Chili is quite interesting. Like pizza, ramen, or hot dogs, it is a traditional food in the sense that it has been eaten for generations and can be passed down like folklore, but it is also non-traditional in that it needn’t imitate some pseudohistorical, platonic ideal. And yet everybody seems to have an idea of how chili should be made, in a way that goes beyond personal preference. Kind of like barbecue, people often maintain that there is a correct way to make chili, and all variations are either wrong, alien, or not chili at all. I think the most contentious single ingredient in chili are beans. The mantra of chili purists is “If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain’t got no beans.” But I know beans about chili, and I can hardly imagine chili without them.

I can also hardly imagine chili without beer, which adds a wonderfully deep, rib-sticking barley sweetness and light hop spice to chili as it cooks off. I first made chili with beer a few years ago using a brilliant recipe from Allagash Brewing in Maine. It calls for Allagash Tripel, a strong Belgian pale ale, but actually the recipe works with almost any kind of beer, so long as it isn’t excessively bitter – a smoked beer, I imagine, would probably be delicious.

When I remade the recipe the other night, I had nothing but expensive/rare/special beer in the house, which frankly would have been a waste to use in chili. So I went to the store and bought some Carlsberg. Carlsberg is a fine beer, not great or even particularly good, but it’s perfect for cooking because its hops are fairly restrained while its malts are savory, grainy, and sweet. Plus there aren’t really any nice nuances that would go to waste in something as dense and robust as chili. To use something like, say, Den Udødelige Hest would probably taste quite nice, but all of its subtleties of dates and port and mocha would be muffled under the sandbags of spices that go into any good chili. (My spice blend, by the way, is top secret. So don’t expect a recipe!)

I used about two-thirds of a Carlsberg in the food, which reduced nicely into a thick, malty mortar to bind together all the beans, meat, and spices. I had the rest of the Carlsberg with my meal – and it wasn’t quite right. I was reminded of why I don’t particularly like mass-produced pilsners with Indian curries – while they do act as nice palate-cleansers to help clear all that ghee off the palate, somehow they seem to abrupt, too cutting, and yet so inconsequential. It was the same pitting Carlsberg against Carlsberg chili – it helped to wash down what was a very rich stew, but it didn’t do anything in terms of flavor. I may as well have been drinking club soda.

Next time, I will try it with something just as crisp and effervescent, but with a stronger malt flavor – possibly a dark German lager or an American pale ale.

Though Jørn Utzon isn’t exactly a household name outside of Denmark, you are almost certainly familiar with his work. He is the architect behind one of the twentieth century’s most iconic buildings, the Sydney Opera House.

The late Utzon was born in Copenhagen, but he spent most of his childhood in Ålborg, which is now home to the Utzon Center, a museum of modern architecture and art designed by the man himself, in cooperation with Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Ålborg is also home to the ambitious Søgaards Brewery, whose range encompasses a variety of international styles and includes some unusual experiments. The Søgaards brewmasters have taken inspiration from the places that inspired Utzon’s architecture to brew two beers for the Utzon Center: Blond and Dark. The label on Utzon Blond explains:

This beer follows Utzon’s footsteps from Australia, where we have gathered the herb lemon myrtle; across Asia for the refreshing character of kaffir lime leaves and ginger; to Spain, where we have selected an orange flower honey to round off the beer and add a light floral flavor. The noble conclusion comes from the Middle East’s delicate and luxurious spice saffron.

Pretty neat. These ingredients may sound weird, but remember that before hops came into favor around the turn of the fifteenth century, bouquets of herbs and flowers called gruits were used to add flavor and bitterness to beer. Dandelion, heather, ginger, burdock, nutmeg, juniper and spruce were common. So while this beer is cosmopolitan and contemporary in its selection of international ingredients, this method of flavoring also recalls ancient brewing traditions. Especially interesting is the inclusion of honey, since the vikings were fond of a sort of mead-beer hybrid that was also flavored with odd spices and herbs.

Utzon Blond is an amber-gold ale with a pillowy white head, and it actually does hit all the notes described on the label: Australian lemon myrtle and kaffir lime leaf provide a pleasantly soapy, citric top note, while the honey gives the beer a sweet foundation. Floral, savory saffron floats by in the background. All around it is very fruity, slightly tangy and rather robust – probably not as arresting as Utzon’s designs, but just as intriguing and unique!

