Beer...Beer...Beer

 

Beyond pumpkins and Hallowe'en, it's Oktoberfest time and thoughts turn to beer. What a welcome reprieve! The original Oktoberfest is a 16-day long celebration in Munich, Germany attended by thousands during which time reportedly seven million liters of beer are consumed. That's a lot of beer, even by our standards. Though we've never attended the festivities in Munich, we've certainly partaken in several Oktoberfests in other parts of the world. It might not be the real thing, but it's still a festival and still beer. That said, while visiting Germany many times during our working careers, we have had German draught beer and oh my, it's wonderful. In fact, we always thought it would be worthwhile going to Germany just for the beer and bread ... the sightseeing would be an added bonus.

Actually, we've been sampling beers around the world for the past 14 years. According to Wiki, beer is the world's most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, and is the third-most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is thought by some to be the oldest fermented beverage in world. All we know is that wherever we go and wherever we've been, there's always beer. Lagers, ales ... pilsners, weisen, chichas, porters, IPAs, stouts, bitters. We began brewing our own beer aboard Nine of Cups when we arrived in Australia where the cost of buying a case of beer came close to requiring a mortgage.

We found that any place with a strong German influence like Namibia, Chile and Bolivia, for instance, had great beers to offer. Other countries though ... well, let's just say beer brewed in the Amazonian jungles of Peru was wet and cold, but not necessarily the best beer we've ever tasted. Chile, in particular, offered schop, a wonderfully German-type beer on tap.

Speaking of unappealing beers, until the likes of Sam Adams came along and made its owner a multi-millionaire, US beers, other than microbrews, were not the best. Sorry, but Bud Light and Miller are not our idea of tasty beers, although I do like the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales.

Early on in our sailing career, I was amazed by the number of beers we came across and the pride each little country/island took in sporting its own distinctive beer label. Even the tiniest Caribbean island nation has its own beer brand. I doubt many of the Caribbean beers are actually produced on the islands that touted them, but we appreciated the gusto with which each beer was proudly served and advertised.

I started saving beer bottle labels way back then. Why exactly, I'm not sure. Nor have I figured out what I'll do with them, but they don't take up much room and we still have them aboard, pressed flat between the pages of some old reference book that we probably don't refer to any more. Maybe a beer label collage in our future? How tacky. Photographing them is much more convenient, but again ... what do I do with them once I have them. And of course, we did have to buy and drink the beer to get the labels, but we felt it obligatory to support the local economy.

Brennan has a beer app on his iPhone (Untappd) that allows him to keep track of and comment on craft beers he's tasted and allows him to find the closest brew pub wherever he is. Very important if you're a beer drinker, I guess. We haven't gotten that far yet.

We haven't produced our own Nine of Cups label yet, but give us time.

Trader Joe's

 

Not far away from us, down on Route 1 in Foxboro, right next door to the Patriot's football stadium, is Trader Joe's. We remember our first time visiting a Trader Joe's in California. Back then, there weren't many Trader Joe's around and it was a real novelty-type store. Today there are close to 500 stores … and it's still a novelty and fun to shop there.

It's a grocery store, so how novel can you get? How much fun can it be? It's just not your usual grocery store, that's all. It's down-to-earth, gourmet, and affordable … even for parsimonious sailors like us. The moment you walk into the bright and airy store, there's an energy and a fun atmosphere. From their funky little newsletter to the murals on the walls and all their unusual products on offer, there's lots to take in. We head straight to the samples of hot coffee and graze on from there. Depending on the day and the season, there might be tastings of cheese, wine, crackers... whatever. It's always good.

Trader Joe offers lots of private labeled stuff which appears to be specific to the region, like Pilgrim Joe's Clam Chowder for the New England market, for example. Their cheeses are wonderful. Chocolate, maple syrup, nuts and frozen foods are usually an especially good bargain. Our favorite offering though is Charles Shaw wines, affectionately known as “3 Buck Chuck”. Yup, a bottle of very drinkable Cabernet Sauvignon (or Merlot or Chardonnay) for $2.99. Really? This alone makes the trip worthwhile. Wine connoisseurs hate it, but that's just them. We find it perfectly adequate. The bottles even have corks (though that's a debatable attribute and a discussion for another time).

