In Mexico you don’t have to look very far to discover a panorama of exciting flavors! Much of the food there remains fiercely local and always shows a particular point of view. These photos show a few interesting aspects of my 2017 trip to Oaxaca and Mexico City, as well as a separate beer trip to Puebla and Cholula.
The purpose of the trip was to judge Slow Beer, a specialized competition highlighting ingredients of interest to the Slow Food organization, many of which are important in its ongoing programs. Ingredients ranged from seemingly commonplace items like coffee and vanilla, but often sourced from special regions or involving unique varieties, to much more exotic items like xoconostle, black sapote, chapulines and more.
We were fortunate to have a man named Edoarda Branca walk into our pub one day last spring and sample some beers. He’s a fan of good craft beer in addition to being a enthusiast and North American representative of the family’s famous products, and was impressed enough by what we’re doing at Forbidden Root to start talking about a possible collaboration with us.
I recently completed a months-long project to create labels for a new series of beers featuring a variety of tropical fruits. Within the larger range of Cervejaria Colorado labels I began several years ago, we wanted these to hang together and make a little sub-line all their own.
I was delighted to receive an invitation to present at a workshop by the Mexican Slow Beer delegation at the recent Slow Food Salone del Gusto in Torino, Italy.
This is the Italian dish, most famous in Emilglia-Romana, featuring a whole pig, boned out and stuffed with its own meat and herbs, roasted and typically sliced into slivers and served as rustic sandwiches. Having done a variety of “fake” porchetta creations in the past, I thought it would be fun to try to the real deal for the recent Chicago Beer Society picnic’s “Other Meat” category.
These requests always pop up unexpectedly on email: “Would you consider coming and giving a talk at our beer event? We’ll pay your expenses.” I can’t always accept them, but I will if schedule, workload and other travel are favorably aligned.
I’m not talking about the bubbles swarming into foam on top of that IPA in front of you, but something entirely different. It’s the bubble inside which every one of us lives, traveling through the world looking out at our own personal version of reality as we drift through it. The Hindus came to this conclusion millennia ago, and in many ways their metaphor is increasingly verified by science. Nothing about our perception is objective. To understand, we must abandon the comforting notion that our senses provide accurate and truthful representations of the world around us.
Every beer taster can recognize the bitter snap of hops on the palate, the caramel-to-roasty spectrum of malt aromas, and occasionally the spicy, fruity signatures of certain yeast strains. We love beer’s boldness, and in recent years the volume has definitely been turned up. Amid all the hubbub it’s easy to overlook one of its most unique charms: mouthfeel.
From the glass on the table to the smells of the beer frothing up, to the sights and sounds of the barroom and beyond, our world usually feels solid and reliable enough. It is an illusion, however—nothing more than a projection created by our highly fallible perceptions. Ancient wisdom makes a point of it; modern science increasingly verifies this unsettling truth.