We Drank Warm Beer…On Purpose!

The ever-increasing chill in the air and the heavy holiday meals call to mind the wonderfully warm beverages of winter. Warmed apple cider, egg nog and hot toddies have always been holiday favorites so when I read an article about mulling beers I knew we had to try them. The article mentioned several beers that would hold up well to being served warm; however, my local BevMo happened to only carry one. We tasted the recommended Duchese de Bourgognes (from Belgium). 

We filled our Crockpot about ¾ full with water, turned it on to high and waited for the water to reach a temperature of 130°F. This took one and a half hours. Luckily we had the tasty Autumn Maple by The Bruery on hand to tide us over. We placed the opened beers (but still in their bottles) to sit in the warm water bath when the temperature was about 100° and allowed the water bath to continue heating. With frequent water temperature checks from our candy thermometer we noticed that the beer inside the bottle was frothing a bit and pillowy, cotton-candy-like tendrils were poking out of the tops of the bottles. That just made it that much harder to wait to taste it! Finally the water bath reached the recommended serving temperature and we poured our beers into room-temperature pint glasses. 

The aroma was intoxicating and there was a unique head consisting of larger-than-usual air bubbles (compared to a cold beer). Holding the pint glass that was filled with warm beer was a new experience but the real treat was the feel of the frothy bubbles on the tongue. I could tell it was an excellent cold beer but having it warm really allows you to taste more elements of the beer. The effervescent bubbles, which lasted sip-after-sip, reminded us of drinking a really bubbly soda pop. But the bubbles which are usually associated with a cold drink, combined with the aromatic and tasty beer flavor was definitely a unique treat. The tasting was assuredly a success and a delight all around. 

 The article had mentioned that you could mix the warmed beer with certain spices (which is where the mulled term comes from) but this particular beer is already delicious without needing anything else. We will definitely be serving this warmed brew at future holiday parties.

Cheers!

-The Beer Dietitian

To hear my latest beer musings and what I am drinking, follow me on Twitter!

Pizza as a vegetable?!

It is a rare and amazing thing when a nutrition topic ends up being satirized on Saturday Night Live (my all-time favorite show). I think the pundits, Kermit and Seth Meyers, do a great job of tackling this controversial topic. Check them out here.

Congress recently passed a bill called the Agriculture Appropriations bill (a 401-page tome) that allows the tomato paste in a pizza served in the school lunch program to count as a serving of vegetables. The Obama administration, working together with the USDA, had plans to decrease the amount of starchy vegetables and tomato paste in school lunches but now with this new Congress-approved bill the school lunch program will not have to make these changes to the menu. The increasing cost of vegetables was cited as one of the reasons that the bill was adopted. 

Unfortunately all the hard work that several groups have done to change the status-quo of the school lunch program have been for naught which means that the choosing, preparing and serving the healthiest foods will need to be done at home. Most families do try to make healthy choices for themselves and that should be commended in this economy and fast food culture. It remains a wasted teaching opportunity for children if school lunches are not examples of whole grain, low sodium, fruit-and-vegetable goodness that so many dietitians, teachers, parents and other health advocates are encouraging. 

No matter what bill is passed, what guidelines are adopted or modified, stay strong and try to make the healthiest decisions for you and your family one meal at a time. Although we may not have Congress on our side, at least you have Kermit, Seth and the Beer Dietitian fighting the fight!

Buon appetito!

-The Beer Dietitian

To hear my latest beer musings and what I am drinking, follow me on Twitter!

All-grain vs. New House

When I told my Husband I was ready to take the next step with him, I was referring to making the transition to all-grain brewing. Little did I know that we would be possibly undertaking a new home purchase. With the all-grain on hold for the time being, I have been focusing my time on finding the right home for us with attention paid to home brew ease when evaluating potential homes. 

