Chocolate and Spice

My girlfriends look at me with deep doubt when I order a dark beer but once I explain that there is nothing better than the deep rich caramel chocolaty goodness of a true stout their interest is peaked. And no, I'm not talking Guinness -why do people automatically assume that is the definition of a dark beer?

I'm talking about Imperial Stouts, barrel aged and wine refined infused with coffee, spices, cherry, vanilla beans. This is a sexy beer. Ready... "They're the crowd-pleasing Cabernets of the beer world—heavy, boozy quaffs with popular flavors like chocolate, caramel, and spice. Think German chocolate cake in a bottle, doused in alcohol." -The Atlantic

So I'm not the only one who feels this way... Rate Beer gave 25 or it's top 50 spots to Imperials. The best article I've found recently giving full stats is the one I quoted from The Atlantic above. I highly recommend you go convert yourself by reading it and then experimenting with some, what did the author call it... "German chocolate cake in a bottle"? With names like Bells Bourbon Barrel Double Cream/Expedition Stout and Foothills Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout (read of review of this beauty at The Beer Fathers, referring to this beer as "It’s so smooth I can’t stop drinking it. It’s like chocolate milk for adults") what is there not to love?

For a list of the top Imperial Stouts go to RateBeer here. You won't be disappointed.

Blarney and Biodynamics

Kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland is one of the popular traditions I won't be taking part in. Why? Because locals pee on the stone to punk tourists. Seriously. Yuck. But it's supposed to bring you luck the way biodynamic wines will bring you a sense of global accomplishment as if drinking the stuff will endear you to the green movement. I admit, I thought Biodynamic wines were indeed better than simply organic wines as it takes the entire process of growing and turns it into a lovely Maypole dancing event filled with ancient methods that are better for soil and stem.

That was until I read the latest blog to hit the wine blogosphere entitled aptly Biodynamics is a Hoax. Really? I read through all of the posts, but one of the comments really brought it home for me.

If you ever see somebody doing surgery on a roadkill deer, it’s probably a biodynamic farmer. “In terms of its forces a deer bladder is almost a replica of the cosmos...” So you pull over to the side of the road, remove the deer’s bladder, stuff it with yarrow flowers, hang it from the eaves all summer, bury it for the winter, then dig it up and put it in your compost pile in the spring so that the compost can “inhale the cosmic energy.”

To their credit, the biodynamic types do tend to spend more time paying attention to the food they’re growing than most other folks. And the quality tends to be better as a result. So it doesn’t bother me much that they use astrology to decide when to plant and harvest. If the Scientologists want to grow tomatoes organically and can get Tom Cruise and John Travolta to spend all their waking hours picking hornworms off the plants, I’ll be happy to eat the fruit that’s produced. But please don’t tell me that the tomatoes are better because they’re Thetan-free.

Hmmmm. Food for thought right? In looking into the methods (like using actual lead as a fertilizer for roses) I'm still confused. When my husband who has studied umpteen hours (Masters in Botany with certifications and CE up the ying yang) about fertilizers told me that the flowers organic farmers use to help keep pests away is more toxic than the chemical versions I get even more confused. Of course he could just be telling me this so I don't buy the more expensive organic veggies...

In any event, here's my conclusion for wine. Drink what you like. Drink copious amounts and perhaps someone will do a study on you to see the effects of the chemicals used prior to the long process of turning grapes into alcohol. My goal is to get picked for that study.