Wassailing we shall go- Apples and Spice for the Season

(A version of this story previously appeared in the Longmont Times-Call in 2010)

Many a harried soul races through this season without appreciation for the traditions behind our holiday trappings. Alcohol is as much abused in content as are its traditional contexts this time of year. An example of this lost appreciation lies in the art of wassail (rhymes with “fossil”) a mulled alcoholic apple concoction with ties to the Roman rite of homage to Pomona, goddess of fruit.

Romanian and Viking apple-harvest rites precede the evolution of English wassail, but in this country we are most familiar with the wassail traditions of Victorian England. Wassail is one of many English mulled drinks, including Bishop (mulled brandy) and Posset (mulled sherry). Mulling involves heating a liquid without boiling. The word “wassail” itself is derived from the Old English greeting “waes hael,” “be hale” (essentially “good health”), to which the response was “drinc hael,” (essentially “drink to health”).

This discourse was largely one-sided though in the ancient Devonshire rite of blessing fruit trees with prayer and hard cider, along with a little shouting to scare off bad spirits-- “apple howling.” Apples, mulled and spiced, were cooked into a beverage used to salute the trees. After chanting a blessing for the next season and placing a drink-soaked piece of bread in the tree's crook, half the warm spiced drink went in the farmer and the other half went on the tree.

“Lambs wool” entered the picture through Anglicizing the name of the Gaelic “La Mas Ubhal” celebration, where a thick alcoholic apple sauce was consumed. Pieces of coarse spiced apple in English wassail, seasoned with a “gruit” of spices, became known as “lambs wool” after this mispronunciation of the Irish feast, as well as the resemblance of mulled apple pulp to wool.

And therein lies the heart of wassail:  it is nothing without apples, often “crabbs" in England. Therein too lies the traditional context for wassail-- when the orchard awaits rebirth. Cornish tradition has it that wassail is consumed on Twelfth Night (January 5) or Epiphany (January 6), and at the height of its popularity, it was also common on Christmas Eve as the lord of the manor took a meal with staff. Wassail traditions tend to vary by region, country, and era.

By the time Thoreau and Washington Irving wrote about wassail it had evolved from a farmer’s rite to the urban affair of “luck visits” adopted by waits-- traveling singers. Wassailing involved traveling from house to house, singing songs of good health to the residents and offering a “toast” of wassail-- the piece of toasted wassail-soaked bread.

Wassail as commonly found today is not necessarily wassail of olde. Many commercial brewers today purport to brew “wassail” but rather make yule beer or winter warmer-- spiced, high alcohol beer. Mulled ale (strong ale seasoned with sugar and fruit) approaches wassail but differs in consistency. English wassail is traditionally part mulled ale, part spiced “lambs wool” and has referred to both a beverage in which beer-- nut brown ale or porter work well-- is heated with apples and spices, and a beverage where ale is added to hot, spiced apple mash at the time of serving. Generally, one does not “brew” wassail so much as one cooks it with beer, but it is so much more than just the beer.

Now with light cast once more upon wassail’s steeped tradition, 'tis time to make your own:   In a small pan, mull 6 inches of cinnamon stick(s), 6 whole cloves, 3/4 tsp allspice, 1 tsp coriander, and three whole cardamom pods for 20 minutes in 12 oz. of brown ale or dark lager and 2 cups of chopped apples. After 20 minutes, add up to 22 oz. more beer, and decant into earthen mugs. Wandering into the orchard and shouting amid the trees is optional, as are adding ingredients like honey, sugar, ginger, lemon, butter, eggs, milk and curds; let your tastes dictate your folly.

And may your health be good in the new year.

How to avoid Oxidation for 15 years

Lo nearly fifteen years ago, I made a lovely brew for a lovely lady (who would one day agree to take me as her husband). The beer, a Crème Ale, was made in the finest homebrew fashion with ingredients from a now lost shop in western Sorrento Valley, San Diego. A typical homebrew batch, five gallons were aged in time for the 25^th anniversary of my fancy’s birth. Of the 48 twelve-oz bottles that I thereafter capped, a scant 12 would live in cardboard, closed from light, but likely not temperature, as they rode to the Bay Area, to Boulder (6000’), to Grand County (9000’), to Highlands Ranch, and then to Longmont. Six remained this past summer, and I discovered four in my garage last night.

As I opened the Izzi soda box, where I keep random single homebrews (don’t you too?), there seemed to be call from the aged Quarter Century Crème Ale. The label bore a date in 1998—last century, after all—so I was a anticipating some oxidation.

Oxidation in the homebrew setting is the creep of oxygen into a beer, and perhaps the most frequent and easily identified homebrew “off” flavor. The flavor is oft described as “cardboard”-like or wet paper. In minor amounts, it may come across as a barrel-esque quality. In larger volumes, it’s a pernicious staleness.

