beer for Eas·ter

Beer for Easter - hooray!

My NZ Blogging by post parcel arrived on the door step on Thursday, the day before Good Friday - just in time!

So, I eagerly ripped open the box to find a wonderful 6 pack of Emerson's beer. There was London Porter, Dunkelweiss and Taieri George. Have a look at the Mary sent me an email, which I will quote here, describing her intentions for each :

"the Taieri George beer be eaten with some nicely sauced (but not highly spiced) sticky date pud, or as a dessert in itself. Let the dunkelweiss set for awhile to settle.. I would decant it, not carefully but I find less lees better for the dunkel. It may also accompany a light choc dessert but it's a nice way to end an evening solo. And the last, save for a chilly, wet and windy Wellington night in front of the fire.."

Thanks Mary - I think this is such a good idea for a blogging by mail parcel!

Unfortunately there had been a bit of a problem with the parcel, with it being sent back to Mary due to some of the contents being broken in transit. Sadly this also meant that the pud and biscuits that were included had to be thrown away in case they were contaminated with broken glass - what a shame . . .

Tarlant Tradition N.V

I haven't participated in a Wine Blogging Wednesday for a while, but I just had to join in with Sam's theme of Champagne! Especially since I had the terrible task of having to choose a bottle of champagne for G's birthday!

I asked at our favourite wine store Rumbles, perfectly happy to stick with the usual Verve or Bolly, but to quote Scott :

"If you want boring old Veuve or pricey Bolly that's cool, however if you haven't tried our Tarlant wines then I recommend you give them a go."

Well, if he is going to put it like that, how could I refuse!

We decided to try the Tarlant tradition, which was described as Dry, yeasty, Bollinger.

We opened the bottle as planned for G's birthday accompanied by some roasted nuts and olives. Not sure if it was the best food combination but we rather enjoyed it!

To describe the wine : It was dry and yeasty, and if my memory was better I could probably agree it was like Bollinger. It had a lovely clean fizz and a good flavour, slightly fruity, but not overly so. It was golden and had a good quantity of bubbles.

We were very impressed with our departure from the norm, and I think this will be featuring in our fridge again.

We were also able to try the Prestige '97 vintage at a wine tasting a week or so later, but too be honest, and I probably shouldn't admit this, but we rather prefered the Tradition which is the cheaper sibling. Oh well, I suppose that means we can have it more often!

pi·not noir

I was so happy to see that the seventeeth round of Wine Blogging Wednesday as hosted by The Corkdork is to feature New Zealand Red Wine - I knew exactly why we had been saving a bottle of Daniel Schuster Omihi Hills Vineyard Selection 2002.

"Omihi Hills Vineyard selection represents the finest pinot noir grapes harvested from selected plots from within our Omihi Hills Vineyard in Waipara."

We actually won this bottle at a blending class hosted by the weird and wonderful Rumble and Daniel Schuster himself. The 2004 vinyard selection blend was about to be bottled and Daniel had brought some of the raw components to Wellington for the class. The idea of the class was for us lucky folk to try the individual parts that are blended together to produce a well rounded wine ; in part so we could try the "depth", "nose" and "body" without the support of the complete wine but also to illustrate the art of blending.

All the parts were from the Pinot grape, but had been grown in different plots of the vineyard and as such demonstrated very different characteristics. It was amazing to have Daniel describe the land in which the vine was grown just from tasting the wine. Just by adding a splash more of one wine to the blend we were able to produce a different tasting blend. I can't help but say that this was very much like cooking ; a dash more of this, and spot more of that and the whole dish can change.

This wine was an amazing change from the run of the mill Pinots I had tried up until then. It was delicious, fruity and fairly light as I remember in 2004 when we first tried this vintage. At the time we were told that it would age well, so now at the beginning of 2006, almost four years later, we can find out . .

It is wonderful! Much browner in colour, but still ruby red. It smells less floral than I remember. Cherries and almonds come to mind. To me it tastes substantial - big and lasting. It leaves a fantastic taste in the mouth, but it is still light.

Just perfect for 3:20 on a sunny Monday afternoon, going remarkably well with apple and walnut cake.

choc·o·late stout

Beer! Great!

Whereas wine conjures up images of refined connoisseurs debating noble rots, beer is seen as its poor country cousin, with images of beer swilling oafs coming to mind. However, beer brewing and tasting is undergoing revitalization and there is a move away from the sterile fizzy-pop mass produced beers to the more traditional, yeasty, hop laden, flavourful ales. Beer ranges in colour from pale gold, through reds, browns to darkest black – with over 100 flavours.

Here in New Zealand, quite a few fine breweries have sprung up in recent years. The noteworthy ones being: Emersons, Limburg and Tuatara.

So, I decided to make a chocolate stout – since 1) I like beer and 2) I like chocolate.

Irish stout evolved from another beer style, English porter, in the early 19th Century. It is almost black; due to brewing with malted barley that has undergone a lengthy roasting process. It also tends to have a higher alcohol level than paler beers. The chocolate grain used in the batch below does not actually have chocolate in it – although Young’s do add it to theirs – rather, a special roasting method imbibes the grain with a dark chocolate flavour.

This is the recipe I used:

A kit of Muntons Irish Style Stout
New Zealand Styrian Golding Hops (Alpha Acid 4.1%) 15g
Dark Spraymalt 500g
Hopped Light Spraymalt 500g
Chocolate grain 200g
Roasted barley grain 200g
…and robust yeast

Boil the grain and the spraymalt for 15 minutes and add the hops in the last two minutes. Take it off the boil and let cool for a few minutes, then pour in the kit contents and give a good stir. Pour the whole lot into a fermentation tank, fill up to 23 litres with cold water and pitch in the yeast once the temperature is about 25 degrees centigrade.

Wait , wait and wait some more…my batch took three weeks to ferment.…check the gravity and then bottle the beer adding a little sugar to each one. Then wait again…I have being trying a bottle now and again since I bottled it almost a year ago and it has much improved with age – becoming more bitter and complex, with shades of chocolate and coffee.

Enjoy the beer with bars of good dark chocolate such as vintage Valrhona, Green & Black’s or Dagoba.