Glassware Stories

I don't really have an extensive branded glassware collection, and even less of an unbranded collection, though I am sure Mrs Velkyal would beg to differ and then regale you with stories of my obsessive care for said glasses. In some ways she is right, I am somewhat overly attached to my glasses, but each one has a back story, a link to a beery event or to the generosity of brewers or some such moment of nostalgia which makes me fond of them. I don't have any chalice style glasses for Belgian style ales as that would be largely pointless because I rarely drink Belgian beer, beyond the Trappists that is. Here then is the full, branded collection.

A motley bunch to be sure, a few Czechs, a couple of Brits, a German and an American.

The glass that features very regularly on Fuggled is of course my Lovibond's half pint, actually it is one of two glasses, and I think I most fussy about what gets done with this pair. When I lived in Prague, I wrote a couple of reviews of Lovibond's excellent beers that I had bought in the UK a while back, and the owner of the brewery, Jeff, very graciously sent me a couple of glasses, which I think are the most beautiful in my mini collection. When we moved over to the States, I was worried that these glasses wouldn't survive the journey, so I was very relieved when it came to unpacking boxes and there they were, good as new.

Chodovar is a family brewery in Western Bohemia that I have liked ever since I tried their Skální Ležák at PK, first in the bottle and then on tap. This glass though I picked up in a pub on the other side of Prague, simply by asking how much I could pay them for it, and they said "take it", so I took it. The glass itself is pretty much like the vast majority of half litre beer glasses you get in the Czech Republic, and fits perfectly in the hand for swilling glass after glass of amber nectar.

I bought this hefty mug at the Slunce v Skle event hosted by Purkmistr back in 2008, on the day I had the pleasure of meeting, and getting royally rat arsed with Pivní Filosof for the first time. I also bought a delicate little goblet glass which I did all my beer tasting with that day, and which again survived the trip from Prague to Charlottesville, only for me to break it by missing the cupboard shelf by half an inch. Purkmistr also make a lovely weizen glass that I would love to get my hands on - so my Czech readers, get me a new goblet and a weizen glass, post them to the US (address will be provided by email) and I will send you the money to cover said purchases.

Beck's reminding you of a renowned craft brew pub in Dublin just sounds wrong, but it does. When Mrs Velkyal and I went to Ireland for my birthday back in 2008 we arranged to meet up with The Beer Nut and Barry, of Bitten Bullet fame, in the Bull and Castle. We drank plenty, had a good feed, and the manager was trying to get rid of these Beck's Vier glasses, so Mrs Velkyal said she wanted one, and I claimed it would never survive the flight back to Prague, I was wrong, as you can see. One thing I didn't realise with this glass is the laser etched bottom which extends the life of the head, something I still think is intrinsically wrong, hence I refuse to purchase a Sam Adams glass, despite it looking so fabulous.

The Devil's Backbone glass was a give away to celebrate their first anniversary back in November, and a nice glass it is too, though I think I will have to buy one of their goblets at some point in the future, just because they look so nice. My Everard's glass is another which is very close to my zythophilic heart, and again shows the generosity of the brewing world. You can't buy Everard's lovely ales in the US, which is damned shame in my world because I would love a pint or six of Tiger almost every Friday, but I enjoyed it in Oxford when I was last there, and had the pleasure of showing one of their brewers around several of Prague's best brewpubs a while back. The glass is another celebratory souvenir, but this time for the company's 160th anniversary, and Everard's were good enough to send one over to the US for me - such lovely people, who make such lovely beer!

I am hoping that I am not the only person who attaches memories to my glassware, in fact I am sure we all do it, hence the sepia tinged picture above, with the unbranded glasses chucked in for good measure. Of course, one should never look back too much, so I have a growing list of brewery glasses I want, but that would be telling!

Gratuitous Liveliness

I think I mentioned this before at some point, but yesterday was the perform of Carmina Burana by the Virginia Consort Festival Chorus, featuring in the alto section one Mrs Velkyal, though obviously under her legal name. The concert was really very good, and after the singy bit, the participants had reservations at a local Italian restaurant called Vivace, which we duly attended. The evening was very pleasant, intelligent conversation, traveled table companions and decent wine and beer - I had Clipper City's Loose Cannon IPA, which was a typical American expression of the style, and perfectly acceptable. No I didn't take a photo or notes as I am perfectly capable of functioning as a regular human being. Mrs Velkyal's wine was also apparently rather nice.

