Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
Wine meets beer, beer meets wine. Also: mead, spirits, saké (nihonshu), and, occasionally, cocktails.
What could be more typical of Austrian cuisine than the Wiener Schnitzel? You see it on just about every menu in just about every type of establishment, from the most modest to the most elegant. And you’ll find it as Vienna’s culinary calling card …
Beer before hops, Or, What Is Gruit? Gruit conjures up images of medieval goblets and mysterious mixtures of herbs and spice. Gruit is also a reminder that the ale Europeans drank right up to the dawn of the early modern era was worlds …
~Or, what do Melville’s white whale, a cathedral in Prague, and Weihenstephan’s Vitus have in common?~ I’ve been drinking Weihenstephan’s lush and expansive Vitus for years now, especially when the weather turns cool. I can’t get enough of that subtly spiced honey and …
‘Tis the Season If you’ve spent even a few days in Germany or Austria around this time of year, you’ll have developed an opinion about the weather. Rain, sleet, mist. Steel-grey skies you could reach up and touch. What daylight there is fades …
~This is the first in an occasional series about my ale and whisky adventures in Scotland. Enjoy!~ Pubs and the Scottish Literary Tradition Edinburgh’s classic pubs are legion, and most have a lyrical quality about them — hardly surprising given that Edinburgh was …
Today I’m shifting gears somewhat and preempting regular programming to ask all you fine readers a huge favour. If you enjoy what I’ve been writing for A Tempest in a Tankard over the years, I’d be honoured if you’d head over to the link below …
The holiday season is in full swing, and if you’re like me, you’ve woken up and realized that this whole gift thing is going to go down at the last minute. Again. Plus ça change. No worries, though. You’ll find something quite easily, given the …
“A pocketful of money, and a cellar full of beer / We wish you merrie and a happy new year.” “Enter Wassel, like a neat sempeter and songster, her page bearing a brown bowl, dressed with ribbons and rosemary, before her” (Ben Jonson). …
Part II of “Warming Beers for Cold Nights” “Stepping from behind the bar, the tavern keeper walked over to the flickering hearth. […] Bending over, he picked up the jug he had placed on the brick floor close to the bed of coals. Inside the …
Not long ago I went on one of the more stellar culinary journeys of my life. Mortadella and bowls of tagliatelle di ragù in Bologna. Mounds of culatello and Parmigiano Reggiano in Parma. Vitello tonnato and carne cruda all’Albese in Alba. Every kind of snail …