One of my husband’s sisters gave us an amaryllis for Christmas. We took our time getting it started and have been rewarded this month with blooms of scarlet red. Many blooms. Six flowers on the first stalk, which is one more than on the most exuberant of amaryllises past. Then along came a second stalk with six more, now that the first batch has faded. This has been one high-achieving bulb.
Also, the flowers smell good. The scent is subtle, but we’ve been keeping the door to that room closed, and when you open it, the smell wafts toward you, a hint, the merest suggestion of spring and life returning.
On the subject of life returning, birds in this area are looking for nesting sites. The most highly contested site around here is a former muskrat lodge on a no-name pond. It looked as if the Canada geese had established dominance on the spot this year, beating out the swans that have also wanted it. When the dog and I walked past the pond this week, there was a mallard sitting on the lodge, and not a goose or a swan in sight. Who knows how this will turn out?
Our honeymoon house had a sunroom cantilevered out over a wooded hill. One spring, we watched a pair of mourning doves building a nest right where we’d be able to see them raise their young. Then a pair of bluejays threw the doves out and remodeled the nest to their own specifications. And shortly thereafter, a pair of squirrels evicted the jays and took over the nest, remodeling it again. We couldn’t see anything that happened in the squirrels’ nest, but we enjoyed how they would disappear inside it and pull their tails in after them, like closing the garage door.
Various groups of musicians performed at church last Saturday night. The occasion was the master’s degree recital for a young man who grew up in the congregation, singing in the choirs and playing handbells. He’s a trumpeter now, although he plays other instruments as well. It’s been an ongoing privilege to witness his musical development.
Our neighbor Cory is always doing interesting things. He’s a chemistry professor at Eastern Michigan University, and when he gets interested in something, he pursues it with a passion. For the past several years, he’s been interested in brewing. With a colleague, he started a fermentation program at EMU, and in 2024 EMU’s student team became the national grand champions of the US Open College Beer Championship. Cory’s become a certified beer judge, able to judge competitions, including international ones. A week or so ago, he even became a certified tapster of pilsner beers, by taking a training in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic.
The Czechs are extremely serious about how their pilsner should be poured. Cory can now consistently produce all three of the standard pours. He can pour a hladinka, which the internet reminds us is a classic, well-balanced pour with a good balance of beer and foam. Or a schnitt, which is more foam than beer, and intended to be refreshing rather than filling. Or a mliko, which is more foam than beer, and meant to be drunk quickly.
These are all the same beer. Only the pour differs.
“Does the pour really affect the flavor that much?” we all wanted to know at last weekend’s wine and cheese.
“Yes,” Cory us. “It affects the taste.” He says a pub here may have quite a variety of beers on tap. A Czech pub has one. “It’s all about the pour.”
And yes, the patrons can tell the difference between a good pour and one that’s been “fouled.” Fouled pours will be dumped down the drain. Cory says there were three people who took the tapster training with him, and between them, they managed to foul a lot of beer. Not only can tapsters mess up a pour by getting the proportions of beer and foam wrong, they can also foul it by letting so much as a drop of beer land on previously perfect foam.
The practical for the training was acting as tapster in a crowded bar for hours, under supervision, pouring hladinkas, schnitts, and mlikos as requested. The patrons waiting for their beers were patient and good natured and exacting.
Cory had enough fun in this training that he’s acquired one of the taps purpose-built to produce these pours to install at home. No doubt, his project after that will be to educate his friends’ palates to Czech standards, so they’ll be able to appreciate the different ways of presenting pilsners.
28 March 2025
I’d have a snit if I was poured a schnitt! HA!