Cask And You Shall Receive

Since this Lenten season is a bit drier for me than normal, reading stories like the one in the Wall Street Journal on the rise of cask-conditioned beer in the U.S. (sub req) is not easy:

Microbrewers have tried everything from chili-pepper beer to raisin-flavored beer to lure drinkers from mass-market brews like Bud and Coors. Now they're trying their hand at a British staple, cask beer, that is only lightly carbonated and served via a retro hand pump. U.S. bars, in addition to serving American cask, are increasingly stocking English brands. This comes as more Brits are shunning these traditional ales in favor of U.S.-style beers.

For some beer geeks, casks are considered a more honest drink. They are served at between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with near freezing for keg beer. Because cold numbs your taste buds, cask beer has a fuller flavor. If you're drinking a cask pale ale, for example -- cask comes in the same range of styles as regular beer -- the bitter hops flavor is even more intense than with a normal pale ale. But for those accustomed to U.S. beers like Coors or even heartier microbrews, cask ale can be too harsh.

Wah, wah. What I wouldn't give for a hearty cask-conditioned ale. How many days until Easter?

UPDATE: Or Eic Felten writing about the history of the Bloody Mary also in the WSJ:

The Tehran meeting of F.D.R., Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1943 was at times a bloody-minded affair -- in the strategy discussed and the cocktails consumed.

Stalin suggested executing 50,000 to 100,000 German officers once the war was won. President Roosevelt, assuming old Joe had to be kidding, joked that 49,000 would do. But the Soviet dictator was in dead earnest. Churchill argued that war criminals should be tried and get their due, but political mass executions were right out. The rest of the conference, Stalin needled Churchill repeatedly, insinuating that he harbored a secret love of Germans.

There was tension in the rooms, and Roosevelt and Churchill tried to ease it with an abundant supply of drinks. On the first day they met, F.D.R. mixed Stalin a batch of his Dirty Martinis, but it was in the evenings that the liquor really flowed, and none so much as the night of Nov. 30, Churchill's 69th birthday. There was much champagne and, according to the Chicago Tribune's reporter, cocktails that "looked like tomato juice were served. Probably these were the famous middle east 'bloody Marys,' made by mixing vodka and tomato juice."

I have never been particularly fond of Bloodies, because the drink, as practiced today, is rarely in balance. Sometimes you get a veritable salad of crudités stuffed into the glass. And almost always the drink is ruined by a heavy hand with the spice jars. The standard Bloody Mary seems to be a glass of Tabasco sauce tempered with horseradish.

If that's how you like your Bloody, fair enough. But every now and then it's worth getting back to the basics of any recipe as a touchstone to ward off excess.

For the record, I enjoy a dollup of horseradish in my Bloody.