My one, my only, St. Patrick's Day post

I have been inundated with St. Patrick's Day-related press releases. I believe it has become a bigger drinking holiday than New Year's Eve -- at least, from a non-wine writing perspective. All kinds of beer and spirits companies have presented their boozes to me as PERFECT FOR ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Well, bullshit. Let me give you some drinking advice for the original Green Day.

First off, feel free! If you want to go out and do the rounds tomorrow (or even start tonight), if you're going to be watching or marching in a parade, if you're going to have any kind of Irish dinner tomorrow (we're having champ and soda bread, and some good Irish cheese), if you plan to celebrate tomorrow for reasons sacred or profane...good on you. I don't hold with the hand-wringing about defamation of the Irish, or even the public drunkenness (as if the tailgating at any NFL game is any better), or the way a Catholic feast day venerating the memory of a true saint of the Church has become a whacked-out celebration (mostly for Americans). Big deal; it's what we do. Everyone around the world likes to have a party. If you're a puritan or a bluenose, stay home tomorrow and drink mineral water, and please, don't bother telling the rest of us that's what you're doing. We don't care.

Now, here's the drinking advice part. If you're going to celebrate with booze, do it smart. For instance, the beer we like to call dry Irish stout -- Guinness, O'Hara's, Beamish, Murphy's, O'Reilly's, Donnybrook, Dark Starr, Black Fly, whatever your local is -- often weighs in under 4.5% ABV (check your local faves on this; some are substantially more!), so it IS a session beer, regardless of what your idiot friends tell you about how much Guinness will EFF YOU UP!!! MAN!!!! It's a great beer for pacing yourself through a whole day of drinking, if that's what you're on to, and you can take in plenty of music and parade while doing it (just stay near the bogs, because you're talking a mighty volume of liquid).

Whether it's Irish or not, it's got more flavor than the usual alternative: green-dyed Miller Lite. Do you really want to drink crap like that? Look, if you don't like stout, Smithwick's is a pretty good amber (and still 4.5%), even the newly reformulated Coors-brewed Killian's is 4.9%, and it is, I'm happy to report, much tastier than it had become in its debased days.

If you'll be having whiskey -- and you should, you should -- Irish whiskey is the most friendly stuff you'll find, soft and sweet and very much approachable. You can hardly go wrong here, so it's almost foolish to steer you. The Holy Trinity -- Jameson, Bushmills, Tullamore -- is readily available, and with the general improvement in the quality of Irish over the past 20 years, you can't really go wrong.

(And one addition to this, after I originally posted it: I don't generally hold with the precious snob talk about how you must drink your whiskey neat...but in the case of Irish? Since most of it is 80 proof, it's great neat, and that's how most folks do drink it. If you want a hot whiskey, and the place you're in will do one, and it's cold and raw like it is today here in Philly, do it!)

But look...why not up your game a bit, or at least try something different? For instance, my Irish bar go-to is Guinness and a shot of Powers. Can't go wrong, and let me tell you: good whiskey. Or try Black Bush, the sherry-aged Bushmills. Or fergodssake, try something from the "other Irish distillery," Cooley: Kilbeggan, or The Tyrconnell (a fine and delicate single malt).

Walking up the category works, too. For a bit more cash (lads, lasses: take cash tomorrow, don't feck about with credit cards, you'll just hold up other folks who need to get a drink! And don't forget plenty of dollar bills for tips!), you can get Jameson 12 Year Old, Bushmills 10 or the 1608, or Tullamore 10. See what Irish can offer.

If you want one good whiskey to start the afternoon, before you're just tossing stuff past your gums -- and remember, if you do drink whiskey, please pace yourself, you can't drink it like beer! -- take a moment to savor a nip of Redbreast, or Bushmills 16, or some smoky Connemara, or maybe a Midleton Very Rare. More money, but blessed be Jesus, well worth it.

So. That's the primer. Don't get thrashed -- it's unseemly -- but don't be afraid to have fun, and smile, and laugh, and shake hands with strangers, and sing! Have fun. Be a bit safe. And walk, take transit, or get a sober driver. I'll see you Sunday.

Hell's Bells...

I understand that Bell's will be bringing the dark to Devil's Den on December 21st: appropriate, as the winter solstice is a dark day indeed. "Bringing the dark" is, of course, all about stouts, which has been an obsession of Larry Bell's since the earliest days. The goodies at Devil's Den will include the rare and wonderful Black Note, for only the second time in Philly; we're told that the first time it showed, the keg kicked in minutes ten. Be forewarned!

If I can't manage to get to Selin's Grove for the anniversary celebrations...might just have to get down with the blackness at Devil's Den.

