Monthly Archive for December, 2008

Stouts and Porters Beer Dinner

Published on December 17, 2008 in Beer, Beer Dinner, Food, Providence and Review. 2 Comments

It probably isn’t fair to be reviewing this one on the heels of the Nikki’s Beer Dinner from last month as that was a tough one to beat.  The Stouts and Porters Dinner at Julian’s on Sunday night was a great time and they did top it one way – entertainment.

In the middle of the dinner, they had a bunch of people from a Chinese dance school come in and do a little thing with a lion that ate and regurgitated some lettuce.  It was accompanied by drumming.  It was really fun and bought a nice new dimension to the dinner.  In addition, Brian from Julian’s also attempted to wear a different color ruffled tux shirt with each introduction for the courses.  Anyway, on to the review.

The first course found us drinking Buffalo Belgian Stout.  I had tried this once before from the bottle at a warmer temp and it was quite enjoyable.  It wasn’t nearly as good off the tap, unfortunately.  It was served with chestnuts and cranberries, which actually paired quite nicely.

The second course was a salad served with Avery The Czar.  The beer was awesome.  It was the first time I had tried it.  I found it a little odd that the strongest beer, at 12.2%, was served with the salad.  It had a lot of depth to the flavor with some dark fruit and anise.  The salad was greens, golden beets, herb encrusted pistachios, and crispy sweet potatoes.  It paired alright with the beer.  Neither over-powered the other, but I didn’t find them overly complimentary.  However, I also didn’t find them to be so opposite that they went poorly together.

The third course is honestly slipping my mind right now.  The beer was a whiskey barrel aged Ten FIDY from Oskar Blues.  This was quite tasty and added a nice dimension to the Ten FIDY without giving it a strong whiskey/bourbon flavor as happens too often when beers are aged in those types of barrels.

Following that was an intermezzo.  Again, the food is slipping my mind.  The beer was Great Divide’s Oak Aged Espresso Yeti.  This is easily one of my new favorite beers.  I managed to try some of this at Track 84 on Thursday.  It’s very tasty and has quite a bit of depth to the flavor.  The espresso is muted enough that it’s not overpowering, but strong enough to really complement the other flavors of the Oak Aged Yeti.  If you can find this, you need to try this beer.

Now onto the main course.  As with all the Julian’s beer dinners, there were 2 options.  Luckily, this time Susan and I picked different options.  I opted for the crab corn butternut squash ravioli, which came with an oak aged Smuttynose Robust Porter.  It turns out that this is actually called “JD” Oak Aged Robust Porter, the JD presumably standing for Jack Daniels.  Boy was that beer strong with the whiskey flavor.  Luckily, some of that flavor died off as the beer warmed, bringing out more of the porter flavors.  The regular Robust Porter is one of my favorite porters.  It’s very flavorful and has a great body.  This rendition of it wasn’t really up to my liking as I’m not big on strong whiskey flavors.  The meal was perfect, though, again, it wasn’t a perfect pairing.  If anything, the strong flavors of this beer took a little away from the food.  The other option was a roasted duck dish served with Hoppin’ Frog’s B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher, an oatmeal Russian imperial stout.  I found my dinner to be better and the beer to be different enough that I was really glad I chose what I did.

Finally, we made it to dessert, which was also a choice of 2 options.  I opted for a pumpkin creme caramel with a ginger cookie.  The beer was Meantime Coffee Porter.  This was the best pairing of the night.  The beer is excellent, and the dessert had just the right flavors.  It had a great consistency and the mix of pumpkin and ginger went well with the coffee flavored porter, which has a nice coffee flavor that is not overwhelming.  The other option was a float made with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  Again, I’m glad I chose what I did.  It was the better of the 2 options.

Overall, this wasn’t the best pairing, but the beers were fantastic and the evening, as always, was a ton of fun.  Many thanks to Brian, Mike, and the rest of the great staff at Julian’s.  I wish I remembered those other 2 dishes, but I just can’t.  If someone reading this remembers, feel free to post it in the comments.

Next month’s beer dinner is curated by JB Masters from Tigris Beverages.  I won’t be able to make this one or even the following one, which will be curated by Dave from Track 84.

Nikki’s Liquors Beer Dinner

Published on December 12, 2008 in Beer, Beer Dinner, Providence and Review. Closed

In mid-November, I went to the Nikki’s Liquors beer dinner at Julian’s on Broadway in Providence.  The beers were chosen by Mike from Nikki’s.  I just wanted to write a little review of it, mainly because there were some interesting beers served.

First, in general, the beer dinner was a huge success.  The pairings with the food were spot on (thanks to Mike the chef from Julian’s), the delivery of the courses and the beers were quicker than the last beer dinner I attended there (the Dogfish Head one over the summer).  Finally, the pairings were better than those at the DFH dinner.  They’ve done several since the DFH dinner.  I imagine they got used to pairing with beer and were fixed any mistakes to streamline the process.

