Posted in Beer, tagged beer, beer news, Goose Island bought by Anheuser Busch on March 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Anheuser-Busch is buying Goose Island.
The brewmaster there has stepped down. I’m having a hard time assuming my Bourbon County Brand Stouts are not all now collector’s items.
Someone please assure me that they won’t screw everything up. Goose Island is so awesome right now. I have visions of it turning into a clone of Granite City or Rock Bottom or something, and the idea makes me want to cry.
Posted in Wine, tagged Fire Road Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, white wine, wine, wine review on March 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Country/Region: Marlborough, New Zealand*
Grapes involved: Sauvignon Blanc
Cost: $10-15
Food pairings: alone as an aperitif, with seafood (especially shellfish – scallops would be dreamy), anything with citrus or lemongrass (NZ Sauv Blancs are one of the few non-Riesling wines I could see pairing well with Thai)
Point of order one: I’ve been working all day and got lazy on the picture – one will be forthcoming should I decide to dig out my phone and the bottle and have at it.
Point of order two: I opened this bottle a week ago and took some notes, and then decided today to see if it’d be possible to have half a glass while typing this up just to help refresh me on it. Corked wine usually starts to turn at about the four/five day point – this is a screw cap, and it’s still absolutely fine 8 days after first opening.** Color me impressed.
Alright. Most Sauvignon Blancs have a major grapefruit component to the nose and flavor. This one, not so much. My nose is screaming passionfruit at me, with hints of orange blossom and maybe honeysuckle. It’s mostly passionfruit. There’s maybe a touch of grass in there as well.
This wine is fairly light-bodied, crisp, and very acidic. Flavor-wise, it’s bright citrus – think tangerine more than grapefruit - passionfruit, something floral (I’m reverting again to orange blossom/neroli – something in that range), and maybe a hint of honeydew. It’s really bright, really dry, and leaves a long, lingering acidic/citrus flavor.
Overall, the Fire Road SB is like bottled sunshine, and fantastic on this oddly warm, humid day we’ve got today. I would say it’s definitely worth trying, especially if you’ve had enough of Cupcake or Kim Crawford and want to try something new.
Would I get this again: oh, oh yes.
As a fun comparison, check out my Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc review from a few weeks ago. The Peñalolen is from Chile, and it’s all grass and hay. When put side by side with the Fire Road, you can get a really good idea as to the range of what this particular grape can do.
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*If you like bright citrusy wines and have never had a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, do so immediately. If you like Sauvignon Blancs but have never had one from New Zealand, again, do so immediately. If you already know you like NZ SBs (I am not typing that out again), then search this one out, because it’s new and different and fun.
**If you’re wondering how on earth any wine survived more than a couple of days in this house, well, I was in a friend’s wedding. Not a lot of home drinking time this week. Also: tourney time = beer time. And wing time.
Posted in Beer, Learnings, tagged guinness trivia on March 17, 2011 | 3 Comments »
For your St. Patrick’s Day edification, KimandTonic presents to you a Grand List of Guinness Things You Should Know, because I will never actually review a Guinness (and let’s face it: if you have not yet had a pint of Guinness, you are probably not reading a beer blog).
- There are roughly 170 calories in a 160z pint of Guinness. (1) In comparison, the same amount of Bud Light contains approximately 143. Michelob Light contains 177. (5) Lesson: DRINK THE GOOD STUFF.
- A perfect pint of Guinness should take 199.5 seconds to pour, including rest time halfway through the pour. (6)
- The foamy head on a pint of Guinness contains, on average, 300,000,000 bubbles. (3)
- Guinness initially brewed what they referred to as a porter. They began using the “stout” label to apply to the strongest, bestest of their beers, calling it Guinness Stout Porter. The porter label was eventually dropped, and we have our name. (8)
- Guinness has a high iron content, which has led to its dispersal in hospitals (it occasionally still is in Ireland). (1)
- The lease on St. James Gate is 9000(!) years long, at an annual fee of roughly $65. (7) Arthur Guinness must have been one hell of a cocky bastard to make a bet like that (and prove his point, no less). The poor fop who sold him the brewery was a Mark Rainsford, whose own attempts at brewing had not been quite so profitable. (8)
- The Guinness served in America is the exact same Guinness as the stuff served in Ireland. Really. It’s even brewed at St. James Gate.* So if your pint doesn’t taste as good as your remembered pint did in Ireland, it’s because of the travel time. Or because your pub doesn’t keep its keg lines clean enough. Or because drinking a pint in Ireland is one of life’s best experiences. (4) (See note at bottom – there is some question about this one.)
