Pale ale is the hallmark of
the craft beer movement.
It's a beer complex enough to be
interesting, but light bodied enough to be easily drinkable. It's also
very quick to brew, which is why every new brewery that comes along
makes a pale ale. New breweries need to get
a product on the market quickly to generate some cash flow, and lagers need time to mature. What are the unique qualities of American and English Pale ales?
Merlot (mer loh) is often dismissed as a second rate Cabernet Sauvignon, but not only is Merlot delicious on its own, it is often used as a blending grape to make some fantastic wines.
Merlot is the most commonly grown grape in France and it helped put the Washington State wine industry on the map.
If you've dismissed Merlot in the past, do yourself a favor and give it a second chance.
Your average beer drinker
probably thinks of lager & pilsner as interchangeable terms, both
meaning a light colored, light bodied beer, but lagers come in a variety of strengths and colors, from light and bitter pilsners to dark and roasty schwarzbiers.
There are several styles of lager, but the most
interesting one is Pilsner.
Camembert(KAM-ehm-behr) is a cow's milk cheese originally made in Normany, which is northwest of Paris. Oddly, Camembert cheese is not made in the village of Camembert. The name Camembert de Normandie is protected by the French goventment, and it refers to a bloomy rind cheese made from raw Normandy cow's milk and produced in the Normandy region of France. However, like the name Brie, the name Camembert is not protected, and is sometimes used to refer to many similar styles of cheese that may or may not be related to Camembert de Normandie.
Chianti is not a type of grape, but rather the region that this particular wine comes from, and the Chianti region of Italy is in Tuscany.
The primary grape used to make Chianti wine is called Sangiovese (san-jo-veh-zeh), and that's where Chianti's magical food pairing ability comes from.
Sangiovese is a thin skinned grape that ripens slowly. It produces a wine with as much acidity as Syrah, but with a lighter body. Sangiovese has a medium body similar to Tempranillo.
Sangiovese is Italy's most commonly planted red grape varietal, but for wine made with Sangiovese to be called Chianti, the
wine must come from a specific region in Italy. Outside of the Chianti
region, wine made from the Sangiovese grape goes by a variety of names,
depending on where it is made, such as: Brunello, Vino Nobile di
Montepulciano, Morellino, or just Sangiovese, which is what it goes by
in Washington State.
Grab a bottle, any bottle, of Sangiovese, and pour yourself a glass.
There's no shortage of unusual beer names and obscure beer styles, but knowing some of the major style differences
can help you to pick an unfamiliar beer from a list while having a
pretty good idea of how its going to taste, and by trying something
new, you might find a beer that you really, really like. So where can the casual beer drinker
begin? Here are some basics.
