Putting the glasses away . . .

Even though I have not been overly active on this blog, I figure I owe folks a quick note.

If you have been following “Short Pours” for any length of time, you know that I occasionally take a hiatus from writing, largely because I am taking a hiatus from drinking.

I love beer. What’s not a surprise. Unfortunately, beer doesn’t always love me, and I have had to take some time off for health issues.

That’s what’s going on now, and unlike previous plans, this one is envisioned as being permanent. That doesn’t mean I won’t have one beer with dinner, but it means I will not be able to taste enough to keep up with what I really want to do on this blog.

There may be the occasional news item or restaurant review, but in the larger view, the beer glasses are going to gather some dust.

Live reviews: I am drinking Green Flashing Brewing Co. Barleywine.

You want to know what a barleywine is *supposed* to taste like? Track down the I am drinking Green Flashing Brewing Co. Barleywine Style Ale. It’s deadline-solid perfect.

It’s 10.9 percent, but does not taste like it has that much alcohol. Malty and full or caramel, but a very balanced taste. This is an excellent standard to judge other barleywines again.

It further confirms my impression of Green Flash as one of the most underrated breweries around. It’s as perfect as the Imperial IPA, which I loved.

Restaurant review: Jake’s Roadhouse

Give my wife the credit for an amazing dinner Friday night.

Well, my wife and Jake’s Roadhouse in South Glens Falls, NY.

“So, honey,” I said when I picked her up from work. “I know I promised you home-made cheeseburgers tonight, and I have all the fixings, including the cole slaw, but I have a proposal for you,” I said, knowing that we had not been out to dinner in several weeks. “I can make you cheeseburgers, or we can get them at Jake Road House, and you can have Key Lime Pie for dessert . . . “

Can you say, “the magic words?”

As it turned out, we had one of the best restaurant meals we have had in several years, and in anticipation of the question, yes, the woman who first ate Key Lime Pie in the Florida Keys has found happiness at a restaurant in upstate New York.

Jake’s came under new management this year, the folks who run The Cantina in Saratoga Springs, and I’d had a good meal there once already. The menu is “Down Home Cooking,” and they’ve also got a small, but deep tap line. There are enough appetizers to just eat off that menu, but we had only the “pigs in a blanket” with venison sausage and passed on chili made with boar meat, the deep-fried goat cheese, the crab cakes, and the homemade potato chips.

We wound up opting for sandwiches to split. I got the burger with goat cheese, which was dead-solid perfect, and my wife went for the grilled chicken Panini. Her voice just kept rising as she read the ingredient list – “Grilled chicken breast with melted sharp cheddar, arugula, Granny Smith apple slices & Dijon mayo on a crisp sourdough Panini.” I am telling you, she was in a whole, new octave by the time she was done.

My burger, by the way, was excellent, cooked at a real medium, with some pink. The meat is 50 percent sirloin, 25 percent chuck and 25 percent brisket. The Kaiser roll was fresh and very good, as were the fries.

The beer of choice for this meal was a Blue Point Toasted Lager, a tough call over the local Bare Naked Ale from Adirondack Brewing in Lake George. My wife had a raspberry margarita that needed the addition of a little seltzer after a few sips.

The selling point of this trip was dessert, and again we’re talking about a woman who first ate Key Lime Pie with her grandparents on sailing trips among the Keys. This could have been a setup, but instead, the thick graham-cracker crust was just what she was looking for, and the color – which she points out should never be lime-green – was the pale green that she expected. The taste, she said, was as good as she’d ever had.

Perhaps apple pie is not as esoteric as chef-made Key Lime Pie, but the use of pastry dough and fresh apples meant my dessert was every bit as good as hers, and the coffee was fresh and strong.

The bill, for an appetizer, two sandwiches with fries, two desserts, two drinks and two coffees – plus a solid tip for an excellent waitress, was $60. Clearly, a couple of full meals would have been more, but that’s going to happen anyway, Choosing to eat sandwiches meant passing on entrees such as chicken fried steak, post roast, an amazing buttermilk-marinated fried chicken, meatloaf, a T-Bone steak or macaroni and cheese. Side dishes include garlic mashed potatoes, French friend, wild rice pilaf, roasted root vegetables, biscuits ‘n gravy, succotash or brown sugar baked beans. Yep, you could make a meal out of the side dishes.

By the way, the T-Bone is $21.95, and the full rack of baby back ribs is $17.95, but nothing else is more than $15.95. The food, prices and service are excellent.

