cdh

FG- Same machine, new grinder? What were you grinding with back in the early days of unsatiisfactory espresso? What are you grinding with now? Getting the grind right is really the key. I find that different beans need different settings, and also that the relative humidity and the season require adjustments in the grinder settings.

I think it is kind of fun, actually... I'd be mad at them if the beer in the bottles isn't a strong germanic doppelbock, as the -ator suffix does lead to that conclusion... the tradition including Optimator, Salvator, Celebrator, etc...

Products have rights? Where do these rights spring from? Sure there are some zany statutes giving producers of stuff a legal right to defend their products from some sorts of disparagement, i.e. the veggie libel statute in Texas that caught up Oprah Winfrey a few years ago. If I recall correctly (and I've not bothered to do the research), that law was tossed on US Constitutional grounds... Something about peoples rights trumping products' rights... first amendment in this case. There is obviously no statutory right that Champagne has to protection in the American legal system... it certainly may have one in France under the AOC laws, but French laws do not apply in america, nor do they generate any sorts of "rights". The AOC law imposes a duty upon the growers in a region to follow certain procedures if they desire to label their wine as coming from that particular place. I don't see the flip-side of this duty as creating a universal right. Consumers have rights-- not to be misled or lied to. What constitutes misleading depends on how a message will be interpreted by a reasonable consumer. Saying "This is Champagne" to an American consumer will not (at present... and it may change over time) bring to mind the necessary conclusion that the product in the bottle began its life 90 miles east of Paris. When (or if) American consumers come to the point of sophistication that they do make that conclusion when a bottle says champagne, and the law that allows plonk growers in California to call their plonk champagne is still on the books, then I'd get somewhere near as miffed as you are right now. Not 'til then.

No, it should not. I'm not standing here arguing that misrepresentations are right or proper. Calistoga and Anderson Valley have not developed a separate, geographically independent meaning in the minds of most consumers. Placing either name on a bottle is a clear indication of origin, and that is the only meaning imputed to those words placed on a bottle. Champagne has over time acquired a whole different meaning in the context of a bottle. While the champagnoise weren't paying attention, their geographical designator got hijacked into the popular mind with an erroneous definition attached. I see no malice in the process that led to the situation... The djinn is out of Champagne's bottle already, and stuffing it back in is a difficult and onerous process. One I don't think will ever succeed. I'm all for precision, and bottles should identify their origin... if one didn't I'd be unlikely to buy it. If a bottle labelled champagne didn't tell me it was from Rheims, or Ay or Bouzy or elsewhere in the AOC, I'd not assume it was from there... I'd assume it was sparking plonk, and probably not buy it. I don't see the need for the law to reach in here and regulate, when the market could handle it on its own.

Hear, hear!

Good calls. I'd go from a quarter lb down to a handful of the chocolate malt. The darker choc will probably have less complex flavor to give, and a lot more color. Too much might take it past nutty to roasty and you might end up with a malty porter.

Scott-- I'll ignore the uncivil snipe at the amoral legalism of myself and my fellows in the profession. I'll not, however, accept your premise of "presumed associated quality" without some variety of evidence for it. I'd wager that if a scientific poll was done of a random cross section of the American populace, you'd find that people believe that champagne means sparkling wine. If so, then champagne is a generic in the minds of the consuming public. (I'd also bet that a majority of them don't think they like Champagne, as a result of the low end plonk marketed at them under the name... this would be actionable trademark dilution, but for the fact that champagne is generic and can't be a mark in the first place absent a special law enacted to make it one.) I'd also make a snipe back at you about perceiving quality that just isn't there (in a majority of the big houses' recent NV bottlings). I also don't accept your premise about the land that originated the style holding the exclusive right to use the name... at least not in America. Look at the architypal American booze-- Bourbon whiskey... named after Bourbon County Kentucky. Not a drop of it made there today... a dry county, I believe, as a matter of fact. Is every maker of bourbon today trading unfairly in derogation of the rights of Bourbon County? I'd say not. They're paying homage and making whiskey in the style of its origination point. There is good Bourbon, there is bad Bourbon, but Bourbon is a style descriptor, not a unique identifier of origin. If I accepted your premises, I could take them one step further. Only the grapes that grow on MY particular hillside are Pinot Noir. I don't care that those grapes on the plain below are genetically identical to my grapes. It is the terroir that makes them special. Those guys can grow them all they want, but they can't call their grapes Pinot Noir. They might make really bad wines with them, and that would tarnish all the time my ancestors and I spent in breeding them. You can grow em, just get another name. You're infusing quite a lot of moral indignation into this discussion without giving any rigorous explanation of why the egregiously immoral acts happen to be as wrong as you claim they are.

