Food Alley: Fear not the Dark (beer)

When most peeps think of dark beer they think of stouts or porters, beers with serious heft and maybe a certain chewiness, and which invoke coffee or chocolate flavors.  This plus the daunting color and involved pouring process gives many pause and steers them towards a bright and refreshing lager or pilsner.  These fine peeps are missing out on an exceptional class of beer that is currently on tap at Max London's (or was a week or so ago): the Munich Dunkel Lager, and specifically Spaten Dunkel.  As the tasting notes at Beer Advocate indicate, this type of dark beer is crisp, complex, refreshing yet malty, but void of the heaviness we associate with dark beers.  It is truly a marvel. Imagine if the popular (and now brewed in Canada (!)) Stella Artois were a dark beer with no major change in flavor, and you're getting close.  Add a touch of malt, and you're getting much closer.  If you like lager or pilsner style beers (almost any of the golden color beers American's love), go to Max's and give it a taste, you won't be disappointed.

Speaking of beer in Saratoga Springs, I must say that for a relatively small city, we are very lucky to have the selection of taps and intersting beers available that we do.  While we may be lacking a Mahar's, we make up for it at a number of locations.  Max London's has 6 or 8 taps which tend to focus on local/regional brews, including a beer that Max himself helped brew,.  The Local's (corner of Beekman & Grand) taps are ever changing and seem to lean towards overly (IMHO) hoppy/hop-bomb IPAs, but also feature some good standard's as well as local/regional beers.  They also have some unique bottled beers, as well.  The Grey Gelding has a limited tap selection, but always seems to have a very nice Hefeweizem (HAYFU-vite-zen) or German lager on tap.

The newest pub in town is The Irish Times (Phila Street) has an impressive number of taps at their U-shaped bar.  The most venberable tap-showcasing pub in town is The Parting Glass with a mix of standard and eclectic beers.  Clearly, there are many more pubs and bars in town with strong tap and bottled beer lists, but this is just meant to be a taste.  We are indeed blessed with the fine selection in town!

Slainte,

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