While taking time off from work, but never from beer, I happened across a bottle of Dark Island Reserve.

This is an ale from Norman Sinclair of The Orkney Brewery in the Northwest Isles of Scotland. This beer is finished in oak casks that have been used to age Scotch.

Dark, full- bodied and packing a 10 percent alcohol wallop, this beer was a rare beauty. I spent the better part of a night enjoying its smooth, malty company.

I loved it, but alas it is in town only for few days. The shop were I found it, The Wine Source in Hampden, said Friday that its 30-bottle supply, of $30, 750 ml bottles, had all but vanished. So it goes in the beer hunt.

Anyone else ever enjoy the company of Dark Island Reserve? It tasted somewhat of Scotch. Do we think that it is a bad thing, when our beer tastes a little like booze?

Meanwhile, trying to soften the harsh reality of the Ravens' sorry football season ...

I picked up a bottle of Snow Goose and gave it a spin.

This was an empty bottle. My sons, 27 and 22, are home for Christmas break and man, is it hard to keep full bottles of beer in the house.

One of the boys' holidays favorites is Snow Goose, a Maryland brewed, winter ale with chocolate and coffee flavors.

As is my custom I gave the bottle a spin on my "roulette" wheel to predict the outcome of this week's Ravens game. Two out of three times, the Goose pointed to the Ravens' opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers, as this week's winner. So it goes in the world of football fans. 

Posted by Rob Kasper at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Here are a few predictions for beer in the New Year:

 1. It will cost more.

Duh! Already there have been articles warning that a shortage of hops, competition for grain, and the dollar’s weakening position will combine to drive up the price of good beer. Most prognosticators call for a hike around $1 a six pack hike after the holidays. How to cope? I don’t think I will drink less beer in the New Year, but I might sip it more slowly.

2. More green beer.

The urge to go organic is strong. Magic Hat and Clipper City and even Anheuser-Busch have released beers that are certified organic. The leap from inorganic to organic beer making is not a giant one. Beer, after all, is made with basic God-given ingredients. But it can be a hassle for a brewery. The brewery must be cleaned without harsh chemicals. Snagging organically grown hops is costly. But the way the regulations are written you can have an organic beer and still use inorganic hops, as long as 95 percent of the ingredients are organically grown. Some of this rush to make an organic beer is marketing; nothing wrong with that.

 3. Recycling beer bottles in Baltimore is going to be dicey.

 The city was woefully unprepared Dec. 15 to accommodate residents who wanted to buy plastic bins for its new one-stream recycling program. Starting Jan. 8, we can no longer put our empty beer bottles out in the alley in blue bags. Now they have to be put either in one of those hard-to-acquire yellow bins or in a container plainly marked as holding recyclables.  Those of us who got shut out at the Dec. 15 fiasco will have to put out our empty beer bottles in something that looks like a trash can but is labeled "recycling."  Then we will keep our fingers crossed that the bottles get hauled away to recycling central.

Any other predictions?

I wonder, can you taste the difference between an organic and inorganic brew?

And any creative ideas for how to mark up the cans holding our empty beer bottles?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                    

In the dim days of December I crave a dark full-bodied beer. One that will give me some solace as I watch ---I can’t help myself---our Ravens play football.

By now lesser fans would have stopped watching or stopped drinking beer, but not this boy. This weekend, in readiness for the Ravens-Seahawks contest, I downed a bottle of Pyramid Snow Cap brewed in Seattle.

This winter seasonal is gorgeous, a mahogany beauty. Rich and malty with a subtle spicy finish. Nice stuff, smooth for 7 percent alcohol by volume.

Seattle is a dark town, with lots of cloud cover, and they do dark well; even their coffee is darker than in the rest of the country.  The spinning Snow Cap bottle predicted a gloomy day for the Ravens.

Snow Cap is my favorite Pyramid brew. Any other nominees?

Is it just me, or does any one else associate dark beer with the Left Coast?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

In times of old, the only way whiskey and beer were “paired” was the beer and a bump, a glass of beer and shot of whiskey.