I made a sort of shepherd’s pie tonight. Except the meat didn’t thaw in time, so I made it out of vegetables and some chopped-up Danish sausage. I used red wine and stout for the gravy and I put mature Cheddar in the mash. It was warming, savory, and rich. It was nice.

And it was especially nice with Svaneke Mørk Guld. Mørk Guld means “dark gold,” and that is a fair description of its color, though “Rusten Kobber” may be a slightly more accurate name. As a lager, yeast aromatics are low, so the nose is mostly caramel, rum, and apple turnover, which also provide the keystones to the beer’s flavor. Light and airy carbonation, an odd twang of medicinal alcohol, and a snap of grassy hops balance out the malts to keep things drinkable.

Most Danish craft beers, just like most craft beers from any country, are ales. So it is very vexing to me when I hear somebody say, “I don’t like ales.”

Unfortunately, the actual definitions of “ale” and “lager” are not widely understood in the UK outside of beer geek circles. Come to think of it, they are probably not widely understood in any country, but the problem in the UK is that people think they know what they mean because of a functional familiarity with certain kinds of ales and lagers that have come to dominate pubs and bars throughout the country.

Ale and lager are simply the two main categories of beer based the two main types of yeast used in brewing. (Wild yeasts, like those used to ferment sourdough bread, are also used to brew obscure styles in Belgium and America, but nevermind those for the moment.) To put it simply, ale yeasts are top-fermenting, which means that the yeast rises to the top during fermentation, whereas lager yeasts are bottom-fermenting. Ale yeasts also ferment more quickly and at a warmer temperature than lager yeast; typically ale takes three to four weeks to brew to completion, while lagers can take two months or more.

Broadly speaking, these two types of yeast produce different characteristics in finished beer. Because it ferments longer and more slowly, lager yeast tends to produce drier and lighter-bodied beer because it has time to eat up more sugar. It also leaves a lighter yeast footprint in the beer, allowing malt and hop flavors to stand out. Ale yeast tends to leave beer somewhat sweeter and fuller-bodied, plus it leaves more of its own character behind in the form of esters. Esters are organic compounds that create fruity, spicy, or earthy aromas, including the classic banana-and-clove notes of Bavarian wheat beers.

But beyond these very general characteristics, there is no real way to differentiate between ales and lagers based on flavor alone. This is because brewers can use any ingredients they want in their beer, regardless of what kind of yeast they’re using. Consider the Schwarzbier. Schwarzbiers are a variety of black lager from Germany that use dark-roasted malts to produce flavors of toast, coffee, chocolate, and sometimes smoke. However, if one were to start off making a Schwarzbier, but then pitched in ale yeast instead of lager yeast, what you’d get is something like a porter or stout. And in practice, stouts and Schwarzbiers are actually quite similar – the main difference is that Schwarzbiers tend to be somewhat lighter-bodied.

My point is that both ales and lagers encompass an incredibly broad range of styles and flavors, and ales and lagers really have a lot in common. But in the UK, “ale” has come to denote what is actually “real” ale, or cask-conditioned ale, which is served only slightly chilled and has natural, soft carbonation produced by living yeast in the cask – causing many drinkers to complain that British beer is “warm and flat.” On top of this, the vast majority of cask-conditioned ales found at British pubs are bitters or pale ales; both are fairly hop-forward styles and tend to be unpopular among drinkers unaccustomed to noticeable bitterness in beer. Of course, ales can be quite mild in bitterness, and they can also be cold, sparkly and refreshing – it just depends on the ale in question, and how it is stored and served.

Similarly, ale aficionados tend to turn up their noses at “lagers,” meaning the international but virtually interchangeable array of Pilsner-derived fizzy yellow beers that have depressingly come to dominate the beer market. There is such a dearth of variety among lagers that people have come to associate the term with that one, overwhelmingly prevalent lager style. And this is why people generally tend to place themselves in one category of beer drinker or the other – because they just haven’t been exposed to the whole range of ales and lagers. When people say “I don’t like ales” or “I don’t like lagers,” what they ought to be saying is “I don’t like cask-conditioned English bitters” or “I don’t like mass-produced imported Pilsners” – because in general, that’s what they mean. It would be very unusual to find a bona fide beer geek who claims to dislike either ales or lagers – and I wouldn’t take that beer geek’s advice anyway.

