Saturday 30 May 2015

Ontario Craft Cider Week: Coffin Ridge Forbidden Artisanal Dry Cider

Cider # 10 Forbidden Artisanal Dry Cider

Annan, Ontario, Canada
Boutique Winery
All Natural Hard Apple Cider 
6.5 % ABV Aluminium Can 500 ml.
$2.95 (Canadian) At LCBO 

Twitter: @coffinridge

@ontcraftcider

Well it has finally arrived. Not only is summer here, but the beverage festivals begin. I am going to be a busy boy for the next few months. And first up on our list is the Ontario Craft Cider Week, sponsored by the Ontario Craft Cider Association (check them out... give them some love). Our first offering is a first for the blog. It is actually brewed at a winery. And a special winery to boot. Coffin Ridge is located in Annan Ontario. which is in between Meaford and Owen Sound and boasts some of the most northerly vineyards in Ontario. It is also the heart of Ontario apple country, which goes to explain the cider, and why we are here today. Coffin Ridge is a member of the Ontario Craft Cider Association and therefore the perfect beverage to kick off Cider Week.

Enough small talk... Let's PRESS on (get it? Cider Press?)


Clear gold in colour with hints of green. Slight skiff of a carbonated head that disappears quite quickly. Aroma is apple pie, bready, with cinnamon and cloves, some citrus and a hint of ginger. Quite tart, yet with a smooth finish, very crisp dry and clean. Lingering taste of slightly green wild apples.Aeration gives us lots of bright lemon and tart green apples

 Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS

Colour: 5/6 PASS
Cider Style: 6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Re-Order:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Experience:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL



Final Thoughts:

This is what dry cider should taste like: Crisp, tart, full of good apple flavour... and grown in our backyards. This is a cider made by a winemaker and it shows. It is gentle and well balanced and drinks like a crisp summer white. This is an absolute must try and a great way to kick off Cider Week.


Cheers

CJT



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Friday 29 May 2015

Yukon Gold English Pale Ale

Beer # 234 Yukon Gold


Yukon Brewing
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada

Independent Microbrewery

English Pale Ale


5.0 % ABV Brown Glass bottle 650 ml
$6.90 (Canadian) At LCBO 

Twitter: @yukonbeer


The Yukon Brewing Company began  in 1997. The owners, Alan and Bob, who had both moved to the Yukon from Ontario, thought up their business plan on a canoe trip and the rest is history. When they first opened The company bore the name Chilkoot Brewing Company which was quickly changed due to a trademark issue. They re-branded as Cheechako Brewing company, but even that was changed again in 1999 to Yukon Brewing Company. In 2010 they dropped "company" and continue to this day with the name Yukon Brewing.

Tonight's offering is an English style Pale Ale. It contains 5 malts and is hopped with Saaz, Sterling, and UK Golding hops. The most striking thing about tonight's bottle could be the bottle itself.  The label is a piece of art designed by Ontario born, Batik artist Lynn Blakie . The bold yellow and deep blue colours of the label certainly do draw your eye in.

Enough art appreciation.... let's drink some liquid art.

Pours a light coppery gold with a thin off white head that disperses quickly. The aroma is earthy malts with some brown sugar slight caramel and the lightest hint of citrus. First sip is slightly sweet and malt forward. Light in body, very similar to an English mild ale. Hints of caramel, apples, earth tones. Finish is slightly hoppy, herbal and medicinal.


Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 


Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6  PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts:


I am quite happy with my first taste of the Yukon. This is a solid beer and a good flagship for the company. I can also see why it is the # 1 selling draft in all of the Yukon Territory (even outselling the Big Boys!) Is it very memorable?... no not quite, but I would definitely pick this over many, many other drafts that are out there. I look forward to trying the rest of their beers.

Cheers


CJT



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Wednesday 20 May 2015

More Updates


In case you didn't guess. The title of yesterday's blog is a line from one of my favourite Cowboy Junkies songs:




This darn cold will not go away I still have a pretty beefy headache and a sore throat. However, I intend to soldier on. I have my tastebuds back and my nose is functioning adequately so I will continue with regular tastings. I did manage to get a bottle of Cheli's Barrel aged Pale Ale from Lake of Bays Brewery so look for that one, probably tomorrow night. Tonight I am dipping into a beer I have been dying to try. It comes from the Yukon!

