cdh

That strikes me as the key distinction here. We must accept vineyards as farms because part of vineyard-ness is actually raising the grapes that are turned into wines. Wineries, on the other hand, may purchase all the grapes they turn into wine from other growers elsewhere. So, a vineyard is a farm that grows grapes and may (but need not) produce wine. A winery is a place that makes wine but does not necessarily grow any grapes. A vineyard that is also a winery must be a farm. A winery without a vineyard cannot be a farm (unless they grow things that are not grapes). Woo hoo! Fun with logic. Extra credit to anybody who can translate that into symbolic logic and generate the truth table.

Recently got my Oud Bruin out of my primary fermentor and divided it into thirds... two of them are sitting sealed (but unprimed) for a long rest, and one I decided to dump a kilo of sour cherries into, so it bubbling away under an airlock. Must say that the ounce of oak chips was potent... oak is the predominant flavor in the samples I tasted while moving the beer around... How do others use oak in their brewing? An ounce of chips spending 2 weeks in 5 gallons sure seemed to do a potent magic on the beer... do people leave the oak in for longer periods of time, use more or less, etc? How long does an oaked beer have to age to mellow and integrate the oak flavors? I'm counting on this beer resting for a good long time, since the souring bugs in the Roeselare culture are supposed to take upwards of 6 months to ramp up the tartness after the yeast are done converting the sugars to alcohols... or so I've read elsewhere... and the reported technique of the Rodenbach brewery seems to back up this plan. Their beers are either blends of fresh beers and beers aged in oak for at least a year, or just the oak aged older beers... so I'm comfortable with the lack of palatability in the young beer I've got now. Now I just hope that it does as expected and improves with age. Once I freed up my fermentor I put a batch of my tea infused witbier in to ferment, and as usual it is going crazy bubbling away. That will be the summer consumption beer...

Were price no object, Rodenbach would be the only beer I drank all summer. Given that it is, homebrewed witbiers are my regular summer beers of choice. I picked up a case of summer beers from Saranac, and found a couple of winners in the mix-- their Hefeweizen is quite passable and pleasant on a warm summer afternoon, their Witbier is in the same sort of vein as Blue Moon... not a Celis White, but an alright interpretation of the style. My favorite in the case is the Mountain Ale, which is a coppery colored beer brewed with bunches of berries, so it looks like your average pale ale, but packs a fruity sour kick that is quite nice indeed. The Pilsener and Kolsch are so-so, and not really to my tastes... and the Summer Ale was so lacking in distinctiveness or memorability I just had to go down to the case to remind myself what the sixth type of beer in there was.

Anybody have an URL for the ruling? I'd like to read it rather than read about it. Nothing up yet on Freethegrapes, wineinstitute or law.com yet...

Last night i had the cherimoya and the apple and calvados... a fantasitc combination. The apple was wonderfully tart and a great complement to the creamy fruity cherimoya. Yummy!

Did you put in a later appearance? Saw Gary there briefly, who reported that Bryson had come and gone by the time I'd arrived... and there were no signs of you. Not many familiar faces in the crowd, actually, which is a really good thing-- more and more people proving that they care about good beer by turning up for events like this.

A packed house, as usual at these events. I sadly arrived far too late to get much of the good stuff. By the time I got there at 7:45 or so there were already 7 or 8 kicked kegs in the RIP column... and the crush at the bar was more insane than usual. I tried the Iron Hill Oud Bruin, which was an improvement on the last batch of it that they sent to the previous firkinteenth, but still somewhat muted. It's mouthfeel was too thin and its sourness was not pronounced enough. I commend them for continuing to try this unusual style, and hope they keep on improving it in the future. Since the crush at the bar was as it was, I'd decided that two-fisted ordering was the only way to go, so I also picked up a Yards IPA (with special secret dry hopping)... which was a very nice IPA with the sort of burnt caramelly flavors that made it seem to be approaching on the tripel style. I generally like more grapefruit and less burnt caramel, so this wasn't quite to my tastes, but was clearly a well made beer. Braving the throngs a second time, I managed to get a Brewers Art Proletary Ale and an oak-aged Legacy Hedonism. The Proletary was the most interesting beer of the evening, since it tasted like it had been bittered with coffee instead of hops. This was an interesting beer in that it was like coffee sweetened with malt syrup and then fermented. It actually worked quite well. The Legacy Hedonism was less distinctive next to the Proletary. It's oakiness was minimal, and its flavor was underhopped and not particularly distinctive. It was a pleasant session type beer, but not a showcase beer like many of the FtheF beers tend to be. I went upstairs and availed myself of the fine cooking of the Grey Lodge's new kitchen, enjoying the duck spring rolls and a plate of cheese fries. When I headed back down, the place was more packed than it had been... I fought my way to the bar and stood there for 20 minutes, intermittantly doing semaphor in the general direction of the bartenders. It appered that there were only about 3 live firkins left with any significant amount of beer in them, and everybody all around the bar was clamoring for whatever it was. After a long enough wait for my tastes, I decided it was not worth it to stick around... so I left. And headed into Center City for a bit of Capogiro's fine gelato to finish up the evening. The cherimoya and apples with calvados were a fine pairing and did a marvelous job as end-of evening palate cleansers.

