Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Green Breweries On Earth Day

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Happy Earth Day everybody. This is the 39th annual celebration setting aside a day to reflect on the big blue marble that sustains us and makes every second of all our lives possible, including enjoying some wonderful beer, organic or otherwise. I did a feature earlier this year on Green Breweries called It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Green in All About Beer magazine. In addition to writing about organic beer, I packed as many stories of ways breweries are running their business in sustainable ways as would fit. But the reality is that in doing research for the article what I discovered is that the number of breweries and the numbers of ways that breweries voluntarily adopt green practices is, quite frankly, staggering. And as far as I can tell, most of them do so just because it’s the right thing to do. There are economic advantages for some sustainable decisions, but by and large they’re not necessarily the least expensive way to do things. I was really struck by this as so many places stepped up to tell me what they were doing, so many in fact that I couldn’t fit anywhere near what they told me in the article. So as Earth Day has me reflecting on this while enjoying a frosty beverage, I’m proud to be a part of one of the greenest industries around. It’s time to fire up the iPod and put on a favorite old song: The Most Beautiful World in the World, by Harry Nilsson. Please join me in drinking a toast to our Earth.

 

The Midnight Raid of Paul For Beer

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While attending the annual Bay Area Firkin Festival in Berkeley a few weeks ago at Triple Rock, I was again struck by this beautiful old ad for Genesee beer in upstate New York.

It’s a great play on words, and got me thinking about the phrase it’s based on: the midnight ride of Paul Revere, which in turn was the inspiration for another beer.

Anchor’s wonderful Liberty Ale, a favorite of mine, was first released today, April 18, in 1975. This date was chosen because it was the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, as immortalized in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem Paul Revere’s Ride, which begins:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Here’s how Anchor describes the beer:

A special top-fermenting ale yeast is used during fermentation and is responsible for many of Liberty Ale’s subtle flavors and characteristics. Carbonation is produced by an entirely natural process called “bunging,” which produces champagne-like bubbles. Dry-hopping (adding fresh hops to the brew during aging), imparts a unique aroma to the ale. It is a process rarely used in this country today.

As historians will tell you, the poem takes quite a few liberties with the true story, but because of it, Paul Revere is the only one of the three riders that night that is remembered. You can read an account on Wikipedia and there’s also ones on the Patriot Resource and Travel & History.

But anything that inspires so fine a beer as Liberty Ale can’t be all bad, so let’s drink a bottle or draft of Liberty Ale tonight and toast Paul Revere. Cheers.

And to add a little culture into the discussion, this is one of my favorite paintings by Grant Wood, called The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, also based on the poem. Grant Wood is best known for his iconic painting American Gothic but there are some other great works in his oeuvre.

 

American Craft Beer Week To Celebrate Community

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This year’s American Craft Beer Week will be held May 12-18. The focus this time around will be to “celebrate brewers’ community citizenship.” In 2007, craft breweries gave combined donations of more than $20 million to various charities and worthy causes.

From the press release:

“In addition to being recognized for making world-class beer, independent craft brewers are amazing community citizens,” said Julia Herz, a spokesperson for the Brewers Association. ‘Craft brewers are an integral part of many communities’ charitable efforts. They donate to everything from fire departments, disaster relief efforts, local events, educational fundraisers and so much more.

Changed to a weeklong event in 2006, the inaugural American Craft Beer Week was recognized by the U.S. Congress with House Resolution 753. The week has continued to attract interest and support from beer enthusiasts and the media. In 2007, more than 150 brewers registered their community celebrations at the American Craft Beer Week website.

Also new, SAVOR: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience (May 16-17) will be held to commemorate American Craft Beer Week in Washington D.C. The event will showcase craft beer and food pairings with participation from 48 independent craft brewers. SAVOR signifies food and beverage lovers increasing interest and knowledge of beer and food pairings.

Breweries around the country will be hosting events throughout the week to celebrate American craft beer. To find out what’s going on your local area, you can look up events by state.
 

