Monday, April 29, 2013

Paleo Diet - The Flaws Of The 'Caveman' Diet

I read this and it makes more sense than the fad diet.

Living like cave men, or at least eating like them, is being hailed by some as an ideal lifestyle. The paleo diet, based on the idea that our bodies have not adapted sufficiently to eat foods that weren't available 10,000 years ago, focuses on eating meat, fruits and vegetables and avoiding grains and dairy.

But evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk says that idea is flawed.


Paleo Diet | The Flaws Of The 'Caveman' Diet | Stuff.co.nz.

Particulalry this bit :

Q. How much do we know about early human diets?

A. We don't really know what they were eating. It's turning out that they may have eaten more starch and carbohydrates than we had realised. They also ate different things in different parts of the world. ...


I think we mostly agree that less "processed" food would be desirable, and more in season vegetables would be nice.  But better nutrition and health care have allowed us to live to 70, 80, 90 years old.

What the paleo types want is to have a fad diet that picks and chooses from a whole worlds worth of choices. You don't want to go the winter months with no  Salad greens (assuming they had  salad greens) or fruits, and exist only on nuts and whatever you managed to dry and store.

As an aside I wonder what a paleo banana looks like? (nothing at all like the yellow bendy fruit we have today)

You want product A that was from North America, with Product B from Middle Europe, and a Fish that comes from the coast of Iceland. Or something like that, just like Paleo man did.

Oh and paleo man lived to be a ripe old age of about 30.

Go for it if you've really  thought it through, it's a cake and eat it diet.

Beer - #159 - Garage Project - Hops on Pointe

Garage Project Hops on Pointe - a beer for the New Zealand Ballet. Brewed by Garage Project In the style of a Premium Lager and they do that in a garage in Wellington, New Zealand, probably.

Garage Project - Hops on PointeBrewed with premium German malts, Nelson Sauvin hops and finished with champagne yeast, the result is a pale gold lager with a crisp, clean palate, rich tropical fruit aromas and tight champagne bubbles forming a dense white head of foam. 

Hops on Pointe is brewed to celebrate the world’s first ‘Beer Ballet’ called Bier Halle that Royal New Zealand Ballet are staging.

A 650ml bottle of a 6.7% ABV beer, making it about 3.7 standard drink units.  I get a sense that this is a very limited edition under this label, but I'm easily led.

Saison hops promise much, and champagne yeast should make it light. I hope this does not end up thin and 'meh' and fashionable amongst those that 'get' Ballet.

There's a lovely instant aroma, citrusy and hinting at light bitters.  Overly carbonated, very 'champagne' fizzy, pale yellow, thin but present head. Soft hoppy aroma, bit pine and wet grass. The aroma is also a bit passion fruit come to think of it.

The taste though is grassy or green hops, which remains the end taste. I'd hate to say it's 'the taste' but it does not define it or detract that this isn't all bad.

So, where are we?. This is a fairly muted drink. It's presentable and inoffensive by ay of dominant taste. It's a head and shoulder above 'commercial' lagers, (you know Stella, Heineken, Grolsch, Becks, or even Steinlager et al) and does not carry the roughness of the hops.

The presence of the hoppiness makes this a really pleasing lager, because the hopiness is part of the thing, not the thing. I could be in the first flush of love.

I've managed to drink a fair amount of this whilst musing on it, and I haven't yet changed my mind, I'd so buy this again.  As it warms the hops get more prevalent and you end up confused in the thinking as there are no citrus or other notes to maintain you in that this is a lager.

The pdubyah-o-meter says this is a bit good and not a bit great at 8.5 of its unfathomable scale of things.  I'd go this as a session beer and regret it too soon as the alcohol level is well hidden and deceptive.

Made my day as I had no expectations but got a little gem of a thing that being honest with you made me smile. It's a lovely beer, well crafted, not difficult and easily shareable with friends without making them frown or regret being  in your beer circle.  Very good.  Very very good.

Beer - #148 - Dogfish Head - 90 Minute Imperial IPA

And so to this  - a Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA - Brewed by Dogfish Head Breweryin the style of an Imperial/Double IPA in Milton, Delaware USA

DogFish Head - 90 minute IPAEsquire Magazine calls our 90 Minute I.I.PA., "perhaps the best I.P.A. in America." An Imperial I.P.A. brewed to be savored from a snifter. A big beer with a great malt backbone that stands up to the extreme hopping rate. This beer is an excellent candidate for use with Randall The Enamel Animal! 90 ibu 
Tasting Notes: Brandied fruitcake, raisiney, citrusy.

330ml bottle, 9%ABV and 90IBU - 2.62 Standard drink units, Could be interesting.

A much different aroma, darker than the 60, same head, the aroma is deep candied sugars and sweets, a different thing altogether. This is a similar aroma to the Renaissance Barley wine (2012).