The management is new, but folks who have gone to Jake’s in the past will be pleased to know that the ambience, including the stuffed-animal heads, has not changed.

Jakes’s Roadhouse is at 23 Main St., South Glens Falls, NY, The phone number is 518 636-5090. The website is www.jakesroad.com.

“We’re getting the blog back together”

With apologies to “Blues Brothers.”

It’s time for the hiatus to end.

It’s been three good months off, for various reasons, but I have had some pretty terrific beers over the last month or so, and there are number of other things happening that compel me to get things going again.

My annual trip to western Pennsylvania to go camping resulted in the usual beer trading and the chance to sample beer from places like Fat Tire and Three Floyds, which do not distribute here in upstate New York.  I expected to enjoy the Three Floyds Gumball Head, and I did. Another highlight was the Fat Tire Ranger IPA.

I also spent some quality time with the Founder “Old Dirty Bastard,” a great Scotch Ale, and Great Lakes “Edmund Fitzgerald Porter.” In exchange, my friends got IPAs from Davidson’s, Brown’s, Long Trail and Lake Placid. Good times all around.

Today’s plan is the Red Cross benefit beer festival at Saratoga Race Course.

Stay tuned.

Review: The Black Watch Steak House

Note to readers: While this is a beer blog, I wanted to share my experiences at a new local restaurant. There’s no beer in the review, because we went to a pre-opening event, and the alcohol was arriving the next day.

From the first forkful of braised pork belly until the last remnants of the chocolate cake and Crème Brulee were  licked clean, our visit to the soft opening of the Black Watch provided substantial evidence that Chef Jason Baker will almost certainly be successful in his swing for the fences.

Baker, his wife Suzanne, and a team of others have opened the restaurant at 21 Glen St. in Glens Falls, in the space formerly occupied by Fiddleheads. The bottom floor is done in dark woods; the newly-added upper level, which is larger, in light woods with a center staircase. The menu is built around local agriculture, and the beef is raised in nearby Washington County. Baker, who previously ran a small restaurant in Greenwich, focused on local ingredients, produces food with a certain zest and vibrancy. The freshness of the food is apparent throughout the meal.

This was only the second night the kitchen was open to customers.  If there was a downside, there was a sense of too much saltiness, especially in some of the steak appetizers, the lamb and the bok choy. But again, that was specific to dishes with ingredients that bring salt with them, such as soy sauce.

But other than that, the food met or exceeded expectations. This is critical at a high-level restaurant where entrees range from $18 to $29.

My dining partner and I started with heavy, crusty rolls served with herbed butter. Our  meal started in earnest with the braised pork belly, which comes with caramelized onion relish, orange emulsion and applewood smoked bacon. This is not something either of us would usually order, but it was a night for experimenting. For me, it was the best, most vibrant dish of the evening and had very little of the expected fatty taste. Even more surprising was the reaction of my companion, for whom this was a huge stretch. She immediately asked for more.

Fortunately, she had the Beef Trio of carpaccio, tartare and black and blue beef, so sharing was easy. She said the tartare, something she likes a great deal, was excellent, while the other two were good, but a touch salty. The black and blue was my favorite.

For my dining partner, the star of the night was one of the most creative pairings of the evening – lobster bisque with pumpkin seed, pumpkin oil and pumpkin butter. It worked perfectly and yes, there were pieces of lobster meat in the bisque. The other soup was corn bisque with white truffle oil and crème fraiche, which was also excellent. An example of the restaurant’s style came when the waitress – who was delightful – offered that the chef suggested stirring the top items into the bisque itself.

Of the four salad choices, two were without lettuce, and that’s where we went. The chilled root vegetable and chevre with fennel pollen, hazelnut and pickled onion, added to the local foods theme and was quite different and refreshing. The fresh mozzarella with balsamic vinegar and basil pulp was excellent, but this diner might have liked something other than the “charred baguette slices” – that’s what the menu says —  which accompanied it.

There are two ways to order dinner, either an entrée or a la carte with choices of steak, potato and vegetable. The rack of lamb entrée came with homemade gnocchi, another vibrant-tasting item, and the signature root vegetables, which were very good.

The other choice for the table, and there was a lot of passing food back and forth, was the ala carte filet mignon with crème fraiche (see a theme?). whipped red bliss potatoes and Asian style baby bok choy. Clearly, the filet needed to be one of the best items of the evening, and it was, being a perfect medium rare and tasting fresh. The potatoes were a victim of the other courses filling up my partner, and the bok choy, while a touch salty, was excellent.