Prompted by this topic, I stopped by Hendricks Farms this afternoon and got the chance to taste a bunch of the new cheese projects Trent has been working on since I last went tasting there six months ago. There are new soft ripened cheeses he's working on that are quite interesting indeed. I came away with small discs of Baby Blue (cow's milk) and Bluebell (goat's milk), both of which were quite tasty and very different from what they were working on in the fall. Both cheeses are examples of Trent Hendricks' technique of using blue mold only on the rind of a cheese, giving it a tinge of blue flavor (and a really impressive visual appeal) without overpowering the inherent flavor of the cheese underneath it. He'd been experimenting with it in the fall, but has really mastered the technique now. This technique is really well suited to cheeses in this small size. The blue flavor stands out and is clearly present, but the flavor of the cheese itself predominates. I also got to taste a few samples of other cheeses that were ready to go, of particular interest was the ten-month aged Telford Tomme, which gained a distinctive intense nuttiness over time and showed signs of getting to a delicious crumbly aged-cheese texture with a bit more aging. This was in sharp contrast to the meltingly tender two-month-old tomme. There was a blue-rind cheddar experiment, which was done on a larger wheel so the blue-ness was quite muted. In a smaller format that could be a real winner for a lover of both blues and cheddars. As it is, the blue gets lost in the cheddar. Coming in the next couple months will be an interesting experiment in dessert cheese-- a coffee-infused triple cream which sounds like it could prove delicious once it has done its 60 days of raw-milk required aging. I wish I'd had my camera along on the visit, since I got a look inside their aging room where thirty-some different varities of cheeses are maturing now. A sight to behold. And testimony to the inquisitive and experimental cheesemaking that is going on there now. So, Andrew, if you do get the urge to take a drive out into the country to visit Hendricks, drop me a note... they're right in my neighborhood... come and picnic on my lawn after you stock up with cheese. And Sandy, since you're automotively deprived, you should know that they do ship. Just ask.

From that tasting.com article referenced above: This strikes me as highly improbable. Juniper berries I've met haven't had any sugar content to ferment... nor much in the way of liquid content at all. Anybody here knowledgable enough to provide an assessment in the way of fact checking this? Any opinions on the veracity of the rest of the article? Strikes me as fishy.

Poached? Ack! The beauty of shad roe is the crispy outside contrasting with the firm inside. Best preparation involves a frypan and a couple of slices of good bacon. Cook bacon in the pan, remove bacon from the pan, leave the fat in the pan. Dust the roe with a little flour and add to the pan. Cook 'til crispy on the outside. Eat garnished with bacon, and maybe a squeeze of lemon juice. I can't imagine a soft inside and out preparation of the stuff being at all appealing. Also, the quality of the roes is quite variable... if it gets too late in the season, they sometimes pick up a muddy flavor that isn't so nice. Don't judge all roes by a muddy example.

drool.... this is what I miss out on because I don't bother to check out the ISO dining friends more than weekly.

As to containers, it sounds like you would like something fancy to tote the salt around in... you might look into antique snuffboxes. They were the height of fashion in their day... and were designed accordingly.

I've picked up a bottle of the Boomsma Jonge, and must report that it is almost indistinguishable from London-style dry gins. It has a tiny bit of the maltiness I'd expected, but not a lot. Its botanicals are quite nice, and definitely within the standard range one would expect from a gin. It makes a fine martini. Not great for sipping all by itself, however.

I know what my friday afternoon schedule looks like now...

Have you considered larger boxes and packing peanuts?

Keep your eyeteeth, and take a jaunt to Pennsylvania. We've got it. I've gotta pick some up to try in Baker's Death in the Gulf Stream.

Any opinions on the genever that is still being imported? I can, it seems, get my hands on Boomsma in either Jonge or Oulde. Worth tracking down?

