Beverage Innovation Coach, Inspiration Partner, Quality step up, Advisor
During one of my trips to our R&D center of Rio de Janeiro, I managed to save some time for a getaway to Petropolis, to visit Bohemia brewery. Petropolis seems to be the great WE escape for people from Rio. One-hour scenic drive away from the chaos of the city.
I don’t know why systematically, when people set up a cheese diner, they only consider wine. Just like cheese = French = wine. I mean, seriously?
Cheese is not just French,… (hey there are more than 500 awesome cheeses in Belgium) and beer, by all mean (and I can relay the opinion of plenty of wine sommeliers), is a best option for cheese.
If you can ever do a stopover in Copenhagen… just do it. Do it in summer, when the days never end.
It’s what I did, taking advantage of a visit to a supplier I took an extra day to explore the city. In classic fashion I built a plan around beer and food scouting.
Mikkeller was on my plan of course. This guy has been gypsy brewing everywhere around the world, it was just normal I would come by in his home city. I have had occasions to try the beers from his twin bro’, under the Evil Twin brand and I visited his bar in Brooklyn a couple times (the highly rated minimalist Torst) but Mikkeller Copenhagen was on my bucket lis
It’s been a while now but when Callebaut was preparing it’s 100 years anniversary they were looking at the best way to celebrate and chocolate and their origin. For clarity, Callebaut is Belgian and is the world leader in chocolate. I don’t think they have any consumer product but they supply raw chocolate to the best chocolatier around the world.
They were planning high end celebrations in all big cities around the world and contacted us to bring beer along with chocolate. I mean it could have been other Belgian specialities but Witloof and chocolate didn’t make the cut, neither did speculoos or cuberdons…. After all people had to drink something.
I love these colorful chalkboards behind the bar, full of drawings and stylistic letters but when you step back a bit, they look like a secret language that only craft geeks and hop heads can understand. Let’s be honest, you have the name, the style and the description. In some case you have the IBU and the ABV and maybe a Ratebeer score.
Nested on the Canadian border of Idaho, EMF covers the valley with hop. A blanket of green with a blue winding Kootenay river in the middle and surrounded by old mountains.
The trip start in Spokane which is the nearest airport I believe and is a 2 hours scenic drive north.
I tripped at the Master level and who knows if I’ll try again one day… It’s like an arcade game… you always want to get to the next level. Here is how my journey to Cicerone started…!