Last night my company hosted a Danish beer tasting event at Skandium, a Scandinavian design store in Knightsbridge. The event was a success – eyebrows were raised, beer was enjoyed, people were made slightly tipsy. I tended bar along with two waitresses, who sampled the beer so they could talk about it with the crowd. One of them, who confidently told me she didn’t like ales, was amazed to discover that her favorite beer of the evening, Hvid from Indslev, was an ale and not a lager. Hvid is a Belgian-style wheat beer, unfiltered and cloudy, soft on the palate and very refreshing with restrained hops and a light spicy-citric edge from the addition of lemon zest and coriander. It is crisp and effervescent, low in bitterness but still quite dry – it fits the accepted definition of “lager.”

Both waitresses also thoroughly enjoyed one of the stars of our lineup, Ærø No. 5 from Rise. No. 5 is a brown ale brewed with walnuts, and it has a mellow, maple syrup and raisin flavor. There is no question it is delicious – and the self-professed ale-haters were perhaps more impressed with it than anyone, surprised at how sweet and drinkable ale can be.

In general, I like Stella Artois’s ad campaigns. I’m a sucker for the retro yé-yé style and screwball-comedic TV spots. Plus Stella, and its lower-alcohol version Stella 4%, are nice, easy-drinking after-work refreshers.

But this billboard is nonsense! “Contains only four ingredients,” it boasts. “Hops, maize, malted barley, and water.” First of all: they’ve forgotten yeast, which is arguably the most important ingredient in beer! Granted, Stella filters the yeast out of their beer, but it’s still an ingredient.

Okay, let’s say yeast doesn’t count because it’s not actually in the finished product. Even then, maize is not typically considered a component of high-quality beer. Quite the contrary, it is often used as a cheap adjunct to barley malts – American macrobreweries quite famously use corn and corn syrup to jack malt liquor up to grotesquely high levels of alcohol.

So maize is a silly thing to advertise. But even if it’s not, I haven’t addressed this ad’s most glaring inanity: who cares if it’s only four ingredients!? First of all, there are many, many beers out there that use only three ingredients (not including yeast) because they don’t include corn or other malternatives. But why is a low number of ingredients a selling point anyway? There may be dubious gastropolitical reasons or less-dubious health reasons for buying food and drink with low amounts of ingredients, but otherwise this one has me scratching my head. I’m not sure who’s the bigger idiot: the marketing director who came up with this advertisement or the mindless consumer who actually buys into it.

Marketing idiocy rating:

One Budweiser Frog (points awarded for clever art direction).

Before and while drinking Søgaards Klosterbryg, I thought it was a Belgian abbey-style dark ale. The name means “monastery brew” (a reference to a nearby church) and it has the flavor profile is that of a classic Trappist dubbel. Cocoa powder leads a united front of raisin, tea, toffee, and coffee across the palate, while aromatics of orange, vanilla, and pepper spice things up. It has a lovely latte-colored head atop a thick, garnet-brown body and soft, rolling carbonation just like the Belgian originals. If it looks like a dubbel, smells like a dubbel, and tastes like a dubbel, then it must be… a Munich Dünkel?! Surprise surprise!

It just goes to show that lagers can be just as deep, nuanced, and eccentric as any ale.

At the moment, Mikkeller is the Danish darling of the international craft beer scene. I like Mikkeller very much, but I do think that a great deal of their popularity is due to what beer writer Andy Crouch calls “American craft beer hegemony.” Brewers from nations around the world, notably Japan, Denmark, Italy, and even Belgium and Germany, have taken note of American craft breweries’ successes at home and abroad. And they have been inspired, or perhaps persuaded, to brew similarly creative, anti-traditional, and “extreme” beers – and the global beer literati are drinking it up.

The brewers at Mikkeller are innovative in their own right, but they do borrow a lot of ideas from American beer and have even collaborated with infamously eccentric breweries like Stone. So they’re very zeitgeisty. One of the ideas they’ve taken from American brewers is the single hop beer – a cool idea, but also a gimmicky one if you consider that beers brewed with only one hop varietal aren’t really uncommon. Most pilsners will only use one hop: the classic, noble Saaz.

But still, single-hop beers, especially IPAs, are a great way to showcase hops that are more often used in conjunction with other hops. Like Nuggets. Personally I think Nuggets are an odd choice for a single-hop beer because they are generally used to add bitterness to a brew, rather than aroma or flavor. But the beer is quite nice. Cinnamon-orange with a resilient parchment-colored head, boasting a fruity and very leafy aroma with notes of tangerine, mango, caramel, cucumber, rum, and field greens. Appropriately hoppy and uite bitter on the palate; more peppery than fruity, with nuances of juniper, autumn leaves, and grapefruit. The finish is long and lingering with tangy bitterness.

Gimmicky or not, it’s a good beer – and now I know exactly what Nugget hops taste like! Surprisingly good with Brie, especially with a nice, spicy chutney.

“Beck’s Vier: German precision at 4%.”

WTF?

This advertisement is all over London now. I can’t understand how or why this would make anyone want to drink Beck’s Vier. The sleek, vaguely industrial-looking glass of beer is in no way enticing. Drinks are supposed to look delicious and perhaps refreshing, not aerodynamic. And “German precision”? I can understand the concept behind this, that of associating German beer with a generalized idea of German quality derived from Germany’s reputation for engineering… but wow, that’s quite a stretch. Besides, when was the last time you took a sip of German beer and exclaimed, “Wow, that’s so well engineered!” or “Mmm… now that’s precise.”

I mean WTF?!

Marketing idiocy rating:

Two Budweiser Frogs.

So tonight, after a somewhat stressful day at work (i.e., at home), I opened the fridge and pulled out the least classy thing therein, the last of the super lagers that our friend had brought over last week: Carlsberg Special Brew. The tallboy that contains this barely-drinkable ogre of a beer comes dressed in a charming San Francisco 49ers uniform: gold and maroon and ugly enough to be a fashion accessory for Brooklyn hipsters. It still boasts the same dubious endorsement that all Carlsberg products boast: “by appointment to the Royal Danish Court.” I wonder if the regents of Copenhagen know what kind of crime and destruction they’re party to on the streets of London via this foul and exceedingly inexpensive lager.

Just like Super Skol and Tennent’s Super and other super lagers, Special Brew is weirdly good-looking, strawberry blonde wtih a bodacious plaster-white head. Good retention, espceically for the style, the ABV, and the glass I poured it into.
It smells (or perhaps stinks) of adjuncts and impure alcohol, full of corn, honey, and apple juice, and it wins points for an absence of skunky or sulfuric notes. On the palate it is light and beery with a grimace-inducing undertow of rough fusel alcohol.

Special indeed.

Chocolate stouts are some of the most sublime drinks on planet earth. They are ever so decadent, so sweet and yet so sophisticated. If memory serves, I’ve never met a chocolate stout I didn’t like – I adore the offerings from Young’s, Rogue, Stone, Ommegang, Amber, Sanktgallen, and now Svaneke.

It smells of malted milk, toffee, butterscotch, vanilla, figs, and chocolate chip cookies. I tastes of espresso, dark chocolate, grapefruit, and caramel. It is sweet but well-bittered with burnt grain and hops; it is exquisite!

Beer geeks often recommend chocolate stouts, or any rich, sweet stouts, as a pairing for chocolate. Personally, I think this convention ought to be called into question. Sometimes the pairing works beautifully, but in my experience, more often that not the chocolate in the beer and the chocolate in the dessert cancel each other out, interrupting the overall impact of both food and drink. It’s akin to Pollock’s turbulent masterpiece, “Choko Convergence.”

Just like our sense of sight, our sense of taste responds to contrasts and struggles with similitudes. When you pit chocolate against chocolate, they lose focus, they get all muddled up and sometimes even clash. So I tend to avoid pairing chocolate stouts with actual chocolate. Instead, I pair them with foods that are quite different but still complementary, like desserts based on vanilla, nuts, berries, or caramel, or even strong cheeses. Tonight, I’m drinking Svaneke Choko Stout with Danish marzipan, and the match is superb! The sweetness in the marzipan contrasts with the beer to emphasize its bitter cocoa and coffee notes, while the beer somehow makes the marzipan taste more nutty, more like actual almonds. The taste sensation is something like Klimt’s classic “Choko Kiss.”

(With apologies to Pollock and Klimt.)