Monthly Archives: July 2012

Way, way, way off topic, but…

Food, ,

I need to think that I am not the only one who has ever asked:

Out of all the mammal options out there, what’s so special about cow’s milk that it’s practically the only kind we drink?

Maybe you phrased it differently – like “Why don’t we drink pig milk?” (followed immediately by “Why do I think it’s so disgusting to even ask that?”) or “Why do we eat sheep cheese but don’t drink sheep milk?” or “Do other cultures drink milk from other animals?” or “How do you milk a cheetah?”

Well, wonder no more – the answers to these questions, more or less, are given in this really interesting story on Slate.

 

Two Brewpubs

Beer, , , ,

We’ve recently had the chance to visit a few brewpubs in upstate New York.  A couple weeks ago, we went to Bandwagon Brewpub in Ithaca.  Their menu was somewhat limited at about a dozen entrees, but did have some interesting options — and I loved the cornmeal waffles with shrimp and andouille sausage.  We got a flight of Bandwagon’s beers, which packed a few surprises:

  • Raspberry Jalapeño: I initially dismissed this as a novelty chili beer, but found it pretty enjoyable.  The raspberry was more creamy than tart, and there was just a little chili heat.
  • Ezra Red Ale: Very hoppy aroma, but pretty mild and even a little sweet.  Nothing wrong with it, but not really winning me over either.
  • High Step Weizenbock: Like a sweeter hefeweizen.  By this point in the flight, I was starting to wonder at liking the novelty beer best.
  • Pirate Eye PA: Very sharp resin.  I’m not a big IPA fan, but I found this undrinkable.
  • Sully’s Irish Stout: Smoky and dry.  I’ve warmed to stout recently, especially malty imperial stout.  But this is a very dry Irish stout, which I just didn’t enjoy much at all.

So their food was good, if not a ton of options.  And none of the beers really captured my imagination, though the Raspberry Jalapeño and High Step Weizenbock were both pretty good.  So I had a great time, but I probably won’t be drinking any more of their beer.  In fact, we took the kids there for lunch last week, but we got beers from other NY breweries.

One of those breweries is Rooster Fish from Watkins Glen.  We drove over to Corning to see the excellent glass museum and were driving through Watkins Glen on our way back and stopped for lunch.  They had a much bigger menu, with a lot of good options to agonize over, even for the kids.  Instead of having a pre-set flight, they let you get samples of as many beers as you want.  The next table had a couple with samples of all 12, but we stuck with just 5:

  • Aspen Wit: a nice and spicy hefeweizen, reminding me of some of the better spicy/herbal German hefeweizen we tried.
  • Summer Sky: much more tart and clean.
  • Tripel Witch: probably my least favorite of the bunch, this tripel was reedy and herbal, reminding me of some of the tripels we tried and didn’t like.
  • Mysterious Amber: tons of toffee and caramel, almost a little too sweet, but very nice for a malt-lover like me.
  • Scotch Ale: very peaty and smoky, a wonderful wee heavy that isn’t too sweet or chewy.  Ranks right up with my favorites.  We picked up a growler of this to take home.

So it was a much nicer experience all the way around.  Of the beers we tried from the two breweries, I think I liked my least favorite from Rooster Fish (the tripel) as much as my favorite from Bandwagon.  

The Session 65: Drinking Alone

Beer, , ,

I should be blogging about tasting our new saison, or the new beers I’m trying in upstate New York where we’re spending July.  But those posts aren’t getting written, so they’ll have to wait.

On a more timely note is The Session — loosely-organized beer blogging on a monthly topic.  I’ve only just heard about it, and I find this month’s topic fascinating: drinking alone:

The way I see it is that I love beer and pubs and I don’t see why I should only go to the pub when I’m with other people.

Am I weird for going to the pub alone?

How do you feel about going to the pub alone? Do you feel it’s necessary to be around friends to spend time in a pub?

As it turns out, it’s rare for me to go to pubs or bars at all, and even rarer that I’d go alone.  Partly this is due to my own laziness, and I’m sure it’s partly due to the general social pressure against hanging out alone in public, especially where eating and drinking are concerned.  Though the social pressure against drinking alone is most acute in public, it’s definitely there in private too.  If I’m home alone for the evening, I might have a beer or two, but it’s definitely the exception not the rule.

But there have been a few times, mostly when I really wanted to try some beer you could only get at the pub.  The most recent example I can remember is when I took a trip to Cologne.  It’s a city famous for its local style of beer, and for the most part it’s not bottled or exported at all.  So you pretty much have to go to the pub to get it.  And since my young children are generally in bed by 8pm, that left a few hours each evening where I could venture out by myself and grab a few glasses of Kolsch, as Wind graciously volunteered to hang out at the hotel with the kids.

I was glad to have the chance to try a few more Kolsches, but it wasn’t much fun.  I’m quite introverted, and really not up to chatting with strangers in the pub.  So I mostly fiddled about on my phone, reading the news or playing games.  Not a terrible way to pass some time, but much less comfortable than hanging around a hotel room.

It really brought home for me the fact that drinking is a social activity, like eating really.  You can enjoy it uncritically or poring over every detail and hint of nuance.  You can enjoy it with two people or twenty.  You can enjoy the most exotic, expensive and rare, or the plain, wholesome and everyday.  But removing the social aspect really changes the experience, reducing it to just fulfilling a need.

I was thinking about all this when I went to a sour fest in Tampa last month.  The situation is very different from your typical pub, since there were some couples and groups, but many more people by themselves.  And the focus was more clearly on enjoying and analyzing the beer, and even I found myself chatting and joking with the servers and other attendees.