International Stout/Porter Day? Sure, I'm in

Got a press release from Chris D'Puia, the beer maven at O'Reilly's, in Harrisburg (apparently they're not going by T. Brendan O'Reilly's anymore?), about their participation in the 1st Annual International Stout/Porter Day, on November 3rd. I didn't know about this, but it has a website, and it's not Guinness's "Arthur's Day." Whatever, it's an excuse to drink dark ales, and I am down with that!

Here's what's going on at O'Reilly's. I won't be there -- too far with what else I have to do that day -- but I WILL be drinking dark beer somewhere, at home, if needs be.

Starting at 6:00, there will be a growler and bottle share in the banquet room, next to the Pub (parallel to the bathrooms). Please bring a growler or a bottle of your choice to share with all of the attendees. Please note that it does not have to be a Stout or Porter, but they are recommended due to the reason of celebration.
At 8:00, we move the festivities into O’Reillys itself, where there will be at least 6 Stouts or Porters on tap and one firkin on the bar. Ffej and ADG of “Think Tank” will be in the house that evening playing live music.
As for food, it will be available to purchase in the pub, and it can be brought in to the banquet room. Outside food will not be permitted in the banquet room. However, it is most important to note that this room is being provided to us free of charge to rent as long as we do not leave a mess behind, so please clean up after yourselves. 

So get dark, folks. Sounds like fun to me!

FES: OMG

So when the word started to percolate about Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (I tweeted about that back on the 22nd, and I apologize for not blogging...gotta stop that), I got right back to the Diageo people and asked if it were true. Sure, they said, and would you like a sample? Yes!

This is a bit of a grail for me; I've kind of purposely kept myself away from it till I could get it legit. Worth the wait, and really not at all what I expected. First, it's not heavy and thick (like some other "Caribbean" stouts); it's actually quite light for 7.5%. Second, it has a great aroma of boozy burnt malt. Third, it's properly black...like I remember "regular" Guinness being, though that could be a trick of memory. Finally, it's not sweet! It's quite bitter, burnt bitter and hop-bitter, but smooth as a swoop. Intriguing stuff, and easy to understand why it's so popular: it's 45% of total Guinness sales!

What's not so easy to understand is why it's taken Diageo so long to bring it to the positively beer-crazy U.S. market. Was it because Guinness stout was so damned popular, they were afraid of cannibalizing it? Yeah, that strategy worked so well with Guinness Extra Stout...and Smithwick's... Should have sent this ten years ago!

Magic Hat Fall 09 Odd Notion

I got a sample of Magic Hat's Fall Odd Notion back in September, stuck it in the fridge to chill...and hit the road. Kentucky Bourbon Festival, moving my mother-in-law (came back from that with 18 bottles of Guinness that I stuck in the fridge...in front of the Odd Notion (and there's a Deschutes Jubelale in there, too, I see...later)), WhiskyFest San Francisco...I forgot about it.

So today I get an e-mail from Magic Hat's publicity guy, Dave Obenour. Hey, he says, are you ever gonna drink that stuff? Good publicity guy! Sure, why not? I don't have to go pick up Nora today, I'll have a beer.

It's a "chocolate Belgian stout," and it pours really, really dark with a tenacious dark tan head. The nose is like baker's chocolate: chocolatey, but dry with it, and a hint of malt and graham. Mmmm... That's the taste, only with some fruit to it -- orange, hints of berry, maybe a bit of grape -- and a solid bitterness on the end. The mouthfeel's better than I've had from most Magic Hat beers lately, too: creamy, not quite rich, smooth but not light. Seems to be asking to be used for cooking, too: this would make an excellent stewing beer. I like beers like this for roasting my pork and sauerkraut.

A lot going on here, but not so much that it isn't quite drinkable. Glad you followed up, Dave. I'll recommend this: it's part of the seasonal Night of the Living Dead 12-pack, with the hoppy Roxy Rolles, #9 (which I saw over the weekend in Louisville), and, well, Circus Boy 'hefeweizen.' I'm sure there are people who like Circus Boy that you could serve this to. I'm not one of them. But this Odd Notion stuff is worth it.

Flying Fish Exit 1: Foreign Export Oyster Stout

Just got this from Casey Hughes at Flying Fish:

"I just brewed Exit 1, Foreign Export Oyster Stout, this is my lunch today, stout boiled oysters on pizza!"

I'm looking forward to this one (very appropriate placement, too). Takes me back to the days when Yards would have a party when they brewed the first batch of Love Stout, and we'd all eat stout-boiled oysters. I think Casey should make this again; I'll bring the pie!

Mushrooms, Brawler, and O'Hara's Celebration Stout

Thomas and I are on our own for a few days: Nora and Cathy are at the national FIRST competition in Atlanta. So after I dropped them off at the airport Wednesday afternoon, I called Thomas to see when he'd be done with after-school activities. I told him to skip the late bus; I'd pick him up and we'd go get dinner...which gave me about 2 hours to kill, and I was running on a long-ago breakfast...er, and I wouldn't mind a beer.