Employees wear Hawaiian shirts and plastic leis around their necks and seem genuinely happy to be working at Trader Joes. They smile. No one's ever too busy to stop and answer a question or point you in the right direction. It makes customers happy to be shopping and spending their money there. Customers talk and joke amongst themselves. It's a friendly kind of place and brings out the best in people. We compared TJ's employees recently to employees working at the local WalMart who appeared sullen, aloof and generally unhappy. What does that tell you?

There was an article in Business Week about TJ's that stated “the chain quintupled the store numbers and increased its profits by ten times between 1990 and 2001.” Pretty impressive. Incidentally, they're owned by a German trust, the same people who own Aldi's, another interesting, not-your-usual-type grocery store that we really enjoy and that we've visited worldwide from Wisconsin to Argentina to Australia.

Guess if we ever have to get part time jobs, this might be a possibility. Not sure how we'd look in Hawaiian shirts though.

Salty Dogs and Old Salts

 

NaCl … sodium chloride … we learned about it in basic chemistry and we use it at the table every day. Salt has significance in many religions and historically it was used as currency. Heck, the English word “salary” comes from the Latin salarium argentum, a salt ration paid to Roman soldiers. It's odd when something we take for granted and that is so commonplace has a whole new meaning when you see it in mass quantities … like salt, for instance. It's hard to imagine not having it readily available, yet we never really gave much thought as to its source … until we started sailing, that is.

Our first encounter with salt production in quantity was the abandoned salt pans of Grand Turk. At one time, Salt Cay near Grand Turk was the world's largest producer of salt. In its heyday, over 100 vessels a year left the island with their cargo of `white gold', a valuable trade commodity, important in food preservation to the colonies in the north. This solar evaporation method entailed letting sea waters into large shallow basins and then baking it dry in the scorching sun. A system of canals and sluice gates, powered by windmills were used.

Saltrakers then raked the crystallized salt into small piles, carted it to the salt sheds for storage where it was packed into cloth bags, then carried to the salt lighters for transport to the larger ships anchored offshore. As we viewed the abandoned salt pans, man-made canals and dilapidated windmills, we tried to imagine the industry in full swing back in the 18th century.

Our next noticeable encounter with salt production was in Bonaire. As we sailed along the coast, we observed white mounds lined along the shore and wondered what they were. We took a land trip and discovered the white mountains were piles of salt and belonged to the Cargill Salt Company which operates a large salt production facility on the island.

The largest salt flats in the world are in Bolivia at Uyuni, but we didn't stay at the Palacio de Sal, a hotel made entirely out of salt blocks.

In the Galapagos, we saw the rusty red hue of abandoned salt pans, but apparently they no longer harvest the salt.

Probably the most impressive salt works we saw in our travels was in Namibia where the mountains of salt were moved with huge plows.

From a distance, the salt looks like snow but this close to the equator? Not a chance.

We recently learned that during the 1830s, there were 442 salt works on Cape Cod … right in our own backyard. An old sketch from the Provincetown Museum showed salt windmills along the shore. Who knew? Obviously, not us.

Our friend John once commented that we should start the Nine of Cups Salt Company and harvest the salt off the stainless and rigging after long passages. We haven't resorted to this yet, but you never know what sort of efforts the future budget will require.

So … from a couple of old salts, you can take this “with a grain of salt”, determine if it's “worth its salt” or perhaps even consider us “the salt of the earth”. No matter …lest, you leave feeling thirsty from all this salt talk … here's an easy recipe for a Salty Dog.

Mix 4 oz of grapefruit juice with 2 oz of gin or vodka. Add ice and stir. Pour into salt-rimmed glass. Garnish with slice of lime. Enjoy!