Suzanne Baker, a pastry chef, will make the desserts. The offerings for the opening were crème Brulee and a chocolate cake. Both were excellent, as was the coffee and the tea selection.

We drank ginger ale, and had an appetizer, soup, salad, main meal, coffee and dessert. The total came to $124 before the tip.

There was no doubt in our minds that we would have to try the Black Watch, and now there’s no doubt, when we can, we’ll be back.

The Black Watch Steakhouse is now open for dinner. The menu is here. And the facebook page is here.

And the winners are . . .

One of the announcements that many of us wait for every year is the naming of the F.X. Matt Memorial and Matthew Vassar Brewer’s cup at the TAP New York Festival at Hunter Mountain.

The F.X. Matt Cup goes to the best craft brewery in the state and will be residing in Horseheads, at the Horseheads Brewing Co.

The Matthew Vassar Cup, which spends a lot of time in Lake Placid, comes down the Northway this year to a first-time winner, the Adirondack Pub and Brewery in Lake George, a short drive from the Short Pours home office. Three of the last nine Vassar Cups have gone to Lake Placid Brewing, and another went to Great Adirondack – unrelated to the Lake George facility – also up there.

In terms of individual beers in the statewide F.X. Matt competition, John Harvard’s Brew House of Lake Grove took the gold with its Maibock. The Silver went to Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA  from  Captain Lawrence Brewing of  Pleasantville, NY,  the bronze went to Massive IPA –from Great South Bay Brewery, in Bay Shore, NY.

Oddly enough, Friends of Short Pours went out for a meal at Brown’s Brewing Saturday, and a number of folks had their first (and second and third) tastes of the Whiskey Barrel Aged Porter. They now know it won the Gold Medal in the Vassar Cup competition for Hudson Falls brewers.  The Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA   took the silver here as well, and Adirondack Pub and Brewery checked in with a bronze for its Dirty Ale.

A six-pack of quick reviews

Sometimes, when you’re reviewing a beer, you put a lot of time into it, maybe try it a couple of times, but sometimes you find yourself with a one-shot review. Maybe you had it on draft or just got a single 12-ounce or 22-ounce bottle and for one reason or another, cannot go back to try it again.

Here’s a six-pack of quick reviews.

Mayflower Barleywine: Oak aging is a wonderful thing. There is solid alcohol in the nose of this barleywine from Mayflower.  It’s fairly thick and has, as you would hope, a nice smoky flavor. The taste comes full across the whole top of the mouth. It’s not overly easy to drink, but hey, it’s a barleywine, and in some ways, that’s a good thing. It’s one of the better barleywines I have had from a bottle this year.

Rogue Mocha Porter: This is one of those tough situations where I love the style but have had trouble with liking beers from the brewery. Rogue is an excellent brewery and makes a wide variety of beers, but for some reason, we just don’t hit it off. I had the chance to try this on draft at the Saratoga City Tavern, and I found it to be a good representation of the style, but not one of my favorites. It’s got a pleasant smell and you can sense the coffee. It’s not a huge coffee taste, but it’s pretty solid. It’s not as easy to drink as other coffee stouts, but I think people who like Rogue will like it.

Red Hook Tripel: American-style Belgians are getting better and better, especially from Brewery Ommegang and Allagash, but a number of other breweries have added American Belgians to their lines, including Red Hook. This one came on draft at the Saratoga City Tavern, and it comes across as a good, mid-range tripel. It would be a good example of the style to offer to a newcomer to these kinds of beers. It does not have the high-alcohol taste you sometimes get with the style. It’s fairly easy to drink, and it’s got a good finish.

Keegan’s Mother’s Milk Stout: This is one of the most talked-about beers from Keegan’s, which is one of the best breweries in eastern New York, and it does not disappoint. In fact, it’s an excellent stout to sit at a bar or on the couch with, because it’s not overly thick, and it’s got an amazingly full taste and long, long finish. There’s no bitterness here, and it’s very comfortable to drink. This stout, as many do, gets better as it warms. It’s a really enjoyable beer.

We’ll finish up with two from the C.H. Evans Brewing Company at the Albany Pump Station

Olde Musty Barleywine: This style is one of the favorites here at Short Pours, and this version is a mid-range effort, not overly alcoholic, but with a decent kick, especially as it warms at the end. The ABV is 8.2, but you get little alcohol taste right at the beginning. This is easy to drink (sometimes a bit dangerous for a barleywine), but it’s really pleasant, buoyed by a clear malt taste.