Yukon is NORTH!
Next to the Icelandic beers, this will be one of the most Northerly Breweries I have tasted. And I think that only one of the Alaskan Breweries is more Northerly in North America. Other upcoming events here at Pint Jockey Headquarters: May 30th to June 6th is Ontario Craft Cider Week Which we will be celebrating by doing another week long spotlight on Craft Ciders (and maybe one or too not so craft ciders... we have to make fun of somebody...) And a week after that is the BIG EVENT in Toronto. OCB Week returns again launching on Father's Day weekend. I was hoping to get down to Session Toronto but my work schedule doesn't look promising. So I may be going down midweek again this year for the second Installment of my Live Blog OCB Week.

So stay tuned, lot's of good stuff coming down the pipe!

Cheers

CJT

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Tuesday 19 May 2015

Sun Comes up it's Tuesday Morning

A Range of Samples from Sawdust City and Lake of Bays

Twitter @SawdustCityBeer @LB_brewing


I've been on the mend lately. An early spring cold has put me out of commision for quite some time. That and I have been working some ridiculous hours. So I decided to hop into the local and do a bit of an omnibus tasting, as they had a few new ones I had not tried. Enjoy these and expect some new tastings shortly

CJT

Beer # 229 Cheli's Pale Ale

Lake of Bays Brewing Company
Baysville, Ontario, Canada


Independent Microbrewery
Dry Hopped Barrel Aged Pale Ale
7.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.00 (Canadian) At the brewery

This is the newest beer in the NHL Alumni Series and it is named for Chris Chelios the 20 plus year, right handed defenceman who played for six years with The Montreal Canadiens and almost a decade each with the Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Red Wings. This is the first Time I have seen the Alumni Series in draft form and was curious... If I get a bottle of this I will repost it in a more detailed form.


Pours a lovely clear gold with an off-white head made up of small bubbles. Nose is sweet and slightly woody, notes of malt and vanilla caramel. First sip is very refreshing clear and crisp. Very fresh tasting oak sets in later almost saplike but no too sweet. Good profile of an English pale ale with tons of fresh fruit some apples and a nice drying and slightly bitter finish. All through the beer you get a hazy woodiness, that is like a forest on a fall day or the distant smoke of a maple sugar shack.


Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 


Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: Very good beer, sadly only a perfunctory look, would love to get this in a bottle and slowly savour it.

Beer # 230 So it Gose


Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada


Independent Microbrewery
Flavoured Gose
4.1 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery


This new offering by Sawdust is a lacto-bacillus soured wheat beer, with sea salt and coriander


Pours a hazy tinny gold, with a thin off-white head made up of tiny bubbles. Mildly sour on the nose with hints of wheat, and an almost sea like brininess. First sip gives us a tart brew with salt tones. The salt is evident, you taste it but it does not leave you thirsty. There are hints of citrus, coriander. The salt amps up your taste-buds and leaves you wanting more. There is a subtle fruitiness mixed in with the overall minerality of the salt. The strangest thing about the beer is the three main components the salt, the fruit-herb and the wheat all play exceedingly well with each other. one will surge ahead while the others wait their turn creating a flavour palate that is intriguing and ever-changing


Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 


Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL

Final Thoughts: I was told this is the love it or hate it beer... I am obviously one of the former. This beer is an excellent example of Gose and how minerals can change the flavour of beer.The only other Gose I have blogged about was Beau's here and I can safely say this one is better. This is definitely not  some kid adding salt to his Canadian to make it taste less like skunk. This is a carefully crafted and balanced beer. Try it, you will be surprised.


Beer # 231 Original Jorden

Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada


Independent Microbrewery
APA
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery

This one was brewed for the Griffin Gastropub in Bracebridge, Ontario.

Pours a cloudy green-yellow with an off-white head made of small bubbles. Very light grapefruit and passion fruit on the nose with hints of pine and some vegetation. First sip is very light and fruity with some underlying greenness. Some medicinal hops and pine. nice bitterness on the finish with plenty of grainy malt.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: Not the best APA I have ever had but a nice fruity patio sipper. 


