Ian Coutts's Blog, page 4

Malting: The Stig Torpor of homebrewing

Coutts contemplates his lack of a malting philosophy

I always used to enjoy it when I’d see a review of a band or singer in the paper, let’s say “Stig Torpor,” and then a few days later a letter to the editor would show up (this happens on the web, too) that would almost always start with “I can’t believe I was at the same Stig Torpor show as your reviewer the other night…” then go on to describe a virtual alternative reality from that put forth in the review.

I thought of this because we are t...

Wild, wild yeast

Brewing beer from scratch – or pre-scratch, in our case – presents two big challenges.

The first is finding yeast. Well, not really finding it, since it floats around in the atmosphere pretty well at will. No, it’s finding a strain that will make decent beer. You see, the premise of the book I’m working on, with working title The Perfect Keg, is that all my beer ingredients have to come from my “beeroir” – an old farm in the Ottawa Valley – and they must be grown, planted, harvested, threshed...

The elusive taste of beer history

The past is another flavour.

I thought of this recently when I saw a piece on line about my fellow Kingstonian and beer blogger Alan McLeod. For the past few years Alan, together with American enthusiast Craig Gravina, has been attempting to unearth the story of Albany ale. It’s a little-known fact, but Albany, New York, was at one time the centre (or center) of American brewing, producing a local ale that was drunk all over North America – and, I believe, beyond.

What did it taste like? Well,...

Ode to spring, indeed

This is my Ode. This is my Ode in front of my pond.

Damn, there is nothing quite like fresh hops. We cracked open the third or fourth bottle from our “Ode to Spring Ale” last weekend at the farm and the essence was right there in our noses and carried through to our taste buds (though our brain tried to remind us that most taste is really smell): a big floral, citrusy tang. It’s there in the first encounter and it goes right to the finish. That has to be the Cascade, a gift from a hop farmer j...

The Titanic: My (small) part in its story

In my days back at Madison Press Books – especially around the first release of James Cameron’s movie – we produced a huge number of Titanic-themed books. With the 100th anniversary of the sinking coming up on Sunday, one that has been pulled repeatedly off the shelves is Last Dinner on the Titanic, a cookbook that re-creates recipes and Edwardian table-setting tips from the ill-fated voyage. The rest of the Madison crew and I even got to take part in a fancy dress-up dinner inspired by the b...