Halfmoon IPA: This is fairly unusual IPA that uses Amarillo and Horizon hops and Munich Malt for a solid example of the style. Considering it’s the first IPA Evans has produced in more than six years, it’s clear we were missing something good. It’s a gorgeous reddish color and has a mid-range hoppy nose. The taste rushes right to the middle of the palate, and it stops short of getting soapy. This is a really solid IPA.

Dogfish’s Festina Peche

Summer’s coming, and we’re already seeing a lot of summer beers.

When you see the Dogfish Head Festina Peche, I recommend giving it a shot.

It’s a beer that is likely  to draw comments from your friends. It even draws comments from the folks behind the counter in the beer store.

“I ought to tell you, that’s kind of sour,” the beer guy told me, pointing at the four-pack of the peach-flavored wheat beer on the counter. I smiled and said this was my second go-round with the beer and that I liked it. “I just wanted to make sure,” he said, establishing the place — EBI in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. — as somewhere I will happily recommend.

The conversation continued, as beer conversations have a way of doing. “I have some non-beer geek friends who really liked this,” I told him. He responded by saying that one of his colleagues at the store – who doesn’t particularly care for beer – reacted the same way. (We won’t get into working at a beer store and not liking beer).

Anyway, to the beer.

The concept of fruit beers is one that’s always ripe for discussion. There are those who are drawn to them and others who say fruit is for pies and cobblers. In this particular case, the fruit is not the main focus of the taste. While my friend at the beer store called it sour, I found the high-end taste of the wheat used in the beer to be a wakeup call. It’s the first thing that hits you, and it’s followed by a subtle peach flavor that fills your mouth but doesn’t overwhelm at all.

Another interesting aspect is that it tastes like a high-alcohol beer, but at 4.5 ABV, it’s actually slightly less alcoholic than Budweiser. It’s basically the same color as Bud, but much more cloudy (as a result of the wheat). It does have a decent bite to it, and it’s a beer to savor, not to bang down. Like many of the more expensive craft brews, it comes in a four-pack and usually runs $9 to $11, but it’s worth it.

Brown ales make me blue . . .

Everyone has their own particular tastes for beer, and as I have noted in the past, mine reside at either end of the spectrum. I will happily bite into am Oatmeal or Coffee Stout, a Porter or a Scotch Ale. I am equally at home with hoppy beers, especially big Imperial IPAs. Toss in some Belgians and strong ales, and I am a happy man.

That leaves a full range in the middle, including some of the most popular styles Like Browns, Reds, lagers, pilsners and basic ales. Now, being a beer geek, I don’t want to leave out all those other beers, so on occasion, usually as a second or third beer of the evening, I will often try a well-known or locally brewed brown ale. It works like this, usually: Assuming we’re talking about a good brewer, the beer is enjoyable, but it always leaves something lacking for me. There is, I suppose, no accounting for taste. I know people who will drink browns all day, and I can clearly see it as a session beer.

I don’t know how fair it is for me to regularly review brown ales, but I know a lot of people like them, so I will.

The one I had most recently – and which stirred me to pontificate on browns in general – was from, of all places, Brown’s Brewing, a terrific brew pub and restaurant on the waterfront in Troy, NY. It’s about an hour trip for me, and fortunately it’s on our way home from a lot of places. I have covered that visit  elsewhere, but after having one beer and knowing my wife wanted dessert, I ordered the Brown Ale.

It fit what I expected. Excellent brewery produces a well-made beer. It had a fairly strong nose for a Brown and the malt hit me high in the palate. It was a bit more tasty than I had expected. But here’s the trouble. I’d had a Belgian Golden Strong prior to that, so the Brown didn’t stand up to that taste. I am thinking that what I really need to do is sit down with a variety of Brown Ales and work my way through them. For some reason, I didn’t find this beer as drinkable as I expected. It’s a good beer, but it’s not one I could settle down for a session with. The taste was consistent throughout and was pretty solid. I would compare it favorably with the Brown Ale from Davidson Brothers Brewing in Glens Falls and the Brooklyn Brown, which is one of my favorites in the style.

I am always looking for suggestions. I do want to try the Kick-Ass Brown from the Pour House in Albany, NY

Recipe: Cheesy Beer Bread

One of the things I love about the Internet, beyond being able to write about beer, is the ease with which you can get recipes.