Bob- Thanks for the advice. I'll aim to rack to secondary after about 3 weeks in primary... I'm at 1.5 already and still getting airlock activity. Should I transfer the oak into the secondaries, or is two weeks on oak in the primary going to be enough? Next time you're up here, let me know and I'll arrange a sampling. Coming in for the 13th at the Grey Lodge?

Mmmmm. Smoked oatmeal stout sounds quite promising. After a week and a bit of fermentation, my project is still bubbling away. I've tossed in an ounce of french medium toasted oak chips after a week, and they have certainly changed the aroma of the gasses coming out. Any suggestions on how long one should leave the chips in there? Any thoughts on whether to leave the Roeselare lees in the fermentor or to rack quickly after the fermentation activity subsides? Lambics are aged on lees, but I don't know about oud bruins. Maybe split the batch and syphon some off into 1.5 gallon secondaries and leave 2 gallons on the lees. In cleaning out the freezer recently I found a many pounds of frozen sour cherries, which seem a great experiment with this beer as well. Maybe 1.5 G with cherries and no lees, 1.5 G just racked off the lees, and 2 G on lees. Please let me know if you have experience with the Roeselare yeast or sour beer fermenting and know that any of these are suboptimal practices.

Ah, yes. We can all bemoan the local markets we're subjected to. Being in Pennsylvania, we get good options... but must purchase by the case to get a half decent price... thankfully there are a good number of mixed cases available now. But it does put a bit of a damper on trying a whole bunch of new beers. Besides, I drink more of my homebrew than anything commercial right now... and who wants to see TNs for beers you'll never be able to taste yourselves. And there won't be any discussion to hone the fine points, which is half the fun of TNs.

I'm there!

Wow! Glad to see the dairy on eGullet! Welcome! I'm excited to hear that the selection has expanded in the six months since I've stopped by last. Must drop by and taste the new selections. If you're doing soft cheeses now, I'm anxious to see what I've been missing. As to my "credentials" and the restauranteur questioning them, I've got none... Other than being a bi-weekly shopper at the Murray's, Zabar's and/or Fairway cheese counters for the past 4 years (and less frequently for the 6 six years prior to that) and having tried plenty of cheese. I also have gotten to know what I like (generally not firm cheeses), and for the purposes of establishing my cheese cred you're welcome to quiz me if you'd like to determine for yourself whether I'm worth listening to. I've seen them make their cheese, and they clearly know what they're doing. In my experience, Hendricks' cheeses match or exceed the textures and flavors of commercial product available at the high-end cheese counters where I shop. Sorry to be raise hackles by mentioning price, but it is a part of the package of the consumer experience. And it isn't crazy expensive, but, given my ready access to NYC cheese shops, cheese from a couple miles away from home is a luxury...

I have tried some of their cheeses... as a matter of fact I took a cheesemaking class there last summer. Their cheese is technically excellent, but they concentrate on styles I'm less excited by. I'd be all over a small soft ripened cheese... but they tend toward large pressed blocks rather than small fresh discs. And they price well above what I'm accustomed to paying at Murray's and Zabar's in NYC. So, I don't stop by there often.

My commentary about Chinese beers was aimed at the assertion that all Chinese fermentation is the result of moldy rice cakes being pitched in, and that the moldy flavor was therefore inescapable in a distilled product. And the moldy socks odor was the "funk" I was referring to, as well as the "stank". I was being imprecise. I've never met a Chinese rice wine or a Korean one. How do they compare to sake? I've tried a pretty broad range of sakes, from clear dry ones, to cloudy sweet ones, to oxidized sweet-sherry type ones well balanced in a sauturnes-kind-of-way. Are any or all of those styles also done in places not Japan? What are the major styles of rice wine in China? How commonly are they distilled?

Who ever romanticized prohibition for the drinks? It is romanticized for the bonhomie and the cloak and dagger antics of the speakeasies. I can see why bars would want to trade on the exclusive clubbiness of the speakeasy mystique. Never seen a former speakeasy (or such themed bar) try to sell bathtub gin cocktails. And, by the way, does anybody know if bathtub gin actually had any botanicals, or was it archaic vodka before anybody knew the name for it. More to the point, would a liter of Popov with a shot of rubbing alcohol in it (DON'T DO THIS EXPERIMENT AT HOME, OR ANYWHERE ELSE!!!) be a more apt simulation of the bathtub 'gin' experience? As to foreign bars making cocktails for thirsty expatriates, you can't say that prohibition didn't set off a spark of creativity over in europe. I like Sidecars, don't you?