Italian stout, Spanish vermouth

One of the best treats I ever had was a Guinness tapped in the way only the Irish can do it at a pub in Galway served with oysters on the half shell from that rugged Atlantic coast. Oysters and stout are a match made in heaven, as the heavy, malty beer washes down the briny fresh molluscs. So it makes sense that someone is brewing an oyster stout.

From Birra del Borgo website

The Del Borgo craft brewery in Borgorose, Italy, mixes in 33 lbs of Brittany fines de claires oysters with 500 liters of must during the brewing process to give a briny edge to the dark, foamy stout. As part of its effort to expand its beer list, 2Amys has added this "Pearls to swine" stout to its drinks menu and I sampled it on our visit there this week. The stout itself was a good, solid dark brew. The head in the 12-oz serving could have been a little bigger, but the beer was fresh and there was definitely something fishy about it. I paired it with a mozzarella and sausage pizza, which may not have been the happiest combination, but it worked fine because the hearty beer was a match for the rich sausage flavor.

Surprisingly enough, 2Amys has a full bar but they focus on beer and wine as if they didn't. The effort to increase the beer offering is typical as restaurants even with a restricted license try to keep up with the craft trend in drinks.

Little Serow, which we visited recently, has only beer and wine so they add a dash of trendiness by offering vermouths. I ordered the Perucchi Gran Reserva from Spain, a spicy, clovey concoction which claims to have 40 different ingredients. While Spanish vermouths may be new for us, Perucchi has been making them since 1876, and the tradition shows in the finished, mature taste of this aperitif. It was an excellent accompaniment to the spicy starters at the Thai restaurant, and helped whet the appetite appropriately for what was to come.

It is still a novelty in this country to drink vermouth straight, but it's one of the first things I learned in Europe. My first summer there, in 1970, I met a friend in Geneva who encourage me to order a "rouge et blanc" at the sidewalk cafe right on the lake. This was a mix of red and white vermouths, served on ice with a twist of lemon, and perfectly matched the sunny day, cooled by the breeze off the lake, with the mountain peaks in the distance. So Little Serow and others without a full license are making a virtue out of necessity by offering these herb-infused wines.