Archive for the 'Beer' Category

Tasting Director Joe Czerwinski posted an excellent blog on Monday regarding the current state of the economy and its impact on the wine retail business and consumer purchasing trends.  He notes that we in the wine industry have been inundated with reports that insist consumers are “trading down,” or purchasing lower priced wines than those they were previously allowing themselves to buy.  $10 is the new $15, and the more you can find for under $10, the better.

It is certainly understandable that people are cutting back wherever they can to get through these tough times while trying to maintain some level of normalcy and enjoy life’s more simple (or hedonistic) pleasures.  After all, at the end of the day, what is it all for if not some fulfillment and relaxation… and what better way to do that than with a delicious glass of wine?

I, along with many Americans, might have found a welcome alternative… beer. 

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I went to Florida for the holidays, joining some 30 members of my family for four days of heroic drinking, flailing golf, coma-like naps, hysterical limerick recitations and much gazing at infants. Along the lines of the Seinfeld rules of “no hugs, no learning,” here are some information-free and random notes on my food and drink experiences.

• At an English-style pub, have you ever been tempted to order Toad in a Hole, but have been too intimidated? Let me be of assistance. Toad in a Hole is a sausage that’s wrapped in, and baked with, a portion of Yorkshire Pudding, which is not so much pudding as it is pastry (flour, milk, eggs) that’s baked to a crusty outside and a spongey interior. As served at the Blue Anchor in Delray Beach, it is a toadstool-like thing with a big honkin’ sausage sticking out of it. You may well lose your appetite before you regain it.
• The Blue Anchor (dubbed “The Wanker” by my brother) has a marvelous beer menu, including cask-aged ales. I chose Old Speckled Hen, an English pale ale-styled beer of surpassing smoothness and flavor.
• The economy was much on people’s minds, so when shopping for wine, we adhered to a strict budget. The acclaimed winner in the red category in terms of quality in relation to price was Pascual Toso 2007 Malbec, which I believe we purchased at Total Wine & More for under $10 a bottle. Silky texture, rich dark fruit flavor, a touch of mushroom and tobacco, beautiful finish.
• I don’t care what the experts say, I really admire stores like Total Wine & More that make shopping for wine easy. Organized by variety and wine style (and within that, country, region), it enables people to follow their intuition about wine, at whatever level of wine savvy, which is empowering, and good for the industry.
• Finally, one of the few limericks we heard that’s just clean enough to be presented here, with my happy new years wishes: There once was a man from Clyde/Who fell in an outhouse and died/His brother named Flynn/Also fell in/And now they lay interred side by side.

For some, the holidays are a time of vinous bounty, a time to bring forth cherished bottles to share with friends and family. For others, like Scrooge Czerwinski here, it’s a time to break out stuff good enough but not too good, or to just forego wine altogether, depending on the situation.

Some background might be useful here, as I attempt to rationalize my seemingly miserly behavior. Growing up, the holidays were almost the only times we had wine on the table. Wine–most often Ruffino Chianti or Weber Zeller Schwarze Katz–signified a special occasion in our house. It was an indulgence, even at such modest price points. Sometimes, my parents would have saved a bottle from a local winery we visited over the summer, and we’d have something from Wiemer or Bully Hill.

Now, grown up and having two children of my own, wine makes pretty regular appearances at our dinner table. Not every night, but about half the time. So wine is no longer an emblem of the season, or a statement that says, “This night is special.” Instead, the things that make our holiday meals special are the care with which they are prepared and the people with whom we are sharing them.

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We all know the story of the Pilgrims; a group of about 100 folks who decided to depart from England to search out and colonize a new world about 2,750 miles away from home. Their ship, the Mayflower, landed at Plymouth Rock instead of the original destination of Northern Virginia due to inclement weather, poor navigation and a need for supplies. The real scoop? Supposedly, according to many historians and accounts of the momentous occasion, the real necessity that was lacking was… beer.

“We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer” – one diary recalls. Now, numerous stories from various sources are available, both supporting and debunking the long lived myth, including articles from well-known beer writers Cecil Adams, Stephen Beaumont, and Bob Skilnik to name a few. Now, whether or not the claim is true, it’s fun to imagine that without the shortage of “victuals” the Mayflower perhaps would not have landed in Plymouth Rock and the sequence of events that transpired thereafter would not be history as we now know it. Leading to the question… without beer, would we be celebrating Thanksgiving?

What better way to pay tribute to the poor planning (or perhaps over-indulgence) of the Pilgrims this Thanksgiving than by celebrating the holiday with a few choice beer selections.

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The biggest buzz in the brewing world at this moment in time has to be the recent acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by the Belgium based InBev. For those of you living under a rock (or perhaps just avoid reading newspapers, watching the news on tv, or subscribing to cnn.com news updates), Anheuser-Busch shareholders will receive $70 a share in cash, translating into a total purchasing price of 52 billion dollars. The combining of the two companies, to be named Anheuser-Busch InBev, will form the world’s leading global brewer and one of the world’s five largest consumer products companies. Yes, it’s true: the great American lager is no longer owned by Americans… but what exactly does that mean?

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As an avid but earthy lover of premium wine and beer, I’ve thought about the difference between discernment and snobbery, and I understand why Managing Editor Tim Moriarty felt persecuted for standby favorites as mentioned in his recent entry Budweiser and Beaujolais. But red flags go off for me when I hear that standard call of retreat of “leave me alone and let me drink what I like.” I’m under 30, and represent a generation of drinkers who like to experiment–to familiarize themselves with current offerings in the vast and ever-expanding beverage world. All too often, I see people of an older generation pulling reverse snobbery and steeling themselves against trying something new—maybe a little more expensive. It makes you wonder if it’s true that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

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