Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Awww... Good dog...

(Hey!  Wait just a doggone minute - that's an empty can!  Must be an Irish Setter...)

This one goes out to...

MoMan. 

 
Mike seemed a bit thirsty today for some reason.

Sláinte, Mr. President!

Barack O'Bama hoisting a pint of Guinness Stout - AP photo.

Apparently he found the apostrophe he was looking for on his trip to Ireland. I hope this isn't a statement on the quality of what he's been brewing at the White House. Full post from the Obama Foodorama blog maintained by Eddie Gehman Kohan.

Finnish Determination

From the AP news:

Finns to revive beer from 19th century shipwreck

February 9, 2011, 12:46am

HELSINKI (AP) – Finnish scientists say they hope to re-brew an old ale after studying ancient beer found in a 19th century shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

The VTT Technical Research Center of Finland says it aims to determine the recipe used in the brewing of what is "one of the world's oldest preserved beers."

Divers in July found five bottles of dark, foamy beer while salvaging champagne from the wreck near Finland's Aland Islands. The shipwreck is believed to be from the early 19th century.

VTT spokeswoman Annika Wilhelmson said Tuesday that researchers want to find out what kind of yeast was used because "the role of yeast in beer brewing was not yet fully understood in the early 1800s."

(A bottle of beer that was retrieved from a shipwreck in the Åland archipelago in the summer of 2010, is displayed at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in Espoo, Finland, Tuesday Feb. 8, 2011. (AP Photo))

I suppose what is truly amazing is that the stuff survived!

A new brew...

For those of you who aren't afraid of the dark, here is an interesting Imperial Stout that we brought to a party this weekend. It was a Wii (Wee?) St. Patrick's Day party at a friend's house that promised supplies of Guinness Stout and Smithwick's. (DW has posted about it here.) There were good friends, good food and Nintendo Wii which was played by all.

I figured that there would be some stout lovers at the party so I brought this bottle along to share as a tasting.

Imperial Stouts or Russian Imperial Stouts were brewed in London for consumption in the court of Catherine the Great. They have a high alcohol content - typically about 9-10% ABV. The high alcohol content was to keep it from freezing in shipping and to maintain the quality of the brew in the same way that India Pale Ales have large amounts of hops to hold their flavor in shipping.

It wasn't the brew that I was originally looking to bring, but this is what I took:


This was a strongly flavored and relatively highly carbonated, strong ale with coffee and chocolate flavors and a slight bitter tinge to it. It was delicious, but definitely something that I wouldn't want to drink a whole bottle of by myself. I'm pretty sure that it would both age and keep very well if cellared nicely. I think that if you wanted to drink it in small portions over several days, it would keep with a good stopper.


The label was fun too!

Says it all about today...

Just been one of those days.

Advent Calendar?

After Thanksgiving, we run over to a local grocery store that has some nice advent calendars for the kids. I've been thinking there need to be some for adults, too. I'm not the first person to think of this idea, however. Quite frankly, I like this approach for variety.

For some simpler ideas, we have the following:

Bachelor's Advent Calendar


Mexican Advent Calendar


Scottish Advent Calendar


I think more variety for 24 days is desirable, however...

Wordless Wednesday

Am I Predictable?

I appear to have hung out a business sign. It reads as follows:

Doghouse Boatworks

Fine Small Boat Building
and Instruction by Canoez

Someone has subtitled the sign. The hand-scrawled note says "Will build boats for beer."

How can I tell? Well... There hangs a tale.

The first year that I taught, my students were wrapping up their boats at one of the student's houses as we had run out of good weather days to finish the canoes during class time. Waiting after the end of our session was a cold Sam Adams. Nice after the work is done. It seems to carry on from there.

Last summer when I taught at WoodenBoat, one of my students was kind enough to have an assortment of nice Maine-brewed ales. An unexpected, but not unappreciated treat. Two of the other students who were staying over on the Saturday night later were took me over to the Brooklin Inn for a nice dinner out. Again, a nice, but unexpected surprise.

One of my other long-term students (He's taken the class for three years and has built two boats - a Sassafrass Wee Lassie (The Rootbeer Float) and a stretched version of the Wee Lassie that is being built as a decked sailing canoe in the style of the turn-of-the-century sailing canoes. I occasionally head over to his house to help him with some of the more advanced bits and pieces and after the work is wrapped up, we critique our work and plan for the upcoming tasks over - you guessed it - a cold ale.

Another student from last year's session who is an experienced woodworker needed some help with some glassing at his house over the summer. Like with the last student, a nice beer or ale after the work is done is on the list - or a nice bottle that seems to find it's way into my trunk, for some strange reason.

