W is for Westvleteren

23 May
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Here’s more Westvleteren beer than you will ever see in a lifetime. Unless you’re a Belgian monk – they probably take baths in the stuff.

In the world of the beer geek a beer from Westvleteren is the Holy Grail.

Which is not hard to understand why when you look at the hoops those monks make people go through to get their hands on a bottle.

See Westvleteren Brewery (lets call it Westy because I’m going to get sick of typing out that whole name pretty quickly) is the only Trappist brewery run by monks and they don’t much like to connect with the outside world. Which isn’t such a bad idea I guess – it means they’ve managed to miss out on things like Jersey Shore, Gangnam Style and whatever the hell ‘‘Harlem Shake’’ was all about.

You want their beer, you have to get it from a drive-up outlet. But, before you drive up, you have to take part in a telephone-driven lottery system. If you’re a winner, you can then drive there, have the monks check off your licence plate and then get the beers you reserved.

But don’t bother calling more than once a month because calls from the same phone number in the same month are automatically disconnected.

If you do manage to reserve some beer, you can’t nab more than a case – that’s all those odd monks will let you take home. And those monks also forbid you to re-sell their beer – but no-one ever listen to them on that score.

Maybe, they figure, ‘‘after all the crap I had to go through to get this beer, I’m going to do whatever I want with it’’.

What’s the go here?: For those who have just stumbled across this post, I’m going through the Oxford Companion to Beer (OCB) and posting an entry for every letter. Why? Because I have a copy at home but hadn’t really gone through it page by page and I figured this would be an exercise that would force me to do that.

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V is for Vapeur Brewery

22 May
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One of the more unusual labels from the steam-driven Vapeur Brewery.

The Vapeur Brewery in the town of Pipaix, Belgium, isn’t in the Oxford Companion to Beer because they needed something to put in the V section. It actually is worthy of note.

See, there are two weird things about it.

Weird thing No1: it’s steam-driven. Seriously, it’s powered by an old steam engine. That’s where the brewery’s name comes from – ‘‘Vapeur’’ is French for ‘‘steam’’.

Weird thing No2: The brewery only brews on the last Saturday of each month, which would have to make their beers exceedingly hard to get because there would be so few of them.

The business kicked off way back in 1780 and fell into disrepair in the early 1980s, before a husband and wife – who dreamed of owning a brewery. The wife later died in an accident at the brewery – in 1990 – but the husband kept on brewing there.

Which you think would have to be a bit tough to do.

What’s the go here?: For those who have just stumbled across this post, I’m going through the Oxford Companion to Beer (OCB) and posting an entry for every letter. Why? Because I have a copy at home but hadn’t really gone through it page by page and I figured this would be an exercise that would force me to do that.

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The Melbourne Beer Mission

21 May

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A few days ago my wife asked me what I was planning to do while I was in Melbourne. So I ran her through my rather detailed plans. At the end she said “don’t forget to allow yourself some spontaneity”.

Spontaneity? That’s the enemy of my Good Beer Week/ GABS time in Melbourne. This isn’t a holiday where I’ll just be swanning around letting the mood and the moment dictate my plans. No, this isn’t a holiday – it’s a mission. I’m a husband and father with a leave pass from both for a few days – anyone in my shoes knows how rare that is. I can’t leave things to chance.

More importantly, I’m a beer geek spending a few days surrounded by hundreds of great beers, beers I’ve never had before, beers I will likely get to try just ONCE IN MY LIFE (yes, the capitals may seem overly dramatic to the general public but the beer geeks feel my concern. So if I go off somewhere on a whim, it means I’ll be missing beers somewhere else.

Which is why my plan is very much tailored around beer and pubs. For instance, I’m meeting up with both a friend and a relative on the first day – both meeting places are pubs (Beer Deluxe and The Alehouse Project respectively). Every meal except breakfast will be had in a location that also serves beer (for instance, I’m aiming to have dinner at Mrs Parma’s during the break between GABS sessions – because they’ve got IPAs on tap all week).

The only beer-free thing on my itinerary will be a Saturday morning visit to The Book Grocer. But, if I find a book on beer there, I’m buying it.

