Bad Delaware Grapes Make Bad Wine

It's just that simple.  I acquired a 5 gallons of Delaware juice, added some voracious and excellent Lavin EC-118, and hoped for the best.  Guess what?  There is no Easter Bunny either.  

This was to be a dessert wine, because the flavors are typically geared for a sweater taste, without the foxy flavors of other native grapes to the North East and Midwest.

Very disappointing result with a batch of bad must that's not even suitable for vinegar.  

Garbage in, garbage out, or maybe it's more like dumpster juice in, dumpster juice out.  

Luckily I've got 20 gallons of the other stuff-- "foxy", musky, sexy native Catawba, Concord and Niagara that's turned out well, just in time to wash back Easter lamb parts.

Le Baladin Wayan Sour at Birreria (and the 80s Music)

Here's another awesome amber sour I had at Birreria, which seems to be getting absurd mixed reviews on Beer Advocate.   No accounting for taste I suppose.

Everything I had there was just bursting with flavor, including this sour, well balanced beautifully colored and carbonated La Baladin Waylan, on tap. I used it to wash back a plate of cured meats.  This Matterino "Teo" Musso is as serious with his herbals as any Joe on Beer Advocate is about his six packs.  For example, according to the commercial information on this beer:

"Baladin Wayan is made of 17 different ingredients (barley, wheat, spelt, oats, rye, different types of hops and many different spices besides coriander."

In opening his brewery in the Piedmont region of Italy back in 1996, Teo was advised by Jean-Louis Dits of La Brasserie à Vapeur in Pipaux, Belgium and Christian Vanhaverbeke, who had experience at Chimay, Union Grimberger and Achouffe, and thus he's learned a few things from a few people who know what's what by any measure. 

"Wayan" is also Teo's daughter, so basically "that's [his] daughter in the water".   In Morocco, Teo established Riad Baladin http://www.riadbaladin.com in case you're stuck for ideas about where to take your next vacation. 

Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and let those grouches grumble among themselves on Beer Advocate, after sampling the quality and variety of beer offered here, I'll be going back on the regular, for sure.  

The only true problem I could find for myself with Birreria was the 80's music, rocking the bar.  And it was relentlessly queer, which I mean purely in the odd sense.  Whoever selects the music... well, maybe they are trying to pull in more women, who love those sounds, but seriously, it was tough to take after the first 3 dozen songs.   

I mean really, Rick Springfield?  Syria?

Birreria's Wanda.on the Roof at Eataly

If you like #craftbeer and you're in NYC, you need to monkey your hind quarters up to the roof at Eataly on 23rd, because every beer I had, with the cured meats I ordered was outstanding enough to rave about. 

For example, this is Wanda, a chestnut fermented ale. 

Odorless, dark, mild, slightly dry, and creamy mouth feel. It's a chestnut ale, cooked up by struggling rap artist, but Rock Star Brewer, Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Leo di Vincenzo (Birra del Borgo) and Teo Musso (Baladin) and executed by Peter Hepp, head brewer.  Don't know if it's the dude with all the wild tats helping out behind the bar, but I saw him there in the Nano brewery area near the stairs.

What freaked me out a little was this: though darker, this beer has the same dry tannic quality that my last Honey Pumpkin #homebrewing project had, if somewhat more creamy and without any hoppy aroma or bitterness.  But similarly earthy all the same.

At this point it was a little too soon to just concluded that Berreria and their birraz are awesome, epic, delicious and amazing, but after spending most of the night sampling the balance of their cask beers, including a peppercorn flavored deal and then a thyme flavored number, from a actual cask, on tap, via the beer pump, which the British call "Real Beer", it's safe to say that Dogifish Head ain't Nothing to F with!   

Yet and still, my feeling is that Sam Calagione won't really make it here in old NY until he does a "WU Tang Clan 40oz Park Hill Pils" and pours a little out with RZA for The Ol' Dirt Dog. Brooklyn-- Zoo!   