Now some beers are being aged in whiskey barrels. Two current examples are Jewbelation Eleven and Bittersweet Lenny RIPA. These HE ‘BREW beers, made by Shmaltz Brewing in San Francisco, are aged in barrels that once held Rittenhouse Rye. They are being served at 6 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, at Max’s on Broadway at a Chanukah versus Christmas beer tasting open to the public.

 Yesterday I spoke briefly with HE’BREW founder Jeremy Cowan, the fellow who 11 years ago determined that “the Jews of America need their own beer.” His Jewbelation is a very good beer, a rich mix of malts and hops. While Cowan uses humor to promote his beers, he told me he is quite serious about making beers that are as good as Dogfish Head and other high-quality craft brewers.

  Cowan said that in addition to letting him say that his beers are served “on rye,” putting the RIPA in rye whiskey barrels also “smoothes out the tops and bottoms of RIPA and brings out the vanilla mouthfeel.”

Questions: Is mixing beer and whiskey always pretty risky, or does it work?

And do you prefer to spell it Chanukah or Hanukkah?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Th folks at Flying Dog Brewery sent out word recently that they are going to move all of their brewing operations from Denver to Frederick by January.

Up to now, about 70 percent of their volume  has been brewed in Maryland. Eric Warner, the top dog of brewery, said that the primary reason for the move was that the Maryland facility is newer and in better shape than their Denver digs. For instance, he said, the bottling line in Frederick produces 250 bottles per minute, compared to 140 bottles per minute at the Denver facility .

I wish them well. The Frederick brewery has had several owners and at one point it was even going to brew National Premium.

In honor of Flying Dog’s full-scale move to Maryland, I spun a bottle of one of their beers, the K-9 Cruiser Winter Ale, to predict the outcome of this week’s Ravens-Dolphins game.

The K-9 Winter Ale is malty and sweet with caramel notes. I regarded it as rich reward to myself for being a reasonably good boy. The spinning Flying Dog, brewed in Frederick, predicted a Ravens win.

Anybody else like this beer? Any opinions about the other Flying Dog brews?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                    

Assuming that beer drinkers occasionally sample other liquids, I am bowing to public demand and printing eggnog recipes.

I print my eggnog recipe almost every December in the newspaper, and every year people lose it. One look at the amount of bourbon in it and you might know why. It is so potent that I call it the “eggnog for people going nowhere.” It also has raw egg yolks, so if you are worried about the slight risk of salmonella posed by this ingredient, avoid this nog.

Last Saturday I was one of the 80 or so folks who visited the home of Pat and Jim Kelly for their annual eggnog soiree. The party marked the 50th year that the Kellys, with help from their friend Bill Byrnes, have made, bottled and celebrated “ the blessed nog.”

 I am printing their recipe as well. Here they are....

 Rob Kasper’s Eggnog for Folks Going Nowhere

Makes 8 to 10 cups

2 cups bourbon

1 1/8 cups sugar

 6 egg yolks, beaten

 4 cups whipping cream

Blend bourbon and sugar in a mixing bowl. Let sit overnight if you can wait. If not, don’t worry. Beat egg yolks until they approach viscous yellow bliss. Add to bourbon mixture. Mix well. Cover and let sit in refrigerator at least 2 hours. Whip cream and add to bourbon mixture. Nog starts off very creamy and becomes soupy the longer it survives.

Kelly and Byrnes Original Irish Eggnog

Makes one gallon

1 dozen eggs

3/4 pound granulated sugar

1 quart milk

1 quart whipping cream

 1 750-milliliter bottle blended whiskey

2/3 ounce rum extract

 ½ cup brandy

 1/3 cup rum

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix the eggs, sugar, milk, and cream. To this slowly add the rum extract while stirring. Slowly add the whiskey, brandy and rum. Constant stirring will prevent the mixture from curdling. Additional rum extract, sugar and whiskey can be added to suit your taste. Taste often.

Posted by Rob Kasper at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

No more Lump of Coal. The supply has run out of this English stout that I touted last week as a good holiday gift. This news comes from the folks at DOPS Inc., the local distributor of the beer.