However, last night also brought into sharp relief again one of the failings we have come across in many a restaurant in the US, or at least in those parts we go to regularly, namely that the cost is so distinctly unrepresentative of what you actually get. Basically we had a meal consisting of a pair of appetisers per table, one of which was fried calamari and the other was a "bruschetta" with melted mozzarella and a tomata salsa, and then ordering from a set menu. I had tomato and basil soup, followed by chicken parmigiani, which came with spaghetti marinara, and a New York style cheesecake for dessert; Mrs Velkyal had the same, other than a Caesar salad in the place of soup. The cost for this, plus 3 beers and 2 glasses of wine? $100 plus gratuity, more of which later.

I don't want to appear cheap, but the cost to value ratio in this case was piss poor. It's not that the food was bad, it was just uninspiring and something Mrs Velkyal could rustle up in our tiny kitchen for a fraction of the cost and to a far higher standard - for a start she would make the pasta herself and that alone would make a huge difference. To be fair, the cheesecake was nice, though I suspect it had been bought in before being liberally doused in a raspberry syrup, oh sorry, coulis. The soup was nothing special, my first reaction was that it came from a can and was just dressed with a touch of basil for effect. There was one truly excellent thing though and that was the service, polite, discreet (I hate having a waitress come by every thirty seconds or so and asking if everything was ok) and efficient. I would have happily given her a generous tip, had it not been for the gratuitous 20% unilaterally attached to my bill, or there even being a warning that in certain circumstances such a penalty would be plonked on top of my bill.

While on the subject of tipping and the gratuitous abuse of the customer, I have no objection to being generous in that department, when the service has warranted such generosity, but expecting me to pay an extra 20% for service is just down right wrong. 10% I don't mind paying, but expecting 20% is taking the piss. I guess the thing that really got my goat last night was being presented with the bill, having the 20% gratuity added to it, and there being a line on the credit card slip for an "additional tip" - I recently learned the meaning of being "nickel and dimed", and that's just how it felt, "to drain or destroy bit by bit, especially financially" according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

We still had a thoroughly good evening, but the cost did dampen things a bit, especially given the mediocrity that is apparently Charlottesville's "premier authentic Italian" restaurant. Things though this morning are much better as I sit in my favourite diner in town having a good breakfast, as much coffee as I can drink, free wifi and knowing that my bill for a far more satisfying feed will be a good 90% less than last night, and that is with the generous tip I always leave here, just because it is that good.

Lazy Posting

My prose style is not working today. The sun in shining and all of a sudden the ladies of Charlottesville have renounced the evils of velour and tracksuit trousers in favour of something vaguely more interesting. Admittedly that "vaguely more interesting" just means a pair of jeans, or in some cases a nice classy pair of proper trousers, but hey it is a step up (but still many, many steps down from the ladies of Prague and their favoured spring attire!).

So any, as my brain is wandering on to things non beer, here are some pictures of beer in the hope that normal service will be resumed soon.

Oh and what the heck, here is a provisional label for my dunkelweizen which is fermenting away happily.

Stout Blind Tasting

Last night I got round to brewing my Black Rose Dunkelweizen, to a very simple recipe:

• 3lbs Muntons Wheat Extract
• 0.8lb Caramel 60
• 0.8lb Chocolate Malt
• 0.7oz Hallertau @ 60 minutes
• 0.2oz Hallertau @ 15 minutes
• 0.1oz Hallertau @ 5 minutes
• Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast

The OG for this dark brew was a nice 1.054 and when I woke up this morning, the airlock is popping along with gusto and there is a delightful krausen on the beer.

During the "hanging around" bits of the brewing process, I decided to do a three way stout blind tasting test, using Guinness Extra Stout brewed in Canada, O'Hara's Stout brewed in Carlow, Ireland, and Dark Starr, brewed in Crozet by Starr Hill.

So that I didn't know which beer I was drinking, I had Mrs Velkyal do the pouring honours, and thus she first presented me with these

• Sight - very dark, slightest ruby at edges, big tan head
• Smell - light coffee, general roastiness
• Taste - dark chocolate, a slightly sour, lactic touch
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 3.5/5

• Sight - pitch black, rocky tan head
• Smell - big coffee and chocolate notes
• Taste - smooth chocolate cake, a beautiful classic stout
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2.5/5

• Sight - Very dark, ivory head
• Smell  - roasted grains, touch of dark chocolate
• Taste - light chocolate and coffee, not as pronounced as the others
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5

With this tasting, I decided that I didn't want to try to identify each beer, but rather give my order of preference and then find out what Mrs Velkyal had given me, so here goes:

1. Stout 2
2. Stout 1
3. Stout 3

Stout 2 turned out to be Dark Starr from Starr Hill, number 1 was the Guinness Extra Stout and third up was O'Hara's. So there we have it, Starr Hill's Dark Starr really does standard up to the behemoth of the Dry Irish Stout world as well as the craft brewing newcomer, and is deserving of the raft of medals it has won.