Now, the beers.  The first beer was Traquair Jacobite.  This was an excellent Scotch Ale with some nice dark fruit flavors that paired nicely with the cheese and raspberry starter plate.  The second beer was Tripel Karmeliet, an awesome Belgian Tripel that went perfectly with the salad.  The third pairing was a bit odd, but the beer is worth mentioning.  It was Baron’s Black Wattle Superior Wattle Seed Ale.  This beer is like nothing I’ve had before.  It’s almost like a Brown Ale, but it’s not.  The wattle seed comes from a tree in Australia.  It gives the beer a nutty chocolate flavor.  The beer is lighter in body, but big in flavor.  If you see it, it’s a must try.  It was paired with samosas, which were fantastic.  The fourth dish was a choice as it was the entree.  I got the Old Rasputin with the steak.  The beer was on nitro-tap, giving it an awesome creamy mouthfeel that enhanced the beer a bit.  The other option was Southern Tier Unearthly IPA with escolar.  Dessert was my favorite part.  We also had a choice.  I got the De Dolle Oerbier Special Reserva 2006, which came with an orange cream tartlette.  The beer was easily one of my favorite beers.  It was funky and slightly sour with a nice fruity flavor.  The other option was Oude Beersel’s Oude Kriek Vieille with a chocolate covered vanilla bean cheesecake.  Finally, there was a finishing dish, which was a truffle paired with Xyauyù, a strong English style barleywine from an Italian brewery.

It was an excellent night of beer and food.  The pours were small enough so no one got too drunk, unless they were ordering other beers in between courses, which some were.  Julian’s is doing a stouts and porters beer dinner on Sunday, which I will be attending.  I’ll write a review shortly after, rather than waiting a month.

Recent Noteworthy Beers

Published on December 11, 2008 in Ale, Beer and Review. Closed

Here “noteworthy” does not necessarily mean it was good.  It also means it was notably bad.  Since this is a re-cap of a lot of beers I’ve had, but failed to review, don’t expect full reviews other than some brief notes.

I’ll start out with one of the better beers I had, Jolly Pumpkin Bam Noire.  This is the first beer I’ve tried from Jolly Pumpkin, a brewery for which I have heard and mixed reviews.  The bottle calls it a dark farmhouse ale.  It’s basically how it tasted.  My bottle was aged a bit and the beer was fantastic.  It had a nice funky flavor with some sour notes.  I’ll likely try to seek this one out again.

We’ll come back to New England for the next one, Rock Art Double Smoked Porter.  This, as it tasted, is basically a beefed up version of their Midnight Madness Smoked Porter, another excellent beer.  The Double Smoked Porter is part of their Extreme Beer Series and it’s got quite the flavor.  It’s not quite as smoky as the Midnight Madness, but it’s full of flavor.  My bottle was probably almost a year old, and maybe some of the smoke had disappeared in the aging.  Lots of nice roasted flavor, some coffee and chocolate notes, and some dark fruit.  I need to get myself more of this one.

I’ll put the biggest disappointment in the middle.  Harpoon had announced a Chocolate Stout as part of their winter variety 12 pack.  I was very disappointed by this one, though Susan liked it.  It tasted like Hershey’s syrup with alcohol, only it was a very astringent Hershey’s syrup.  I managed to drink the whole bottle and it was, a bit better warmer, but I was not impressed.  That being said, I have heard from others who really liked it.

I’ll leave off on a high note with another good beer from Vermont.  Magic Hat Roxy Rolles is a great Amber Ale and a great winter beer.  It’s got a nice hops/malt balance.  It’s really just a simple beer, but nice and flavorful without being overpowering.  It’s nice to see Magic Hat brewing some better beers again.

Samuel Adams Boston Ale

Published on December 11, 2008 in Ale, Beer and Review. Closed

It’s been a while since I’ve written about beer.  I’ll get myself back into it with a former standby (and probably soon to become my current standby).  As some of you may know (since I posted about it), I just bought a house and moved.  I picked up a 6 pack of Sam Adams Boston Ale to help me get through the move.  I used to drink this beer a lot.  It’s one of my favorites of the Sam Adams lineup.  I had forgotten how much I liked this beer.

It pours a nice amber copper color with a nice 1-2 finger foamy white head.  It smells of a nice balance of citrus hops and sweet malts.  The beer has ample carbonation present.  It’s a very smooth beer for an ale.  In fact, it has many characteristics of the Boston Lager, though it tends to be less crisp than the lager.  It’s got a nice flavor, again that balance of the hops and malts.  It has more of an American or English taste from the hops (as opposed to German, like the lager), but the malt perfectly balances the bitterness, giving it a nice flavor with a little caramel and even a very slight nuttiness.  This is one of the easiest drinking full flavored, full bodied ales I have had.  It still remains among my favorites from the Sam Adams lineup and even among my favorite session beers.

If you have yet to try it, you need to.  It’s good.  Sure, it’s Sam Adams, an “everyday” brand of beer, but it’s good.  If I could only have one beer in my fridge, this would be a contender.

Propsition 8 – The Musical

Published on December 4, 2008 in Equal Rights and Politics. Closed

This is hilarious, and oh so true.  I hate when people start spewing verses from the bible as reason for gays being sinners and all sorts of other crazy things, when the bible spews a whole lot of hate and other crazy things.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die