The Grog on the Tyne is all mine - tasting Hocus Pocus at Brewdog Newcastle

 Walking from my Daughter`s house to the centre of Newcastle took us along the Tyne to the Quayside to taste HocusPocus, the first Spirit Barrel release by Brewdog`s Overworks Brewery which specialises in Soured beers. On the way we tried a couple of beers from the Tescos Craft range including a new can opening system I hadn`t seen before.
Anyway back to Hocus Pocus - soured beers are intentionally infected with wild yeasts which produce acids such as lactic & acetic acid which sour the beer. Normally this is a bad thing (vinegary!) but in controlled conditions produces a mouth puckering complexity.HP is an imperial stout dried out with Brettanomyces yeast, then inoculated with the Overworks house sour culture Cher Ami to develop bright acidity. The addition of raspberries & cocoa nibs augments the dark malts & is intended to balance the acidity of the sour culture – and then a year spent maturing in Speyside whisky casks adds all sorts of complexity.

So what did it taste like? Well the aroma is a big hit of raspberries with a hint of tobacco/cigar sweetness  but it surprises with a very sour acidity with underlying chocolate and dark fruit complexity. This is a dry beer given the Imperial stout origins. I think it is currently a bit unbalanced with a clear separation in the elements BUT it is very young and capable of aging for several years given the oak and the high acidity. Overall it is a brilliant beer but needs cellaring to bring out the promise of maturity. I bought one for laying down for a couple of years! In summary its like a Bordeaux wine!

Best coffee in Teesside - Screamingly good!

Good coffee is worth a journey so we are delighted that some of the best coffee we have ever had is available on  our doorstep. Rountons Coffee Company are local roasters who have two excellent local outlets.

Bedford Street Coffee and Kitchen in Middlesbrough and The Joiners Shop in the village of Ingleby Cross by Ingleby Arncliffe just off the A172 near the A19 junction.

Both do excellent brunch options but the coffee is just superb. Very importantly we could not tell the difference in aroma & flavour between the normal & decaffeinated versions. Anne had a specialty roast americano then the decaff & I had a decaff flat white. As usual I had to draw a little face in the  foam - I usually go for a Hail Hydra logo but this time it ended up looking like Edvard Munch`s  The Scream of nature..............Anyway Hail Hydra!

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The search for tasty steak in North Yorkshire

For years we have enjoyed buying our meat from Fawcetts in Ingleby Greenhow but due to personal circumstances they are currently closed we have failed to find steak with any consistent flavour in our local town of Guisborough. Influenced by the Slow Food  movement we prefer to avoid supermarkets where possible as increasingly we are trying to source as much of our food locally & or grow or make our own produce.....so it was with some excitement that we visited Langthorne`s Farm Shop in Brompton near Northallerton which had been recommended by a local Farmer.

We had a lovely chat with Paul behind the meat counter who told us how he supplies the Ghurkas stationed at Catterick Garrison with Buffalo meat. They have a small abbatoir on the farm therefore slaughter their own animals which includes a Buffalo Herd. 
In addition they have only what I would describe as an Asian Supermarket with spices, sauces,  rice, vegetables (cassava, plantain, yams, rambutan, sweet potatoes), noodles etc all for Indian, Nepalese and Malaysian cuisine.

We bought a T-Bone & a Fillet steak as a trial but also a family pack of frozen Parathas & some Jalapeno cheetos!More details when we cook the meat!

Loire wines - http://www.domainebergerie.fr/

Domaine De la Bergerie is perhaps my favourite vineyard in all the world so far!
A wine family for 7 generations and this vineyard owned since 1964 it is nestled on slopes just past the sleepy village of Champ sur Layon and is beautifully laid out with the vines surrounding the tasting room.  It is the range, quality and reasonable price of the wines that is so staggering.  Yves Guegniard  makes at least 3 fabulous reds, a Rose,  a range of whites from dry to dessert wine & a really good Loire fizz.

The Cabernet franc dominated  La Cerisiae  with its intense blackcurrant and licorice flavours (about £5) is  a high quality Loire red for the price.   However then we get two unusual ones - Chant du Bois which is a lovely age worthy but still approachable, complex, stark Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc then finally the amazing  Evanescence  which requires some lengthy time in the cellar to soften the tannins but then will leave you with a wonderful complex minty blackcurrant 100% cab sauvignon not from Bordeaux but from the Loire!

 I would suggest that you ring ahead and book lunch at the fabulous restaurant on site with its vineyard views, which is run by M. Guegniard`s son in law. La Table Bergerie

We have eaten there 3 times. The cooking is delicate and well seasoned with fantastic wine matching from the Domaine`s full range which includes Chenin Blanc from Savennieres.