Beer # 232 Balmoral's Outrage Rye Saison

Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada


Independent Microbrewery
Barrel Aged Flavoured Rye APA Saison
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery

The most interesting brew of the day was definitely this one. Balmoral's Outrage. I can't offer any opinion on the name... but the beer? Whoa!

Pours a coppery gold with an off-white head made up of small bubbles. Nose is woody with lots of medicinal herbaceousness. The beer is slightly tart with some oak and smoke. There is leather and cedar followed by a dried fruit sweetness, some spices, like ginger clove and curry. There is a definite turmeric and coriander, cumin, Indian sweet masala going on. This beer was described as "Christmas Cake" to me, and the dried fruit and spicy sweetness does back that up, but I get a nice fruity curry from this, a gentle Northern Indian curry with raisins and potatoes. The beer is infused with Juniper and Angelica root, which should give it a more gin-like or even a Drambuie feel, but I lean more towards the food. I would be thrilled to drink this with a nice spicy curry, (or for that matter bake it into a Christmas Cake.)

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Experience:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL

Final Thoughts: This beer is why the craft market is doing so well. It is not about Why?... it is about Why Not? This is a fantastically delicious beer that I am afraid not enough people will get to taste (or understand). Sometimes the ripest fruit is found far out on the limb...

Beer # 233 The Princess Wears Hotpants
  Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada


Independent Microbrewery
Cask Conditioned 
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery


Flavoured with some citric acid and jalapenos this beer is designed to spice up your life.

pours a cloudy off-gold with very thin off-white head. First sip is light an fruity with a follow-up attack of hot jalapenos. tangy and zingy, with a nice fruity hit of capsicum.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: not my favourite incarnation of the princess, but I like the heat. A nice tasty brew good for summer sipping, or spicy food. try some if you can find it... it pops up erratically. 

Cheers 

CJT

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Friday 15 May 2015

Happy National Caesar Day!

With apologies to all of my non-Canadian readers today I will be talking about a bit of Canadiana that you may not understand. Today is a special sort of Throwback Thursday, A throwback at least, to my time as a bartender. Right out of college I started travelling and working in many different places around Canada. I saw many different drinks and learned many different things about what the people across this country like to imbibe with. However, one thing stays almost constant... It is the closest thing we have to a National Cocktail, and in my mind a very big portion of our National Identity, and today it is celebrating it's day: The Caesar.

Today is the first annual National Caesar Day in Canada. Mark your calendars, so you can celebrate this day next year. Sadly no one trumpeted the news from on high, so it even caught me by surprise a bit.

I imagine, if I still have some American readers tuned in, that they are confused. As much as we love and adore the Caesar here in Canada, it is virtually unknown outside of our borders. I you would dear American readers, please read "Caesar" as "The Canadian Bloody Mary," and I shall explain further.
To Walter!

In 1969 in the rapidly growing city of Calgary, Alberta, was a hotel. The Calgary Inn as a matter of fact. and this Calgary Inn employed a bartender who went by the name of Walter Chell. When the hotel was opening it's new fine dining Italian restaurant, "Marco's,"the hotel requested that Walter create a new signature drink for the restaurant.  The story goes that Walter took inspiration from a popular dish in Italy at the time "Pasta Vongole," a spicy tomato sauce and clam pasta. He took fresh squeezed tomato juice and muddled it with baby clams, then added vodka, salt, cayenne pepper, and Worcestershire sauce (it's actually pronounced "woos-ter-sure" if you were ever curious. My mother called it "What's-this-here-sauce").  It was served in the celery salt rimmed glass with a stalk of celery. A legend was born. Later, Mott's Clamato came onto the scene bolstered by the meteoric rise in popularity of Walter's drink. And the Cayenne was swapped out for Tabasco sauce, something more bars would have on hand. This brings us to the present day incarnation of our drink.