The most recent session of boat building wrapped up with a full-day session on my birthday - a cake was present for our 10:00 AM "union break" for coffee and donuts or the like along with a few nice bottles of Belgian ale. I'm sensing a pattern here, how about you?

For the last two nights, a friend of mine that is in a woodworking class that I take has been working with me on a skin-on-frame kayak. (More posts on that later as we've got more material to show.) Last night, she showed up holding a bag with the following contents:


I'm definitely seeing a pattern here.

Shheeeep!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like beer and one of my favorites is one that my FIL introduced me to. It's called Black Sheep Ale and is from the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham in North Yorkshire in the UK.

Described by the brewery as follows:

Full flavoured premium bitter, with a rich fruity aroma. It is brewed with many generous handfuls of choice Golding hops giving a bittersweet malty taste, followed by Black Sheep' characteristic long, dry and bitter finish.

Good stuff.

Really.


I also like their Riggwelter ale, too. Riggwelter is a nicely flavored ale but is fairly strong at 5.7% ABV. According to the bottle, a sheep that is 'rigged' or 'riggwelted' is on it's back and cannot get up. Entirely appropriate for a bottle of this stuff.


The Holy (Gr)ail is an offering which commerorates Monty Python's 30'th anniversary. It's a light ale and probably not one of my favorites, but still good for what it is.

The last two ales I haven't had an opportunity to try and will probably have to wait until my next trip to the UK. Actually, I take that back. I think I've had the Golden Fleece, but can't recall it. (No, I didn't have too much to drink at the time, but it has been quite some time since I had it...)


The last ale is a "Yorkshire Square " ale. Basically it is an ale that is made in slate 'squares' very much like Sam Smith's Ales which are also brewed in Yorkshire. A very traditional method. I suppose if they brew this ale the way they brew the Sam Smith's, it would be one of my favorites!

MMMmm... Beer.

DW went on a shopping trip last weekend after taking some tests for her work. Part of the shopping trip was to a local store that has an excellent selection of beer, wine, liquors and gourmet foods. She brought home some of my favorite ales. Sometimes she knows me too well.

I like beer.

Really I do.

One was Black Sheep ale from the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham, North Yorkshire, in the UK. I'll delve into this ale more sometime later.

The other is a Belgian style ale from Unibroue Brewery in Chambly, Quebec. The beer is called Maudite (French for "damned") and it is a rich, fully flavored ale. They make a variety of great ales, all of which have a fairly high alcohol content because they tend to be bottled with priming sugars for a second (or even third!) fermentation in the bottle. The other unique thing about their beers is the wonderful artwork on their bottles. On the bottle of Maudite is artwork about the legend of Chasse-Galerie. (see the last paragraph in the quote.) This is what the folks from Unibroue write about their ale:

The robust maltiness and spiciness of our amber-red ale is counterbalanced by an assertive hop finish, offering a distinctive flavor that is cognac-like in complexity.

Whether it is paired with pasta marinara, a brick-oven pizza, Flemish stew, spice-rubbed pork tenderloin or dal makhani, Maudite is 'devilishly' satisfying.

Maudite (Damned) was the first strong beer to be retailed in Québec. Its deliciously complex flavor improves with age.

The word 'Maudite' has many meanings in Québécois culture. Here, it refers to the Legend of "Chasse-Galerie," a tribute to the early lumberjacks of Nouvelle-France. The legend tells of eight daring woodsmen who, during winter, yearned to be home for the Holidays. They conjured up the devil and all of them pledged their soul in return for flying them in their canoe to their village. As they sailed across the moonlit sky, one of them managed to free himself from the pledge by invoking the name of God, which caused the canoe to come crashing down to earth. They were never seen again.

Do enjoy a bottle sometime!

Smite me again, O Barkeep?

Well, actually, I think that someone should smite the barkeep -or perhaps the brewers.

I had a bottle of their Beer of the Gods. They describe it as follows:

Beer of the Gods is an unusual blend of styles from Old Germany. We’ve taken the pale Pilsner malt used for Cologne’s famed Kölsch style and loads of spicy noble hops used in the best Altbier from nearby Dusseldorf. And we’ve topped it off with a liberal dose of extra aroma hops during a lengthy lagering stage. The result? An American beer that blends the best of two old world classics: a beer as drinkable as the very best Kölsch that satisfies like a supreme Altbier. Think of it as a German-style Farmhouse Ale. Beer of the Gods is, of course, unpasteurized and unfiltered. Alcohol content is 4.9%.

Unusual? It was really very terrible stuff. If you've got the, um, stones, to call anything the (insert noun here) of the Gods, it had better be great. If it isn't, you'd better start looking out for lightning bolts.