Of course, having been taught to cook by my sainted Portuguese grandmother, I look at a recipe as a starting point.

So I found a beer bread recipe, promptly made it and made it again this morning, tinkering with it. This is  a great way to use up any beer you might have left over from the night before. It’s also useful for the last beer from a six-pack that you really didn’t like.

Here’s what I did today:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

I used a greased glass pie plate, because the cats hid the loaf pans. If make this in loaf pans, I would use two, greased.

Three cups of King Arthur Wheat flour

4.5 teaspoons of baking powder

1.teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon Italian spices

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

4-6 oz. of sharp cheddar,  shredded

I wound up using about 16 ounces of beer, although the recipe calls for 12 ounces. I had eight ounces of sadly leftover Anchor Steam Christmas Ale 2009 (I got tired), and eight ounces of Troeg’s Java Head Coffee Stout.

Cook in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes.

It came out great!

I want to try it with a wheat beer. I also think it could benefit from garlic.

If you try it, let me know.

I wish I liked these three more

When I see a brewery I love producing a beer style I like, a smile lights up my face. More often than not, drinking the beer makes my smile a bit brighter.

But as I look over my notes, and re-taste a few things, I have run into three beers that just didn’t live up to what I expected. These are not bad beers, and as I tasted them, I realized they would be good, middle-of-the-road examples for folks who are new to strong ales, chocolate stouts and barleywines.

I would also figure that if I tossed these into the Beer Cabinet for a year or so, I might well have different ideas.

Oaked Arrogant Bastard: At the urging of a couple of friends, I am taking a second shot at this in the bottle, but what I think it comes down to is that I am going to need to get lucky and find it on draft.

It’s still not what I would expect. The oak aging really changes the texture and the taste of the Bastard, which is normally one of my favorite beers.

I find that out of the bottle, it has a bit of a “fuzzy” mouthfeel. It’s also not the taste I expect. I am still trying to work out just what it is. It’s only medium-full, not as overpowering as I would expect. It does not have a high-alcohol taste, and I don’t get a lot of oak. I do enjoy the way the malt taste lingers in the back of the mouth.

That said, I think this would be an interesting beer to share with someone fairly knew to strong beers.

I’d also have to say that I may have a bit of a prejudice because I expected a lot from Stone, while I do not mind paying a lot of money for a really good beer, I don’t see this one as worth $18.99 a six pack.

Brooklyn Back Chocolate Stout (Winter 09-10): The good thing about this one is that it’s come down in price, to $5.99 for a four-pack, now that the holiday season is over. This is a decent, mid-range stout, but the chocolate just isn’t there as I would expect.

It’s also a 10 percent beer that does not present much alcohol at all up front. Again, an interesting tasting beer for those who are not used to the stout.

Brooklyn Barleywine Monster Ale 2009: Honestly, same thing here. The beer has dropped in price, is a favorite style from a favorite brewery, doesn’t have the strong alcohol taste and is a little different than I would expect from a barleywine.

That doesn’t surprise me, though. There’s a real range in American barleywines. I don’t want to say inconsistency, because that sounds negative. It’s just that different brewers approach these styles in different ways. I have always felt the Monster, which can vary from year to year, is a bit of a “light” barleywine. This one’s at 10 percent, and again does not taste it.

A good beginner’s barleywine.

The odds are not in favor of a Short Pours presence at many of the upcoming brewfests in the Capital Region/North Country.

I missed Glens Falls, but heard good reviews and note that many of the participants headed to Davidson Brothers Brewing for dinner.

A note on TAP New York: Brown’s Brewing has sold two full buses from the brewery to the Sunday festival and back. You have to strike early on these things. I am probably going to miss that one, and the Brattleboro fest mentioned earlier.

Speaking of striking early, if you want to get a $5 break, paying only $30 for the June 19 Saratoga Brewfest – and want to drink from a pretty terrific tap line, head over to the Saratoga City Tavern between 4 and 8 p.m., Saturday, May 1. Tickets are discounted, and you really need to check out this place anyway. They’ve got more than 30 taps, including three Lake Placids, two or three Goose Islands, Flying Dog, Dogfish 60 Minute and more. That’s an event I am trying to get to. Of course, I always try to get to the Tavern.

For those into more long-range planning, the annual Battle of the Brews at Saratoga Racecourse is scheduled for noon to 4:30 p.m., Friday, August 28. It’s a fund-raiser for the American Red Cross. Tickets are $25.

