Not Exactly Neglected

I haven't forgotten about you. Oh, Ciderworks blog: I still love you. We can have crazy chats about beer, wine, and cocktails at clecraftbartenders.wordpress.com. We can rekindle our passion when the first apples ripen and cidermaking is afoot. See you then, mi amor.

How It Used to Be Done

Surely most basements in Little Italy look like this:

This was recently uncovered while rebuilding a front porch. Neat-o!!

Neighborhood Negroni

Neighborhood Negroni

Watching The Detectives, Truth In Beer Part 2

If you're sick-a-sick'n'tired
of being sick and tired
if you're sick of all the bullshit
and you're sick of all the lies
it's better late than never
to set-a-set it straight
you know the lie is dead
so give your self a break
get it through your head
get if off your chest
get it out your arm
because it's time to start fresh

"Fight Like A Brave" Red Hot Chili Peppers, September 29th, 1987.

Truth comes in a lot of different forms. There is truth in logic and mathematics. Follow the logic to an end and you may find truth. Two plus two faithfully equals four every time I add them together. Truth can also be found through conformity. If we all agree that something is the way we say it is, then it must be true. Right? It seems that we have to decide which reality we want to hold our truths.

I have recently had to spend quite a bit of energy to figure out what was real and what was generated purely from the dark crotches of my mind. I had to describe certain situations to people to verify that what I had experienced really happened. I wasn't able to differentiate between what I experienced through my senses and what blanks my mind randomly filled-in for me. It took me a long time to figure out why my life was falling apart and why I consistently made the wrong decisions. I had reacted crazily to easy, everyday situations. I couldn't deal with the consequences of everyday decisions - the simple stuff baffled me. Simply looking at certain people scared the shit out of me, and when I would relate that reaction to an impartial observer, they would look at me as if they could never understand how deeply irrational I was. I was out of accord with reality.

Thankfully, I have had tremendous help from friends, family, and learned professionals. I feel that I am finally able to trust my senses as the front line of reality that they are supposed to be. I feel like my senses can connect me again with the concrete world. I can KNOW that something is real. I can then verify that reality with another observer. We can have consensus. We can agree with each others' observations. Let's not get into things existing in themselves or this might confuse my evaluations. Let's assume that reality requires one other person's observations. If nothing else, we can live in and judge things in our own two-person reality.

So, we can establish a basis for reality and a benchmark from which to judge items verifiable by two people's experiences gained through their senses.

"A judgement is said to be true if it conforms to external reality." - Thomas Aquinas.

This is purposefully simplified so that we can move on to the beverage portion of the article. I certainly don't want to dismiss the philosophical work done on this subject from Socrates to Kant. It's just time to talk about beer!

I want to use Ithaca's Flower Power IPA as my first example. I love this beer. I'm going to favorably review this beer every time. I will gush about it. Brag about knowing about it. And proclaim its beer-y goodness from the rooftops. I will compare it to well-known and well-received beers of the same style.

Shaquille O'Neill is tall. We know this. I can verify this very easily. Flower Power is a hop-driven beer. It is designated as an IPA (India Pale Ale). It wouldn't take much to find someone to agree with me. At that point, the reality of this beer is known. But the question here is: what makes this beer "true beer?"

The answer to that question is self-evident. This is an American-style India Pale Ale that not only exemplifies the standards by which IPAs are judged, but exceeds them. It's is perfectly balanced. Drinks easily and lends itself to a second helping. It would certainly please any hop enthusiast, but is a stand-alone beer. There's enough going on in the malt to make any beer drinker happy. This is True Beer.

Next Week: Part 3: The Reinheitsgebot

What the F??? Get to Know These F-words.

In an attempt to buy myself some time before I release the next installment of the Truth in Beer series, I am highlighting a cocktail phenomenon that has seen some resurgence outside and now in Cleveland. I also want to bring to my readers' attention two people who labor in anonymity to make the Cleveland cocktail world better.

Firstly, there are the F-bombs I want to throw around: Fee Brothers and Falernum. The Fee family is an American dynasty that dates back four generations in the manufacture of cocktail mixers, bitters, and other beverage flavorings. According to a quick Wiki search, Stephen Colbert is a direct descendent of the original Fee brothers. They produce an extensive line of bitters products including Aromatic Old Fashioned, West Indies Orange, Peach, Lemon, Grapefruit, Mint, Cherry, Aztec Chocolate, and Rhubarb.