- Guinness is popular in Africa. Nigeria is apparently the world’s third largest beer market. They say that their version (a super-sweet export version) enhances virility. (1) Bonus fact: Nigerian Guinness is made mostly from sorghum, rather than barley. (2)
- The Guinness Book of World Records was established by a Guinness executive (Hugh Beaver, setting a possible World Record for Most Unfortunate Name) to have a way to settle bar arguments. (1)
Sources:
1 – http://www.guinnessontap.com/modules/Trivia/
2 – http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/191393
3 – http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=136220813845
4 – http://sixpacktech.com/2010/03/17/guinness-facts/
5 – http://www.annecollins.com/calories/calories-light-beer.htm
6 – http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/Top-10-Guinness-Facts-93321039.html
7 – http://przman.com/eat/happy-st-patty%E2%80%99s-day-17-guinness-facts/
8 – http://www.curiousread.com/2010/03/10-frothy-facts-about-guinness-st.html
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*This was news to even me.
To note: at least one friend says he thinks Guinness for America is brewed in Canada, and that was what I had been thinking as well. So take what you will from this: either there are multiple answers, or, you know, someone on the internet is wrong.
Posted in Wine, tagged 2009 cono sur pinot noir, red wine, wine, wine review on March 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Country/Region: Chile
Grapes involved: Pinot Noir
Cost: $9.99
Food pairings: lamb comes to mind, as it usually does with Pinot Noir, and I could see a bunch of cheeses as well.
Cono Sur is a Chilean winery that creates wine from organic, sustainably-grown grapes, so they get an A+ for being good to the environment. I grabbed their Pinot Noir because it was a pretty unbeatable price and because I really like Pinot Noir.
The scent is uncomplicated – raspberries with a hint of something sort of toasty/earthy. The non-berry note sort of muddles things a bit, if that makes any sense – it’s not a completely clear scent. Color-wise, this would be a slightly dusty raspberry purple scent.
This has a lot of tannins, especially in the finish, where they get sort of mouthcoating and lovely. Some fruit as well, in the berryish sort of fruit way, and some light woodsy sort of taste. Maybe a touch of violet. Mostly tannins.
Overall, this isn’t my favorite, but it’s not bad, and it’s pretty decent for the price. But I don’t have a lot to say about it, either – maybe it’s from burning my tongue on pizza this afternoon, but it’s not the most flavorful wine I’ve ever encountered. Like I said, not bad for the price, but I think when I can I’d be likely to grab something a few bucks higher and hope for something fuller.
Posted in Liqueurs and Liquors, tagged aperitifs, French liqueurs, Lillet Blanc, Lillet review, liqueur, liqueur review on March 10, 2011 | 7 Comments »
My first-ever liqueur post, featuring a drink of which I do not have a picture because we were out for my birthday dinner and I was trying to be nice by making like an attentive date instead of a semi-obsessive blogger.*
LIQUEUR: Lillet Blanc (there is also a Lillet Rouge, but I haven’t had it yet)
MADE BY AND WITH: the French, using Bordeaux wine and citrus
PURPOSE: Aperitif
COMMON DRINKS: In France/Europe, it’s typically taken on the rocks with a wedge of lemon or lime. The US uses it mostly for cocktails. It was huge in the Twenties.
I had no idea exactly what I was getting myself into other than “hey, we stock that at work” and “I think it’s an aperitif?” – when the opportunity to have some without committing to a bottle presented itself, I grabbed it (at Lidia’s Kansas City, a restaurant you should definitely go to if you’re in KC and have the time/money). I had this on the rocks, no citrus, that being the bartender’s suggestion.**
By means of apology for not having a picture of it, I should point out that you’re not missing much. It looks like white wine on the rocks. It’s not the best sight – given the way I usually turn my nose up at anyone who would put wine on the rocks, I felt a bit uncomfortable having something that even *resembled* wine with ice. I got over myself after a moment, but. Not fun at first.
Anyway: what is this stuff? It smells like a combination of generic white wine and a hint of brandy. Not my favorite smell ever, but not bad. Taste-wise, my notes list:
- white wine
- brandy
- citrus (not sure which)
- coriander?
- ginger?
- grass
- toast
- wood
- white pepper
- something that I know but can’t quite seem to get to***
- apricot
You can take that list as being roughly in order of dominance of flavor from highest to lowest.
Anyway, what I discovered was that after I had a bit of a sense of what to expect, I *really* liked this. It’s not quite as dry as I was expecting (big *eyeroll* surprise: it was reformulated in 1987 to be sweeter, since apparently no one likes/buys brighter, more bitter flavors), but it’s light and refreshing and just strong enough to whet the appetite.
A few recipes:
The most famous pop culture use of Lillet Blanc is in the 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale, in which 007 orders a Vesper. To make one for yourself:
- three measures of gin (Bond specifically requests Gordon’s)
- one measure of vodka
- one-half measure of Lillet
Shake over ice, pour into a glass and add a peel of lemon. Aspire to a level of coolness neither you nor I will ever actually reach.
Another Lillet-using cocktail is the Old Etonian:
- 1.5 oz gin
- 1.5 oz Lillet Blanc
- 2 dashes orange bitters
- 2 dashes Crème de Noyeux
Shake over ice, pour into glass and garnish with a twist of orange
I think I’m going to have some of this on hand for the summer months – it would be great on days I want something light, but don’t want a gin and tonic or Campari drink. I’m contemplating the idea of a drink made up of a sugar cube doused in orange bitters, Lillet Blanc, and soda.
Has anyone else out there tried it? I was fascinated – I’d love other opinions.
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*People, I am seriously like the worst person to drink with anymore. Any time we get something new, the notebook and the phone come out so I can take notes and pics and make sure I can blog stuff later. So it’s roughly five minutes per drink that anyone with me is guaranteed not to have much, if any, of my attention.
If the drink in question happens to be wine, expect the no-attention zone to last closer to ten minutes.
**I’m fairly sure I was the first person to ask for Lillet in roughly forever based on the surprised look on the bartender’s face.
***this is a direct note-to-screen quote. My notes get a bit garbled sometimes.
Posted in Beer, tagged beer, beer review, belgian pale ale, brasserie dieu du ciel!, dieu du ciel derniere volonte on March 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Yeah. When a brewery has the guts to name itself Dieu du Ciel!*, they’d better deliver some serious beer.
Basic Info:
Name: Dernière Volonté (translation: Last Wish)
Origin: Brasserie Dieu du Ciel (translation: God in Heaven), Montréal, Quebec, Canadialand**
Style: Belgian Pale Ale
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: not given that I’ve found
I drank this: on tap at Waldo Pizza, Kansas City
I have to start by giving you people a pair of pictures of this glorious beer. The first one displays the color fairly accurately. Huge head, yellow-golden ale:
And in the second picture, it’s glowing. For seriously. The reason I’m showing you the glowing picture (as opposed to chalking it up to bad photography on my part) is because the light was hitting it just right and it really *was* glowing the entire time I was drinking it. See?
It’s like God wanted me to have this beer and be happy with it.*** And I was happy. And I will get on with the review now, promise.
This is a beer to be tasted in moments. The first moment is pink grapefruit, right at the tip of the tongue, followed by a touch of sweet and a touch of sour. After that, there’s a rush of pale malts before it finishes with a touch of yeast. It was super-complex, the sort of beer that required me breaking it down over the course of about half a glass (by way of comparison, I can nail most beers in about three sips anymore).
One of the things I loved about this beer (other than that it was glowing) was that it had a definite sort of Belgian yeast flavor to it, but without going into Belgian bananayeast territory. I’m not a huge fan of the bananayeast flavor – it’s one of the reasons I tend not to be huge on many American-made Belgian-style beers – so I was thrilled not to run into it here. That said, the yeast is a noticeable (if small) part of the flavor.
