MdV: Merchant du Vin beer e-newsletter – Wednesday, May 3, 2006: 50 Scotch Whiskies, 200 Fine Wines, 5 Beers

We have recently announced two fine additions to our menu of great beers:

-Lindemans Pomme, apple lambic from Belgium. Supremely refreshing, available at our distributors now, and more info here:

www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/lindemans_pomme_intro.pdf

-Rochefort 6, Trappist Ale from Belgium. On July 1, it will join Rochefort 8 and Rochefort 10 in our portfolio. More:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/Rochefort_6_MdV_4_3_06.pdf

Samuel Smith beer on the Today Show; the Ft. Worth, TX, newspaper featuring Rochefort; a great Market Watch article on beer glassware . . .

We had some great beer industry musicians onstage at the Pike Pub during the Craft Brewers Conference in Seattle last month, and we have put photos up at our news page . . .

Plus: beer festivals, dinners, and events are offering beer lovers all across America a chance to discover the classic styles – it is a great time for fine beer! Full national news & event listing at:

www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/news.html

Beer Chat from the Beer Court Jester: 50 Scotches, 200 Wines, 5 Beers

The fine restaurant on the corner was proud of their menu, their chef, their service. The dining room was perfect – ambiance, comfortable chairs, every day a fresh flower in the bud vase on each table. The Egyptian cotton napkins and tablecloths were freshly laundered, and had a thread count up in the thousands. You could use any credit card you wanted, and somehow the music in the dining room was always perfect, always at the right volume.

The owner was especially proud of the beverage selection. The list held over 200 wines: red, white, sparkling, dry, sweet; classics from France, Italy, Germany, and the US; innovative new wines from South Africa, Chile, and the Finger Lakes. There were rare vintages over 20 years old, and there were splits, magnums, jeroboams, and always at least one Methuselah of champagne. Likewise, there were over 50 hand-picked single-malt Scotches ranging from standard top-shelf varieties to rare single-cask bottlings from distilleries that only produce a few hundred cases a year.

But for beer, the fine restaurant on the corner offered only five choices, all light-colored and light-bodied golden lagers. (One was a reduced-calorie light-colored light-bodied golden lager.)

The new restaurant that opened across the street only had 30 wines and seven scotches. But their beer list had 15 offerings: There was an all-malt golden lager, perfect for folks who were learning that this classic style can be rich and full-bodied. There was a Bavarian hefe-weizen, a perfect accompaniment to fish or crab cakes. They had a stout, and the customers who liked oysters with stout often went ahead and ordered a second round of oysters. There was a British pale ale, the wonderful melding of caramel malt and earthy hops pairing so beautifully with beef dishes. When the chef at the new restaurant served a spicy special like General Tso’s chicken or green curry tilapia, diners could choose a bold, hoppy India pale ale to restrain the heat – and the same IPA could firmly stand up to vinaigrette salad dressing. There was a gueuze lambic that could marry with mussels or the most aromatic of cheeses, and a fruit lambic that went with dessert. There was a doppelbock, a contemplative Trappist ale, and an imperial stout – any of these could and did serve as a stand-alone dessert.

The new restaurant learned that lovers of fine beer were delighted to find these choices. They were rarely snobby about their beer knowledge – in fact, many of them started their dinner with a bottle of wine, then ordered a beer when they were done with the wine. They recapped their opinions of the beers to their server, they raved about the food, and they tipped well.

As the owner of the new restaurant reviewed his business after the first few months he realized a few things:

1. A four-top table frequently won’t order a second or third bottle of wine. Without the option of getting a fine beer, would all those folks have walked away unsatisfied? And wouldn’t his average ticket have been a lot smaller without fine beer?
2. He had no idea what the heck kind of wine to serve with poached asparagus or green-curry tilapia. But he could suggest the right beer.
3. A fine beer served as dessert provided great joy to the guest, a nice ring, and didn’t require a chef to prepare.
4. His serving staff was young, but they learned fine beer easily. On their nights off, they talked about and drank fine beer, not scotch or wine.
5. Business was excellent.

The owner of the first fine restaurant, on the corner, was reviewing his business simultaneously. He too realized a couple of things:

1. It was getting difficult to find good wait staff.
2. He was going to need to start spending money on advertising – business was down.
3. He needed a beer.

Keep asking for the beer list when you go out to dinner, and please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who is interested. If you received it as a forward, you can sign yourself up at the Merchant du Vin website.

Merchant du Vin, America’s Premier Specialty Beer Importer Since 1978

http://www.merchantduvin.com