House #3 would need a change from an electric stove in the kitchen to a gas stove. (Try cooking a stir-fry on an electric range- impossible! The Chinese in me cringes at the thought.) As this would be the first change we would make (literally, in week 1 of moving in), perhaps we can pick a nice range and stove top that would offer high BTU’s and be able to handle the quick boils of a 10 gallon brew pot? The shiny silver stoves are all the rage right now and they do look nice but I value functionality over all else.  If our stove selection simplifies my brewing process or even allows me to do all-grain in the comfort of my home (instead of outside in the elements), I think that is money well spent. 

House #3 happened to have a fence-mounted bottle opener adjacent to the patio in the backyard. Perhaps that is a sign? Maybe the previous owners just liked soda pop or maybe one was banished out into the backyard to drink? The bottle opener was strategically located where the cooler full of home brew would be placed for backyard soirees. And the storage shed could be replaced with a nice outdoor bar/cabana. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but House #1 and #2 definitely were not home brewer friendly. 

I am first and foremost a wife/mother/home brewer/dancer/dietitian so I need a home that will equally nurture, encourage and allow all these things to happen seamlessly. Now THAT is a tall order! 

幹杯  

-The Beer Dietitian

To hear my latest beer musings, house hunting stories and what I am drinking, follow me on Twitter!

Pumpkin Beers, 2011

Fall is my favorite season. It used to mean soccer season for this aged former player, Halloween with the required carving of the pumpkins and also the beauty of the changing fall leaves. Now, as an adult, there are some additional bonuses to the Fall season: eating my favorite candy from the loot my kids haul in from trick-or-treating and sampling the pumpkin-flavored brews. 

Over the years, there have been more and more pumpkin brews available. I decided to try them all (or at least all that were available in my geographic area). As a dietitian, I, of course, had to make the tasting process one that would stand up to scientific scrutiny. By instilling rigorous procedures, I made a simple tasting party into one of redundant procedures and unneeded steps. Luckily the fellow tasters infused some spontaneity and good-natured ridicule (well-deserved) at my attempt to host a double-blinded pumpkin brew tasting evaluation. 

For the record, I scoured 9 stores in 3 towns for the 6 pumpkin brews available. I met a new friend (Lori, who sold me one of the pumpkin brews and heard my tale of woe for all the stores I had visited for that particular type) and hit only one skunk with my car (it was already dead). Overall, the pumpkin brew procuring process was a lot of fun (and the skunk-stink did not persist after about a half a mile)!

I will now describe my procedures (as that is what would next follow in a scientific study) to describe what lengths I will go to for a good beer in the name of science (and also to give you a peek into my beer madness).  

Procedures:

I covered each type of beer in tin foil (including the neck label), blacked out any distinguishing marks on their caps with a Sharpie, assigned each type of beer a number and then chilled them in my beer refrigerator (yes, I have a fridge for the sole purpose of keeping my beer chilled). I asked a good friend that does not drink alcohol to be the Master Pourer and gave her the list of my numbered beers. She then assigned a letter to my numbers and poured each type for us.  She prepared the beer to be tasted in another room and brought out one type at a time. Us tasters had a beer placemat that had 6 circles with the letters A through F. As the Master Pourer brought each type out, the beer would be placed on the corresponding spot on the placemat. We also had a simplified scoring sheet that had us rate the presentation, taste, body, drinkability and the empty glass factor with a spot for the total score. Crackers (and bananas for the gluten-free dude) and water were available to cleanse our palates between tastings. 

Now here is where things get a little crazy. 

I am not an informed taster. I am more of a “I like it or I don’t like it” kind of a gal. AND after drinking less than 2 ounces (total) of the beers we were sampling I was already starting to feel the tell-tale signs of getting heated. Try infusing scientific scrutiny and scientific study rigorousness into that kind of situation! I quickly abandoned my fussy score sheet and merely ranked the 6 in order of “My Likiness”. 

One of the other tasters, we will call him The Judge, took the task to heart and composed the most eloquent, informed, jury-proven descriptions and evaluations of the beer that it sounded like he missed his calling as a beer judge! As the table declined into a pumpkin-haze of tipsiness, this taster continued to conjure up quotes that could easily be used in a Quentin Tarantino film or a clever beer commercial.  

