Category: Food

Take the beer less tasted

When someone asks me what kind of beer I like, I usually say something along the lines of, “I drink everything but I primarily gravitate to stouts and IPAs.”

That’s more or less accurate. I love stouts and IPAs and at the same time I’m happy with Pilsners and brown ales and sours and so on and so forth.

Still, it’s easy for me to get stuck on stouts and IPAs — now more than ever — as there has never been a greater variety and quantity of both styles available to us from craft brewers. Plus, they taste really, really good.

But one of my goals for the new year is to find more opportunities to step outside my comfort zone to explore not only a wider variety of styles, but beers that are especially unique.

There’s so much great beer easily accessible and I don’t want to close myself off to anything. I feel like we’re in this together.We might need to hold each other’s feet to the fire. Sure, we’re not going to like everything we try, and that’s OK, but you must be at least somewhat bored with trying yet another variation on the IPA featuring the newest, most exciting hop strain? Don’t worry, IPAs aren’t going anywhere.

Let’s keep an open mind and let’s dive in. Here are five unique New Hampshire brews I’m looking to seek out in 2022.

Razzmatazz Raspberry Wheat Ale by Throwback Brewery (North Hampton)

The description says “spicy and fruity,” and it features “aromas of raspberry sugar cookies,” and honestly, it scares me a little. But I like that it’s got a little zip with an ABV of 7.4 percent and that the brewer notes flavors of “bitter berry, currants and sweet caramel malt.” You start mulling this over, and how is this not an intriguing brew? (The brewery has a Raspberry IPA that fascinates me as well.)

Cranberry Wit by Great North Aleworks (Manchester)

The brewery says this slightly tart Belgian-style witbier is brewed with orange, coriander and cranberry. This sounds refreshing, exciting, not at all over-the-top and perfectly seasonally appropriate.

Spit Fire Joy Juice: Maple Smoked Peach Sour Collaboration by 603 Brewery (Londonderry) and Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. (Merrimack)

What a fascinating beer! This is just so interesting bringing together sweet maple smokiness and the tang of peaches. I feel like the smoke would add some balance and provide some depth to what sounds like a very sweet brew. This screams complex.

Bubblewrap by Loaded Question Brewing (Portsmouth)

This Belgian “singel” is brewed with “bitter orange peel,” Willamette hops and Belgian ale yeast. What I’m expecting is a light, refreshing Pilsner-like brew featuring some acidity and some fruitiness from the orange peel. I can’t wait to try this.

Monadbock by Granite Roots Brewing (Troy)

OK, this isn’t a brew that I would classify as especially unique or innovative. Based on the description, it sounds like this is about as traditional as it gets. Beyond looking for unique beers, I also want to revisit more traditional styles. The brewery says this amber bock “boasts rich malty caramel and fresh baked bread,” and honestly, how could that not be good? Sometimes, we get so excited about all the experimenting brewers are doing these days, that we, or at least I, forget what made us enjoy beer in the first place. I’m thinking this brew might be a good, delicious reminder.

What’s in My Fridge

On the Gogh by Breakaway Beerworks (Manchester) Yes, I’m trying to step away from IPAs, but before I do, I enjoyed this unfiltered, dry-hopped IPA that boasts big tropical fruit flavor and a little spiciness. This was quite nice and one I would recommend tracking down. Don’t let the spice scare you; it’s not overpowering and instead helps balance out the bold citrus flavors. Cheers!

Featured photo: Razzmatazz Raspberry Wheat Ale by Throwback Brewery in North Hampton. Courtesy photo.

For a variety of complicated, therapy-inducing reasons, we spent Christmas in 1974 with my mother’s twin sister and her family in southern California. I was 10 years old and my cousins were all teenagers, so everything that they did filled me with wonder and awe.

Like, when my cousin’s boyfriend showed me how to use my new magenta gas-powered airplane — not a remote-controlled one, but one of the ones that was controlled by nylon strings connected to the fuselage. He got the engine started and I watched in wide-eyed amazement as he got it airborne, circled it around us twice, then plowed it, nose first, into a parking lot. Clearly, the guy knew what he was doing, so I dutifully packed up all the pieces, brought them back home with me, and checked in on them dutifully every month or so for years.

Or when another cousin elbowed me firmly in the stomach and I found that I couldn’t breathe.

“It’s OK,” he said to me, “you’ve just got the wind knocked out of you.” His use of the passive voice terrified me, because it implied that this was something that just happened randomly – that you could be walking around, living your life, and suddenly discovering that you couldn’t breathe. My uncle confirmed that yes, I had indeed just had the wind knocked out of me, and that I’d be fine. After 25 minutes or so (OK, it was probably more like 15 seconds) I discovered that I could take tiny breaths, then slightly bigger ones, and could finally look a little less like a blobfish in a Shaun Cassidy haircut, gasping on a pier.

But for me, the best memory of the holidays that year was New Year’s Eve.

The adults all dressed up and went out to some unimaginably sophisticated grown-up party, leaving me in the care of the teenagers. My youngest cousin, who must have been around 16, watched old movies on TV with me all night; then, at midnight, we went outside and honked the car horn to ring in the new year. Afterward we came in and ate buttered noodles.

It was far and away the best New Year’s Eve of my life.

Grown-up New Year’s Eves have been less magical.

Take Champagne, for example. I realize that I have the taste buds of a rhinoceros, but cheap and moderately priced Champagne can best be summed up in a quote from Fozzie Bear in 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper: “You know, if you put enough sugar in this stuff, it tastes just like ginger ale!”

So, here’s the thing: I get it. New Year’s is largely an adult holiday, where adults gather with other adults and celebrate how adult they are, talking about adult things — dental plans and conspiracy theories, mostly — and drink the most adulty drink they can think of, Champagne. But unless you are a supermodel or a guy with a yacht, most of us never really develop a taste for the stuff.

Is there an alternative?

Yes. Yes, there is.

The Manhattan

Ingredients

• 1½ ounces rye or bourbon. This week I’m using Bulleit Rye. (I’ve recently discovered that I like rye. Who knew?)
• 1½ ounces sweet vermouth — the red kind
• 10 drops cardamom bitters
• 10 drops orange bitters
• 1 cocktail cherry, the fanciest you can find. I like Luxardo.

Add all ingredients to ice in a mixing glass. Stir gently. This is one of those martini-like situations, where you probably wouldn’t like the result if you shook it in a cocktail shaker. This will have a cleaner, more vibrant flavor if it isn’t aerated.

Pour into a rocks glass. Sip gently. A Manhattan is not a drink that lends itself to drinking quickly. You’ll want to — actually, who am I to say what you want? You will probably be happier with your Manhattan experience if you drink it a little at a time, trying to identify the different elements that you can taste.

Grown-up/shmown-up; the best part is finishing this drink and eating the cherry. Don’t let anyone try to tell you different.

So, are there drinks out there that are more adult? Probably. At this moment, there’s almost certainly some guy working his way through a bottle of scotch, while the bar owner says, “Hey Mr. A-Bailey, why you so a-sad? Go a-home to you wife, huh?” Or maybe that’s It’s a Wonderful Life; at this time of year it’s hard to tell the difference between melodrama and real life.

Anyway, there are probably other drinks as adult as a properly constructed Manhattan, but very few that are as enjoyable. It is sweet, but not too sweet — that’s what the bitters are there for — and boozy enough to let you know it means business. There is a mixture of flavors that will distract from any boring adult conversation you find yourself in.

Keep your chin up; we’ve got this.

Featured photo: The Manhattan. Photo by John Fladd