It’s Official… October 27, 2008

Zombies drink Fosters in cans, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

Canned Fosters is the beer of the apocalypse.

(At International Zombie Day in London. This girl came out of The Body Shop moaning “No…Bodies…False…Advertising…”)

Wild Gift October 20, 2008

Me drinking gueuze in A la Morte Subite

Last week I went to Brussels on the Eurostar.  I stayed in a swanky five star hotel and drank myself silly.  After being unemployed for so long it’s hard for me to really take the apocalyptic money talk of the banking crisis seriously.  I have so little to lose I might as well spend it.  On beer.

Beer has become an excuse for me to have adventures.  The best beer is of a place: a way to literally drink in wherever you find yourself.

Before going to Brussels the only Belgian beers I’d tried were the kind you can get in those aspirational gastropubs in London that serve Hoegaarden, Leffe and Fruli. Based on my sampling of these I thought I wouldn’t really like Belgian beer and would have to stick with Chimay, or maybe Orval which I’d had in bottles.

Boak was good enough to share with me a last-minute list of recommendations, which I elaborate on here.  One especially became a haunt of mine.  A la Morte Subite or “Sudden Death” is a cafe with its own range of beers named after a card game that bank employees who drank there would play. I fell in love with their gueuze which was extremely tart with an almost vinegar pucker. It is the most sour beer I’ve ever had. I exclaimed to the waiter who seemed a bit worried that I had ordered the “difficult” beer, “This is amazing!” He winked, “There’s more if you want.”  I liked this place.

I also thought their lambic was impressive– it had a creamier mouthfeel with a white peach overtone.  While there were a handful of tourists here at any one time, most of the people seemed to be locals, passionately engaged in conversations I couldn’t understand.  The faro and kriek were also quite good if a bit too sweet for me.

Another stand-out beer was the Girardin Kriek which I had at a lovely cafe called Het Warm Water.  This place served creative dishes that were light and flavorful.  The kriek I later found out was made with frozen cherries but this didn’t seem to matter as it was delish. It had a buttered popcorn and myrrh nose, redolent of the decadent, foodie perfumes from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.  The cherry was a halo-presence with the lambic’s grain-wine flavor taking prominence. The tang was upfront, with a light butter-caramel finish above the sourness.

Vintage bottles at the Cantillon Brewery

The most remarkable beer of the trip came from the Cantillon Brewery, which is a working museum.  There is a self-paced tour which is punctuated by a sampling of the different beers made there, and a very knowledgeable woman was able to answer all our questions and suggest other places in Brussels which had stand-out beer.  I was charmed by the plentiful spiders and webs in the brewery which are a natural way for the brewery to keep the insect problem in check.  Also, the attic-like room with a large copper bath where the wild yeast innoculation takes place had the feeling of a chapel or sanctuary.

There was a small crowd in the tasting area: an American guy with an Obama hat, a French couple and group of Irishmen all sipping contempatively– this was more like a wine tasting.  Some people were wincing and frowning, and with good reason– this beer is intense. The gueuze had a musty, animal fur nose, with a hint of wood. It was extremely acidic, but unlike the other gueuzes I’d tried, I could taste the hops in this which added to its perfect dry finish.

The kriek brought back an olfactory memory– my mother giving me a permanent wave as a pre-teen.  Though this brew was candy-colored, all the sugar had been fermented out leaving only a kind of “attar of cherry”– the essence without the sweetness. A dutch couple gave us their faro to sample and we didn’t care for it.  There was a note of vegetal rot that was hard to get past. The lambic was pefectly flat and oily, like a grain wine– I said how wonderful it would be with cheese so the woman at the brewery recommended we go to Moeder Lambic.

Chez Moeder Lambic

Chez Moeder Lambic is beer heaven.  They have several interesting beers on tap in rotation and hundreds of bottled beers to try. I tried the Cervesia, which was made in the “old way” with herbs instead of hops.  It reminded me of a lighter, sweeter verson of Froach.  The friendly owner and server were happy to go out of their way and recommend beers and locally crafted cheese to go with them.

beer and cheese at Chez Moeder Lambic

Across from us, a table of guys ordered Jupiler, a beer that was as common as Stella Artois (I assumed it was lager-like and didn’t try it.) Moeder Lambic didn’t have this beer so the bartender recommended another and when one of them tried it he actually shivered and shook his head. This really isn’t the place to have, in British terminology, a “session” drinking something “quaffable.”  Though I am sure there are some easier beers at this place, I wasn’t interested in them.