Well! I pulled up the BeerMapping go-to list on Minerva and determined that the closest bar I had never been to was Sidecar. Of course, once I got there, I learned that they weren't open till 5. Crap. And of course, once you're in that Sidecar/Grace Tavern/10 Stone area, you're stuck there, because with the South Street Bridge out for construction, there just ain't no easy way to 95.

Screw it, I figured, I'll go to Memphis. Easier said than done: traffic-lighting over to Broad and up simply sucked, and when I got to the Vine, it was clogged end to end. Crap. I took Vine Street itself, shuffled up through 3rd St. and Girard, and finally got to Memphis with a lousy 35 minutes to play with. I ordered a quick cask London Pride -- joy -- and asked what the specials were. Roasted mushroom soup with thin-sliced fried mushrooms and creme fraiche. Done!

It came, and I'm sorry I didn't have the camera. I got a fresh pint of Brawler (two session beers, folks, being responsible) and got stuck into the soup. I don't like to write about food, because I'm not a food writer (a philosphy I'd like to recommend to any number of perfectly good wine writers who insist on writing about beer), but this stuff was so good... Cathy and I honeymooned in Ireland back in 1989, and we still talk about a bowl of mushroom soup we had in a pub in Connemara...this stuff was so close to that bowl of soup that I called Cathy at the airport. "Thanks," she said, "thanks a lot."

Hmm, maybe I ought to have kept this to myself. Here's the thing: imagine, instead of the usual mushroom-flavored broth with cream and Wondra and some chunks of mushroom, that you get a thick, rich mushroom porridge, mashed mushroom, bulging with earthy flavor...and then a cluster of delicately thin-sliced crisply-sauteed mushrooms on top, floating on a pool of creme fraiche. Not over-seasoned, not covered in rusks, not buried in cheese: mushroom soup, focused and wonderful. I asked my man behind the bar: would threats or flattery work better at getting this on the menu regularly. His considered opinion: "Threats." Fair warning, Brendan, Leigh: put it on, or else.

I bolted for the car. There were times when I screamed and beat the wheel, but I was only four minutes late to pick up Thomas. We slid up side streets to the Newportville Inn. As we walked through the bar to the dining room we passed a big bottle beer cooler, and I saw bottles of O'Hara's Celebration Stout. I'd heard about this stuff, but this was the first time I'd seen it. I ordered a bottle.

O'Hara's Stout is good stuff: dry, but full, and a very nice pint indeed at 4.3%. This came in at 6% ("double-malted," according to Seamus O'Hara), and was even more full. Best of all, it had the burnt bitterness I usually associate with a good imperial stout. It was $10 for the 750 ml bottle, and I thought it worth every penny. There's not much of this left in the market (there were four more bottles at Newportville, and there may be one less tomorrow...), but if you see some, grab it.

And...I did make the mistake of ordering more mushroom soup at Newportville. It was vile: starch-thickened broth, chunks of bland fungus. Disappointing. The Alpine burger, on the other hand, was excellent, a real juicy chunk of delicious beef. We'll call that a win overall.

The picture comes with permission from Chris Nelson, who runs an interesting blog/video/website called TheBeerGeek, and who was just in Ireland for a beer festival on Easter. Thanks, Chris!

Get your Irish on

I've got two new pieces up at Massachusetts Beverage Business's website for March: one's on Irish beer, the other's on Irish whiskey. Two pretty good pieces, if I say so meself. There's also a fun sidebar on Welsh booze in the whiskey piece.

Things That Make Me Say Bad Words, Part I

"Heineken N.V. today announced that it is to close its Beamish & Crawford brewery in Cork in March 2009."

Dammit. Beamish & Crawford was the first foreign brewery I got excited about, way back in the 1980s, and we dropped by on our honeymoon in 1989. The brewery had a history, and a place, and a well. And Heineken got hold of it, and closed it, and 120 Irish jobs are lost. There are other breweries closing, of course, and pubs continue to close in the UK at a stunning rate (with surprisingly little blogger reaction that I've seen, which is puzzling...maybe), but this one hit home.

I say many bad words.

Photo of the Beamish & Crawford Brewery by kman999 on flickr.

SBP #1 Re-visited: Irish Pub Stout

I'm late with this, but I hope no one minds. The Victory Stout I wrote about earlier has been released as it was meant to be: Irish Pub Stout, the new house beer of Philly's Irish Pub. It went on tap March 1st, and yes, there will be plenty for St. Patrick's Day...if you're so inclined.

Myself, as a drinking pro? I'm going to do the same thing on St. Pat's that I do on New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras: stay home and let you amateurs have fun!

The Session: The Three Faces of Stout

I took the challenge of The Session, to blog about stouts today. We were supposed to do this any way we wanted, so I figured I'd go to three different breweries for three different stouts. I do that a lot, traveling to breweries.

