A Grab Bag of Tasty Treats

Catching up on the news.  With alacrity, now...

1. Cider Riot launches.
During my first extended conversation with Abram Goldman-Armstrong years back, I learned that he was a child of Yamhill County and its abundant fruit.  In the years since he was a kid, Abram has traveled the world and been associated with the Timbers and beer (his Twitter handle is @BeerAbe), but he recently launched a project that feels like a homecoming--a small Portland-based cidery.  He's actually been making cider since high school, working with both wild seedling apples from home as well as cider apples from the White Oak orchard (a cidery that closed in 2005).  Last night, he shared small-batch versions of the ciders he plans to make this fall, including a crisp, slightly tannic draft cider called Burncider (his cidery is located just off Burnside), a hopped cider called Everybody Pogo, and a rich, tannic cider called 1763--the year of the famous cider riots in England.  (Auspiciously, that happens to be exactly 250 years ago.)

The Northwest is one of the leaders in the national cider revival, but a lot of the products are made with sweet desert apples, the kind made for eating.  Cider apples, though--bittersweet, bittersharp, and sharp--are "the heart and soul of a proper cider."  Abe uses "proper cider" a lot, and he plans to make his dry, in the English fashion.  As a taste of what he hopes to one day make, Abe broke out the last of a blended cider with '07 and '09 vintages made largely with Kingston Black apples.  It was one of the best I've ever tasted--complex with deep tannins, a bit of French-cheesy funk and rustic English skin character.

Abram has a modest Kickstarter going, and if you're at all interested in cider, this is a good project to back.

2. Beer cocktails by Jacob Grier
While we're talking Kickstarters, let me direct your attention to a prospective book by Jacob Grier called Cocktails on Tap.  This project has grown out of the "Brewing up Cocktails" events Jacob hosted with Ezra Johnson-Greenough and Yetta Vorobik.  (You'll recall my amazement over one of their early offerings, the sublime hot scotchy.)  It's going to be an impressive book when completed; Jacob's working with photographer David Reamer, designer Melissa Delzio, and publisher Ellee Thalheimer (whom you'll remember from Hop in the Saddle).

Twenty bucks is like a pre-order on the book, so go check out the Kickstarter.

3. Portland Monthly's beer issue.
I don't totally get the business model for Portland Monthly, but I gather it involves these monthly best-of cover stories (best doctors, best neighborhoods, etc).  This month beer gets the spotlight, and I have to say, hiring Christian DeBenedetti to select the fifty best Oregon beers was a very good move.  No two people on the planet would choose the same fifty, but DeBenedetti's fifty are really tight.  I had to work very hard to come up with even minor quibbles.  If you have friends transitioning into beer-fandom, tell them to pick up a copy and use the list as a guide.  They could do infinitely worse.

Beer Cocktails Hit New York

Ezra's on the leading edge of the newest trend:

Lately, though, beer has taken on a new and nuanced role in many of this city’s bars, and I’ve taken a brighter shine to it. In growing numbers and with growing frequency, bars are not just serving beer solo but also using it as one of many players in mixed drinks. Whether or not the drinks include hard liquor, they are generally referred to as beer cocktails, and they’re much more refined than the whiskey-in-beer boilermaker of yore. Beer has gone on to make friends with vodka, and it has made peace with gin.

Interesting article--if not revelatory to Oregonians who've been enjoying these concoctions over the past year. Hat tip to NS.

The Greatest Beverage in the World: Hot Scotchy (Hot Scotchie)

Those who know me know I am not given to exaggeration. I am a man of vast and unyielding moderation. Therefore, you should pay close attention when I say that there's this old-timey concoction called a Hot Scotchie (or, variously Hot Scotchy or Hot Fat Bastard) which is, objectively, the finest beverage known to man.*

We should probably step back a moment and acknowledge James Horlick before we get too far afield. Horlick, an Englishman, invented a product originally aimed at infants called "malted milk." Eventually, the powdered version of the product became popular among adults, leading to malted milkshakes, malted milk balls, and other malt-based foods. The heyday of malt lasted for the first half of the 20th century, though Horlicks is still quite popular throughout Asia.

I'm not sure why the phenomenon died out, because malt is uniquely comforting. Essentially, it's just dried malt powder, not unlike that which extract brewers brew with: malted grain, mashed and dried. Obviously, it's unhopped and pre-alcoholic. The quality is grainy, like breakfast cereal, sweet and wholesome. It tastes like something your mother would give you to keep you warm and ward off colds--which, in fact, was pretty much what it became.

Now we come to Hot Scotchie, a drink with a history lost to the mists of time. Or at least lost to Google. The concept is much the same. Brewers would draw off a small amount of the mash as it issued from the grain bed, fresh and warm. To this they added a dollop of Scotch. What happens is nothing short of mystical. Mash runnings are very sweet and flabby--there's no definition to the flavors. The addition of Scotch somehow reverses all this. Like an electric current, the Scotch animates the grains so that you can taste them in HD. The Scotch is likewise a very clear note, but not sharp or aggressive. It has all the flavor of a straight shot, but it's floating amid Mom's comforting malted. Insanely beguiling.