If you do find yourself getting tipsy the only food you can get here is cheese.  And what amazing cheeses they had!  The cheese was served with barley and fresh bread and the one we ordered had been, in the words of the waiter, “Showered in beer”.  As we drank round after round the cheese warmed and our corner of the cafe was filled with the ripe, earthy smell.   The standout beer for me was the Oude Kriek, almost black in colour, this Lambic was blended with fresh cherries by a one-man operation– Karel Goddeau. The bottle was dusty from being aged and we laughed at how we must have looked to the locals drinking– two Americans taking notes and photos and drinking dusty beer. But it was some of the most beautiful beer I’d ever had– so far away from any modern notion of “beer” that to drink it was to feel transported to a time when beer was a miraculous gift of something wild and mysterious visiting from the air.

Detail of a Bruegel Painting

The Fish Note October 7, 2008

Mrowster drunk on Zappa.

On Saturday 4 October 2008, the founders of two world-class blogs – Pig State Recon and Impy Malting- met up to exchange thoughts, question assumptions, and simply bask in the formidable glow of Frank Zappa, his well-respected We’re Only In It For the Money LP from 1968, and a limited-edition, Belgian style triple ale (8.2% ABV) brewed by the Laginuta Brewing Co. to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album’s release. And bask we did – after dropping the needle on the, er, illegally downloaded MP3s and capping the bottle which had been graciously smuggled from the wilds of Nerdi Gras (aka Dragon Con) by our dearest friend and kick-ass mezzo soprano, Liza. Here’s how it played out:

———-
I: So basically this record is about getting crabs? He’s mentioned them three times already. Is this Sgt. Pepper’s derivative?

M: Yeah, same year or thereabouts. It’s a satire. A lampoon. A political cartoon of a record. I never read those cartoons. I’d rather read Andy Capp. Have you ever met a funny Zappa fan?

I: They’re always overly-intellectual eggheads. Was that a Beatles’ reference? I think that one was referencing “When I’m 64”.

M: There’s like 15 people playing on this record, but it’s all about Frank. You can see him, smell him everywhere. I don’t believe people into heavy drugs were into this. Sure, maybe people smoked pot and giggled to it, but dropping acid to this? No way.

I: So all I know about Triples is the water goes through the mash tun three times, and that it’s strong. And Belgian. I have no idea if this is authentic to the style. I mean, it’s orange. Kinda sour.

photo by Dr000 on flickr, creative commons license.

M: My stomach itches. That song “Hot Poop” was more like a lifeless turd.

I: There’s a lively carbonation. Kind of a dog-food nose, but I’m not making up my mind yet. Cumquats, or apricots. Suddenly, I wish it was colder so it would taste less

M: Ooh – wow – It’s kind of like that taste in your mouth when you wake up in the morning. Zappa was always going on about how he was “influenced by Stockhausen”.

I: Who’s Stockhausen?

M: Just like this modern composition guy. This record is not beautiful or even emotionally complex.

I: It’s munchkin rock. Do you think we should have aged it?

M: The record is already 40 years old, I don’t it’s gonna ever sound any better.

I: I can’t get past the smell.

M: It’s really tough going. Is there anything about this beer that speaks of Zappa?

I: The colour – I mean, it’s bright orange. It looks like Fanta or something.

M: I don’t know if we can even get through it: 1 pt., 6 oz. and a double album.

I: Wait – it’s a double album?

M: [checks the stream] Sorry, false alarm. It’s only one album.

I: I wish we were listening Digital Underground instead. Their “No Nose Job” beats this “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?” song in every way. Was that a Jesus Christ Superstar reference I just heard?

M: This predates Jesus Christ Superstar. If this is Zappa’s crowning achievement . . . my god. This is completely not what I was expecting from the beer or the man. Man.

I: Did you get the fish note just then?

M: The fish-juice note! Clearly Zappa put a lot of time into this.

I: I guess, but it seems pretty arbitrary to me.

M: I’m just saying there’s a lot going on on this record. It’s just not pleasurable to go into, nor is this beer. Oh man.

I: Did you just get the fish note again?

M: I got the fish note again. Is there anything good we can say about this? I’ve tried to say it’s complex.

I: All I can think about is how he got from this to “Valley Girl”. Should we write the post now?

M: We’ve got to finish the beer first. At least it’s getting easier because of the alcohol content.

I: The beer leaves a kind of nice flavor on my lips. Like Sweet Tarts.

M: You always hope there’s some hidden beauty in Zappa, because everyone says it’s great.

I: Dweezil is kind of cute. Zappa made him. I saw him on Letterman once. Ok, I don’t know if I can finish this.

M: We can change to another Zappa record. But wait, I don’t have another Zappa record. I have some Beefheart though . . .

1 pint, 6 oz. of 8.2%