Passing the Test

I think I have mentioned before that I brewed a trial run of LimeLight for a friend's wedding, well, this weekend marked the third week it had been in the bottle, so it was time to see how it came out, first some pictures.

The Pour - cloudy orange, big rocky white head - bang on!

The nose - lots of coriander spice, grass and lemons, got to love Saaz, major salivation in the works.

The Taste - biscuits, lemons, spice, long finish, bloody hell this is good.

Drinkability - too damned easy, that's how.

The Finish - yes, and rather quickly.

If anything, this version of LimeLight is better than the one I made last year, so I will be happily giving my friend some of this for his wedding, let's hope he enjoys it as much!

Gold and Guinness

I like Bitter. I like Ordinary Bitter, I like Best Bitter, I like Extra Special/Strong Bitter, so of course I wanted to brew my own - ah the joys of being a homebrewer, being able (at least in theory) to make some of the beer styles you love and in essence grew up on. I have said it many times on here before, I was never much of a lager drinker before I went to Prague, for reasons I may have to delve into in order to ascertain whether I was in closet with regards eventually discovering craft beer.

Anyway, to my theme, brewing a best bitter. That was the plan at least, but the OG was slightly low and so it became an ordinary bitter, something low in alcohol and refreshing was the plan. Last weekend Mrs Velkyal and I went to visit her cousin and Sicilian husband in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I took a couple of bottles of my bitter with me for them to try, and they liked them, so I thought I should do a proper analysis of the beer I had called Ring of Gold - fermented with Ringwood Ale Yeast and hopped only with East Kent Goldings.

I am not sure the colour really comes through from that picture, but it was light copper, with almost straw like edges, the picture does though capture the head perfectly, white, thinnish and with plenty of stickability. As I had used EKG for my hopping, the nose was very lightly floral but Mrs Velkyal when asked for her opinion suggested, albeit through a slightly stuffy nose, a light citrusiness. Tastewise, again, being an ordinary bitter, it had touches of toffee and a certain grassiness that I put down to the hops, so not wildly sweet nor a hopbomination. Overall, a perfectly drinkable bitter that wouldn't disappoint if served on a warm summer's day as it was refreshingly clean, though a bit on the thin side.

One beer which did however catch my attention this week was Guinness Extra Stout, a six pack of which I picked up for a 3 way taste test to come soon, but I had a couple of bottles last night anyway. Extra Stout is the one without the nitrogen widget, and what a difference it makes, a light brown head, plenty of roasted goodness on the nose and the taste is just as a stout should be. Thank goodness this still exists, even though brewed in Canada.

This weekend will see lots of bottling and brewing work. Into bottles will go the Samoset Orange Barleywine, to condition for Thanksgiving, and the American Pale Ale which I brewed as part of the International Homebrew Project. Being brewed this weekend is another batch of Gael 80/- and then a dunkelweizen, for which I am yet to settle on a name. So a good weekend is in prospect, and a good weekend I wish you all! 

Slainte!!

Getting it Right

My minor rant at the poor quality of many craft brewery and brewpub web sites on Monday got me thinking, always dangerous, about those breweries and brewpubs that actually do have good web sites, and what are the features of a good web site? Obviously we all have our own preferences, and also our own idea of what a web site should do, but I think there are some features which are universal to a good web site, regardless of the business a person is in:

• visually attractive
• easy navigation
• engaging content

One brewer who gets all three right from my perspective is Everard's, back in the UK, take a quick look here at their home page:

I am a big fan of the colour green, it is after all the colour of my eyes, and this particular shade of green is very appealing. But notice that the design is not just plain green, the pattern in the background is very reminiscent of the classic pub wallpaper which no doubt every British reader has seen in dozens of traditional pubs. Perhaps I am over psycho-waffling here, but that creates an image of a company that values tradition, and the traditional role of the pub as community centre. Personally I find the layout of the home page very easy to follow, and the navigation bar just underneath the banner has clear labels and there can be no confusing what you are going to see when you click on "Our Ales" for example. In terms of content, Everard's pubs are clearly described and beautifully photographed, while the list of beers includes the Cyclops notes, which of course Everard's pioneered. 

For me, the Everard's web site works on every level, as does the new web site for Lovibonds, another of my favourite breweries, here is their home page:

Now, this is quite different from Everard's, but what it shares with the Everard's site is that it is visually attractive, I particularly like the slide show which forms the bulk of the home page, scrolling through the various beers the brewery makes. Again the navigation is very easy, and as a craft brewer with no pub estate, the "Where to Try" tab on the navigation bar is vital! I also like the fact that they have integrated e-commerce into the web site, so people can order their beer from the brewery.

So there you have it, rather than just ranting about poor web sites, a couple of examples of breweries doing as good a job with their cyber presence as with their brewing.