Joe Englert remains at Granville Moore!

Here's a corrected update on the situation at Granville Moore, even though it remains a mixed bag. Chris Surrusco has, indeed, left the premises, if not Mr. Englert (and the latter is good news).

Apparently the source that I linked to above is wrong [me] in saying that Joe Englert sold his interest in Dr. Granville's. There was a change in ownership, but Mr. Englert reports that as a result of this change he now holds an even larger ownership share in Dr. Granville's. He also informs us that he is in the process of moving his office from Pennsylvania Ave to H Street so he can be closer to the action here. My apologies to all for the mix-up. Apparently you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

More here.

My source was wrong. And, I didn't go to a primary source, Mr. Englert. That's intellectually lazy, and I apologize. My original -- 1/2 correct -- post here.

Signature Ale

It's half time at the Super Bowl. And, I'm drinking the fabulous Signature Ale, a melange of New World with Old.

It's a collaboration between San Diego's Tomme Arthur and the De Proef Browerij in Belgium, where it was brewed and bottled. Alcohol by volume is 8.5%.

Signature Ale combines the funk and the garrigue of Belgian Brettanomyces yeast (think earthy and barn-yardy) with the citrus character of US hops.

But rather than US extreme beer's expected hit-you-over-the-head explosion of grapefruit pith and cat-litter-box stank, it's instead a concoction of soft citrus (think the spritz of perfume on a beautiful woman) mixed with ozoned air after a spring storm.

Lovely.

Reviewing of beer

Resolved: I will review beers with a numerical scale, no more.

For me, beer is not a number; beer is not simply a product. Beer is thing of beauty, and a thing that brings beauty. I revel in its flavor, and in the alchemy, skill, science, and joy that goes into the making of a good beer. When beer is quantified as a score, or as a price-point, or as a demographic category, beer is rendered as a formalistic, non-aesthetic, ugly thing.

Our mothers once told us, and the late, great beer writer Michael Jackson mostly practiced: if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. If I like a beer, I'll tell you; if not, I usually won't. I will no longer pretend that beauty can be quantified.  Life is too short for a 1 to 100 scale and other such nonsense.

I write here on the blog much more on the culture and business of beer than I do on favored beers. The latter is what crowd-sourced BeerAdvocate, RateBeer and Untapped are for (and which I rarely use or consult). But, on those occasions when a beer does grab my attention enough that I feel compelled to to tell someone about it:

• For reviews here at Yours For Good Fermentables, go to my columns entitled Drinking, again!. 
• For 'snapshot' reviews, see these at my companion Flickr site.

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2013.02: I updated the links and redacted the wording.

Transitions at Granville Moore, and elsewhere

Chris Surrusco has left his management position at Granville Moore, DC's funky Belgian-esque gastro-pub. Chris was there from the beginning last year — in fact, before the beginning, overseeing the building of the pub itself.

I first met Chris at Sisson's in 2000, a few months before my ill-fated purchase of that Baltimore brewpub. He was the brewer.

He left there, eventually returning to the area to create the cask program at DC's Reef Restaurant.

He moved on to similarly create the beer program at Rustico, in northern Virginia, and at which he installed the cask system, still in use.

He reports that he'll be staying in the restaurant business, whether here or elsewhere. I'm saddened to see him go, and hope that he returns to beer.

Beer pub entrepreneur Joe Englert, owner of Granville Moore, has sold his stake in that pub and, as well, in Temperance Hall, both within the last few months. [CORRECTION here.]

Another DC-area beer guy, Jeff Wells, who last year opened an eponymous pub in Brooklyn, has likewise left his position there.

Beer: it's a great drink but a tough business.

Super bowls: recipes for the game

ASSHOLE CHILI.

For years, a housemate of mine had a Super Bowl tradition. He would prepare a huge cauldron of chili and host quite the blowout party.

Days before the game, he would marinate chopped sirloin steak in tequila. The next day, he would toss in jalapenos and other peppers, Tabasco, onions, garlic, and other spices, several types of beans and ground chuck beef, and then cook it all with a few bottles of a North American lager of some sort. Enduring this long process, things would char, suffusing the goop with little specks of burnt black matter.

It was a big pot, a big production, and an all-day affair. He called it —excuse my his language— Asshole Chili, after its feared, and attested to, after-burn. The party flowed with plenty of beer, but large quantities of the chili would invariably remain uneaten.

Now that sufficient time has passed, the true story can be told of the one year when the chili, suffering a grisly demise, accidentally became a culinary hit.

My housemate had done the ritual, cooking a particularly large quantity. Saturday, he moved the pot to the basement to cool overnight.

The next morning, Superbowl Sunday morning, we went down to the basement to bring the pot back up to the kitchen stove to be re-warmed. It was not a good sight. The pot's handle rivets, all aluminum, had reacted with the steel of the pot. The entire batch of chili was foaming over the top, the color a grayish brown. We had to dispose of it, all of it. My roommate was not pleased, to say the least (and he said a lot more, loudly).

Guests would be arriving in six hours. So, I suggested an emergency plan of action. Why not go to the local supermarket, buy some cheap chili seasoning packets, some cheap ground beef, a couple cans of beans and tomato sauce, and then toss it all together, and simmer it until the guests arrived? The key would be not to tell anyone that anything was amiss or different.

And, it worked —but maybe too well.

Folks helped themselves to several bowls. Over and over, they told him, "This is the best batch of Asshole Chili you've ever made." He could only grin and bear it. If they only knew.

The Washington Redskins won the Super Bowl that day, but the game would be Asshole Chili's swan song. My housemate retired the recipe.

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Recipes

For tomorrow's Super Bowl, here are a few other, less scatalogical, recipes:

• My recipe for a vegetarian Super bowl of chili.
• Bobby Flay's recipe (carnivore) for chili (paired with Small Craft Warning Uber Pils)
• Beer historian Bob Skilnik has 2 meat-full chili recipes.
• Clipper City Brewing has a recipe for barleywine chili (Below Decks) on its website.
• Beer cookbooker Lucy Saunders offers her suggestions.
• and Bryce Eddings, our friend-in-beer at About.com, has posted a slew of recipes for gameday.

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