Overall, this was a lovely beer, and I’m glad I’ve gotten to have one. I like Belgian style beers when I’m in the mood – the really good ones have intricate, elegant flavors. This was a good one. I hope you can find one too.
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*Yes, the exclamation point is there. No, I don’t know why. Yes, I think it’s extraneous, but that’s my personal opinion.
My actual guess is that they’re intending the brewery name to be read as an oath – the translation is “God in heaven!” – and that the exclamation point is the visual reminder that you should be excited while saying it. Or potentially that their beers are so amazingly amazing that “God in heaven!” (or Dieu du Ciel! for the Frenchies out there) will be the only thing you’re able to think when you try one.
… that said, I hope I’m not wrong, because I’m attributing to them one hell of a boast. I can say that this is the second beer I’ve had from them (the first being a Péché Mortel (Mortal Sin), a fan-flipping-tastic Coffee Imperial Stout), and they’re rapidly climbing my “these guys make interesting, worth-searching-for stuff” list.
**This is my preferred epithet for our neighbors to the North. It makes Canada sound like a theme park. I will return to taking Canada seriously when they get rid of Stephen Harper. 
***Had to get some Mardi Gras sacrilege in while I could.
That said, being Mardi Gras, if I have a good day today, I’ll be able to find myself a Sazerac.
Posted in Wine, tagged Bordeaux, cabernet sauvignon, Chateau Bonnet Bordeaux, Merlot, red wine, wine, wine review on March 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Featuring this week on Kim and Tonic:
2007 Chateau Bonnet Appellation Bordeaux Controllée
A Review in Tweets
(with apologies to those not on twitter, as that is likely to make reading this particular post difficult)
Region: Bordeaux, France
Grapes involved: 50% Merlot, 50% Cabernet Sauvignon
Cost: $17.99
Food pairings: It worked fairly well with the chicken cacciatore we had for dinner. It would probably rock with a steak au poivre.
To set the scene: I’ve had at least one memorable experience with being truly weirded out by French wine. This experience began the same way, and it occurred to me in a fit of silly to tweet the whole thing. So I did.
Roughly two minutes after opening the bottle and pouring a glass
@kimandtonic: So. Just poured wine. Tastes like dirty feet and bitter tomatoes. Will update when it gets better. #wineexperiment
A conversation
@mittenstrings: @kimandtonic you should have a rating system on your blog for bad wine — like how many glasses until it gets tolerable.
@kimandtonic: @mittenstrings this will be good, supposedly. It’s a Bordeaux. Am timing how long it needs to aerate until it’s remotely drinkable.
@mittenstrings: @kimandtonic ah. This requires more effort than my wine-ing generally.
@kimandtonic: @mittenstrings what I am learning right now is that French wine is a PITA.
15 minutes post-pour
@kimandtonic: At the fifteen minute mark, wine smells like bitter tomatoes, feet and cherry. #wineexperiment Wine is 2007 Chateau Bonnet Bordeaux
30 minutes post-pour
@kimandtonic: Wine now smells like very little and tastes like sour peppercorns with a hint of cherry. #wineexperiment
45 minutes post-pour
@kimandtonic: Wine has developed tannin! Like, we almost have a flavor that isn’t undrinkably bad! #wineexperiment #whypeoplehatemerlot
53 minutes post-pour
@kimandtonic: We have wine! Leather, pepper, cherry, hint of earth, high tannin, full body, better with food than alone. #wineexperiment
Wrap up:
No sir, I don’t like it. Will try again in two days to see if ample breathing time makes it magically delicious. Have not yet given up on French wines, but I’m currently 1/3 on enjoying them.
In other words, part of me wonders if there’s something I’m missing, or a particular flavor profile I don’t yet understand; part of me wonders if the French keep most of their truly fantastic wines to themselves (which I would understand, frankly); part of me wonders if I’m just too high on the fruity Merlot I had the other day to appreciate the leather-pepper thing I had tonight; and finally, part of me wonders if maybe this wine just kinda sucks.