well... "passing off" is generally used in the context of counterfeiting... In a sentence: "That shop was passing off cheap chinatown imitations of LV bags as the real thing." "deceptively misdescribe" is broader... no counterfeiting necessary. "The Handmade rugs were actually machine woven." or "That Grape Juice was apple juice and artificial flavorings." An owner condoning or encouraging the use of a proprietary mark in a generic context is evidence in support of cancellation of that owner's mark. You can't have it both ways... no trademarks allowed for generic words, even if you can capitalize on becoming generic. A workable strategy in this context might be to develop marks in tandem, and sacrifice one of them to genericide so as to be able to say, for example, "We're 3M, we put the scotch in your tape, so please buy ours."

They're obligated to do so under trademark law. A holder of a unique identifier of source (the legal definition of a trademark) is obligated to protect its uniqueness to the best of their abilities, or the mark could be deemed abandoned. Encouraging generic usage is a sure fire way to kill a mark.

From a legal point of view, Scott's association of mislabeling with theft actually goes beyond the (already broad) reach of the law. Theft analogies are rampant in talk about patent and copyright infringement, where there are real proprietary interests. Trademark law comes at the problem of intellectual property from a different angle-- it has historically been essentially about consumer protection, rather than brand protection for its own sake. The standards by which trademark violations are judged are all about the consumer's perceptions-- "passing off" one product as another thereby fooling the consumer, and "deceptively misdescribing" a product so the consumer thinks it is something it isn't. Is affixing the word "champagne" to a bottle of clearly labelled California wine either of the above? An analysis like Katherine's comes into play here, as actual linguistic usage is evidence of what consumers think when a description is used. It is the consumer's perceptions that are being protected, not the wishful desires of any particular user of a mark. As a thumbnail sketch of an analysis of the mark "champagne", I'd venture to say that it suffered genericide a long time ago. "Genericide" is trademark lawyer slang for a mark having fallen into generic usage and lost all capacity to identify a specific producer. Like kleenex, or xerox (despite their attempts to head that off), and (maybe) tivo.

I've got a few yixing pots, but wouldn't call them a collection. How was the Met's exhibit? Only european porcellain, or other types of pots as well? My mother is a devoted collector of all things flow blue, and has amassed a few teapots under the aegis of that collection.

Rose Champagne has been a hit at the past few New Years parties I've supplied with champagne. R. Dumont et Fils' Rose has been the most well received. Billecart-Salmon's Rose is yummy as well, but I'd take the Dumont over it. To expand into other pink fizzy wines that aren't champagne, I've tried the Michel Freres Rose Cremant de Bourgogne, and it was quite nice too... to my tastes at least. But I love pinot noir based fizzy wines, and would always pick a rose over a blanc de noirs, and a blanc de noirs over a blanc de blancs any day. There are people who just don't like the stuff, however... People claim to taste artificial berry flavoring in the roses... also claim there is a bitter aftertaste to them. I perceive neither, but I also have taste buds that love campari and espresso and pernod too, so there are very few flavors that go beyond the pale for me.

Iain- I'm very much interested in seeing what the Northern Brewer ingredients produce with this recipe. I'm in NYC all the time, so I'll gladly bring along a sixpack of mine some time in exchange for a sixpack of yours. Anybody else who happens to be in the greater megalopolis is welcome to exchange too. Once the stuff is bottled, we'll have to set up the swap.

Theakston-- Thanks for the tip. I usually ferment in a bucket with an airlock. Maybe I'll just just drape it with a towel for this batch if the Ringwood really likes lots of oxygen. To oxygenate the pitched wort I usually just take a whisk to the wort until a good froth forms.

Have purchased all the grains now, and am following the recipe verbatim in that regard. Will diverge in my choices of yeast and hops. Am using Willamette hops in place of the fuggles, and am using Wyeast's Ringwood yeast b/c the Wyeast website made it appear that recommended british ale yeast was from Whitbread, and I have always hated their beers.

You're talking about Absolute Bagels? An old favorite from my Columbia days... much better than Columbia Bagels, and worth the extra couple of blocks walk down Bway.