Really, I’ll have no time to waste while I’m in Melbourne. I’ve got places to be. Which is part of the appeal of GABS – I can park my butt there pretty much all day.

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It’s YouTubesday!

21 May

Charlie Bamforth is back again, this time explaining how important a good head is to a beer.

 

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U is for Umami

21 May
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Professor Ikeda Kikunae is the man to blame for the discovery of the alleged ‘‘fifth taste’’ called umami in 1908.

The older I get the more things I learned at school become superceded.
For instance, when I was a kid, Pluto was a planet but now, when my five-year-old daughter recites the planets in order from closest to the sun to furthest, she stops at Neptune. Because it has been decided that Pluto is no longer a planet.

When I was a kid, Brontosaurus was an actual dinosaur. But not these days – Bronto has been punted in favour of Apatosaurus. and there’s all these raptors – those nasty sons of bitches never existed when I was a kid.

Then there’s the addition of a fifth taste. When I was a kid there were four – sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Everyone knew where they stood. But nowadays there’s this dodgy so-called ‘‘fifth taste’’ called umami. Myself, I’m still not convinced it’s not some massive joke, because, even after reading the entry in the Oxford Companion to Beer, I’m still no wiser as to what the hell a umami taste is.

It’s supposed to be meaty, brothy or savoury. All of which I figured were covered by the salty part of our tongue. At least the OCB says umami doesn’t pop up in beer all that much, mainly in those beers featuring kelp as an ingredient. And why someone would want to add seaweed to a beer is a mystery to me.

What’s the go here?: For those who have just stumbled across this post, I’m going through the Oxford Companion to Beer (OCB) and posting an entry for every letter. Why? Because I have a copy at home but hadn’t really gone through it page by page and I figured this would be an exercise that would force me to do that.

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Good Beer Week is Über-riffic

20 May

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So I’d figured I had everything planned to a tee for my few days at Good Beer Week.

I’d even dedicated hours to working out the route I would take on my Pint of Origin day (explanation: part of Good Beer Week includes a week-long event involving seven pubs. Each of them devotes all their taps to beers from one state, allowing people to try beers they might not otherwise get the chance to).

I’d pored over the seven venues, their locations, their proximity to tram stops, used Google maps to see how far apart some of them were in case I could walk there. Finally (or at least I thought it was final) I checked the tap lists and made the big decisions.

The plan was to tram it to the Royston in Richmond first (with stops at Slowbeer and Purvis Beer too). Then back on the tram and to the hotel, drop off the beers I bought and then walk to the Gertrude and Rainbow for some Tasmanian and NSW beers. Lastly, if soberness allows, head back into town and visit Deja Vu for the Queensland beers.

I’d ruled out the Great Britain Hotel because it was just out of the way, the Tramway, because the tap list wasn’t intriguing enough and the Courthouse because they were doing ACT beers – my wife has family there so we visit regularly enough for me to have already tastes plenty of their beers. As for the Festival Hub at the Terminus Hotel, I really tried to fit that in but it was just too far north to make it work.

But then I heard about Über, the town car service that you use an app to order a car. Yep, I’m slow to hear about new things like this – much less understand how they work. Only this weekend did I work it all out and realise they were offering half-price fares to and from the festival hub and 25 per cent for Pint of Origin venues.

This, my friends, changed everything. It now meant all the venues were back on the table as viable options. And so I had to re-organise the whole day (which was actually fun. Remember, we are talking about arranging pub visits. How could it not be fun?).

The revised schedule stays the same for the first three pubs, with the change being that I aim to Über it to and from Richmond. I’ll still walk up to the Gertrude and Rainbow, because some fresh air between pubs sometimes helps.

But then Über gets a call to take me up to the Terminus and then back to Courthouse and finally Deja Vu (if I’ m feeling like I might be on the way to a hangover, I’ll skip the Courthouse). From there I’ll walk back to the hotel. Possibly via a kebab store.

But Über has changed my other plans as well – rather than tramming it up to East Brunswick and back, I’ll likely be Über-ing it.

Hell, I’m on holidays. Why not travel in style?

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