Hamiltons Rugby Club, the venue for the Festival of Beer

Some brands and beers we know well, others were new

This new hop developed by South African Breweries is known only by its serial number, J-17-63 has excited the craft brewers because of its unique flavour properties

A beer called Delirium with a pink elephant on the label had lots of alcohol

Johan Mönnig of Wild Clover Brewing

Shaun Standeaven, Craft brewer from The Standeaven Brewery in Natal, with his father

Clever T-shirts abounded

Prices for the weekend

Wolfgang Koedel, Brewmaster of the Cape Brewing Company at Spice Route in Paarl; he was Brewmaster at the late, lamented Paulaner micro brewery in the V&A Waterfront

John Collins distributes Belgian beers imported by Den Anker

Moritz Kallmeyer, owner of Drayman's Brewery in Pretoria, flew in to be a judge

Triggerfish had 2 to taste

Chatting with Lakeside brewer

To braai, to tweet, to braai, to tweet....

You can see the Black Market caravan at the Biscuit Mill most Saturdays

Good beer-friendly things to eat

Robson's Beer from Durban

Nick MacNair, Apprentice brewer, Saggy Stone Brewery

The girls from the country's biggest brewer, intent on the social media

Alastair Gillespie, Assistant brewer, Devil's Peak Brewing Company with a craft brewing judge from the USA

Gary Pnematicos of Citizen Beer

Bearded lady?

and a good time was had by all...

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Devon Valley vineyards, Stellenbosch

In this week’s MENU:

Picnic at Grande Provence

Oneiric Pop-up Lunch with Bertus Basson

Doolhof Malbecs at Belthazar

Tasting new rosé Bubbly at Clos Malverne

Best Barbecue Sauce

Wine Concepts Champagne Festival

Follow this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information.

This week’s Product menu: We have heard from our supplier that the French Puy lentil crop has failed for the second year running. Stock on the way here will be the last we will see for at least a year. We will still have the green lentils which are similar and less expensive. White Alba truffles and black French truffles are available to special order. Please contact us for a quote. We will invoice you and place the order on receipt of payment. Delivery will be approximately one week from confirmation of payment.

Our market activities Come and visit us at the Old Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows where we park.

As usual, we have a link at the bottom to our calendar of wine and food related events which should interest all lovers of great food and wine and events which promote them. We have always had a few from centres outside the Western Cape, but we now have enough to justify a separate list, so, if you live in one of the other splendid places in our lovely country, have a look. If you are promoting an event in any of these places, please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.

Picnic at Grande Provence Many farms are doing picnics this summer and we hope to get around and sample lots of them, so that we can tell you where to find the best. Grande Provence invited us to come and sample theirs but, unfortunately, the weather in the Cape does not always play fair and the only day we could make it, turned out to be the day another of our famous Cape storms arrived. Instead of cancelling, they cleverly laid out the picnic in their beautiful, newly restored Jonkershuis private dining room, in front of a roaring fire. Sadly, no other people had been invited so it was a little “tout seul”. Click here to see the pictures of the picnic food. It costs R420 for two with a bottle of wine. We enjoyed the food, although we felt it needed the addition of something fresh and/or green added to it. We made it back to Cape Town before the full force of the storm hit. It brought severe flooding in parts of Franschhoek and other areas of the Cape. This year’s weather has been rather extreme.

Oneiric Pop-up Lunch with Bertus Basson We have tasted some of Oneiric’s excellent wines when we have taken part in the Elgin wine Tweet Ups recently and they were kind enough to invite us to this lunch last Sunday. John has been fortunate to eat Bertus Basson’s food at his restaurant, Overture, in Stellenbosch several times when doing wine tours; sadly, Lynne has not, so it was a treat to see what this top-rated chef cooks and, certainly, he does not disappoint. What we found is that Bertus prepares quite simple and fresh ingredients in absolutely the best way possible for each ingredient and he adds such flair and perfection to each dish that they cannot help but grab your attention and delight your taste buds. Very pretty and appealing presentations too.

The exceptionally moreish canapé of pulled pork sliders was a case in point. Not only was the pork in a barbeque sauce perfectly done, but he made his own bread rolls and cooked the dish in his Big Green Egg (www.biggreenegg.co.za/about/) - no mean feat from the back of a van at a completely new venue for him. Course after terrific course was well matched with Oneiric’s good wines and we had a really great experience on this hill-top farm, with amazing views of the whole Elgin Valley. For our starter, he cooked catfish from the Theewaterskloof area. Everyone’s perception was that this would be a muddy fish. We could not have been more wrong. It was meaty, fresh and delicious, cooked, as Bertus explained, in the Kentucky Fried Catfish style in an extremely crisp batter on a bed of some of the best creamy polenta ever eaten, with the addition of young sweetcorn kernels. Why doesn’t everyone cook polenta this way instead of the stodgy solid block you usually get?

