what not to drink
By Colin Burch
For Weekly Surge
Following my recent Weekly Surge cover story on beer and food pairings, I need to add some important supplemental information.
It's all well and good to know what beers to drink with what foods.
The other thing you need to know is what beers not to drink at certain times, or at certain places.
Let's face it - with our local Piggly Wiggly stores offering beer sections that rival some grocery store wine selections, it's time to think before you drink.
So in the spirit of social savvy and good sense, here is your What Not To Drink guide.
What Not To Drink at the beach: You like Guinness, I like Guinness, but the last thing you want under the hot sun is heavy, black beer in your gut. Go for something lighter and crisper, like a Rolling Rock or a Labatt's Blue or maybe a summer ale with some lemon essence. Keep the alcohol-by-volume on the lower end. Skip the stouts and the high gravity stuff.
What Not To Drink at a nice restaurant: Many beers are perfectly qualified for watching sports or chatting with old friends. But when you're out at a nice restaurant, drinking that Bud or Coors or Miller will only recall Russell's famous verdicts on The Fat Albert Show: "No class, man, no class." At least pick up a Heineken or Becks - reasonably priced, well-known, yet sophisticated and high-quality.
What Not To Drink on a date: See What Not To Drink at a nice restaurant.
What Not To Drink at a cookout: You've been invited to a cookout, and your social life suddenly has another shot. Good for you. Now you've got to pick out a sixer or a twelver to add to your host's cooler. The worst thing you can do? Be pretentious, or in other words, go with just about any recommendation that typically shows up in this column. Keep it simple and go for broad appeal. If you want to come off a little more special than a typical big domestic, pick out some Samuel Adams, Rolling Rock, Sierra Nevada, or Pete's Wicked. But don't go too far toward microbrews and imports, and stay away from high-gravity brews, unless you're coming to my place.
What Not To Drink at a wedding reception that includes dancing: If you plan to get on the floor and bust a move, you have my admiration, and my plea for lessons. Just don't drink anything amber, brown, or black. You need pale beers, golden beers, and blonde beers. And, yes, against my typical inclinations, light beers. Plus, breath mints, because all those bubbles will be popping up from your stomach. Better yet, stick with wine.
broadening home brews
Ed Waldorf at Beach HomeBrew, in The Galleria Shopping Center at the corner of Lake Arrowhead Road and U.S. 17, recently gave me some samples of unlikely homebrews that have, again, broadened my horizons regarding flavored beer. The two samples I want to talk about this week are Dark Star Licorice Stout and Blackberry Stout.
Dark Star, Waldorf told me, is made with licorice. A beer made with licorice - you can imagine my incredulity. For Waldorf's part, he doesn't even like licorice. But when he made it, he found - as I did - that the licorice cannot even be tasted. It merely adds some sweetness to the stout. This homebrew came in at 8.1 percent alcohol by volume.
Of course, I haven't been a friend of fruit-flavored beers, but blackberries with stout? It didn't sound so crazy, somehow. The black in the berry seems to go with the black in the stout. It reminded me of how some types of fruit and berries pair well with chocolate. This one was 4 percent alcohol by volume.
These experiences keep reinforcing the fact that beer-making is like cooking - endless possibilities and endless combinations.
Contact Colin Burch - the Beerman - at beerpour@yahoo.com or visit his beer blog at http://maltyhops.blogspot.com