Only some of them. I've had smoked Canada Goose and it is really unpleasant. Bitter, strong, and posessed of all the unpleasant aspects of "gamey" meat without any of the pleasant attributes. It makes sense... they must have the evolutionary advantage of being unpalateable to shotgun wielding humans, otherwise we'd likely have done them in by now... or at least made them a lot less numerous.

Well... in looking through the very well stocked Brewsource.com site, I did notice a couple of less desirable aspects-- 1) minimum order of 1 lb of each grain and 2) no obvious way of requesting your grain be cracked. They appear to be aiming at a much more sophisticated homebrewer who already has a grain mill and storage for unused portions of grain. I've zapped them a note asking if they'll do a special recipe package order, but (not surprisingly) haven't yet heard back from them. Northern Brewer seems very flexible in their ordering, and will crack grain for you... you just have to be willing to substitute a little. Plusses, minuses all around. I'f you're dead set on doing the exact recipe, you can order directly from my local shop who promulgated the recipe: www.keystonehomebrew.com and it won't cost much more than ordering from anyplace else. .. $34 +shipping as opposed to about $32 with shipping included when ordering from morebeer or northernbrewer or brewsource. Since it is a 20 minute drive for me, and they're good folk, I'm just going to pick up their kit from them.

Re Carapils- Specs on this stuff seem to be all over the place. My homebrew shop carries 20L Carapils from Munton&Fison... I've found another place on the web that carries a Carapils rated 9.9-13.6, and googling will get you references to 7L Carapils and a 10L Crystal marketed as a Carapils by a Belgian maltster. Chalk one up to market variations, and grab what you can and see how it turns out. If I were you I'd grab the Caravienne since you'll get the color and the dextrins, and we're shooting for a pretty brown ale as it is. I've also noticed that Chocolate malt is variable too, having spotted 600+L chocolates, while our recipe calls for 338L... same advice... grab what you can and see what happens... just make a note of what you used so that we will gain some knowledge when/if we sit down and taste the products of our project. btw- Merry Christmas, all! edit to add this link to a very well-stocked-looking online brew shop that appears to have all or almost all of the variations on these grains.

Fav teas-- Ten Ren's Pouchong any Jade Oolong certain Namring Darjeelings Iced jasmine tea Twinings' Lady Grey Li Zi Xiang Shantou Autumn Bloom Gold King Anxi Oolong Re Yerba Mate- I find that mixing 3 parts mate and one part lapsang souchong makes a really yummy beverage when brewed like normal tea. I've never tried the packed gourd and silver straw mate method, so can't comment on that.

As to Dean & Deluca, it sounds like they've tried all over town. There used to be a D&D coffee shop with a bit of prepared food in the Art Alliance building where Opus 251 is now... This was way back in 1995 or thereabouts... As to greenmarkets, yeah, a stellar purveyor of fresh veg would be welcome in town... but we've already got one... Iovine Bros at the Reading Terminal are pretty damn good for quality and variety. Not Balducci-type photogenic, but pretty damn good veg nonetheless. As to Miel-- must go and see what all this talk is about.

I'm skeptical about the first half of this assertion given what I keep hearing about the mad homogenizers in Brussels. Europeans did elect them didn't they... so they do represent a majority of europeans, don't they?

Well... Having spent three wonderful years in Austin, I can see how Jaymes is bristling at the assertion that American produce is uniformly inferior. In Austin it just isn't. But Austin has the best grocery purveyor in the country as well. Supermarket produce in the Northeast, like in Pennsylvania and NJ is, indeed, inferior. Selection is bad, quality is bad, even the aesthetics are sometimes bad. As we've been noting previously, America is a BIG place, and some parts of it are more culinarily deprived than others... or at least some parts of it are populated by enough people who don't give a damn that they encourage inferior produce vendors to thrive and multiply. The hunt for good produce is materially hampered by the demand for out-of-season produce at all times and the vendors who capture that market and use it to lever their inferior goods onto the shelves when better alternatives are available too.

As the size of our brewing group increases, the thought occurred to me that it would be fun to actually get together to sample the products. We should all chime in with our whereabouts and see if any significant proportion of us are geographically convenient to one another. I'll start- I'm in the greater East Coast megalopolis, Philly locally, though not opposed to making a run as far as DC or NYC for festivites. Will also have cause to be in Austin, TX in March sometime.

I've never tried making wine. I wouldn't know where to begin... OK... yes I would... with grapes... but I really wouldn't know where to go from there. If you're into winemaking, do please start a thread and tell us a story about it. When did you first crush a grape with boozy intent?