Another taster, BrewBro, gave up almost as quickly as I did and just focused on the ones he did not like. 

My fellow lady taster, The Beauty, quickly abandoned the scorecard for a star-based system. 

Our last taster, Husband, diligently filled out his scorecard but seemed more interested in arguing each beer’s faults and strengths with the other tasters. Always the competitive one, he wanted the opportunity to guess which beer was which. 

Overall, we all had a few beers in common as our top 3. It would be tedious to publish each and every comment of every beer we tasted and what do we know anyway? We are not trained Beer Judges but we do like to judge beer. Plus we were comparing ales and lagers and one big boy boasted a 9%ABV (Hello!) so we were really comparing apples to oranges. 

But we all liked (in no particular order):

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale

Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale

Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Bottom line: most of the pumpkin ales are good so try one! I did enjoy trying all available types at once although I would recommend 6 types as a maximum at one event if you will be hosting your own tasting party. It may be fun to see what type of tasters your friends are (do they abandon the scoring system, compose ballads to praise the tones of apricot or turn every instance into one of competition?).

For our next tasting, I will tone down the Dietitian nerdiness and instead focus on making the tasting fun (which thanks to the group happened despite my attempt at nerding it up). Or maybe we will just give The Judge a bunch of beers to taste and see what poetry he composes as a result.

Sante!

-The Beer Dietitian

(Disclaimers: None. All beers were purchased and none were provided for free by the manufacturer. The Beer Dietitian and BeerBro Tasters did not receive any compensation, financial or otherwise, to conduct this taste-test. )

MyPlate- Where Does Beer Fit In?

This past June, the USDA abandoned the Food Guide Pyramid as their premier teaching tool to help consumers plan and portion out their daily diet. They replaced it with the simple and logical MyPlate, which is a place-setting graphic that shows a plate divided into unequal parts consisting of vegetables, grains, fruits and protein-rich foods. The beverage-type image off to the side is the dairy group (but remains optional in your daily diet). 

The notable change between the MyPlate and the Pyramid is that the MyPlate can be more easily used on a meal-by-meal basis instead of the Pyramid assisting you to plan your diet over the course of the day.  Just by looking at the Plate, you can see the groups that you should be including in your diet and can easily see which foods portion size should be large or small compared to each other. As individual calorie needs vary, the size of the plate would be a way to limit or increase your overall intake and therefore calories. (Your Beer Dietitian says to use a small plate whenever dining!) Also, if you were working on losing weight, the vegetable portion size would likely be larger than the percentage shown. 

You probably have noticed that there isn’t a pint glass of frothy, cold beer next to the plate in the MyPlate place setting. This is no accident. The USDA continues to recommend that you should only drink alcohol in moderation, if at all. This generally means one drink per day for women and 2 drinks for men and portion size does matter! One drink is equivalent to: Twelve ounces of regular beer or 5 ounces of wine or 1-½ ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits. In addition to the potentially harmful effects of alcohol, it can easily and quickly add to your calorie intake. So omitting and/or limiting the amount of alcohol you drink can help with preventing future weight gain or help you lose weight. 

Despite having a new tool to help us plan our daily diets, the message remains clear: moderation is key. Limiting foods and beverages that provide a lot of calories but not a lot of nutrients is important and beer and other alcohol drinks fall into this category. By making fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein-rich foods the focus of every meal, you will enjoy a healthier, happier life. As a result, you will have many more years to enjoy a beer or two (drinking responsibly, of course)!

In the meantime, your Beer Dietitian will be working on a high-fiber, nutrient-rich, calorie-free beer that makes you more handsome/beautiful and keeps you fit without doing any exercise. Until then, please fill your plate with lots of fruits and veggies and break a sweat now and then! 

To your health!

-The Beer Dietitian

To hear my latest beer musings and what I am drinking, follow me on Twitter!