The first stop was Rock Bottom in King of Prussia, Penn., where Brian McConnell had a Mad Cow Milk Stout on. He had it on two ways, actually: nitro tap, and cask, which made me wonder about why it is that The Geekerie loves nitro-tap stouts and shuns other beers, like IPA, on nitro. You'd think that stout was designated by God Almighty as The One True Nitro Beer, but I've had very good nitro dispense of hoppy pale ales. "It just accentuates the malt," Brian agreed, "it's just another way to serve a beer." Funny, but there you are. I had the cask (that's Shawn the bartender pulling the booger), and Brian gave me a sample of the push stout: two very different jars. Neither one sickly sweet, as you might expect from a milk stout, but rather medium-rich, dryly sweet, and damned drinkable. Bill Moore of Lancaster Brewing was also there, it was a pleasant session and we gossiped a bit, but then I had to push on.

Next stop was Sly Fox Phoenixville, where I met up with Jack Curtin. Jack had decided to pass on The Session, he thought the whole idea was "kinda hinky." I told him the last time I'd heard anyone use that word was in The Fugitive, and that characters in the film made fun of the guy who used it then, too. As Jack babbled on, I ordered a pint of O'Reilly's Stout, the delicious Irish dry stout of the house. Corey poured me a beautiful pint -- he's the guy standing behind the beautiful pint. It had plenty of dry roast, lots of flavor, pretty much blows Guinness out of the water without being insistent or strident about it. I love this beer, because it got me through the first five months of Weight Watchers: ounce for ounce, it's the same "points" as light beer.

Guinness is iconic, but there are other stouts just as good. Why do so many folks choose Guinness? Habit, honest preference, lack of experience? There's an "Irish" pub in Philly, McGillin's, that does not serve Guinness for personal reasons. They have several other stouts, and they seem to do a roaring business.

I took the opportunity to sample draft Incubus, Sly Fox's tripel (not, as I originally wrote, the quadrupel; that's Ichor -- sorry), that is only on draft the first Friday of each month: Incubus Friday. It was a new batch, and bursting with fruity esters and rich malt, a delicious aperitif beer, and perfect for the day, a gorgeous preview of Spring I'd been enjoying through the drive.

Last stop: Victory, for a small glass of Storm King Imperial Stout. This was easily the blackest of the three, heavy, rich, aggressive stuff, but not an angry beer, or a forceful beer. Storm King is a hearty beer, full-bodied and certain, not looking to knock you out, but maybe to knock you over. It's hard to pound -- and why would you want to?

Storm King made me look back at the stouts I'd had, and all the stouts that are out there, and the stouts I'd read that other bloggers would be sampling. I realized that this is a continuum, that stout embraces session beers, extreme beers (Dogfish Head World Wide Stout certainly qualifies), dessert beers, hoppy beers (black IPA, anyone?), mild and malty beers... There is no definite "stout," not even Guinness can claim that, with so many different versions of itself around.

I love stouts and porters, in a large part because of this malleability of form. They're dark ales (and sometimes lagers!), yet they have enough in common to be recognizable as brethren. The Brotherhood of Stout (women welcome, too).

Come Blog With Us

I understand that bloggers all over "do it," so now we beer bloggers (God, I do hate that inelegant word) are going to do it. "It" refers to simultaneous blogging. The first Friday of every month, a bunch of us are going to write a post about a particular beer -- March, the first time for this, is going to feature stout -- and link it to the host's blog: Stan Hieronymus's Appellation Beer, in this case. We have decided to call this event The Session.

I'm figuring on heading over to Sly Fox and getting some O'Reilly's Stout (and while I'm there, I'll wish the man a belated happy anniversary). And O, happy coincidence: it just happens to be Incubus Friday as well. Dear me, guess I'll just have to have one.

If you have a beer blog (or a beer website, for fossils and old farts), why not join us? You can even get this nifty logo to put in your blog.

SBP #1: Victory Stout

This stuff's so new it doesn't even have a real name yet. I heard that Victory was brewing a dry stout for the first time, a stout that was a true session beer: 3.7% ABV (!!), full of roasty malt flavor, and wonderfully drinkable. I was out that way yesterday, so I dropped in and got Big Sales Mahoff Steve German to pour me some (this is an exercise that takes virtually no effort, especially in the mid-afternoon: "Beer? Okay!"). Up-front truth: this is a work in progress, and is only on at the brewpub in Downingtown, PA right now. It needs tweaking to get the carbo/nitrogenation just right; it's too light and fizzy right now. But the flavor is excellent, piquant notes of roasted grain, coffee hints, and not at all watery, as you might expect at this alcohol level. And since dry stout is a great beer for Weight Watchers, I'm ready to see this one show up at a bar near me. Soon.