The Fee Brothers Bitters line is an opportunity for bartenders to truly get creative with their cocktails. Bitters is an essential ingredient in making classic cocktails, throw-back concoctions, and getting into all that pre-prohibition nonsense. It's a definite departure from the standard Angostura aromatic type of bitters. Angostura is in practically every bar in the country and most bars in Cleveland have a dusty bottle somewhere in their liquor stock. Some simple Angostura uses begin with a rocks glass filled with ice, about five or six shakes of bitters onto the ice, then pour soda water, ginger ale, Sprite on top. The is very refreshing and simple and quick. The earliest definition of "cocktail" was in the May 13, 1806, edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York, in which an answer was provided to the question, "What is a cocktail?". It replied: “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters . . ." This is also a very simple beverage and is quite nice if thoughtfully prepared. Try to put together a 1806 "cocktail" using Bourbon, ice, a sugar cube, and Angostura bitters. It's a pretty damned good drink. Try drinking a Manhattan without bitters. Or, take the bitters out of an Old-Fashioned - not so tasty. Bitters are an essential, fundmental flavoring ingredient in countless cocktails and deserves the resurgence of interest in it it's getting.

The next F-bomb is Falernum. The flavors of almond, ginger, and lime combine in a syrup to make Falernum the basis of many tropical cocktails as well as the driving force behind such Tiki bar favorites as the Zombie and Mai Tai.

Tiki culture and Tiki cocktails have a long and fascinating history which include great drinks and interesting people. The Velvet Tango Room has a Falernum drink on its special drink menu. Check it out. Fee Brothers makes the non-alcoholic version of Falernum available from kegworks.com.


First is David Willhite. He is the bar manager at Dragonfly Lounge on West 25th street in Cleveland. He is a founding member of the Northeast Ohio US Bartenders'
Guild as well as one of the best traditional classic cocktail craftsmen. He is a tremendously active force in the burgeoning Cleveland cocktail scene the great host of West 25th's Dragonfly Lounge.




Second is Michael Gulley. Out East at the Cedar-Fairmount Wine Bar is Michael's oasis of cocktail culture. This twenty-something cocktail devotee has gone the extra mile to bring classic cocktail culture to Cleveland. A six month stint in New York "Speak Easy" bars has informed the work he brings to the Cleveland Heights location. If you find yourself in that neighborhood, stop by and sample one of these homages to REAL cocktails.

The Simple Pleasures: Coca-Cola

This beverage's story and history are well known. I think I've seen the History Channel's version of it ten times. I like beverages. It's an obsession. I like Coca-Cola a little too much. There is simply nothing like it: out of a bottle or a can only, definitely with pizza or a burger. The pure cane sugar version is also the best. This can be found under a special label or at Kosher grocery stores.
There is also a very special delivery device. It's the coffee mug. Get an old, dirty coffee mug. Fill it with ice. Pour Coke over the ice. Let it chill the mug down for a minute. Enjoy. It even says it on the can!

I'm Over My Head, But It Sure Feels Nice. Truth In Beer, Part 1.

There are a number of resources that have agreed upon specific characteristics that descibe spicific styles of beer. For example, the Beer Judge Certification Program has listed 107 different styles including ciders and perries and the like. They are very specific about what it takes to create the perfect California Common Beer, for example. They also include all of the optional characteristics in addition to the required elements to create that style beer. They do this so that beers can be quantified, measured for the sake of competition. Other organizations do this so that they can evaluate beer for various reasons.

The BJCP and others agree upon various characteristics of various styles so that discussions of beer can be held using the same vernacular. So that all of the words have the same meaning. When a judge says, "This is a 'Classic American Lager,'" we can all refer to the guidelines and understand what it is he's talking about. No confusion, no argument about what that beer is supposed to be. These descriptions are the benchmark upon which beers claiming to be that specific style are judged.

The question here is: Is fidelity truth? Is Truth In Beer an exercise in copying? So, Brewer X makes a perfect Classic American Lager. It wins all competitions and all of the learned judges agree that it's the perfect representation of its style. Would I want to drink it? Probably not. Perfection and Truth are not necessarily mutually exclusive or combine to make the beer good or bad. These are subjective judgements that have no relationship to the beer's adherence to style. The perfect Classic American Lager is not necessarily True Beer. The perfect IPA isn't either - even though I prefer the style.

When I go to a beverage store and see a brand that I have not tried before, I hope that the style written on the label is close to the agreed-upon characteristic of that style. So, that I get home with a bottle that says American IPA and actually tastes like one.

In this context, Fidelity is not necessarily Truth, but serves to make the beer world a little less confusing.

Part 2: Accord with Reality