Oneiric and Bertus plan to do more of these Pop-ups in the future so do investigate their website and visit the farm to sample the wines. Click here to see the pictures. Jen Pascall is a talented ceramicist and her Button Mad tiles, jewellery and buttons are all available for sale in the tasting room alongside their entire wine collection.

Doolhof, the Wellington farm, invited us to do a very interesting vertical tasting of their Malbecs on Wednesday, hosted by owner Dennis Kerrison. They have been producing Malbecs since 2007. This flight of five Doolhof Malbecs was then followed by a tasting of four Argentinian and one French Malbec; such an interesting way to see what the grape can produce. This was held at Belthazar restaurant in the Waterfront on a perfect summer’s day. We sampled four French Champagnes, imported by Doolhof, and ate wild oysters – feeling thoroughly indulged - before sitting down to the tasting.

Why Malbec? Dennis Kerrison told us that, when he bought the farm in 2003, his ambition was to make a wine like Chateau Lafite and Malbec is one of his favorite grapes. Three winemakers have been involved in the making of these Malbecs: Teresa de Beer, Rianie Strydom, who now acts as a consultant to the farm, and current winemaker Friedrich Kühne and it has become a very successful export wine. Farmed on the highest, stoniest parts of the farm, on well drained terroir, with wind and baboons and some millerandage all help to keep the yields low. Each of these wines has a different character and there is certainly a progression of flavour and quality in the newer wines. Words like intriguing, slow to reveal, richness and depth appear in our notes. Malbec is a heady grape, giving firm meaty flavours with lots of body, full of rich dark fruits and often chocolate and licorice and some nice chalky tannins. Doolhof’s wines have all of these and more. The Argentinean wines were a lot sweeter and more herbaceous, but not in the same class and came from different clones. The French wine, Chateau de Chambert from Cahors, was very different indeed and we are not sure that this was a good example of what the French can produce. It had good fruit, was juicy with long sour berry flavours, but some medicinal and eucalypts on the nose.

The lunch that followed was a good example of what Belthazar can produce for a large group of people. With two choices for starter and main courses and a cheesecake dessert we had a very good lunch paired with some other Doolhof wines. Click here to see the photographs.

Tasting new rosé Bubbly at Clos Malverne We were invited to taste the new Shiraz MCC today. It is called Ellie, after Sophia Pritchard’s beloved mother, and we were honoured to have a glass of the second bottle ever opened on our arrival. It is a beautiful pale pink, has a fine mousse and with 8 degrees of sugar and 2 years on the lees, the spicy shiraz makes itself known in this good MCC. Not many of us recognized it as Shiraz, there were lots of wrong guesses before winemaker Suzanne Genis told us how she had made it. They have one small block of Shiraz on the farm and it is now dedicated to the MCC. We were served some superb pink canapés, all matched to the flavours in the Ellie, and then proceeded to the restaurant for a good lunch, matched with three of the Clos Malverne wines. Click here for the photos and descriptions of the food. Thank you to all on the farm for a wonderful day, and especially for organizing a bus to get us there, it make such a difference to us.

This week’s recipe It is braai time again and you might need a good sauce. Lynne has been using this recipe since the 70’s and has never found one to beat it.

BEST BARBECUE SAUCE

4 level tablespoons clear honey - 3 tablespoons soy sauce - 3 tablespoons tomato ketchup – dash of Tabasco sauce - 2 cloves garlic – 1 t English Mustard powder – 1 t Paprika - Juice of a small orange- 4 tablespoons Wine vinegar -Salt and black pepper

Put the honey, soy sauce, tomato ketchup and a few drops of Tabasco sauce into a bowl, peel and crush the garlic and add it. Season to taste with the mustard powder, paprika, salt and freshly ground pepper, then add the orange juice and wine vinegar.

Mix and pour over the meat. Allow to marinade in the fridge for as long as possible. Cook on a barbeque or in the oven, using the rest of the sauce for basting. This is suitable for a rack of spare ribs, or some chicken pieces or anything you like to put into a barbeque sauce. Any residue is wonderful on baked potatoes, but do not reuse it.

Wine Concepts Champagne Festival is the place to be in Cape Town tomorrow, Friday, at the Vineyard Hotel, from 6 to 9. Where else can you taste wonderful French champagnes for the price of less than one bottle? All are imported from France. We hope to see many of you at this smart and elegant event next Friday, November 22nd. They would like us to dress up for it – feathers and stylish modes of the Moulin Rouge era. Prizes will be given for the best dressed. Or just come and celebrate life with bubbles.

Buying from us On Line We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our Events Calendar. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.

Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here.

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who made our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

21st November 2013

Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our online shop for details and prices.

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.

Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast!^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Craft beer festival at Hamiltons

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Wine Concepts Champagne festival

Friday, November 22, 2013

131121 Main Ingredient's MENU - Picnic at Grande Provence, Oneiric Pop-up Lunch with Bertus Basson, Doolhof Malbecs at Belthazar, Tasting new rosé Bubbly at Clos Malverne, Wine Concepts Champagne

BEST BARBECUE SAUCE