 

Beer For Easter

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easter
On St. Patrick’s Day a few years ago I wrote about how many American holidays have been ruined by by overzealous marketing campaigns by the big alcohol companies, suggesting that there were very few not tainted. Well, Easter is one of those that has few beer associations. Less than a couple dozen breweries, most from Europe, make a special beer for Easter.

sailer-jubelfest

Given our track record for trying to ban labels for Christmas beers because they might also appeal to kids, it’s hardly surprising that so few of these beers make it to our shores. I’m frankly somewhat surprised this old bottle of Jubelfest from the now defunckt Privatbrauerei Franz Joseph Sailer in Germany I pulled off of my shelf managed to get label approval. Those are cartoons of bunnies on the label for chrissakes, children might pick one of these up and — gasp — look at it.

kingtaste08-08

Goudon Carolus Easter Ale, a Belgian beer that I sampled at the annual Keene Tasting in Seattlefive years ago. This one, so far as I know, has not been imported to the U.S. (at least not with this label), and I suspect if they even tried it would make the average neo-prohibitionist’s head spin. You can at least buy the beer in Ontario, but because of the asinine regulation that “graphics that might be appealing to children” are forbidden, with a censorship sticker covering the bunny in the lower left-hand corner. You can read all about it by Greg Clow from Toronto’s beer, beats & bites post entitled LCBO: Let’s Censor Bunnies, OK? . I guess there’s some consolation in knowing we’re not the only idiots when it comes to these things.

Here We Go a-WASSAIL-ing

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Today is the 18th anniversary of the first release of Full Sail Brewing’s holiday beer, Wassail.

Full Sail’s holiday favorite was inspired by the traditional English wassail, which is a “spiced ale or mulled wine drunk during celebrations for Twelfth Night and Christmas Eve.” The word itself’s origin is Old Norse and is a contraction of the Old English toast “wæs þu hæl,” or “be thou hale!” (“be in good health“).

The Wassail Page has some great history and information about wassailing. Their aim is to “seek the true revelry and rant so absent from modern celebration. [They] seek an older time when the human spirit shouted for joy in the winter creating a festive gift which could not be purchased and could hardly be wrapped.”

Traditional Wassail celebrations were most commonly associated with Twelfth Night Eve and Twelfth Night celebrations, though in modern times is has been expanded to include the entire holiday season. In addition to the wassail drink, there are numerous customs surrounding Wassail, including “singing, mumming, guessing games and begging to enter a house.” Three distinct celebrations involving the Wassail are known. In the first, the wassail is used like a loving cup and passed around inside a house while singing carols. Secondly, you can take the wassail from house to house in a group. And the third, though less common, method involves the blessing of nature.

Here’s an old wassail song from around 1833:

The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts downe all drinke when it is stale,
The toast, the nut-meg, and the ginger,
Will make a sighing man a singer,
Ale gives a buffet in the head,
“But ginger under proppes the brayne;
When ale would strike a strong man dead,
Then nut-megge temperes it againe,
The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts downe all drinke when it is stale-

From the press release:

“We have brewed Wassail every holiday season since 1988 and it’s now as much a part of the festivities as sharing a roaring fire with our closest family and friends,” reminisced Jamie Emmerson, Full Sail’s brewmaster. “Deep mahogany in color, Wassail is brewed with four different malts and a blend of imported hops, giving it a malty full body and a pleasantly hoppy finish that appeals to both hop and malt lovers alike. In other words, a Christmas miracle!”

Wassail was recently awarded another medal and was rated “Exceptional” at the 2006 World Beer Championships (WBC). It was described as, “Tremendously rich and dry – yet fruity and balanced – with rich roasted malt dry caramel, nuts and light spice… Perfectly balanced. Not too sweet; not too dry. Excellent!” Wassail previously won a platinum medal and a “superlative” rating at the 2005 WBC, a gold medal at the 2004 WBC, and three silver medals in 1999, 2000 and 2001.