Valentine's Day

I received a special treat today, an additional day off from my company. The Blizzard of 2007 had closed work, and I got to stay home with the family. It was an extra bonus that it was Valentine's Day. One of the treats that I was going to make for my lovely wife was chocolate covered raspberries (cherries might of worked out better, but since she doesn't care for cherries, it kind of looses the point of being a gift). I'm not saying that I would do any baking, but I was willing to experiment mixing beers from two traditional breweries (Young's and Lindeman's) to come up with the right combination.

Young's (http://www.wellsandyoungs.co.uk/) is one of the original English breweries (the other was Samuel Smith's) that I sought out when I first got interested in trying different beers. Their Special London Ale is a 4 Star beer according to Michael Jackson, the beer connoisseur not the one gloved wonder. I chose their Double Chocolate Stout for my experiment. The beer is a nice sweet stout, and seemed to be a good choice for making my concoction. Stouts have been traditionally used as the basis for desserts, and I've even have made a Guinness float that people were surprised on how it actually tasted. I haven't had many folks tell me that it was good, only that it was not as bad as they expected. That doesn't seem like high praise, but I take what I can get.

The fruit beer I chose was Lindeman's Framboise (http://www.merchantduvin.com), which is a sweet lambic. Fruit Lambics are the perfect date drinks due to their sweetness. If someone likes a wine cooler, they typically will like a Lambic. Christine, my brother's fiancee, calls it her liquid Jolly Rancher. The fruit is used to counteract the natural sourness that come from using wild yeast in the brewing process. Together I was hoping that this would replace the obligatory box of chocolates for Valentine's Day.

My experiment started by letting my wife try each of the beers individually. She thought the Lambic was too sour and didn't care for the aftertaste of the Stout (she usually doesn't care for Stout beers). Then I made up a series of combinations for her to try (i.e., 3 parts Young's to 1 part Lindeman's, 3 parts Lindeman's to 1 part Young's, etc.). The combination that she ended up liking was 2 parts Young's to 1 part Lindeman's. I ended up finishing all of the combinations that she didn't care for, which was really part of my plan in the first place. The 2/1 mixture allowed the stout to keep its character, but offered a fruit flavor that was really quite tasty.

Well I'm warmed up enough to snow blow the driveway. What a combination, alcohol and sharp blades. Happy Valentine's Day everyone. - 4064

"Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world." - Kaiser Wilhelm