Posted in Wine, tagged 2006 Emmolo Merlot, Merlot, red wine, wine, wine review on March 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
This is a freebie review on a non-review day that I’m posting because I got a fairly hefty sample of this stuff and it was good enough that I needed to scribble about it to figure out what I was drinking. I think I needed to scribble about it largely because it’s a Merlot that I really like – the vast majority of my pre-current-job Merlot tasting was of super-duper cheap Merlot, and there’s nothing says “bad wine” like “cheap Merlot.”*
I don’t think this particular Merlot is remotely cheap, but I don’t have an exact price either.
Region: Napa, California
Grapes involved: Merlot
Cost: $not sure
Food pairings: I can tell you what I want right now, and that is a plate of seared duck breast with some kind of cherry or port sauce. I think it would work beautifully with barbecue as well – for some reason, Merlot is my go-to for barbecue.
Color-wise, this wine is so purple it’s almost black. Because it’s so dark, it took me a while to figure out how to get it at an angle that would allow me to judge the color of the wine in any realistic fashion – when I finally did, it’s a deep reddish-purple hue.
This wine has a really powerful nose, all plummy-spicy-cherry with back hints of wood. It’s not bright enough for me to want to call it jammy (jammy means “bright red” to me) – this is a purple, maybe even blackened purple.
Taste: it begins with plum. LOTS of plum. The plum gets followed up by a combination of everything from clove and sage to wood and vanilla. Very dark purple flavor.** The aftertaste is a lot of wood with some tannin and smoke. The tannins are HUGE in this wine: heavy, almost grating, impossible to miss or to aerate into submission.
Overall, I really like this wine. I’ll update a price if/when I have one – as I said, these notes all come from a fairly hefty sample. Good wine, tihough, and makes me want to try Emmolo’s Sauvignon Blanc ($17.99), which we carry at work.
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*A girl in college at a party once described cheap Merlot to me as smelling like, and I quote, “bad sex.” I’ve never figured out what I think that smells like, exactly, but I do know that the description was evocative enough that I’ve never forgotten it.
Also, I think it’s that she was smelling tannins and didn’t like tannin. I think tannin smells like dirty feet.
…I’m not going to continue on with that line of thought.
**I heart synaesthesia – among other things, it’s the idea that colors apply to things other than, well, colors. So scents can smell orange or yellow or purple or red or pink or green or whatever. Labeling the scents by color actually helps me sort out what I’m smelling, so it’s the type of thing you’re like to see a lot of on this blog, especially when it comes to wine.
Posted in Beer, tagged beer, beer review, founders brewing co., founders red rye pale ale, red ale, rye ale on March 3, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Basic Info:
Name: Red Rye Pale Ale
Origin: Founders Brewing Co., Grand Rapids, MI
Style: Rye Ale
ABV: 6.6%
IBU: 70
I drank this: poured from a bottle at Waldo Pizza, KC
This beer, people, this beer is flipping fantastic.
So. This beer didn’t have a huge amount of smell, so we’re going to skip that and move straight into the mouthfeel, which was GLORIOUS. This is a really thick beer, really creamy and heavy and filling, and also extremely sharp. The hops bite straight into the tongue almost like they’ve got little knives or something.* The contrast is absolutely perfect; I had so much fun playing with the feel of the beer that it took me a few sips to even pay attention to the taste.
I shouldn’t have waited to think about the taste - the taste is awesome too. It’s a combination of very caramelly malts (four different types of Belgian malts, my reading tells me) with an overly of a very piney, bitter, sharp hop bite. Malty-sweet and bitter all at once. Then, to round it out, there’s a strongly peppery rye flavor in the aftertaste - the aftertaste was the only time I noticed the rye as a distinct entity, but when I did, it was a stronger, more pronounced rye flavor than I get in most rye beers.
Overall, I’m in heart with this beer. I think it’s an excellent beer for this time of year – great and thick and malty for the cold weather, sharp and bright enough to remind me of growing things starting to peek their heads up out of the ground.
Thank you, Founders, for being so consistently kickass!
Posted in Learnings, Wine on March 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
If you open a bottle of red wine, pour yourself a glass, inhale, and smell dirty feet, either swirl the wine a whole bunch or do something else to let it aerate. The dirty feet smell will go away in a little while and replace itself with lovely gloriousness.
This wine tip brought to you by my enormous migraine. The regularly scheduled review will happen tomorrow.
