Black as sin: Péché Mortel, the coffee-tinged beer from Montreal (Photo by Joe Foodie)

• Coffee and beer are proving to be a formidable team in Péché Mortel (French for “mortal sin”), a beer from Montreal’s Dieu du Ciel brewery that combines imperial stout with dark roasted coffee. It’s flying off shelves at the LCBO, and the Star calls it one of the best beers in the country. Don’t take the paper’s word for it, though; in a list dominated by Québécois breweries, Péché Mortel currently ranks second among Canada’s 50 best beers, according to cyber-connoisseurs at ratebeer.com. [Toronto Star]

• Move over, Fuzion. 7-Eleven is releasing its own brand of bargain wine that will retail for $3.99 a bottle. It’s not the convenience store’s first foray into wine, but it is its first attempt at bringing a bargain wine to a global market (the wines will sell in the U.S. and Japan). Still, at $1.99 a bottle, Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck takes the cake as the plonkiest plonk out there. [Associated Press]

• Cheap, portable and efficient, halogen tabletop ovens might be all the rage this Christmas. At about an eighth of the cost of a conventional oven, halogens cook food three times faster by relying on infrared waves and a high-performance fan. Is it all just a marketing ploy? The Daily Mail says no. “I don’t believe any conventional oven could have roasted them better,” says a tester after tasting some chicken and vegetables in the Prolectrix Intrachef. No question the technology is nifty, but it sounds like it was named by Epcot designers in 1982. [Daily Mail]

• In news sure to please coffee lovers, Starbucks and the makers of Péché Mortel (see above), scientists from Harvard have concluded that drinking a few cups of coffee per day can be healthy. Researchers say it can prevent such diseases as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s and heart disease, and that the beverage can even stave off premature death, especially in women. What’s good for the body is, unfortunately, not always so good for the breath—coffee is awash in malodorous chemicals. [Toronto Star]

• Chinese urbanites are increasingly moving toward Western cuisine. Xu Meng, general secretary of the Beijing Western Food Association, says there are now 5,000 Western restaurants in the capital—“Western” meaning anything non-Chinese—and that rising urban incomes means people can afford it. Explains Meng, “You eat Chinese food for its flavour and Western food for its style.” We do?  [ABC]