What Makes a Great Lager? 3 Speed vs. Captain’s Log
What makes a great lager? I wish I knew for sure. It’s a bit tricky. Lagers are renowned worldwide for their drinkability, their simplicity and — perhaps unfairly — their mediocrity. They are the beers your sports-loving uncle drinks. They’re the cheap pints, and the cans…
How to Perfectly Pair Wines & Desserts
Every wine connoisseur should know how to pair their favourite drink with desserts. If you are interested in expanding your wine drinking experience, learn from the Italians. They are well-known for their hedonistic lifestyle, so it should not come as surprising that they stay longer…
Basil Hayden’s Bourbon: Good for Bond, Not for Me
When you think of James Bond’s drink, you think of – well you know what it is. But it’s not simply agitated vodka drinks the suave spy goes in for – it’s bourbon too. In the 2011 Bond novel Carte Blanche, James keeps Basil Hayden’s…
Wine Tasting: Less Bullshit Than You’d Think
Ok, let me be quite frank. There is some element of bullshit to wine tasting. Wine tasters and critics who are able to eke out every faint soupcon of flavour may tend to exaggerate just a tad. And what about those wine critics who were…
Aging Beer: The Basics of Cellaring Your Brews
Originally introduced as a seasonal Christmas ale, Chimay Blue (‘Grande Reserve’) and its less potent older brother Chimay Rouge quickly find their way into the glass of those experimenting with the world outside of macro brewed ales and lagers. My first experience with Chimay Blue…
Lot 40 Whisky Has a Lot to Offer
Canadian whiskey has traditionally gotten a bad rap. Mostly thanks to brands like Canadian Club serving the “bottom shelf mixer whiskey” slot with extreme consistency (although their Chairman’s Select Rye proves they can deliver a decent dram.) But dawn is breaking for Canadian whiskey lovers,…
Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc Is a Lavish, Balanced Wine
I’ll never forget the first time I tried Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc. I was much younger, and at the time a complete red wine evangelist. I sneered at white wine and drinkers of it as an inferior class. As it turns out (unsurprisingly) it was me…
Alcohol-free April: A Month In Review
Well, I did it folks. One whole month without booze. It wasn’t pleasant, but I learned a whole lot about what abstaining is like (SPOILER: it sucks.) I have an enormous amount of respect for people recovering from alcohol addiction, and I’m going to try…
German Beer Purity Law: The History (and Future) of the Reinheitsgebot
With a half millennia of history, the Reinheitsgebot (commonly anglicized to German Beer Purity Law) is as deeply ingrained in beer culture as, well, grains. It turned 500 years old on April 23rd 2016, celebrating a law that for many decades made “German beer” synonymous…
German Beer Purity Law: 500 Years Old & Time to Die
If you’ve ever had the dubious pleasure of tilting back a can of Holsten Premium, you’ve probably noticed the proudly displayed banner at the can’s bottom that reads “GERMAN PURITY LAW OF 1516.” This purity law doesn’t refer to, uh, other infamous German purity laws,…