Stay Thirsty, My (Spying) Friend!

I admit, I clicked on this story recommending beers for James Bond to drink expecting the obvious joke: Since The Most Interesting Man in the World™¹ is so clearly inspired by the suave-yet-manly movie spy (or perhaps by the love child of 007 and Ernest Hemingway), I wondered if Dos Equis would make Jim Galligan’s list of alternatives to the (rather disappointing) Heineken that 007 will reportedly quaff in the upcoming Skyfall.

Happily, Galligan doesn’t go for the easy choice, and his list looks interesting. I’m only familiar with one of his five choices, but that one — the top-listed (I’m choosing to ignore Galligan’s “in no particular order” disclaimer) Innis & Gunn Scottish Ale — is one of my favorites. In fact, one of the several reasons I so like Wood ‘n’ Tap is that their generally excellent beer list includes Innis & Gunn (a couple different colors of it, in fact).

I admit I’m not familiar with the other four beers on Galligan’s list, and their descriptions, while intriguing, don’t seem to put them in the range of beer types I would normally seek out. Based on the presence of Innis & Gunn on the list, though, I plan to make it my mission (should I choose to accept it… wait, wrong pop-media spies!) to track them down and taste them. I’ll report back.

In the meantime, I should say that I agree with Galligan’s basic premise: He’s James Frickin’ Bond, and he needs to drink a less pedestrian beer than Heineken. I was too young during the original heyday of the Bond movies to really know what constituted the avant garde in food, drink, cars, fashion, etc., but my sense was that Connery’s Bond was, if not on the bleeding edge, at least avant garde in a middle-class, “Playboy Advisor” sense. Nobody whose favorite casino game is baccarat should, it seems to me, drink a beer that you can easily find at any supermarket.

¹ I’m in the habit of sprinkling the ™, ®, and © symbols through my various internet postings ironically, but in this case, the phrase may very well really be a trademark!

A Slow Start After a Nice Christmas

Notwithstanding my dire expectations, my computer upgrade went well, but even so I'm already getting behind on my intended blog reboot(s), as I've lamented elsewhere. To try to ramp up, I'll review the foodie portion of my Christmas.

First, the gifts: In addition to the cool molecular mixology kit I already mentioned, I got as gifts...

• Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide to the World's Greatest Drink by Randy Mosher. When I launched this blog, I intended to devote some of it to writing about beers... and I did so, but I quickly realized I didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to comment usefully. So I put this on my wish list to edumacate myself. Look for a review when I'm done reading.

• A beer (as a stocking stuffer!) called Criminally Bad Elf. I had intended to save it 'til I could apply my new expertise, but... nah; "It's dead, Jim!"


• The promise of a fine-dining outing, most likely at the Copper Beech Inn's Brasserie Pip, whose chef, Tyler Anderson, is a Chopped champion. (Count on a review when the time comes.)
  
  
• A vegetable slicerfrench fry cutter, which I actually intend to use to try to make fried yucca like we used to get at the late, lamented (in CT, at least) Pollo Tropical.

In addition, I cooked our Christmas dinner, making (at the request of my family) Korean pulled pork lettuce wraps with kimchi slaw and sesame-garlic mayo, according to the recipe my buddy Andy published. I sense a brand new holiday tradition in the making!

Lost Weekend

Well, yesterday was the first day since I started this blog that I didn't post anything at all. I spent the whole day volunteering at the local Democrats' booth at Rockville Fest, and essentially didn't eat anything at all 'til mid evening, when I threw together some makeshift jalapeno-cheddar hot dogs wrapped in store-bought crescent roll dough.

Not exactly a foodie day!

Today wasn't much of a foodie day, either, though I did have lunch at a favorite local hot dog/burger joint — City Joe's — which I'll probably review in the not-too-distant future.


I did upon coming home hot and sweaty yesterday, try that Great Divide 16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA I mentioned earlier. Meh.... It was bitterer than I usually like, and lacked the round, floral hoppy notes I enjoy in other IPAs. Not bad — I assure you I finished it! — but not something I'll be hunting for in the future.

The Beer Hunter

I love beer.

But I'm not one of those beer lovers who has zeroed in on a brand or a few beloved styles. Instead, I love to range through the (increasingly endless) varieties of beers and beer-like beverages. Often I'll go weeks or months without buying the same beer twice, not because I'm not finding anything I like, but because for me, variety is an end in itself.

When I eat ethnic food, I choose beers from the same country or culture as the food (thus, my mention of Taj Mahal in the IndiGo review), and if there's one I haven't had before, so much the better.

And when I go to the liquor store, I love nothing more than just browsing the specialty/craft/import beer section, looking for something that I haven't tried before, and that looks interesting. From time to time here, I'll tell you about my finds.


Tonight, it's the Espresso Oak Aged Yeti imperial stout from Great Divide Brewing Co. of Denver, Colorado. The suggested food pairings on the bottle menu include eggs Benedict and breakfast burritos, but I haven't yet had the Espresso Yeti for breakfast. Instead, I popped open a 1 pt 6 oz bottle of the espresso-infused stout a couple evenings ago and enjoyed it all on its own.

I lack the full vocabulary of a practiced beer taster, but Espresso Yeti delivered precisely the combination of bitterness and rich, creamy maltiness that I love in good stouts, and the espresso added a sharp, biting note. I couldn't explicitly tease out the vanilla notes the label attributes to the oak aging, but what I could taste was delightful. Since learning to poach an egg is one of the near-term goals of the Emerging Foodie project, perhaps I will try this with (homemade) eggs Benedict sometime soon. (FWIW, Great Divide has a blog that, while apparently not updated all that often, has some interesting-looking beer recipes.)

In the meantime, I've got a bottle of Great Divide's 16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA chilling in the fridge... yum!