The version I had was made with mash from Upright Seven and Talisker. As an added touch, Jacob Grier added a tiny skiff of whipped cream, but this is definitely optional (though also nice). All reports suggest that it doesn't matter what mash runnings you're working with--Hot Scotchie rocks whether the beer in question is a mild or barleywine. In fact, you become more attuned to the variations in batches that way, so say the experienced. However, reports differ about which Scotches to use. Homebrew maven Ray Daniels swears by cheap Scotch, but Grier says only good, single malt, and only something with character--preferably peat. He plans on Ardbeg, an Islay, for the weekend. I'll experiment and get back to you.

Hot Scotchies are, for the moment anyway, mainly the province of homebrewers. Perhaps the odd pro sneaks a pint of wort from an afternoon brew, but I doubt it. The trouble is, unhopped wort isn't an ingredient to which bartenders have ready access. Therefore, in the near term at least, Hot Scotchies are not likely to become commonplace. Fortunately, the US has 1600+ breweries, so perhaps some of them will work with bars, at least on a limited basis, to bring the Hot Scotchie to an unsuspecting public. Consider this my plea.

Portlanders have a great opportunity this weekend to try a Hot Scotchie at the Hop and Vine, and I encourage them to avail themselves of it. Others should either take up homebrewing or try to arrange for Hot Scotchie tastings in your town. No one should live a life without having had one.

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*Most of this is expansive exaggeration. I am a serial hyperbolizer, and I wouldn't recommend ordering a Hot Fat Bastard unless you know the bartender. But Hot Scotchie: yes, the finest beverage known to man. Objectively.

Beer Cocktails--Gimmick or Revelation?

I guess the idea of beer cocktails is not new; after all, boilermakers have been around since--well, probably since whiskey was invented. But the use of good beer and good liquor to create culinarily interesting cocktails, this seems to be a new thing. In Oregon, where micro-distilleries are only slightly outnumbered by craft breweries, it is almost an automatic union. And,this Saturday you will have a chance to try six beer cocktails at Brewing Up Cocktails (6pm, Hop and Vine). But still I wonder: is all this just a gimmick?

From the mixologist's side, maybe not. I am not remotely a cocktail guy, and sitting at a preview Friday with press who were, I recognized how they differ from beer geeks. Beer is, of course, a final product. The recipe is decided by the brewer--it arrives to you fully-formed and ready to drink. Beer criticism involves judging the craft. Cocktails are a lot more like cooking, though--you judge not the craft, but the recipe. Ingredients matter, but they're not definitive. After our first cocktail, I confessed: "I have no way of judging this." Said everyone else, almost in unison, "Well, did you like it?" So for the alchemist, beer is just another ingredient to throw into the cocktail.

From the beer geek's side, maybe so. One of the cocktails is this crazy blend of Oak-aged Yeti from Great Divide and bacon-infused bourbon. To add to the extreme-sports feel of this drink, the rim was coated in bacon crumbles and powdered sugar. Later, Jacob, Ezra, and Yetta, hosts of the event, brought out the remainder of the Yeti bottle, and we got to finish it off, straight. The difference was illustrative. In its native form, Yeti is half way between a liquid and a gel. It is so dense you can float a quarter on the surface. Add a bit of bourbon, though, and it becomes a light, dark substance of little distinction. The whole of that cocktail ("Son of Furburger") may be an unqualified success as a cocktail, but to this beer fan, it seemed like a minor blaspheme.

I think the jury's out, and I think the answer may never be more than relative. However, I'm willing to keep my mind crow-barred open long enough to be persuaded by argument and examples. For those interested in the event, here's a rundown of the offerings:

• Tea party cocktail. An autumnal mixture of rum, chamomile liquor and cider. Thumbs up.
• Wassail. The traditional rendering, made with Deschutes Jubelale, dry sherry, brandy, and spices. A huge fave of the crowd, but not one I loved.
• Defusion. Like an Irish car bomb, but made with a whipped concoction of Ninkasi Oatis that tops the Jamison like a cappuccino. Tastes a lot like an Irish car bomb, which may or many not please you.
• Son of Furburger. See above.
• Lover's Quarrel. Saint Germain and a Jolly Pumpkin sour. The beer was in such short supply that we didn't get to try it.
• Hot Scotchie. This beverage was so transcendent that it may have changed my life permanently. It gets its own post, probably tomorrow.

Updates. Christian DeBenedetti offers a treatment of the beer cocktail and is more impressed. Also, at the New School, Ezra will spend the week running through a description of each of the cocktails at this weekend's event.