Camembert fondue - the perfect starter

I will be honest...... I never saw the point in Camembert as a cheese until I had it in Normandie in it`s unpasteurised form from Lait Cru. When you are buying it look for the words "moulé à la louche" which means the cheese has been manually lifted by ladle into the molds.

 It really comes into its own when it is served hot, fluid and fragrant.  The flavours explode when it has been baked and served in a pot.
Great for a starter at a dinner party (1 cheese for 4 people) or for an informal lunch.  Just put a cheese into a pot for the oven (as it needs containing as it melts) and bake it at 180 degrees celcius for 20 mins. You can insert some garlic cloves to taste before putting in the oven!
Serve it with chopped up carrots, pieces of crusty bread and anything else you like to dip into melted cheese.
As to a matching wine I would serve a Chenin from the Loire - either a Vouvray or a Savennieres but frankly we have never found anything better than a bottle of chilled Normandie cider (Brut is best) - but just get the most refined appley cider you can your hands on and serve it in wine glasses.  It will surprise you as to  how well it matches the cheese!

 

Italian wine bargains!!

This is just a quick note for anyone who has wanted to try some expensive italian wines for a bargain price. Piemonte wines (https://piemonte-wines.com/) are doing a ridiculous sale  this month - any wine for £12.  Now normally you might think £12 is a lot of money for a bottle but in this instance it includes all their Barolo wine!

Barolo is probably the noblest and most famous of italian reds, made from the nebbiolo grape.  It is aged for at least three years, dating from January 1, after its harvest. Two of those years must be spent in large 25hl slavonian oak barrels. So as a result it is highly priced and has a reputation for unapproachability in it`s youth ie they are designed to mature and improve after 10-20 years in the bottle.  

Noel and Tricia Desnos have designed a wonderfully informative website with videos from the producers and tasting notes for every wine.  One of their Barolos was for sale last year at £45 a bottle so £12  is an absolute steal, tho` these are for laying down for a few years.

Recent vintages have been good, especially the 2005, of which the Cagliero Ravera 2005 from the Barolo region south of Alba where the soil is very different, will be drinkable fairly soon.  The wines from further east in Serralunga d'Alba have a different terroir and are more muscular and tannic and need much longer in the bottle.

Waterloo - Perfect Beef Wellington and 3 different red wines

Anne has rightly been famous for her Beef Wellington or as the french say with a bit of post Waterloo bitterness "Boeuf en croute", which has become a signature dish in the family, BUT  to our consternation she has improved  on perfection after having read the Guardian article on the perfect Beef Wellington.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/dec/08/how-to-cook-perfect-beef-wellington

Firstly the beef has to be wonderful and we got fillet from Fawcetts in Ingleby Greenhow (http://www.av-fawcett.co.uk/content/butchers) as his meat is the best we have had anywhere in the world! As you can see Anne cooked it to the point of rarity so it required some decent red wine and given our guests this meant some different wines to cater for taste.  I chose a 2006 Ribera Reserva  from Spain - an oaked Tempranillo it has a lighter blackberry fruitiness with spicy undertones that I got from Laithwaites a couple of years ago on sale.  Then from France a 2005 Gros Caillou from Chateau Le Chabrier south of Bergerac (http://chabrier.jimdo.com/)  which is a fairly classic St-Emilion blend of Merlot, Cab Sav and Cab Franc (but at half the price).  This wine is made by a lovely guy called Pierre Carles whose family also owns property in St-Emilion.  Both wines required decanting as they had thrown some sediment and I washed the bottles out with plain water and poured the wine back in to breathe slowly for a couple of hours.  The Bergerac is like a cru bourgeois  claret in style with perfumed aromatic oak on the nose but deep tangy black fruit lingering forever in the mouth. Both wines were a bit challenging without food but were released with the meat.

The final wine was a sweet fruity Amarone which I just bought from Lidl this week as it was on special offer at £9.99 reduced from an earlier price last year of £20. Much more approachable but quite alcoholic at 16% however lacking the subtleties and complexity of the other two.  Which wine went best with the Duke of Wellington`s beef? Of course by a mile it was the frenchie!!  Waterloo all over again!!
ps you can get the Gros Caillou and other Le Chabrier wines from the French Wine Project (http://thefrenchwineproject.com/bergerac/)

We are back

So after a lengthy absence I have decided that despite the fact that this is likely to be read by almost no-one that I may scribe a few thoughts.....mostly around food and wine as they are the passions of our lives.