 If you are looking for a backup holiday brew to give as a gift, three local brews -- Snow Goose Winter Ale, Clay Pipe's Pursuit of Happiness Winter Warmer Ale and Clipper City Winter Storm, which finished on the top of our winter beer tasting -- are still available.  Their names are straighforward.

If you want a holiday beer with a wicked name, try the “Bad Elf” line of beers, made by Ridgeway Brewing, the same folks who gave us Lump of Coal. Those beers are Seriously Bad Elf, Criminally Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf and plain old Bad Elf.

Two years ago the state of Connecticut tried to ban the sales of Seriously Bad Elf, contending that the label, which showed an elf with a slingshot firing Christmas ornaments at Santa’s sleigh, might entice children to buy the beer. The state quickly reversed itself, and the beer showed up in Christmas stockings.

 Any other nominations for drinkable beers with funny names (not counting profanity or sexual language) that make good holiday presents?  

Posted by Rob Kasper at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

There was not much good beer in Indiana in the early 1970s when I was a sports reporter (third-string) at The Hammond Times. I lived on the south side of Chicago and drove The Skyway over to Hammond, passing a Falstaff plant on the way.

But in 1996, when I was long gone, Hoosier beer took a giant leap forward as Three Floyds Brewing Company opened. It started in Hammond and has since moved to Munster. For a time they shipped beer to Maryland. I loved their Gumballhead wheat. Now they don’t ship here.

Since the Ravens are playing the Colts (who claim to be from Indianapolis) this weekend, I was hoping to spin a bottle of Gumballhead to predict the outcome of the game.

Friday I got Nick Floyd -- one of three Floyds, the others being his brother Simon, and their dad, Michael -- on the phone in Munster. He said, sorry, but due to the “out of control popularity” of beer most of their 9,000 barrels of production stays in “the region.” That is Hoosier talk for the piece of geography stretching from Northern Indiana into Chicago. “Chicago,” Nick Floyd said, “sucks up a lot of our beer.”

For my spinning bottle I substituted a Maryland beer, Clipper City Uber Pils. I love the rich malty structure of this beer. The hops are there, but they don’t burn. Moreover, if the Ravens are going to beat the Colts, they will need an “uber” effort. The spinning bottle of Uber Pils , however, predicted a win for the bad guys.

Anybody have a Hoosier beer story or Uber Pils experience to relate?

Is Three Floyds the only good beer in Indiana, or did I miss some significant suds?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

While some folks rush to buy milk, bread and toilet paper when it snows, I admit that when the flakes start to fall, one of my first thoughts is: “How much beer do I have in the house?”

 You never want to be snowbound without some beers to keep you company.

 One of the best “snow beer” stories I have heard involves the neighborhood known as “Alonsoville” because of its promixity to Alonso’s restaurant on Cold Spring Lane in Baltimore. The story goes that in the aftermath of a blizzard a few years ago, the menfolk of the neighborhood banded together to shovel out the streets and sidewalks. The womenfolk , in turn, encouraged the shovelers by burying bottles of beer in strategically-placed snowbanks. It is a heart-warming story, even if it might not be true.

 As the snow fell today, it got me thinking what kind of beer I would like to find in a snow bank. My first thought was Snow Goose. Any other nominations?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

Like the New England Patriots lineup, the roster of The Boston Beer Co., makers of Samuel Adams, is impressive. A label on a bottle of their Boston Lager puts the brewery's current count at 18 different beers.

 They made a cranberry beer that I didn't care for. But most of their products are solid. Again, there is an unhappy parallel with their football team. When their Boston Lager was introduced in 1985 it was regarded as a big beer. Now it is almost mainstream.

 To predict the outcome of tonight's Ravens-Patriots game, I tried to spin an empty bottle of Samuel Adams Utopias. But the decanter was too wobbly. I substituted a bottle of the Boston Lager, which in three spins predicted...

 I have relatives in Boston and am getting tired of their professional teams winning everything. But I have to admit I like their beer. There was some talk a few years back that Boston Beer was too big to be a real craft brewer. Is that over? Or is it still an issue?

Posted by Rob Kasper at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)