Movies and Booze
With thanks to O’Brien’s Wines
Movie Reviews:
Esther McCarthy of the Sunday World
www.twitter.com/esthermccarthy
War Horse (12A) ****
Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, Tom Hiddleston.
FILM GOERS WHO argue they don’t make them like they used to are getting quite the treat these days. Hot on the heels of last week’s sublime and retro The Artist comes a movie that looks and feels like the sort of Sunday afternoon matinees we watched growing up.
War Horse is distinctly old fashioned and, for the first hour at least, a bit on the slow side. But director Steven Spielberg knows better than most how to engage an audience in a story and this builds into a very powerful and emotional finale. You’ll be needing a box of tissues.
It tells the story of the connection between a young Devon farmer named Albert (Irvine) and the horse, Joey, which his family buys to plough their arid land. The two form a remarkable bond when he gains the horse’s trust while training and taming him.
The animal becomes company for Albert amid a strained family life with his parents (Watson and Mullan). And when they are forcefully and painfully parted when Joey is sold to the British cavalry, the heartbroken young man vows to one day be reunited with the horse again.
This is a movie that is pretty predictable early on but develops into something very engaging indeed. Spielberg does a decent job of setting a simple story against a powerful backdrop - that of World War 1. The scenes from the trenches are especially strong as Spielberg places the audience at the centre of the conflict, just as he did with WW2 in Saving Private Ryan.
The director has found a sweet-faced newcomer in the form of lead actor Jeremy Irvine, but has cleverly put some of the most promising actors of the moment in strong supporting roles. They include Tom Hiddleston as the army captain who first brings Joey into conflict, and Benedict Cumberbatch as the top major who could have a hand in the animal’s fate.
Sometimes the melodrama is all a little overcooked and the story is occasionally clichéd but Spielberg’s love for the material rings true and he sure knows how to make an audience invest in a movie. By the final hour, you’ll be rooting for the main characters, both human and animal.
Shame (18) ****
Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan.
Brandon (Fassbender) is obsessed with sex. He hires the service of prostitutes. His computer hard drive, as a colleague in IT notes, is ‘filthy. I mean it is dirty’. He spends much of his free time availing of online sex services and even thinks about sex while staring at women on public transport.
An attractive and well-off New Yorker, Brandon has managed to keep his obsessions secret from many of those around him.
But his circumstances change when his highly-strung younger sister (Mulligan) arrives in town and asks to stay for a few days in his apartment. It’s not long before she’s throwing Brandon’s obsessed but ordered life out of control, and it quickly becomes clear she has issues of her own.
Shame sees Kerryman Fassbender reunite with director Steve McQueen for the first time since he enjoyed huge breakthrough success playing Bobby Sands in Hunger.
Though a slightly more commercial film than Hunger, this is nevertheless a dark and troubling story that’s as much about addiction as it is about sex. Yet this time round McQueen also makes room for some humour, partly in the banter between Brandon and his work colleagues.
Ultimately, the movie is proof that Fassbender and McQueen really do bring out the best in each other. The director in what is only his second feature film, has again coaxed a brilliant performance from the actor, while only a leading man as charismatic as Fassbender could make the potentially-creepy Brandon sympathetic.
If there is any justice, he will be among the nominees for Best Actor when the Oscar shorlist is announced on Tuesday.
A dark and challenging character study, Shame will remain with you long after leaving the cinema, while Fassbender is simply terrific in the lead role.
A mention also for Margin Call (15A) ****, a powerfully acted take on the financial crisis featuring a superb cast.
Ruthlessly sacked from his job as a risk assessor with an investment firm, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) hands his younger colleague (Zachary Quinto) access to the figures that show the company they work for is in serious financial trouble.
He informs his bosses, who call in the big guns as it dawns on them that the company is about to go under - and they have some serious moral decisions to ponder over.
Set over a 24-hour period and heavy on the dialogue, this character-driven tale is a fascinating take on the early days of the financial crisis. There’s isn’t a single bad performance here but Quinto as the newcomer, Paul Bettany as his savvy line manager and Tucci as the disillusioned analyst are particularly outstanding.
Underestimated in the flurry of awards-season buzz, this is the movie that Wall Street 2 wanted to be, with a strong script and exceptional cast performances.