Add another brewfest to the list

Brewfests just keep popping up, like daffodils after a Spring rain.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Brewers Festival is a little farther  from the New York Capital Region than some of the others, but it’s worth a trip if you’re free from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, May 22. Actually, you may want to make a weekend of it, because there are pub crawls involved as well.

On the way there or back, you might want to stop for a bite at the Man of Kent tavern on Route 7 in Hoosick Falls or for a beer and a bite at the Madison Brewing Company in Bennington. Both are along the way.

The festival will be held in the large field on Chickering Drive in Brattleboro Vermont, across from the Holiday Inn. There will be live music and food, and the event raises money for local charities.

The $25 admission includes eight samples and a souvenir glass.  The ticket includes the Friday and Saturday night Brattleboro Pub Crawl – including free transportation, with each bar featuring a special brew for the weekend.

The rather impressive list of breweries is here.

Thoughts on an Internet meme

If you use any of the Internet networking sites, you are familiar with “memes,” those insidious “Hey, look at this” lists or quizzes in which your friends tell you their results and encourage you to share yours.

One of the better ones I have seen comes out of a British food blog – a pretty good one, by the way – and is one person’s list of 100 foods and drinks everyone should try in their lifetime.

It is a well thought-out list and includes items such as carp, calamari, raw Scotch Bonnet pepper, curried goat, a Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut, poutine and haggis.

The meme involved listing all of the foods and bolding those who had tried and italicizing the ones you would never try, etc. I did that, but it also got me thinking.

Among the drinks were four that I think establish a good theme – Lapsang Souchong tea, Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more, and “beer above 8 percent ABV.”

Being a connoisseur of all of those things, I was tickled, especially by the beer.

My immediate thought was, well if my friends wanted to do that, what beer would I serve to them.

First of all, if they were your basic Bud drinkers, I would ease into it, maybe giving them a heavier beer, but one that was still in the 5 to 6 percent range. Maybe an easy Porter or Scotch Ale. I would explain to them that when we tried the stronger beer, they might actually taste the alcohol. I would work from a 22-ounce bomber and would assume I might have to drink a good deal of it myself. (Oh, well). Yes, this could be done at a good brew pub, too. Another thought: Arrogant Bastard is 7.2 ABV, and people get a kick out of the name. It’s a good lead-in.

After some introductory beers, I might move to barleywines.  I would go with Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, Great Divide Old Ruffian, Flying Dog Horn Dog or Stone Old Guardian.

Actually, and I have said this before, the Canis Major pack from Flying Dog that has a barleywine, an Imperial Porter, a double pale ale and a Tripel would be an excellent way to sample high-alcohol beers.

I would be interested in what you think.

Brown’s Belgian Strong is “Golden”

Brown’s Brewing’s Strong Belgian Golden Ale came as a pleasant surprise on a night we were really visiting for dinner. Mrs. Short Pours and I were on the way home from a trip to Springfield, Mass., and since we pass right by Troy, NY., on our way home, we took a swing into Brown’s for a pub dinner.

Mrs. Short Pours is not a “beer person,” and if she likes something, it’s clear that it’s something special. (It’s also clearly a high-end porter or stout, or maybe a Belgian). But she does love a good burger and fries, and she’s indulgent of a spouse who lists “beer” among his major hobbies.

Dinner was just what we needed after a 90-minute drive with an hour to go. The lamb burger special was top-notch, as was the Blue Collar, a steak sandwich with blue cheese. The pub fries were just what you’d expect, and a lemon curd profiterole not only made up dessert, but also a snack for the next day. My dessert was a Brown Ale, and that’s going to come up in another post.

The best part of an excellent meal (well, besides our really sharp waitress, Heidi), was the first thing I ordered, what I want to call their “Adjective” Ale. It was a Belgian Golden Strong Ale (trust me, I checked the order).

The first thought that hit me after the opening sniff and taste was “This has excellent balance.” It’s a nine-percent beer, but it dos not have that strong alcohol taste in the nose and on the first taste. It creeps up on you, but never overwhelms you. You get the alcohol eventually, but still not a huge amount. I like that in a high alcohol beer, especially one with as much flavor as this one. It’s also not cloying sweet.

It’s well-carbonated, but it drinks really easily for a high-alcohol beer. It leaves you with that warm glow.

Word is, this beer will be at TAP New York, and if you’re going, you should make that a priority. Otherwise, get down to Troy and try it.