Homebrewed Honey Pumpkin Cranberry Spruce Ale

Home Brewed Honey Pumpkin Cranberry Ale

This Home brewed, Honey Pumpkin Cranberry ale was hopped with Spruce, Willamete and Chinook hops. The aroma is right there, as you'd expect with enough of these fine, if ignoble hops, slightly bitter but very tasty, if I don't say so myself, which I did, so there's that.  I brewed it, so naturally, the bias is in the boil.   

It came in at roughly 7% AVB, but not too hot to miss the spot.

It has a nice froth, and deep dark color because I used dark malt in addition to all the fun with adjuncts, which included Wisconsin clover honey, fresh and canned pumpkin, and cranberry juice.  The flavor is well balanced to the spruce and hops, if somewhat of more thin and dry than say, a milky stout, and more like a porter, as the malt was replaced with these other elements.  I guess I want to take notice of the dry, rough mouthfeel that I presume the pumpkin's tannins left behind in this batch.

It's said that tannins create greater friction on mouth surfaces in various wines that are high in tannins, or as I've found out: "Tannins are thought to taste astringent because they bind with salivary proline-rich proteins and precipitate them out. This leads to increased friction between mouth surfaces, and a sense of dryness or roughness."

I imagine that's what's happened here to leave such a dry flavor in this ale.

But what's really really worth writing home about are how this beer got legs when paired with a fermented cauliflower-horse radish, cabbage kraut, which has been sitting several months.  The sour, acidic flavor was perfectly balanced with the strange if not radical adjunct ale project.  It made a nice after dinner snack, and will again, since I have 5 gallons, and several jars of kraut to wash down. 

Admittedly, I mixed a little old ale with the new one, which dashed the froth, but transferred fresh flavor to the second half of the first growler out of the fermentation bucket.  I even added a little Newburgh Paper Box IPA to change the hops profile (adding what tastes like 4 more), which was equally outstanding, if not more so.

I'm calling this bucket Little Bessie, because it's "a drunkard's dream if I ever did see one".

Peekskill Brewery's Amazeballs

On first look the froth and color are perfectly tuned.

Hoppy aroma is striking like the teamster; very nice, outstanding really.  The smell is bright, with a spruce feeling that's not very bitter.  Word has it, they used galaxy, which were put to good use.

The taste imparts a balanced mouth feel, without a lot of heat.  I like it.

This is great stuff and worth a trip for a growler and a pint while you wait.

Barrier Mare Undarum Belgium IPA

Odorless, but wait, Tammy says it smells floral and I think she is right upon second snort because I'll tell you something, I've had a few.  The flavor is smokey and wonderful.  I'm not tasting the clove they are all writing about on Beer Advocate. 

Peekskill Brewery's Stout

In spite of my shaky, buzzed, blurry photo of it, Peekskill Brewery's stout is delicious. 

Yeah, I know, "delicious" is a word you hear a lot from the foodies and the "brewies" these days, like amazing, or say, "amaaaaaazig", but sometimes it just fits like good shoes.

And of course, other times it kind of fits more like the flight suit that Baby Bush wore for his televised arrival aboard the USS Lincoln the day he declared "Mission accomplished" 2003.  You know, more #derps than delish. 

Not the case here at the Peekskill Brewery. Once again, these dudes rocked out with their hops out.

Nice dark color, tight frothy head, creamy malty flavor, a little like cool liquid embers, smoked.  Not to blurt, but I bet it would wash down various fish well, the way smoky flavor improves some of them (trout-salmon).  Not too sweet or bitter. The stuff is awesome and if you avoid it, you'll have nobody to blame but yourself... or maybe Saddam (like the "mission accomplished" bit in paragraph 3... in comedy, that's an example of a "call back").  

The beer is great there, but they need more TVs (kind of hard to see the March Madness on just two screens from big areas inside of the bar).