WINTER ALES
Dean McGuinness
From Premier International Beers
Introduction –
With Christmas gone, and January blues kicking in, it is nice to have something that will warm us up in the way of beers. Traditionally, after the Christmas spending spree, we have in year’s past talked about value in the way of beers. To-day, we will be uncovering the ultimate secret to getting beer at the best possible value to beat budget shortages. Also, on a day where Diageo (Guinness) has announced the closure of breweries in Dundalk and Kilkenny, we will be looking at some good news in Irish brewing to cheer us up.
Our two beers for to-day are Palm Dobbel, from Palm Breweries (brewers of Palm Ale, the number one amber ale in Belgium), and A Winter’s Ale from Eight Degrees Brewing in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork. Both are winter ales, with a touch above average strength (6% for Palm Dobbel and 7.5% for A Winter’s Ale).
Value in Beer –
This Christmas saw quite an amount of discounting in beer. Slabs of beer were selling as low as €20 for 24x500ml cans of beer. Compared to historic prices for beers, these prices are at historic lows for Ireland. However, this has to be recognised in the context of Ireland historically being a very expensive country for beer up to a number of years ago.
To-day, we will be uncovering some information to help people find true value in the beer that they are buying. We will be letting people know the secret to spending less on beer and getting better beer for the money being spent. For a little context, it is useful to look at a few numbers. This exercise has been done in the past on wine, and many people were surprised at the facts when they got to see them.
When a case of beer was sold for €20 for 24x500ml cans before Christmas, the VAT on this was €3.47 (old VAT rate 21%), and the excise is circa €8.11 (taking the beer at 4.3% a.b.v.). This means that €11.58 on this beer is going to the government (or 58% of the money spent on the beer).
The retailer is likely to take an amount of profit in selling the beer, and the beer will have to be transported from the brewery to Ireland (often, the beer comes from oversees, as we have very little facility for packaging beers on the island of Ireland), and from a distribution depot to the shop. Packaging materials also have to be used to allow the beer to be transported. On our exercise above, with 24x500ml cans, the cost of all of the above would typically be about €6.50 – leaving about €4 to be spent by the brewery on the actual liquid.
However, with big brand beers, some of this money has to go on marketing (potentially half of it), and some has to go on profit for the brewery itself, meaning that the cost of the liquid in a case of beer that has been purchased for €20 might be in the region of €1 or €0.04 per 500ml container of liquid. For your €20 spend, 58% has gone to the government, around 40% is going towards the cost of packaging, transport, retailer margins, brewery margins and marketing of the beers. About 2% goes towards the budget for the liquid that you are drinking.
If 2% represents the amount of your €20 that is being spent by the brewery on the liquid, obviously, when beer is sold at this price, the brewery has to work out how to brew and package the beer within this budget. They have to work out the least expensive way possible of producing the beer. This typically means using cheaper ingredients, and potentially using process aids, and additives to reduce production costs.
Now, to work out the secret to getting value out of beer, we will take it that we are spending €20, but we are buying six bottles of premium, high quality beer at €3.33 per 330ml bottle. If the beer is a premium beer, it will probably be at a higher strength – for the sake of our argument, we will say that it is 7% a.b.v. We can now look at where our money is going.
In this instance, we still have the same VAT on €20 (€3.47 at the old rate of 21%, just to keep the figures consistent). The excise is higher on stronger beer, but it would be lower because of the lower volume involved. In this case, the total amount of money going to the government is €5.65, or 28% of the €20 (compared to 58%, in the previous example). Costs of transport would be lower on 6x330ml bottles of beer, and packaging costs (bottles are nicer than cans) and retailer margins might be a bit higher for a lower volume product, so we will take it that around €8 of our €20 (40%) goes towards these ‘in between’ bits.
Typically premium beers are marketed more by word of mouth, so the exorbitant budgets that go on mainstream beers are not a feature, and when one hears about a premium beer, it often means that it is because somebody has tasted it, and they can confirm that it is a good quality beer. If we take it that a nominal amount is going on the marketing of our 6 x 330ml bottles of premium beer, we are left with about €6 available to go towards the quality of the liquid in our 2 litres of beer (€1 per bottles, or for a direct comparison, about €1.50 per 500ml equivalent).
