When Winterlicious time rolls around, I always try to hit two restaurants over the fortnight. Despite warnings from my colleague to the contrary, I generally, in a vain attempt to save money, try to make one of the two a cheaper meal - either a $25 dinner, or a lunch. Lunch, I should add, is the most fulfilling time of the day to eat - especially a late lunch. Taking two or more hours out of your day, starting at 2pm and eating until its nearly happyhour, for the sole purpose of food, wine, and conversation is an experience not to be triffled with. Despite this, the lure of a menu composed entirely of dishes with beer as an ingredient proved irresistable; I found myself last night with my companion at beerbistro (another restaurant that seems to defy the use of capital letters)

Unfortunately, the moveabletype platform on which we write these just ate my review. As a result all I have for you in the extended section are my brief notes, sorry.

Long story short - good, but not great meal. Hot beer, cold servers. Next time I'm sticking to a $20 lunch if I need to save money.

beerbistro is located at 19 King St E, near Yonge

One in a continuing series

80 years ago, for wine, there was only really one choice of closure - the cork. Simple, natural, effective - and able to spawn a burgeoning spin-off industry of corkscrews. As time progressed, industry looked for alternative closures, and there were many - bag-in-box, tetrapacks, tincans, and most notably, screw-tops. Fearing the wrath of traditionalists, most winemakers only focused the alternative closures on cheap, bulk wine. Because of this the consumer association came to be that screw-tops and other closures were themselves cheap and second-rate.

Fast foward to the mid-90s. Winemakers (especially in New Zealand) began experimenting again with screw-top (now called Stelvin) closures, mostly for their white wines - low and behold, they found that not only did it keep wines fresh and free of oxygen, but it also avoided the hazards of cork: namely cork-taint. Cellar-trials showed that it would keep wines from oxidating for extended periods of time. Stelvins swept like wildfire across New Zealand, especially for Rieslings and Sauvignons, and then to Australia, California, South Africa, and Ontario. The question of red wines still remained, ut that's for another week.

Now, the recommendations.

One in a continuing series

It's winter, and as days grow colder (and counterintuitively, longer) a young wine geek's fancy turns to thoughts of heavy, brooding wine. While there are many grapes that can accomplish this feat such as Grenache, Tempranillo, or Malbec, perhaps the grape most well known to Torontonians is the noble French grape Syrah. Syrah, also known as Shiraz in the southern hemisphere is responsible for some of the biggest, most long lived wines around. One need only mention the names of Hermitage (in France) or Grange (in Australia) to conjure up images of inky-black wine, sitting undisturbed in a cellar for decades, waiting for the moment that they are right to drink.

While the name change is purely one of tradition and marketing, there do tend to be differences between the new and old world Syrahs. In the new world Shiraz tends to be very fruit driven, with dollops of cherry, rasbperry, and mint; in the old world Syrah is more reclusive, offering up tones of currant, tar, and black pepper. Syrah was the popular grape de jour of a few years ago (now it seems to be Malbec and Viognier), so there is still a lot of it out there, and its prices have started to level off. Definitely worth a look for a cold winter day.

And now, the recommendations.

One in a continuing series

It's January, and across much of the northern hemisphere -the exception being parts of Germany and here in Niagara, where they're resting until being pressed into icewine- the grapes are sleeping. In the South, however, January is the time when the grapes start waking, having picked up enough heat to start making the transformation from tiny buds into small grapes; there is still more time needed to mature, of course.

There are a lot of value wines coming to Toronto this Saturday, from South American wines aplenty, to a handful of affordably priced Pinot Noirs. There are also some stratospheric bottles coming to town - they're beautiful and sexy, but not always (in this release at least) fantastic value. Keep your eyes on the wine, and your hand on the glass.

But on to the recommendations.

Part six in a continuing series

It's nearly Chanukkah, and I've not even started my holiday shopping yet. (Fortunately, Purim is the major gift giving holiday in Judaism, but it's become traditional to give gifts for chanukkah as well.) Doubtlessly, there are others reading this in the same boat; so in lieu of a Vintages release, I'll be doffing out some gift ideas - also, freed from the barage of wine I need to taste, I'll be exploring other - to steal a phrase of Mr. Trebek's - potent potables.

For the Beer Geek
Any beer lover worth the title knows about all of the great stuff that comes out of Belgium. Unfortunately, oftentimes it doesn't get much past its place of birth - for all the variety we have in our shops, there are hundreds of others that don't make it to our shores. Happily, December often corrects some of that with plentiful gift-packs of Belgian beer. There are a few of them, but perhaps the most gifty one is the Petrus Gift Pack(Belgium, $15.95, #902106). It's a six pack of Abbey brewed beer, in three different styles. The Triple is just gorgeous. Light in colour and delicate, with some floral notes; the Oud Bruin is ligher in alcohol, but darker in colour with notes of oak and berry; and the Speciale is an amber ale with full bodied, hoppy notes. And it comes with a glass!

The fates today brought me to Kensington Market, and the market brought me to Louie's Coffee Stop (which may or may not actually be its name; the coffee shop at the corner of Augusta and Baldwin).

My companion ordered a small mocha coffee. I, as is my wont, ordered an espresso, short and strong.