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Whiskies Of The EightiesRetro Tasting
Tuesday January 20, 2009. Tasting 7:00 pm, Advance tickets are available for $40.00 (all charges and taxes included) CASK! Tasting Results
Brewers Charles McLean, Ken Wood (Black Oak), and Bruce Halsted (Durham, C'est What) all talked about the finer details of the "real ale" process. Notes On a Beer Mat author and CASK stalwart Nick Pashley did a fine job filling the spaces between sips with his abundent wit. Oh, by the way, our Coffee Porter finished first. Although, to be fair, we have to mention that it also finished second last. Go figure... The full table of scores can be found here. New MenuLaunches Friday January 9
Chicken Pita Pizza - "A Greek style pita brushed with olive oil and topped with grilled chicken, diced tomato, red onion, and a sprinkling of four cheeses." Mexican Stand-off - A combo appetizer plate for those who can't make up their mind. "Mixed appetizers for two. Antojitos, chicken quesadillas, and blue corn tortilla chips served with tangy tomato cilantro salsa and sour cream. Green Party - A vegan friendly salad. "Mixed greens and seasonal vegetables topped with lightly marinated chick peas, raisins, and onions." The Hogtown - A chef's style salad. "Mixed greens tossed with seasonal vegetables, tomatoes, bacon, boiled egg, cheddar, Swiss, and toasted hazelnuts." The Staggering Pig - "Smoked pulled pork shoulder in a chipotle and red wine reduction served 0n a lightly toasted baguette, au jus on the side. Comes with herbed frites." C'est Brule - "Home baked custard served with biscottini." As mentioned in our last e-news, we have upped the quality of our hot beverage offerings with fair trade, organic coffee, espresso and tea. You can peruse our entire menu at cestwhat.com/foodmenu.asp. If you would like to become an "early adopter", print out this article, write your name and e-mail address on the back, and give the page to your server. Order any of the items listed above, with this "coupon", we we give you another menu item of equal or lesser value for free. (This offer is limited to one discount per e-news reader, one coupon per table, cannot be combined with any other offer and expires Thursday January 29, 2009) Most of the details that go into pouring a good pint are hidden from the customer, so it generally takes a little bit of sleuthing to find out how serious the establishment is about their beer. Most of the “enhancements” you find from the bigger international companies are just gimmicks. When ever you see colour changing glasses, digital temperature readings on the taps, etc. you can be sure it was dreamed up by a marketing guy and not the brewer. Of course the easiest sign of a good beer bar is their menu. A thoughtful, balanced selection is a good indication. A bad sign is when all of the brands come from one company. This means that the sales relationship is not based on quality but based on perks or a corporate relationship. In this age of mergers and acquisitions it is not always apparent when things come from the same company even when the beer is from different countries. If there are no offerings from local craft brewers, the establishment is ignorant of anything that isn’t advertised on TV – not a recommendation for their expertise. Does the bar have a walk-in cooler to store their beer in? If you see full kegs in the hallway on the way to the washroom you know the beer is not being stored properly. Beer is a fresh food product and needs proper, refrigerated, storage. Line-cleaning is important, but just about impossible to get an honest answer about. Ask what gas mix is used to dispense the draught. If they don’t know, it says something. A nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix, sometimes referred to as “beer gas” is the best. Compressed air is the worst. Unless a glass rinser is used, the glass should be dry before it is used. Wet glasses will still have traces of chlorine from the washing process. The chlorine will affect the aroma and head retention of the beer. If they sell pitchers and/or have uniforms designed to show off the waitresses cleavage the pub is not about beer, it’s about gluttony. Of course, the more experience you have in tasting beer, the better you can let your tongue decide. There you are, a few things to look for in a good beer bar. Gas is used in two very different ways in draught beer. Just to be clear, I am referring to the gas before consumption not after... In conventional, modern, draught systems gas is used to pressurize the keg and force the beer out of the tap. Three gases are commonly used: compressed air, carbon dioxide, and a nitrogen-carbon dioxide blend. While inexpensive, air is the worst choice for beer pressurization as it is comprised of about 21% oxygen. Oxygen will oxidize the beer in short order, leading to a change in the flavour profile. The carbon dioxide that is in solution in the beer will gradually be lost to the head space in the keg as the beer is dispensed, further changing the flavor of the beer as it loses its fizz. One cost-effective method of preventing the beer from oxidizing or going flat is to use carbon dioxide to dispense. The problem with carbon dioxide is that the longer a keg is hooked up to pure carbon dioxide, the more CO2 goes into solution in the beer leading to a fizzier product and changing the essential character of the beer. A more expensive but more effective method is using a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Nitrogen is an inert gas that makes up 78% of our atmosphere and will not chemically interact with the beer. The theory here is that you mimic the composition of atmosphere by putting 75 to 80% nitrogen in the mix and replace the oxygen normally found in the air with carbon dioxide. In practice two blends are used: a 75/25 or 80/20 blend for "nitrogen dispensed" beer (like that famous Irish stout) and a blend with 50 to 60% nitrogen for more conventional brews. So, how does all of this relate to cask beer? Well, cask beers are dispensed either by gravity - basically opening up a spigot on the cask and letting the beer pour out or a hand-pump - a piston that is operated by hand to extract the beer from the cask. In either case every drop of beer that comes out needs to be replaced by air, otherwise you will create a vacuum in the cask and the beer won't flow. Of course letting air into the cask means that the beer comes into contact with oxygen, a bad thing. The alternative here is to use the same sort of gas that you would use in a conventional keg system to fill the head space in the cask, but only at atmospheric pressure so that it doesn't push the beer out of the cask. A protective "blanket" of gas on top of the beer. One of the charms of cask ale is its lower carbonation level, which is why you want to avoid using CO2 as your blanket, it would end up in the beer creating fizz where you don't want it. At C'est What we use three different gas mixtures 55/45 and 75/25 nitrogen/carbon dioxide for our keg beers and pure nitrogen for our cask blanket or breather. We believe these are the least intrusive combinations and let the beer shine like the day it was kegged or casked, days later.
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In honour of C'est What's coming of age, turning the grand old age of twenty-one in February, we are holding a retro-whisky tasting with selections all from the 1980's. Featured will be Auchentoshan 21, Canadian Club 20, Danfields 21, Glenfarclas 21, Glenfiddich 21, and Glen Rothes 1987.
No surprises were to be found at our CASK Challenge on Tueday November 18, 2008 where we compared the kegged and casked versions of the same brews. This is not to say that people didn't enjoy the fine beer it's just that we were definitely preaching to the choir: All cask versions scored higher than their kegged siblings except for the Black Oak Pale Ale which had identical marks for each version. One has to wonder what would have happened in a blind tasting, but that will be another evenings work.
After putting our annual menu renovation on hold over the hectic Christmas season, we are ready to usher in the new year with (we think) an improved menu. There are many tweaks to old stand-by dishes but here is a run-down on the new items:
