I Wanna Tell You All About It: Urge Kettle Cooked Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

 

Kwik Trip is a Wisconsin chain of convenience stores. It has gotten to be rather ubiquitous in these parts as the company's big cheese, Don Zietlow, has been doing his best Gordon Gekko imitation and gobbling up competitors like Henry I at a lamprey smorgasbord. While Zietlow doesn't have Gekko's slicked back hair and appears rather avuncular, he's not exactly the very model of a modern progressive business leader. From what I've read, he doesn't appear to be an asshole of extraordinary magnitude like John Menard but he donates generously to Republicans and various right-wing causes. This according to John McCracken at Tone Madison:

Kwik Trip founder Don Zietlow is a noted donor to a variety of Republican politicians. Between January 2010 and June 2017, members of the Zietlow family and other Kwik Trip employees donated $90,000 to former governor Scott Walker's campaigns. In 2017, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation awarded Kwik Trip $21 million in income tax credits for an expansion in the La Crosse area. Under the Walker administration, over 91,000 Wisconsinites lost FoodShare benefits due to harsh eligibility requirements in a state where 10 percent of families qualify as food-insecure. Kwik Trip is also listed as a sustaining sponsor of the charitable foundation for the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which is in theory a business lobbying organization but in practice the most powerful right-wing pressure group in the state.

Zietlow has also supported Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns. In 2016, the Zietlow family hosted a fundraiser for Trump in La Crosse. Zietlow donated a total of $135,000 to the Trump Victory super PAC from 2016 to 2017.

Apparently, he's also Catholic because Kwik Trip stores do not carry condoms, a staple at other such establishments.

Regardless of the guy's political and religious views, I stopped at a Kwik Trip recently while driving home from up nort. Generally speaking, I avoid Kwik Trip because it just keeps buying out competitors and part of me feels this is indicative of a company that's gotten too big for its britches. But this particular Kwik Trip had the advantage of being convenient when my bladder needed emptying. I found that the aisle to the bathroom was lined with junk food so naturally I perused it in search of salt & vinegar chips and was successful.

"Urge" is apparently Kwik Trip's house brand**. For a company that has at least the patina of religious do-goodery to it, the name just seems like it's one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If not a deadly one, a venial one, at least. I guess Zietlow is happy to have people indulge their urges as long as they don't wear condoms while doing so.

When doing one of these reviews I begin by smelling the chips. I usually stick my head inside the bag like a horse and its feedbag. And, truth be told, I'd eat the chips that way, if I could. In this case, my nose smelled oil and potato in roughly equal measure. Especially deep sniffs caught some malt vinegar.

I don't know what kind of frying sorcery they used on these chips, but they were of a beautiful light golden yellow. They looked perfectly fried. I am unsure if this is because of length of cooking time or the variety of potato or who. Regardless, these chips looked like, anyway, tater perfection. The bag they came in was drab and grey but these chips were refulgent in their sunflower and/or canola oil splendor.

They had a nice kettle crunch to them and a wonderful roasty potato flavor that is rare in potato chips, in salt & vinegar ones rarer still. It reminded me of a plateful of fried potatoes. There was an average level of salt while the vinegar was medium. I liked the malt vinegar flavor and wish it had been a tad stronger but it was no slouch. By the end of my sample, the tang had begun to numb my mouth.

These are some fine potato chips. I loved the roasty potato flavor and the use of malt vinegar is always a bonus.

**29 June 2021 - I have since learned that Old Dutch makes these chips for Kwik Trip.

It's Not Just All Windmills and Tulips Over There: Dutch Kuit by Next Door Brewing

 

"What have the Dutch ever done for us?" you ask.

Beer?

In his paper "'Ale for an Englishman is a natural drink': the Dutch and the origins of beer brewing in late medieval England", Milan Pajic argues that the Dutch introduced beer to the English back in the middle of the 14^th century. This doesn't mean that the Brits at that time weren't having piss ups at their local Ye Olde Taverns but rather that they were doing so with copious amounts of ale, the fermented grain drink without hops. I'd bet this new-fangled brew was welcomed heartily as the country was recovering from The Great Mortality which had abated in late 1349. No doubt they were drinking a lot to celebrate their survival (and newly rising wages) but also to mourn the loss of roughly a couple million of their compatriots.

Today Dutch beer usually means Heineken for most Americans but back then they were brewing up ever increasing amounts of Kuit (or Koyt, Kuyt, Keut or Keute). Within a century the Hanseatic League was doing brisk business shipping it outside of its homeland. Kuit is notable for the large amount of oats used in brewing it. Oats were a very popular beer ingredient back then. They grew well in northern Europe, for one thing. Perhaps the availability of other grains was shakier 700 years ago. A drought may have put the barley supply in doubt during some years or the bakers guilds may have had really good lobbyists resulting in laws dictating that most wheat must be made into bread.

I don't really know; I am just spitballin' here. But I have made oatmeal before and can only imagine that brewing with oats is a real pain the ass. You don't see them listed on cans and bottles all that much here today. When they are, it's usually on the labels of stouts where they give the beer a rich smoothness because of the oaty proteins and/or starches. However, it seems that oats are used more often than their appearance in oatmeal stouts would lead one to believe. The proteins in oats are highly coveted for use in NE IPAs as they help give the beer it's murky appearance. If you're brewing Kuit with 40-50% oats, how the heck do you keep it from becoming porridge? Some older brews had even more oats – like 80%. That's a helluva lot of stirring. And cursing too, no doubt.

My guess is that this is one, if not the main, reason why modern day craft brewers have been slow to resurrect the Kuit. You've gotta spend all day wringing beer out of oatmeal and then clean up the mess so that another batch of IPA is in the hopper before the dawn.

Well, thankfully some masochist at Next Door Brewing decided to try their hand at brewing a Kuit. It became available in the latter half of May, methinks. And of course I had to try this take on a historical brew. Having never encountered a Kuit before - or at least having no recollection of it if I had - I wasn't sure what to expect beyond it tasting heavily of grain. Oh, and I figured it had a boat load of oats in it so it'd be rich and smooth. But we're talking a brew from the Middle Ages here. Likely it would be dark and smoky and have bits of insects in it with a couple newt eyes as well, right?

And so I was mildly surprised to pour myself a glass and find that it was a very hazy light gold, befitting the heat wave we are experiencing. Now, it's hazy but not hazy IPA hazy meaning I could see a few bubbles here and there. The head was gleaming white and frothy and it went away rather quickly. No sign of insects nor newt peepers. It smelled grainy/bready with just a hint of lemon.

In addition to oats, there is wheat here and it gives the Kuit a bready flavor. There's also an earthy, slightly nutty taste too that I assume comes from the oats. And yes, it was rather smooth but not like stuffing a length of silk in your mouth which is what I thought of when I read about the historically high oat content of this brew. For tasting of grain so, it had a remarkably light body. When you add in a bit of fizz and a healthy dose of spicy hops, there was nothing chewy or heavy about this beer at all.

For the finish, there was some hop bitterness and a little of that lemon that my nose caught when I took a whiff. It was just a little astringent to boot.

I have no idea how much Next Door's Kuit resembles the late medieval stuff coming out of the breweries of Holland. To my knowledge, this wasn't some detailed historical recreation where the brewer sought out heirloom grains & hops from the far corners of the earth and personally flew to The Netherlands to scrape yeast traces from the floor of the ruins of an old brewery that burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp for that medieval authenticity. Ergo it probably tastes rather different from the stuff that the Dutch were enjoying back in the day.

Regardless, this was one tasty brew. I thoroughly enjoyed the flavor which I assume comes from the oats and also how those hops provided a sprightly contrast to its earthy/nuttiness. That little bit of acidity lent the beer a nice bite which is perfect on a hot summer day.

Junk food pairing: Pair your glass of Kuit this summer with a something that is light yet full flavored like the beer. I heartily recommend some pickle flavored popcorn.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 15: My Lawn Looks Like a Terrence Malik Movie (The Food'n'Films Edition)

Mid-May 2021

With the anonymity afforded by the internet, I feel comfortable revealing that my darling Frau suffers from an addiction – to lingonberry jam.

I think it developed sometime over the winter and now I find that we must have multiple jars in reserve at all times. Just in case hackers take out vital fruit infrastructure or the apocalypse comes and grocery stores are forced to close, I guess. This, of course, is in addition to her pre-existing addiction to buying shoes. Still, I suppose it could be worse - like an addiction to diamonds or luxury yachts.

********

Since my previous entry, I am happy to say that our kitchen now has underlayment!

4'x8' sheets of OSB were nearly $51 apiece! I think they were more like $15-$20 a shot pre-pandemic. So we are one step closer to a new floor. Plus, this allowed us to put the stove back in the kitchen. Last night I took advantage of the oven and made jerk pork. I let a pork shoulder smothered in jerk paste cook for 3+ hours at 250°.

I once asked an employee of the late, great restaurant Jamerica for their jerk sauce recipe. The guy gave a friendly laugh which made me think this wasn't even the 1000th time he'd been asked this and said that he couldn't reveal it, but that I should start with Walkerswood and puzzle out the formula from there. Even though the jerk paste was billed as "mild", it was still rather spicy.

I think I understand what he was getting at. Jamerica's jerk recipe was notable for little to no allspice and clove taste and I think that, if you remove those flavors from the Walkerswood paste, you'd have something very much like Jamerica's. 

Before making the jerk pork I made this:

A German recipe featuring chicken breasts seasoned with smoked paprika atop a bed of sweet and sour cabbage. It turned out well, I thought.

While I'm on the subject of food, I went to my first Pakistani restaurant recently. A friend and I went out for dinner before going to the cinema and we went to a place called Karahis & BBQ out on the west side. I learned that a karahi is a cooking pot – think a flat-bottomed wok – that is used in southern Asia. I ordered chicken while my friend got goat. Both were extremely delicious.

All of that julienned ginger, fresh lemon, and magnificent mix of spices made for a very tasty dinner. It's curry and, if pressed, I couldn't tell you the difference between this and an Indian curry as they were very similar to my tongue. Regardless, we were happy to support a little mom & pop hole in the wall restaurant. I think the place was staffed by just two people, one cooking and the other waiting tables and being host.

The area around south Gammon and Watts Roads has turned into an international marketplace, being home to Istanbul Market, Bombay Bazzar, Namaste India Grocery Store, and East African Market. If you want someone else to do the cooking, there's Akari Sushi, Turkish Kitchen, India House, Caspian Grill, as well as Karahis & BBQ. Oh, and across the street there's La Bamba and Chang Jiang. It all makes for a nice contrast to the McDonalds, Olive Gardens, etc. that you find just a couple blocks north on the other side of the Beltline.

Over here on the east side, the former Visions strip club is now owned by a couple who immigrated from Gambia and are going to turn it into a grocery store that will feature West African foods in addition to your traditional American things. Apparently the Hawthorne/Truax neighborhoods that surround the store host a large percentage of the West African population in town. One of the owners is quoted in the article linked above as saying, "In this area there’s a high population of folks from our part of the world." I didn't know this but it's not totally surprising considering the African & American Store, a store with a bit of everything African - food, clothes, etc., is only a mile and half to the south.

Getting back to the cinema, I saw my second film at a theater this year after stuffing myself with curry:

It's a Chinese film that takes place in the Manchuria of 1931, shortly after the Japanese invasion. It depicts the efforts of Chinese spies to smuggle a man out of the region so that he can testify to Japanese war crimes publicly. It was fun and very stylized. Not only was there snow in every exterior scene, it was actively snowing. There should have been 30 feet of snow on the ground by the end!

Truth be known, Cliff Walkers was not only the second film I've seen this year in a theater, but it was the second film I've seen in a theater since the pandemic started. The very first was this one:

It was a low-budget horror/thriller by English director Ben Wheatley whose work I really enjoy. I must admit that it felt rather odd to be seated in a movie theater once again after a 14-month absence. I look forward to not having to wear a mask at the movies, but, once I get mine situated, it isn't too annoying. It's nice to see flicks on the big screen and to get out and do things after being told to shelter at home for so long.

After being cancelled last year, the Wisconsin Film Festival returned this month as an online event. No offense to the fine folks who program it and do all of the work to make it happen, but I took a pass on it. And this despite there being some flicks I am keen on seeing including the film that really caught my eye, Undine by Christian Petzold.

I am simply becoming ever more tired of trying to be content with ersatz online experiences instead of engaging in the real deal. Some of this is no doubt just the plain frustration that we all have felt at having our lives upended and being told to shelter with family and only be around others when necessary. But I feel that some of it is also dissatisfaction with so much of my life revolving around things online. I want the "movie-going" experience, not simply to watch movies in solitude on my couch; I want to play board games and role-playing games around a table with friends, not sitting by myself in front of my computer.

Online activities were fine as we initially navigated the pandemic but I seek more "genuine" experiences these days. I cannot/will not extricate myself from an online life completely but I want the balance tipped towards the offline.

********

Now that spring has sprung, I get out fairly often…to mow my dandelion crop. They grow so tall that my yard looks like a scene from Days of Heaven or just about any other Terrence Malick film.

My mower suddenly stopped working the other day so I had to take it to have the engine looked at. I found a guy online and he managed a 24-hour turnaround which was impressive. In addition to getting the mower back into working order, he also gave me a ration of crap about not maintaining it properly. Fair enough. For taking his abuse, he threw in a lagniappe – a jar of his smoked salt.

Now that I am able to mow again, I am going to neglect my yard work and head out of town. The Frau and I are going up north for the weekend.

Bonus photo:

One of the Frau's cousins here in Madison is a master chocolatier and just look at what she received on Mother's Day:

The Frau is allergic to rose so that one in middle on the right was all mine!

A Cure For Your Midsommartime Blues: AweSummer Ale by Capital Brewery

First things first. As I was poking around the internet for some info on this beer, I discovered that Ashley Kinart-Short, whom I thought was Capital's brewmaster, was, in fact, no longer inhabiting their brewhouse. She had departed back in March or thereabouts to be the May Queen in some small Swedish village. Well, either that or she went east to continue her brewing career in South Carolina.

I am unsure if my ignorance about this is because her exit was done on the down low and she left town under cover of darkness, the local beer media never reported it, or it was noted in local media and Twitter and I somehow managed to remain completely oblivious to it. Or perhaps some combination of the above. When Full Mile got a new brewmaster earlier this spring, it got virtual ink. Yet when one of the few Wisconsin brewmasters who is a woman and who happens to have worked at the oldest craft brewery in the state (I don't think of Leine's, Minhas, or Point as craft brewers) bails, it seems to have gone unremarked upon by the local craft cognoscenti. What did I miss and when?

Regardless, I wish her well. She was approachable and pleasant to chat with from my experience.

This brings us to AweSummer Ale, Capital's new summer seasonal. A new beer from Capital induces a certain amount of fretting and pearl clutching on my part. It replaces Lake House, an unexceptional yet perfectly quaffable Helles so I cannot honestly say that one of my favorites beers has been displaced. But I recall the days after Kirby Nelson left the venerable brewing institution and a "Wisconsin lager brewery" was suddenly throwing every trend against the wall to see what would stick. They adopted a nautical theme because Middleton has such a rich and storied sailing history with tales of Norwegian pirates on Lake Mendota where bass boats meet their fate in Davy Jones' Locker.

Sven was going for his morning walk one day when he walked past Ole's house and saw a sign that said "Boat For Sale." This confused Sven because he knew that Ole didn't own a boat, so he finally decided to go in and ask Ole about it.

"Hey Ole," said Sven, "I noticed the sign in your yard that says 'Boat For Sale,' but you don't even have a boat. All you have is your old John Deere tractor and combine."

Ole replied "Yup, and they're boat for sale."

As I was saying, Capital went from having no IPAs to having a whole armada of them: a regular one (Mutiny), a black one (Dark Voyage), a white one (Ghost Ship), an imperial one (Capsized), and a red one (Grateful Red). They even jacked up their beloved Maibock by adding some doppelbock to it that had spent time in a non-Reinheitsgebot bourbon barrel. And this transpired (well, mostly) when I was still reeling from Bavarian Lager having been retired leaving the Madison area without a local Helles.

I have no idea what the powers that be at Capital have in mind. A new summer brew may be the extent of the changes we see in the near future. Or my beloved Munich Dark may go the way of the dodo tomorrow so that a hazy IPA (likely to be named "Press Ganged") can step up and take its place. We'll see. Whatever happens, 90 degree heat looms threateningly in the forecast like Donald Trump awaiting "reinstatement" in August so appropriate liquid refreshment will be imperative.

AweSummer Ale is a blonde ale brewed with orange peel and, to complement the exocarp, it was hopped using Mandarina Bavaria, a German variety known for its citrus taste.

As befitting the style, it pours a lovely straw yellow. The brew is clear and I spied a goodly number of bubbles. My glass had only a small, white, loose head that went away quickly. My nose caught citrus and honeyed sweetness in nearly equal amounts along with a grainy scent.

With all of those bubbles, it was unsurprising to find that the beer had a nice, firm fizz to it. It's light body featured the expected bitter taste of the orange peel along with a more general citrus flavor from the hops. There was also some grain to be had in there. Overall, it was clean and crisp not unlike Next Door's Bubbler, one of my favorite blonde ales.

On the finish I tasted a gentle herbal bitterness from the hops that was complemented by a slightly more intense zesty bitterness from the orange peel. The grainy taste of the Vienna malts were also more prominent here. The citrus flavors moved to the fore as the beer warmed.

To be blatantly honest, I was very weary when I first learned of AweSummer Ale. The orange peel and Mandarina Bavaria hops led me to believe that the emphasis here would be on fruitiness. Thankfully a light touch was used in the application of citrus. You can't miss it, but it doesn't hide the blonde ale away like the Ark of the Covenant in Hangar 51. The light body, the generous fizz, and the mellow flavors make for a very refreshing beer and an ideal bulwark against the heat.

Junk food pairing: Bring on the heat to go with your AweSummer Ale. I recommend pairing it with a bag or 4 of Late July's Bacon Habanero Tortilla Chips.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 14: Butter and Birds

Early May 2021

Things have been busy here in Madison. Before elaborating, I first want to note the 30^th anniversary of a sad day for dairy lovers everywhere, the Great Butter Fire.

On 3 May 1991 a warehouse complex here in Madison – not too far from our house, actually - caught fire because of a faulty forklift battery. The result was, amongst other things, 12,500 tons of butter and cheese catching fire/melting.

As related in this article, a river of melted butter started to flow from the site and had to be contained before it entered a nearby waterway.

Two state DNR wardens were on site to work with crews from Madison’s city engineering and public works departments to steer the butter river into a storm water discharge (pond 1) beneath the nearby highway overpass. According to the DNR’s site file, water had to be pumped out of pond 1 and across the railroad tracks into another pond (pond 2) because the butter was flowing in faster than it could be sent into the sanitary sewer.

The 3+ million gallons of melted butter proved to be a unique obstacle for the firefighters.

At one point while battling the blaze, Davis was sent to the roof of an adjacent building where he and a few others focused a hose on the fire for about eight hours. When he finally came down from the roof at 5:30 a.m. the next day, he and his team attempted to move the hose line further between the two buildings. He stepped off a loading dock onto what he thought was solid ground and instantly found himself up to his chest in melted butter.

“I had butter in places a guy shouldn’t have butter by the end of that night,” Davis said.

********

A brief update on cooking. As I vowed in a previous entry, I did cook Moroccan shrimp again and remembered to add ginger this time and used some coriander from a jar acquired after the Obama presidency, unlike the one it replaced. It turned out well and was much tastier than my first attempt.

Unfortunately, I haven't been doing much cooking beyond the basic/usual stuff lately because I don't have a stove at my disposal and we're currently making do with a microwave, an instant pot, and the grill. This is because we embarked on an epic journey of replacing our kitchen floor.

What I had hoped to be a relatively simple affair has turned into a tale of woe. Right now we are walking on the subfloor which sits atop the joists.

We can see the basement through the knot holes. We discovered that, not only was the vinyl we were walking on made with asbestos, but that it sat atop the original tiles from 1950 which were also asbestos-laden. So we had to have it all removed. While getting ready for the abatement process, I discovered that the previous owner had wired a wall outlet, which hosted our microwave and toaster, into a free-standing 220v outlet for the electric stove. The electrician just shook his head at seeing this. That’s been taken care of.

Tomorrow I have someone coming in to put down plywood underlayment and the new vinyl flooring will go on top of this. Lumber prices are sky high because of Covid-induced shortages so it'll be quite a bit more expensive than had it been done pre-pandemic. (4'x8' sheets of OSB are just shy of $51 apice!) Once this is complete, I can move the stove back into the kitchen while we wait for the floor to be installed. The Frau will be happy as she has been reduced to satisfying her sweet tooth by making microwave brownies in a mug. (At least they're Ghirardelli microwave brownies.) The install is about a month out though we are on the cancellation list so hopefully someone else will cancel their appointment so we can move ours up. The earliest date they offered was the day the Frau and I were supposed to go to the Upper Peninsula for her birthday so I feel badly about potentially bowing out of that trip.

In other renovation news, I had hoped to build a new deck this year but lumber prices have put the kibosh on that, for now, at least. If prices go down later in the summer, I might move forward with it but it's looking like that project will be moved to next year. I'll probably host a deck demolition party in the fall so I can dig up the extension cord that runs underneath it as well as having the gas line down there capped. That way we'll be all shovel ready come spring.

********

While I haven't done a whole lot of bike riding yet this spring, I have been taking walks both with and without the Frau. One day we saw quite a few feathered friends. Here's a blue jay that I almost got in focus. They studiously avoid people so it's been difficult to get an even remotely decent picture of one. Sadly, this is my best attempt yet.

The robin and red-winged black bird may be common, but it's always a pleasure to see and hear them. Plus they're easier to photograph than blue jays.

I am able to identify these birds because of my handy new poster.

We have spied various other winged creatures on our walks that didn't make it to the poster. Living near water means mallards, mallards everywhere.

Here are some more backyard birds from just down the street.

I plan to get in more bike riding soon. I also have plans to spend time down in Chicagoland as well as up north on Memorial Day weekend. A busy May.

Bonus photo: the lilacs in our backyard are looking mighty fine.

Then Came the Last Bocks of May: Maibock by Dovetail Brewery

The Maibock is one of those liminal beer styles. It's doesn't live in the realm of bold, heady brews that are able to fend off the -20° (-40° windchill) cold and snow of January. And it's not an easy going, sylph-like brew that is perfect for a 90° day in the sun. As its name implies, the Maibock is a beer for that time of year when the days are much milder than those of the Upper Midwestern fimbulwinter from which you have just emerged but still chilly at night to remind you that you're not out of the woods yet. It's a spring treat, perfect for sitting around the fire as your maple sap boils.

Personally, I am rather fond of Maibocks. For one, it was the first style of microbrew I can recall drinking back in 1991. For another, their appearance in stores is a bit like seeing a robin for the first time since the previous year: it heralds the arrival of spring.

This was the first year the Maibock from Chicago's Dovetail Brewery would be available here in Madison and I was greatly looking forward to it. The other beers that I have had from them have been uniformly excellent. They reliably decoct to perfection, bestowing upon their beers that toasty-bready flavor that I fell in love with while drinking the lagers my friend smuggled in from Germany back in 1990.  Well, I think they do, anyway. Either that or they use melanoidin malt which apparently obviates the need to decoct. Since Dovetail brag about decocting their beers on Twitter, I am going to discount the custom malt idea.

Although I scoured the internet from end to end, I was unable to find any evidence of who invented the Maibock as we know it today and when they did so. The bock style goes back to the 14^th century or thereabouts and featured lots of malty sweetness, a dark color, a touch of hops, and a good kick**. It's for keeping the cold at bay or sustaining oneself through Lent. The going theory is that sometime during the 1800s a someone or someones had an epiphany which led to a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moment that would be perfect for James Burke to put into an episode of Connections.

I can just see Burke strolling down the shadowy cloisters of some old monastery in Germany passing by serious looking monks who have taken a vow of silence as he intones, "The bock beer began life here in the northern German city of Einbeck in the 14^th century. But by the 17^th century the style had migrated south." The tonsured men then proceed to cast sideways glances at our inquisitive host. We then cut to Burke walking the streets of Vienna. "Fast forward to the 1830s when a chap called Anton Dreher in the suburbs of Vienna decided to combine the pale malts he encountered during his travels in England with the bottom-fermenting yeast he got from his friend Gabriel Sedlmayr in Munich who ran a little brewery you may have heard of – Spaten. He ended up inventing the pale lager." Cut to a big-breasted blonde with an armful of steinkrugs.

And so on. What it comes down to is that someone thought it would be a good idea to take the bock that everyone knew and liked and cross it with the new pale lager that was setting the brewing world on fire and we got the Maibock, a.k.a. – helles (pale) bock. Pale in color, not quite as much alcohol as a traditional bock, not quite as sweet either, and generally with a bit more hops.

Dovetail's Maibock is a beautiful light gold that's clear as day. My pour produced a big, frothy, white head that went away rather quickly. However, the small head in the photo above is the result of me scrambling to find a good spot to take a picture for too long. It looked a lot better about 15 seconds prior to this photograph. And you can't see all of the bubbles making their way up. It looked mighty fine.

Smelling this beer brought me back to the days before 2018 driving by the Sara Lee bakery over on the 3400 block of East Washington here in Madison. If you went by at the right time, your nose was inundated with the aroma of freshly baked bread and this is what this Maibock smelled like in large measure. Simply wonderful. There was also a honey/fruity sweetness and a herbal/floral smell from the hops.

The first thing I noticed when drinking this beer was the toasted bread/melanoidiny goodness. The day someone figured out how to put that flavor into beer was a great day for humanity and we should all have a day off from work to celebrate. At least I should, anyway. John Stuart Mill would definitely have classified it as a higher pleasure. There was a honeyed sweetness, some herbal tasting hops, and some good fizz to be had as well.

On the finish some mild bitterness came onto the scene and the honey flavor took on floral overtones.

From the first sip it was apparent that Dovetail's Maibock would make its way into my top 2 microbrewed helles bocks. With plenty of that Maillard reacated toasty tastiness, how could it not? While there was the expected honey sweetness, it wasn't too much. I also really appreciated the herbal/floral tastes from the hops. My only gripe is simply that I wish there was more hoppiness, just a little more sumpin' sumpin' to go up against the sweetness. Maybe there is if drunk fresh. That experiment will have to wait for next year, however.

Despite the folks at Dovetail not brewing their Maibock to my exact specifications, I will grudgingly admit that it's still a great beer.

Junk food pairing: With toastiness the key word here, get family sized box of Extra Toasty Cheez-Its to pair with your Maibock. You can drown in melanoidin gluttony.

**This may not be an accurate description of a bock bier from the Late Middle Ages.

Salt & Vinegar in Madison: Kroger's Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

 

I was somewhere around Pflaum Road on the edge of Monona when the urge for carbs began to take hold. I remember thinking something like "I want potato salad; maybe I should drive to Pick 'n Save''. German food was on the menu that evening and I needed something starchy to go with the chicken and cabbage. I felt that German potato salad with its tasty vinegar tang would be just the thing to round out the meal. Plus it had the advantage of being German.

If memory serves, I also wanted something for dessert and there was another necessity that I was running low on like toilet paper or dishwashing liquid or some such thing. Despite snacks being absent from my list, I strolled through the snack aisle because, when you enjoy reviewing salt & vinegar potato chips, you cannot help yourself. At first it was just the usual suspects with some delicious looking ghost pepper potato chips thrown in for good measure. But just as the Kartoffelchips were beginning to give way to their tortilla cousins, I spied "Salt & Vinegar" writ medium on a bag that I hadn't seen previously.

While I had certainly seen the Kroger brand around, I was largely unfamiliar with it. This is a bit odd considering just how big The Kroger Co. is. According to Wikipedia, Kroger is headquartered in Cincinnati and is the largest supermarket chain in the United States. It is(was?) also the second largest retailer in this country, behind only Walmart. My family and friends in Chicagoland are familiar with the Kroger sub-brand, Mariano's, while those of us in Wisconsin know Roundy's which is further subdivided into Copps, Metro Market, and Pick 'n Save. It speaks to my near single-minded dedication to Woodman's (or laziness - ed.) that I've never been to the Metro Market here in Madison nor have I frequented Copps and Pick 'n Save very much.

Now that I think about, I do believe I've been shopping at Woodman's here on the east side since c.1991. I recall going to the Kohl's which was over at Winnebago and Milwaukee on the odd occasion, though. I rather miss the place with its arched roof, a look that was unique to Kohl's stores. There is a photo of it at this page along with other locations with the inimitable architectural member. Looking at that site I learned that the Pick'n Save mentioned above is, in fact, a former Kohl's store. But one from the later years after the arched roof had fallen out of favor.

If the history of Madison's grocery stores is right up your Strasse, check out the page at Groceteria dedicated to our fair burg. You couldn't swing a dead cat on Atwood Avenue back in the 30s without hitting a grocer. They were everywhere.

So how were the chips?

Despite calling Kroger, I was unable to ascertain who makes their chips for them as I didn't have a model # or SKU or whatever for the person on the other end to do their query with in the computer system so the spudsmith's identity will go unknown, for better or for worse. For now, anyway.

Sticking my nose into the bag much to the disgust of my Frau, I smelled mostly oil but there was a hint of vinegar too if I huffed it. I put a serving into what is now my official chip testing dish and noted that these chips were of a slightly darker hue than normal. Potato variety? Length in the fryer?

Kroger says these were kettle cooked and so they were as attested to by their kettle crunchiness. Salt level was average while the vinegar tartness was fairly mellow. However, it built up as more chips made their way into my maw. The vinegar taste remained in the background even as my mouth was rendered numb by the acetic acid.

Despite having lactose, I found these chips to have a potato flavor that was more earthy than sweet. This throws previous hypothesizing about lactose adding sweetness to chips under suspicion.

Not bad. A little more vinegar taste would have been nice but these chips are nothing to sneeze at.

Now Where's My Kranz?: Kölsch-Style Ale by Dovetail Brewery

When it's a nice day and it's spring and there's Kölsch to be drunk and your passport hasn't been used yet, it gets frustrating when you realize that you're not in Köln. There is no surly Köbes keeping that Stange in front of you filled with the city's famous brew as you chow down on some Kölsche Kaviar and admire the old-looking buildings of Gereon Rath's hometown that were, in fact, built only sometime after World War II. Frustration becomes resignation eventually.

Having had a smattering of blonde ales lately, moving onto a Kölsch seems like a natural progression. These styles look the same and it's not uncommon to find a blonde ale labeled "Kölsch" – so what's the difference? The way I rate it, a genuine Kölsch from Köln will be lagered so sweetness and fruity flavors will be present but deemphasized. Plus the hops should be more grass/straw-like.

While there isn't a gothic cathedral or Köbes in sight, we do have good Kölsch-style beers here. In fact, one of the best, New Glarus' Kid Kölsch, returns this summer, if it's not already on store shelves. Sadly, some of the best domestic Kölsches I've ever had are either no longer brewed (Sierra Nevada, Big Bay) or not available here in Madison (Schlafly). Now we have a new Kölsch-style ale available here from Chicago's Dovetail Brewery.

I tend to rate Kölsches against the Platonic ideal of the style, Reissdorf. I have friends who prefer Gaffel und Früh and, while I certainly don't dislike them, they just don't reach Reissdorfian heights. Mainly I think this is because they don't get that nice, crisp cracker flavor. When I've had them, I taste something that's more doughy, almost mushy/paste-like. On the one hand, I am willing to give a lot of slack to imported beers because who knows when that stuff was brewed and what the conditions on the trek across the ocean were like. But Reissdorf makes that trip too.

Reissdorf not only has a wonderful grain taste in absolute terms, but also in relative terms. It comes in just the right amount to allow the fruitiness a little room and the hops too. Everything in its place. I've read that around 100 years ago the Kölsch was quite a bit hoppier than it is today. While I am happy to try a retro Kölsch, I will continue to adore the more modern iteration of the beer which, I suspect, dates back to the time when those old-looking buildings in Köln were being built.

My pour of the Dovetail left my Stange with a big head of stiff, white foam. It sat atop the straw colored beer, which was a tad hazy, and looked wonderful. In the sun, it looked like the perfect vernal glass of suds. And it smelled wonderful too – very Reissdorfian. There was a strong smell of cracker along with grass and bit of berry-like fruitiness.

Unlike most of the beers I've tasted lately, it wasn't the fizz that I judged first. Instead, it was the tasty crackery grain flavor followed by some low-level sweetness that was honeyed on one sip and then more like berry on the next. It was all kept in check by a medium fizziness. On the swallow, I thought I tasted wheat as a mild, peppery bitterness kicked in which conspired with the fizz for a fairly dry finish.

Dovetail has concocted a Kölsch-style brew that is very similar to Reissdorf but with a slightly heavier malt taste and more fruitiness. It's like it took the Reissdorf template and embiggened the bier just a tad. I admit that there's a part of me saying that it just doesn't match up with my beloved Kölsch from Cologne but, really, this is a wonderful take on the style. It has got very tasty grain and fruity flavors doing that Kölsch-y pas de deux on my tongue, plus it's light, crisp and the brisk, dry finish was perfect. A most worthy addition to my Kölsch arsenal.

Junk food pairing: I like to pair my Kölsch with cheese so, after you pour yourself a Dovetail, bust open a bag of Cheetos Puffs. The lighter Puffs with their delicate crispness goes perfectly with the more restrained flavors of the Kölsch.

Something Old, Something New, Something Blue: Old Dutch Salt'N Vinegar Potato Chips

While it is certainly true that I do not want for salt & vinegar chips, I do find it odd that some brands don't offer the flavor. For instance, the beloved chip of my youth, Jays, does not. However, since they make those paprika-laced Hot Stuff chips that burn my tongue just perfectly, I can't complain. Too much anyway. Old Dutch offers salt & vinegar kettle chips, as we have seen, but they have never sold their regular chips with the precious flavor. Until now.

It happened when I was at the supermarket in the early spring. I was making my way down one of the main aisles when I noticed an end cap display of chips. I always look at them and always see the same flavors yet I still inspect them every time. This time as I am perusing the shelves when I see a deep turquoise bag that looks blatantly unfamiliar. Had those wily Minnesotans finally made lutefisk chips? Nope. I stood there agog as I read "Salt'N Vinegar" on the bag and thought to myself, "I can't believe those bastards finally did it." A new salt & vinegar chip and I didn't even have to leave my neighborhood to find it.

Considering they already had a salt & vinegar chip in their portfolio, I wonder why Old Dutch added another. Did someone in the marketing department have an epiphany that they could innovate by making a pivot from sour cream & onion and leverage their existing salt & vinegar chip infrastructure to take it to the next level?

Let us find out what these shiny, new chips are all about.

As I've noted before, most salt & vinegar potato chips don't smell of vinegar. Usually I smell oil and potato and in that order. While I could not smell any vinegar, the order of smells was reversed here as these chips had a subdued oil aroma with the potato taking pride of place in the olfactory realm. As is the norm, I could smell a hint of vinegar if I put my nose right on a chip and took a big whiff.

The first thing I noticed after grabbing a handful for testing purposes was just how many large chips there were. It was impressive that so many of them survived packing, transit, and being put on a shelf without being reduced to smaller, less breakable shards. Once I had gotten over the size, I noticed that they seemed to be of a slightly darker yellow hue than is normal with scattered brown spots. I am unsure if they were cooked longer or if perhaps there were more sugars present to get that almost golden color.

I found these to be just a touch saltier than average and I liked how the typical regular chip crispness veered towards kettle crunchiness. The vinegar tang was really odd with these chips. When eating them, my tongue detected a medium-light bit of sourness which left me wanting more. And when I indulged, I found that my lips started to tingle even though my tongue wasn't registering dangerous levels of vinegar as I'd expect. This happened at different times so I don't think it was my tongue.

They finished with a sweet earthiness – these chips have lactose and dextrose.

I posit that we have here chips that are in the top 2 of all time for texture. I loved the crunchy crispness. Less thrillingly, they tasted sweeter than their kettle counterparts and less sour too. I will definitely try them again because I am flummoxed at the vinegar irritating my lips (in a good way) but not my tongue.

"We've Got Those Desert Blues" playlist

What we have here is the playlist for episode 23 of the Time Enough At Last podcast which I do with my pal Old Man Schuck. It's called "We've Got Those Desert Blues" and features:

"I Got Drunk (Live)" - Uncle Tupelo
"The Voyeur (I Like to Watch) (Live)" - Fish
"Tzenni (Live)" - Noura Mint Seymali
"Eguetmar" - Noura Mint Seymali
"Tzenni" - Noura Mint Seymali
"Soub Hanallah" - Noura Mint Seymali
"El Mougelmen" - Noura Mint Seymali
"Political World" - Carolina Chocolate Drops

Time Enough At Last Episode 23: We've Got Those Desert Blues

It's been a while as I've been dealing with some home remodeling/asbestos concerns but back we are with a new episode. And we've got the desert blues!

Old Man Schuck is happy that school is back in session in Stoughton but less thrilled with the impending invasion by Starbucks. I note some of the latest construction changing the face of Madison. Well, this was a month ago so it's not really the latest news anymore. This leads to a b*tch session on how State Street just isn't fun anymore. That is, it is losing/has lost its 1990s vibe as venerable local businesses leave and human-scaled buildings are replaced by 10+ story ones.

We proceed to talk Madison dive bars before running down what we've been streaming lately. We finish with a review of Tzenni, the album by Mauritanian griot Noura Mint Seymali.

The Corona Diaries Vol 13: Vernal Musings

March 2021

I have been consuming Chicago-related media lately. The Frau and I watched Judas and the Black Messiah recently.

It's a movie about Fred Hampton and William O'Neal. As you can imagine, it was a very intense story and it featured some wonderful performances. I don't know a whole lot about Hampton and I’m sure the film took many liberties with the historical record, but it was still a great watch.

I will admit to being taken out of the story a few times when street scenes just didn't look like Chicago. Later I discovered that it was shot primarily in Cleveland.

The other bit of Chicago entertainment lately is the impending release of season 2 of Bronzeville, a radio drama set in 1940s Bronzeville, Chicago.

When it premiered a couple of years ago, Laurence Fishburne was the only lead actor whose name I recognized. It's a lot of fun with characters trying to get by. Some are involved in the underground lottery while others go the straight route. There's racism, corrupt cops, and just plain human drama.

I am planning on listening to season 1 again in preparation for the new episodes.

********

About this time last year I figured that I had reached a certain age and income level and thought it was the appropriate time to commission a piece of stained glass. Besides, I thought, the people who makes stained glass could probably use a boost with everything being closed and the pandemic building in strength. So I hired a woman named Kristy at The Vinery. It was finally finished in December – I guess they weren't hard up for work, after all – and I recently hung it in one of my windows.

The Green Man is highly appropriate here in the early days of spring. I am looking forward there being some leaves in the tree outside this window for extra green. In a couple weeks or so I will be getting a new cat tree that I'll place beneath it so that our cats can take in some fresh air and enjoy the view of the birds building a nest just out of reach of their sharp and highly dangerous claws.

Hopefully the Frau and I will be able to get to England sometime soon where we will tour a church or two that have some Green Man architectural ornaments. Plus I'd like to pretend that I remember more than a couple bits of trivia from those medieval church lectures I attended. I will dazzle the Frau with my commentary – "Here we are in the narthex!" and "Let's have a seat on one of these here misericords." Afterwards we can retire for an ale at a pub called The Green Man. I understand that they exist outside of movies like The Wicker Man.

My wanderlust has been stoked this month by a couple podcasts. Two weeks or so ago we got a few inches of snow. While shoveling, I was listening to an episode of the Ideas podcast from the Canadian Broadcasting Company called "I Travel Therefore I Am: The Philosophy of Travel". It was hard not to dream about being somewhere else as I cleared the sidewalks of what will hopefully prove to be the last snow of the season. There was a lot about travel broadening the mind and the like discussed. Not long after this another podcast I like, The Medievalist Podcast, had an episode called Travel in the Middle Ages which only made my desire to hop on a plane more intense.

I suspect this is why I've been drinking English style beers lately. A friend of mine who spent time in London during his college years adores their ales so we are always on the lookout for a fine mild or bitter. Or porter, for that matter. He lent me his City Walks: London cards and I've been looking over them lately.

There are 50 cards in the set and they each describe a walking tour of an area of London. They're 4"x6" and you get a map on one side and a description of the walk with nearest Tube station locations on the other. Pretty neat.

But since London is still on the back burner, the Frau and I are planning on going to the Upper Peninsula this summer. We'll be staying at a hotel called the Fitzgerald on the shores of Lake Superior. Plus we'll be down in Chicagoland as well in 2021.

I took a day off in the middle of this week and did a little walking. On my trek at the Acewood Conservation Park, I saw a smattering of mallards and lot of Canada geese.

I also spied a robin but failed to get a snap. I heard red-winged black birds but didn't see any. They all appeared to be high up in the trees and I didn't have my binoculars.

I then went to another conservation park – Heritage Sanctuary - nearby that I'd never been to. The trails were covered in snow but the rest had mostly melted.

The story goes that, when the area was being developed in the early 70s, a neighborhood gardening club petitioned to save some of the wooded area. It is renowned for its trove of trilliums so I intend to return in couple months as they are in full bloom in May or so says the Internet.

I saw a red bellied woodpecker on my walk but was an epic failure at trying to get a photograph.

On my way home I went by the Alexander Smith House which is only a couple miles from us. I've always known it was old as it sits on a large lot and, well, it looks like an old house. But it was only recently that I learned that it was built in 1850.

The Frau is going to Nordstrom today with a friend and it looks like it's going to reach the 60s so it's a good bet I'll be going out on a bike ride.

The bonus photo this time is of some life-sized Minecraft figures in someone's yard down the street from us. Minecraft is a video game. The youngest was totally enamored of it when he was young.

Chipsy ziemniaczane: Tom's Vinegar & Salt

I believe I noted in one of my last potato chip reviews that I'd exhausted all of my usual sources for salt & vinegar goodness and would need to look further afield for new veins of that gustatory goodness. Well, I recently took a trip north in search of Polish cuisine with a friend of mine and we stopped at that gas station at the intersection of Highway 12 and County K. I ostensibly went in to grab a bottle of iced tea but I made a pass through the snack aisle just in case and hot damn tamales, Ahab! There was a new brand. And it was priced fairly too.

Tom's are distributed by "S-L Snacks National, LLC" according to the bag. This appears to be some business arm of Snyder's-Lance, Inc. The Snyder's bit there comes from Snyder's of Hanover, the Pennsylvania pretzel experts who made the tragic mistake of discontinuing what was likely the best hard pretzel in all the land, their pumpernickel sticks.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Snyder's-Lance, I see they are the second largest "salty snack maker" in the United States and responsible for some of the salt & vinegar chips I've eaten: Kettle Brand, Cape Cod Potato Chips, and Late July Snacks. They even now own the Jays brand which was formerly a Chicago company upon whose chips I grew up on. Sad. S-L is a subsidiary of Campbell Soup Company. Good god! With all of the subsidiaries within subsidiaries and brands that are just names on paper I feel like Jim Garrison in JFK getting lectured by Mr. X. Cui bono?!

As I mentioned earlier, my friend and I were on a trip to get Polish food. Our destination was Andy's Meats up by Endeavor. It's the slaughterhouse arm of Chicago's Andy's Deli & Mikolajczyk Sausage Shop. There's an outlet store there with a healthy selection of foods Polish and a meat counter. Lots of great kielbasa, bread, dry goods, frozen pierogi, and, because it was just a few days before Easter, there was babka to be had as well.

With Polish food on my mind, I started wondering what kind of potato chips one finds in Poland. A little searching brought me to the Closet Chipsin' blog which features potato chips from around the world. Here are a couple of the flavors in the Polish category that caught my attention.

Mushrooms, paprika, and bacon are all popular ingredients in Eastern European recipes so I am not surprised at all by these chip flavors.

So how were Tom's chips?

I have to admit that I am surprised at how infrequently I can actually smell vinegar on salt & vinegar chips. These smelled like potatoes and oil. I was able to smell a trace of vinegar if I put my nose right on top of a chip. They looked uniformly cooked with no outlandish color variation.

These chips had a nice uniform crispness to them – no kettle chips here – and they tasted just slightly saltier than normal. Not like a salt lick, just a tad more saline. I was impressed by a medium-strong tartness that was pleasingly piquant. It also featured a lemony flavor but it was not strong. Sugar is on the ingredients list so I wasn't surprised at the slight sweetness that accompanied the earthy potato flavor.

Tom's chips were a wonderful surprise with flavors that are a bit brawnier overall with a firm tartness and a little more salt. And that hint of citrus added a nice complexity to the flavor was has been unique thus far in my salt & vinegar travels.

Highly recommended.

Bold? Brown? Robust?: Chocolate Lab Porter by Wisconsin Brewing Company

Ten years ago Carl Nolen was president of Middleton's Capital Brewery and he was quoted in an article in the Wisconsin State Journal about the brewery's perseverance and longevity, "I think one thing we can be real proud of is that we stuck to our roots. We started out as a German lager brewery and we've morphed into a traditional Wisconsin lager brewery."

A year or so later he decamped to Verona to found the Wisconsin Brewing Company and took Braumeister Kirby Nelson with him. Since the brewery was under construction, Kirby concocted his test batches at the Great Dane and Vintage Brewing. With the "traditional Wisconsin lager brewery" having given their very tasty Bavarian Lager the boot plus a hoppy cream ale and a beer called Hopbock having been introduced as late-tenure brews from Kirby at Capital, it wasn't totally surprising to discover that, in addition to an amber lager, a couple of IPAs were amongst the test brews. A porter rounded out the line-up.

While it was not surprising to see the IPAs here – this was, after all, the time of the IBU arms race when hopping beers to death with bitterness was all the rage – it was disheartening. My plea to WBC to not abandon us lager lovers on the questionnaire served along with the test brews proved to be a mainly quixotic skirmish in my Kulturkampf with hop fetishism.

But the amber lager was tasty as was the porter. It seems that in its test phase it was known as "Bold & Robust Porter" but became "Brown & Robust Porter" when it graduated to production at the brewery and was bottled. When WBC's marketing stratagem was changed to give their brews a more rural identity/use names that went beyond style descriptions, it became Chocolate Lab. And somewhere along the way, I'd swear it went from being an American porter to something more English.

Chocolate Lab is a lovely clear mahogany and my pour produced a small tan head that seemed content to stick around for an average length of time. The first hint that something unexpected was in my glass came when I took a whiff. A bit of malt sweetness and stone fruit – think plum – were the most prominent aromas followed by some roasty grain smells. And here I was awaiting a more intense roastiness steeped in coffee and dark chocolate aromas.

A medium fizz played well against a nice smoothness – are there oats in this stuff? Where I was expecting the almost fuliginous, bitter flavors of coffee and dark chocolate my tongue received moderate malt sweetness like caramel and milk chocolate. A modicum of grassy hop taste also provided a mild bitterness.

The hops took on a slightly spicy hue at the finish which boosted the bitterness a tad. This combined with the fizz made for a goodly dose of dryness.

I sure hope I am not hallucinating the changes to WBC's porter over the years. Otherwise I am going to feel foolish. Regardless, this is a very tasty beer. I appreciate its moderate sweetness, smooth chocolate flavor, and the grassy hop taste.

Junk food pairing: Chocolate Lab goes well with taco flavored Doritos – the kind in that ugly 70s bag.

If you have a hound with you, it can get in on the action with Porter's Biscuits, dog treats made with spent brewing grains from batches of Chocolate Lab.