Archive for the ‘Beer’ Category
March 25th, 2007
When I was a brewer at the Cambridge Brewing Co., a brewery-restaurant in Kendall Square, two brothers named Todd and Jason Alstrom came into the bar, ordered all of the beer styles we made, and started taking notes. This was around 1997. The year before, the Alstroms had started a website where they and other enthusiasts could discuss and critique the dozens of styles and thousands of brands of beer brewed throughout the world. Ten years later, their site, BeerAdvocate.com, has attracted 100,000+ users around the U.S. and beyond. It is the world’s largest beer community. And the fact that it started here in Boston both reflects and feeds this city’s status as a craft-beer capitol. If you want evidence, check out beermapping.com’s greater Boston map of beer-friendly bars, restaurants, stores, etc.
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March 16th, 2007
The man was a saint, and this is how we celebrate him: Last year on St. Patrick’s Day, I went to Bukowski Tavern in Cambridge because I knew it wouldn’t be as crowded as an Irish pub and there would be no deedle-ee-dee music. I just wanted a few beers. As the place started to fill up, a line for the toilets formed. I took my place in the girls’ line, which was face to face with the boys’ line. At one point, the men’s room opened up, and the guy who was next turned to a damsel in drunken distress and made her an offer: “You take the toilet, I’ll take the sink?” In they both went, as the horrified and amused people who remained in line visualized the scenario. The peeing couple came out a minute later, and the men’s room door once again swung open invitingly. Having just witnessed a great new way to impress a lady, the next guy in line turned to the girl facing him and simply gestured as if to say, ‘Well, how ’bout it?’ With an ‘are you kidding’ expression, she answered, “I don’t think so,” thus mercifully nipping this custom in the bud.
Posted in Beer, Boston bars | 3 Comments »
February 14th, 2007
What better way to spend a Monday night in February than at a cozy neighborhood restaurant drinking champagne cocktails mixed by some of Boston’s best bartenders? That’s the sound reasoning that brought 60+ people to Green Street last night for drinkboston.com’s sold-out champagne cocktail party. Misty Kalkofen of Green Street and the B-Side Lounge, Ben Sandrof of Noir, Dylan Black of Green Street and John Gertsen of No. 9 Park mixed four distinctive classic cocktails using champagne: the Diamond Fizz, the Black Velvet, the B2C2 and the Seelbach (recipes below). Not only that, they visited each and every table in the room, explaining the drinks’ origins (or alleged origins, given that the history of cocktails is usually as unverifiable as the provenance of traditional folk songs). The evening was festive and informative — well worth the price of a small headache on Tuesday morning.
To get on the email list for future drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston at comcast dot net.
The cocktails
B2C2
1 oz each of brandy, Benedictine and Cointreau shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
Misty learned of this drink from David Wondrich’s Killer Cocktails: An Intoxicating Guide to Sophisticated Drinking. It was “created by American intelligence officers at the end of WWII. They had all of these wonderful goods that had been looted from the French by the Germans and then left behind during the Germans’ retreat,” she says. Luxurious bubbles.
Diamond Fizz
2 oz gin, 1 oz lemon juice and 1/2 tsp powdered sugar shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
A dressed-up gin fizz (which uses seltzer instead of champagne). Also similar to the French 75, only it contains less sugar and no garnish. The Cocktail Database recipe calls for a highball glass with ice, but we served it straight up in a saucer. Delicious either way.
Black Velvet
1/2 stout and 1/2 champagne in a wine glass or flute.
Said to have been created at London’s Brooks Club in 1861 during mourning over Prince Albert’s death. Also called the Bismarck, as the drink was a favorite of German statesman Otto von Bismarck. Dylan used Mackeson’s Stout for this drink. Dark and rich.
Seelbach
1 oz bourbon, 1/2 oz Cointreau and 7 dashes each Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters poured into a flute and stirred. Top with champagne.
Invented at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1917. The recipe was lost, probably during Prohibition, until being rediscovered by the hotel in 1995 and later printed in Gary and Mardee Regan’s New Classic Cocktails. This is one of the great whiskey drinks.
Posted in Bartenders, Beer, Brandy, Champagne, Cocktails, Events, Gin, Liqueur | No Comments »
February 10th, 2007
A couple of years ago, in an article called “Light, Crisp and Unavailable,” I complained about the lack of flavorful but light-bodied, moderate-in-alcohol craft beers. Craft brewers and beer drinkers were then and, for the most part, still are obsessed with “extreme beers” high in alcohol, loaded with hops, and heavy with malty sweetness. Some of these beers are exceptional and fun to drink. But what about when you’re looking for an everyday beer with great character? Where is the American — preferably local — equivalent of a German helles or kolsch, an English ordinary bitter, or the dry Belgian ale DeKoninck? Well, my prayers have finally been answered. There is a six-pack of Beer of the Gods in my fridge.
Beer of the Gods is a hybrid of two German ale styles. It’s made with the pale pilsner malt used in Cologne’s golden ale, Kölsch, and the spicy noble hops used in Dusseldorf’s Alt beer. Extra aroma hops are added during a crucially lengthy lagering (cold-aging) stage. The result is a light, crisp, refreshingly hoppy, exquisitely balanced beer.
Will Shelton, who with his brother Dan owns the Shelton Brothers beer-import company in Belchertown, MA, brews Beer of the Gods at the Paper City Brewery in Holyoke, MA, under the name High & Mighty Brewing Co. In addition to Beer of the Gods, he produces XPA (extra-pale ale), an American pale ale that’s hoppy without being overly citrusy or herb-y. Brewing these beer styles makes total sense for Will, given that he and Dan have for years bucked the extreme-beer trend by importing traditional, nuanced beers from very small breweries in Europe, the U.K. and Canada. They are known for regularly pissing off the craft-beer cognoscenti by, for instance, denouncing many strong Belgian ales as much too sweet (Duvel, Delirium Tremens) and dismissing the armchair connoisseurs behind the beer-rating system on BeerAdvocate.com. But their criticisms have legitimacy, because they know good beer. (By the way, these are the guys behind Santa’s Butt Winter Porter, an English beer whose label caused some regulatory controversy.)
And now they don’t just import good beer, they make it, too. In greater Boston you can find High & Mighty beers at Downtown Wine and Spirits in Davis Square, Somerville. Call first to make sure they’re in stock, though: 617-625-7777.
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January 30th, 2007
In a nice alignment of the stars, both drinkboston.com and one of Boston’s best bartenders, John Gertsen, are currently featured on Playboy.com. John, principal bartender at No. 9 Park, makes Playboy.com’s list of America’s Top 10 Bartenders. Congrats, John! Well deserved. You can see this guy in action at drinkboston.com’s upcoming champagne cocktail party at Green Street.
Another article, Brew Romance, describes 10 top American microbrews selected from votes by a panel of beer experts. That panel included drinkboston.com’s publisher, me. Yep, that’s right — it’s not all about cocktails for this imbiber. You can find a few of the Ms. Mug columns I write for the beer newspaper Ale Street News here.
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