland) and Carnegie (Sweden) are my favourites. I like Baltica's too (Russian).
Maybe the cold climates to which the beers were exported preserved for longer their "mild" character (although the extant sweet stouts of the Caribbean would go against that - still, perhaps the latter were a later development).
And of course now we have numerous breweries in North America including in Ontario who make very good Imperial stouts.
Gary
There were numerous brands I didn't know but I went only with strong porter, Zywiec's, and Black Boss Porter from Witnica, a brewery which started in 1848. The beers cost only $2.00 each which is a bargain indeed for 500 ml. of strong beer.
Both have a "national" (Baltic) molasses-like keynote in the nose and taste. Both are rather strong (around 9% ABV). There are roasty notes too and each is reasonably hopped. I wonder if Baltic breweries hung on to mid-1800's porter recipes, i.e., from a time when porter was a big import from England. If so these can be viewed as typical of strong porter of the era. I think probably they represented one type of porter available then irrespective of strength, namely "mild" porter (i.e., beer not attenuated highly by continued yeast action). But we know that much porter then was tart and even "sub-acid", so probably then as now there was a range of flavours. Perhaps the Baltic taste tended toward the sweet side and that has been preserved in its tradition of these beers. Okocim's version is similar. Of course, Royal Dragon and some other strong stouts from the Islands can be sweet too, so again probably the sweet malty side was one iteration of strong porter of the 1800's.
I like the Black Boss for its estery notes, almost Madeira-like (but not oxidized in any way).
I think of the ones I've tried broadly from this tradition, Sinebryhoff (Finland) and Carnegie (Sweden) are my favourites. I like Baltica's too (Russian).
Maybe the cold climates to which the beers were exported preserved for longer their "mild" character (although the extant sweet stouts of the Caribbean would go against that - still, perhaps the latter were a later development).
And of course now we have numerous breweries in North America including in Ontario who make very good Imperial stouts.
Gary
Gary Gillman
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G.M. Gillman
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1489
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:24 pm
Our last tasting during the holiday was at DBGB, a Daniel Boulud bistro whose drink menu is beer-oriented. I only learned of this place at the end of the trip, otherwise I'd have spent more time there. The beer menu is quite amazing and full of Danish, Italian, Finnish and other exotic specialties reaching in some cases to $75.00 a bottle. I avoided those and tried a couple of drafts. One was Stubbe's lager (Belgian, from Bruges I think - I toured it once) which was less characterful than I hoped but a good refresher. The other was a Berlin-style weisse, 1808 I think it was called, a recreation by a brewing Professor in Germany I understand. It met exactly the mid-1800's sardonic description (by an English observer) of the palate of a similar regional German wheat beer as combining the flavours of camomile tea and weak cider. But I liked it and the schuss of cassis (in this case) while interesting was not really necessary.
I had a taste too of an Italian Saison made by an outfit called Ducale. This was outstanding, probably the best beer of the trip with a full burst of forest-like hop notes. The other star, sampled at Jimmy's No. 43 on East 7th, was Hoppy Holidays, a 10% cask ABV effort from Chelsea Brewing on the Island, with a big Amarillo orangey taste (or such is how it struck me). And the beer dropped bright, which isn't always a given with cask beer in Manhattan. The lack of a yeast haze allowed the fine malt and hop flavours to shine through.
Amarillo seems to be in these days and justly so: I feel it has much more potential to create great pale ales than most of the C-hops although again it is always a question of how a brewer handles the hop and the particular balance.
Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout on regular draft was revisited at Blind Tiger and is a winner. I added some malty cask porter to deepen the malty notes as the Fisherman's on its own is rather austere from the body standpoint, it seems more a porter than a stout in fact. But the overall palate is excellent and one I would not have thought would work but it does.
I plan to create something similar using MacAuslan's pumpkin ale, or any other I can find in Ontario, with John By or Wellington County's Imperial stout. This particular combination of flavours is winning and something that I am surprised isn't done more at least to my knowledge.
Gary
I had a taste too of an Italian Saison made by an outfit called Ducale. This was outstanding, probably the best beer of the trip with a full burst of forest-like hop notes. The other star, sampled at Jimmy's No. 43 on East 7th, was Hoppy Holidays, a 10% cask ABV effort from Chelsea Brewing on the Island, with a big Amarillo orangey taste (or such is how it struck me). And the beer dropped bright, which isn't always a given with cask beer in Manhattan. The lack of a yeast haze allowed the fine malt and hop flavours to shine through.
Amarillo seems to be in these days and justly so: I feel it has much more potential to create great pale ales than most of the C-hops although again it is always a question of how a brewer handles the hop and the particular balance.
Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout on regular draft was revisited at Blind Tiger and is a winner. I added some malty cask porter to deepen the malty notes as the Fisherman's on its own is rather austere from the body standpoint, it seems more a porter than a stout in fact. But the overall palate is excellent and one I would not have thought would work but it does.
I plan to create something similar using MacAuslan's pumpkin ale, or any other I can find in Ontario, with John By or Wellington County's Imperial stout. This particular combination of flavours is winning and something that I am surprised isn't done more at least to my knowledge.
Gary
Gary Gillman
Brought this with me in the move...
Stone IPA - 6 pack
Green Flash West Coast IPA - 6 pack
Lagunitas Maximus - 6 Pack
Lagunitas IPA - 6 Pack
Racer 5 - 22oz
Hop Stupid - 22oz
HopRod Rye - 22oz
Stone IPA - 6 pack
Green Flash West Coast IPA - 6 pack
Lagunitas Maximus - 6 Pack
Lagunitas IPA - 6 Pack
Racer 5 - 22oz
Hop Stupid - 22oz
HopRod Rye - 22oz
Cheers
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Supporting mankind's right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hoppyness
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Supporting mankind's right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hoppyness