Hurricane Lantern
Glassware for the Caesar has always been an interesting subject. As I have travelled around I have seen it served in just about anything except a rusty bucket (If somebody opens a place and serves Caesars out of rusty bucket  now... I want a cut). Most bars these days default to a standard pint glass to serve their Caesars in. Originally, I believe the Caesar was served in a highball glass. But often I have seen it in double rocks glasses, pop glasses, solo cups (more times then I would care to think about...) In my mind though, the best glass was always the first glass I used when I started learning: The "Viva Grande." Pictured above right is my Caesar for tonight in the traditional Viva Grande, also called a Poco Grande or sometime erroneously a tulip glass. I find Poco Grande a hilarious name as Poco means "a little" and Grande means "big." Anyway, the Viva Grande is a shorter version of the Tiki bar standard the Hurricane glass which gets it's name from the Hurricane lantern whose glass chimney is shaped similarly to the fluted curve of the Hurricane Glass. Also the Hurricane Lantern is not named after the shape of the hurricane but rather the fact that these sturdy oil lanterns could not be blown out, even in a hurricane. The Viva Grande holds between 12 and 15 ounces of liquid and is meant to be used with cocktails that require a straw.


 The Pint Jockey's Standard Caesar

Stalk of Celery
Wedge of Lime
Ice
1.5 oz of Vodka (Nothing fancy)
2 to 3 drops of Tabasco Sauce
3 to 4 drops of Worcestershire Sauce
Shake of Salt
Shake of Pepper
Clamato Juice to fill glass

Rim your glass first by putting the mouth of the glass into lemon or lime juice that is no more than 1/4 inch deep, then dip the wet rim into your choice of seasonings. I used Matt and Steve's premade rim mix which contains several herbs and spices including salt, pepper, celery salt, cumin, and a few other things. Plain ol' celery salt is the classic, or you can just rim with some coarse salt, or nothing at all... your choice! Then add your garnish to the glass first (an old bartender's trick to prevent you from overflowing the glass if you happen to put in too much Clamato). The carefully add your ice, then the vodka, seasonings, and the clamato last (it mixes the ingredients so you do not have to stir this way!)

This is your basic run of the mill restaurant Caesar. I have seen some weird stuff go into Caesars in the past. All manner of garnishes, cucumbers, pickles, pickled asparagus, pickled beans, boiled eggs, an ocean of seafood, like grilled shrimp, crab legs. But honestly, it doesn't compare to the Caesar's older sister The Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary may have come first and her simple concoction of vodka tomato juice lemon juice and a salted rim but some people love them and they love them so much they put entire meals on them... see below:
                                                      
This drink is garnished with a drink... it's drinkception!
Bloody-HELL Mary!














Yes, That drink on the left has a pizza on it. And a sub. And a pound of wings. And a stack of Onion rings. AND a bag of fries! But not only that. That Bloody Mary... is actually garnished with ANOTHER Bloody Mary. I'm not going to even talk about the other woman's entire fried chicken on her drink...

Back to our drink. The Caesar, is one of the most varied drinks in Canada. Everyone has their preference, their "signature," their "new" way of doing the Caesar. The most common variations I have seen lately are swapping out the vodka for gin or tequila... (try it they are awesome!) The Bacon Caesar has been a thing for awhile now too. Try using bacon infused vodka and garnish with a crispy fried piece of bacon. My favourite variation is the Pan-Asian Caesar I use wasabi and sambal oleck as the spices I shake the drink and top it with grilled shrimp. If Sambal is not your flavour by all means substitute Sriracha. The last variation I remember clearly is horseradish. It is not a new one, it has been kicking around for a very long time. I remember when I learned the craft of mixology, we used to call a Caesar with horseradish in it a "General Caesar." It was a regional name and I have never come across anyone else that has called it that, but I have always liked it. It is another variation of the drink that is improved by shaking.

Well that's my musings on the Caesar for one night (two Caesars in I might point out...) I will now return you to my regular musings on beer (aka my cold is gone...) If you enjoyed this little diversion and like to here more of the history of some famous drinks I would be more than happy to share that and many of my catalogue of drinks and drink tips with you. drop me a comment, a tweet, or hit me up on Facebook.

And Happy Caesar Day.... To Walter!

Cheers
CJT