Dispatches from a happy Hullian

Yesterday, I had Brasseurs de Montréal's «Chi Orientale». I'd had it once before at a barbecue; this time I had it a little chilled in a glass. It's a cloudy white beer with a thin, non-clingy head and dull brass colour. The initial sniff as well as the whole glass were dominated this time by ginger — I remember it being a bit more subtle last time I had it; this time it was definitely all ginger, with that slightly soapy real-ginger-beer taste. The white beer base was a nice choice, if I were to augment a beer with a hit of ginger this powerful, I'd have started with Blanche de Chambly. It has a definite prickle to it and is certainly a "beer for people who don't like beer," like Mort Subite but for the more adventurous.

Today, I had Red Stripe Lager. It is the local (export) lager from Jamaica, as far as I can tell. I poured it at fridge temperature into a skinny glass, and had it with cucumbers and a zucchini melt on a baguette (our garden's zucchini yield isn't quite equal to the tomato yield, but it's no slouch, either). It has a thin head, Compared to beers with similar roles, it is sweeter, maltier and much less hoppy. For something noticeably unhoppy, it has a nice aroma. Between the lack of hops and the low alcohol content, it doesn't quite square with my "warm geography beer" preconceptions, but it is unassumingly tasty, and quite drinkable, if perhaps not as thirst-quenching or come-again-ish as some of its less sweet cousins.

I have one more beer on the roster from my birthday bucket of beer: Tsingtao beer. It probably isn't the end of my beer posts, but I'll try and wrap up the thirty with some mapping out of how they relate to each other. It's been a very pleasant trip through the beers of the world!

Tonight I tried Fürstenberg Weizen Hefe Dunkel which, as promised, conforms to the Bavarian purity law. I had it, cool, in a skinny beer glass with bruschetta and steamed turnips and greens.

The beer poured with a copious, fairly firm, white head. The head was very aromatic and wheaty, leaving a nice aftertaste on the top of my mouth. The beer itself was a little bit sweet and equally wheaty. It was nice and full and heavy, with a lingering aftertaste. It sort of reminds me of a cross between a typical Brutopia pint and a Blanche de Chambly, without the sharp lees-y taste of the Blanche. It's definitely not a simple thirst-quencher — it could round out, or even be the centrepiece of, an otherwise light meal; I think it did this evening. It could also be an excellent early-fall "let's go out for a pint" beer, as it's satisfying, mellow and hard to drink too fast due to its weightiness.