Wow this is a "thick" beer, with a big smack of malts, that sits up the hops and takes a bow. It's very nice is what it is.

The bitterness from the hops is still there, although bitter isn't what you'd ascribe to them, they're not the front and centre.  Enthusiastically I could write a lot on how nice this is. But... it is a 'sweet' beer and it is a high ABV rating, and as such you might need to be careful of your intentions.  Moving from the 60 to this would be a logical thing if it was getting to the end of the night, but this all night, madness.

the pdubyah-o-meter says 8.5 units of it's seemingly random scale, which makes it a top beer with a few faults. I'd suggest that this could be more hop-bitter to quiet the malt over-rush.

But it is an excellent beer, and I'd be getting this again.



Beer - #147 - Dogfish Head - 60 Minute IPA

The Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Brewed by Dogfish Head Breweryin the style of a India Pale Ale (IPA) in Milton, Delaware USA

DogFish Head - 60 Minute IPAOur flagship beer. A session India Pale Ale brewed with Warrior, Amarillo & ’Mystery Hop X.’ A powerful East Coast I.P.A. with a lot of citrusy hop character. THE session beer for beer geeks like us! 6% abv 60 ibu Tasting Notes: Citrus, cedar, pine & candied-orange flavors, floral.

330ml bottle of a 6% ABV 60IBU beer (1.68 standard drink units)

But first I get a bread aroma, yeasty,  Orange golden pour with a decent head. Lucky the aroma dissipates, but nothing takes it place to mention.

There's a fair tang of bitterness from the hops, but it's against a fairly soft back, so nothing alarming. I don't pick up 'floral' or 'fruits'. It's fairly polished and sits where they say it sits, even if I find it soft in the middle.

I don't actually get much by way of taste though, it's just an unassuming beer, done well.

The pdubyah-o-meter says 7 arbitrary things, they might lead with this, it's their bread-and-butter and that's never going to be pointing towards a brew that is likely to make eyebrows raise. But do try it as a fine example of an IPA that would get you a marker on more bitter/less bitter beers.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Beer - #158 - Lindemans - Gueuze Cuvée René

Ok don't judge me,  Lindemans - Gueuze Cuvée René. It looked pretty on the shelf.  Brewed by Brouwerij Lindemans in the style of a  Lambic - Gueuze and that in the mysterious St Pieters Leeuw-Vlezenbeek, Belgium

375ml of a 5.5% ABV thing (thats all of a 1.48 standard drink unit) in a bottle.

Lindemans - Gueuze Cuvée RenéAfter 6 months the Gueuze obtains a golden color and a cidery, winey palate; reminiscent, perhaps, of dry vermouth with a more complex and natural flavour. It is often served as an happy hour drink in Brussels. It is the traditional beer for carbonade, as well as a beautifully based beverage with seafood or other salty meals. It's also delicious with cream sauces.
Beside the traditional Gueuze (the Gueuze Grand Cru "Cuvée René"), there is also a more commercial Gueuze that dominate the market. It is filtered, pasteurized and has a more sweet taste.

It's babycham!  No it isn't it's just a sour bubbly drink. And the weird face thing was before I opened it.

There is no expectation with this at all, none. I get what I get and I'll be darned it I know what that's going to be.  Except I should say that my experience with "lambic" beer has been nothing but positive, although I have it in my head that "limbic" and "fruit" beer goes together and that lambic beer is that of being produced by spontaneous fermentation of  the being exposed to the wild yeasts and bacteria. Just like nature.

So you open the cap, and there's a cork. So wasn't expecting that! And it popped like a champagne thing, or a fizzy wine. And there are sour apples on the aroma.

Pours a very pale  golden yellow, and hell's teeth that's fizzier than a fizzy thing. all head and bubbles, in a rush. the aroma is then of dusty mould fruit, apples mostly, but fruit. the taste is sour beyond the pale. This could be a long drink.

I don't know on what menu that this would be something you'd liven up the evening with, this must be a local thing that only about 9 people get, or those that a pretending to get something that isn't a thing.

I've not had a sour beer like this for since ages, and I'm thinking now I wish I'd done my homework a bit more before this managed it's way into the house.

The sourness stomps all over anything that might be considered a sweet, and it had a bitter ping at the end that reminds you that it is control of the all.  I can imagine that if you said this was the  "tradition" and said it long enough you could fool all of the people all of the time.

I can only then judge it in and of itself.  Cidery yes. Sour yes. Sparkles yes. Delicious not for me. The pdubyah-o-meter scouts around and comes back with 8. This is all it says it is. There's nothing that isn't announced or declared, it is the label.

The most bizarre beer I've had for a long long time, one that might take me the rest of  the evening to finish.  I would like it to have had more body and not to have been so thin, but then I’m a newbie to this and this may be the benchmark.

It might be the weirdest and sourest beer I've ever had but it's not unfinishable, close but I'll soldier on.