Now for the side by side comparison. For our €20 slab of beer, we are getting beer that has been produced on a budget of €0.04 per 500ml. For our premium 6x330ml beer, we are getting beer that has been produced on a budget of over 35 times what has been spent on the slab of cans.
So the secret to getting value in beers can be summarised in a simple quote from the Beer Hunter, Michael Jackson –
“Drink less, drink better.”
Both of our beers are superb examples of beers that allow us to live up to this motto.
However, just to cover it, the return argument that one gets on the above is that you are getting more liquid for your €20 with your than you are with the premium beers. This is true, but the question is what value are you getting out of the beer? I know for my part that I get much greater enjoyment about having one or two bottles of an excellent beer each night over three nights in a week than I would get from chugging back a slab of cans. Everybody to their own, but when it comes to premium beers, they really are to be enjoyed and savoured – this is where the real value comes from in any beer.
Palm Dobbel –
Beer style - Winter (Dobbel) ale
Alcohol by Volume - 6% a.b.v.
Brewed by - Palm Breweries
Brewed in - Belgium
Palm Breweries are brewers of the world famous Palm Amber Ale – the number one amber ale in Belgium. With a long tradition of brewing in Belgium, Palm have added to the success of their flagship ale with two beers – Palm Royale and Palm Dobbel. The second of these is the winter ale that we are tasting to-day.
Master Brewer Alfred Van Roy first launched Palm Dobbel in 1947 as a winter beer to celebrate the brewery’s bicentenary. The success of the beer meant that Palm Dobbel has become an annual traditional seasonal release for the brewery.
Palm Dobbel is an amber, top fermented beer, with even more malty and hoppy character than its ‘brother beer’ Palm. Pleasant toasty notes combine with subtle spices and cinnamon on the nose. Given that Palm Dobbel is such a complex beer, it is incredibly drinkable with flavours of caramelised sugar. Suggestions of aniseed and liquorice come through in the finish.
Palm Dobbel is a superb beer – delectably drinkably, and with that extra little bit of alcohol to provide a more warming taste experience. Available during the winter months as a seasonal beer, it is a beer that is well worth hunting out – in a few months time, one will have to wait almost a year to be able to get it again!
A Winter’s Ale –
Beer style - Winter Ruby Ale
Alcohol by Volume - 7.5% a.b.v.
Brewed by - Eight Degrees Brewing Company
Brewed in - Mitchelstown, Co. Cork
Cameron and Scott are an Aussie and a Kiwi (respectively) who have come to live in Ireland. Both married to beautiful Irish ladies, they compromised on where they would live – accepting the dictates of their wives that they live in Ireland – on condition that they set up a brewery when they get here. Most men would probably be happy to live anywhere that their wives told them to if the reward was that they would have their own brewery, so these guys have probably come out trumps in more ways than one!
Eight Degrees Brewing is the brewery that these guys have set up in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork. With the tag line ‘Naturally Adventurous’, they are committed to brewing beers that deliver real choice and quality to Irish beer drinkers. With this philosophy in mind, they have added to their stable of three beers this winter their first seasonal beer, name appropriately ‘A Winter’s Ale’.
A Winter’s Ale is brewed as a ‘winter warmer’ ruby ale at 7.5% a.b.v. Deep ruby in colour, the hops used are traditional English hops (Fuggles and Admiral), and the blend of malts used in the beer are classic malts designed to give good body and dark ale malt character (Chocolate Malt, Caramel Malts and Munich Malt). However, what really sets this beer apart is the blend of spices (300g of spices used in a 1500 litre batch of beer). This (quite expensive) ingredient was developed especially for the brewery by Green Saffron – a spice company that specialises in spice blends for mulled wines.
A Winter’s Ale is a delicious strong dark ale. The malt / hop balance is managed superbly well, giving a foundation of plummy Fuggles with rich Chocolate malt character, and allowing the spice blend to shine through. Interestingly, this is a beer that varies considerably depending on the temperature at which it is served. The name ‘Eight Degrees Brewing’ comes from two things – the line of longitude (8 degrees) on which the brewery is located, and the ideal serving temperature for this beer. A little playing around with temperature will deliver surprising variations in character and taste.
Well done to Cameron and Scott on this superb winter ale – we will be looking forward to other seasonal from them over time!