Oxygen will eek in to some degree no matter what the brewing process, even with commercial brewing. For homebrewers the most susceptible aspects of the process are transferring beer from primary to secondary, secondary fermentation in plastic, bottling, deformed bottle caps and over-pressurization/too lengthy pressurization of CO2 in kegs. The latter is also a common commercial beer oxidation weak point.

As Oxygen sneaks into beer, fatty acids and organic compounds introduced with the hops and steeping grains break down, leaving Trans-2-nonenal (3-Hexyl-2-propenal). Sometimes, this is what you want, e.g., in barley wine or imperial double Baltic porter. Most of the time, a homebrewer does not want these flavor.

So you have two choices if you homebrew:  be fastidious about closing in as much of your transfer system as possible, i.e. use hoses and siphons that do not introduce outside air; or drink your beer within a few weeks or months of its bottling. Some beers should be consumed fresher anyway, Imperial Pale Ales being one of note.

Back to my adventures in brewing; somehow my 15-yr old beer was not contaminated. Unfortunately, I do not recall what I did back then, though I did boil my bottle caps, which may have led to a tighter seal if they conformed to the specific shape of the bottle lips. Time has erased most of the other details though.

One caution I can recommend going forward, if you plan to brew a big beer, read “high gravity” or over 9% ABV, you’ll need to age it and the opportunity for oxidation is ripe. As such, try not to splash your beer before or during bottling, store all bottles cap-up (not on side), to the extent possible control temperatures to within the ale range (not to exceed 80 degrees F), and it does not hurt to add a little love. In my case, I was wooing my lady. I was sweeter back then, and maybe some of that youthful innocence found its way into the bottles.

As for the three still “cellaring”, I’ll savor them with the object of my affection sometime before they hit 20 years. I doubt I can evade oxidation that much longer, and besides, who makes homebrew to let it sit around for 20 years!

Peak to Peak Pro-Am- the gateway to Valhalla

Tory Milburn periodically talks about stainless steel welding and fittings with aspiring home brewers in the Left Hand Brewing Co. malt room. The chatter of LHB’s busy taproom bubbles behind the regularly packed room. The talk is usually part of the monthly meeting of the Indian Peak Alers home brewing club. Milburn recently advised members on the nuances of operating the amateur stainless steel brewing systems many in the room have or contemplate building. The room also boasts several winners of pro-am home brew competitions, past and current title holders of honors that enabled their beers to be presented on a national stage at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Annually, GABF offers a stage for home brewers from across the nation who have entered qualifier “pro-am” competitions, in which professional breweries join with amateurs to compete together, to see where their brews really place nationwide. The event is organized and sanctioned through the American Homebrewers Association and the Beer Judge Certification Program (AHA/BJCP).

LHB, a pro-am sponsor and Brewers Association member, picked up a Scottish Ale brewed by Wayne Stark from IPAlers for entry at GABF in 2010. After Stark’s beer took best of class at the 2010 Peak-to-Peak pro-am, held annually at Left Hand. LHB head brewer Ro Guenzel scales up the winning recipes for a commercial brewing system and produces 50 barrels (2,500 gal.) for sale in the brewery and for submission at GABF. Wayne’s was labeled “Starsky and Scotch”. “The pro-am competition hearkens back to the traditions of craft brewing-- we all started as home brewers." notes Eric Wallace, LHB President and Co-Founder.

In addition to Stark, other IPAlers who have taken pro-am titles include Chris and Nick Orton, whose Stout was produced by Greeley-based Crabtree Brewery for GABF in 2010, and Mike Robbinson, whose barley wine was recently produced by Aurora-based, Dry Dock brew pub, as well as Kari Klein, whose American Brown Ale won the 2009 IPAler pro-am and was produced by LHB. Absent from the room though was the most highly decorated pro-am winner in the club:  Jeff Niggemeyer. Legends are made at GABF, and in 2008 the unassuming Niggermeyer entered another Scottish Ale in the Seattle Brewing Cup (now joint Cascade Brewers Cup and Pugent Sound Pro-am).

When it won, Big Time Brewery and Alehouse and its founder Bill Jenkins took “Barking Dog Scottish Ale” to GABF. Big Time Brewing Co. and Niggermeyer brought home the gold medal in 2008 as best beer in the nation. The brewers at IPAlers know their beers; nearly a quarter of its members are BJCP trained beer judges in addition to accomplished brewers.

Klein's American Brown Ale was on tap at LHB prior to the 2009 GABF and for a few months afterward. According to LHB, Starsky and Scotch has been it top selling pro-am in recent years. The fact that it did not metal at GABF does not necessarily taint its attractiveness for local fans of IPAlers’ brewing. Special variants of pro-am beers, including a bourbon barrel-fermented version of Stark's, are regularly available at local beer bars (e.g., the West End Tavern in Boulder) as part of a special GABF preview release/beer week festivities.

Annually, more breweries and craft beer watering holes are rolling out the red carpet for beer week events. 2012 was a prime example, as more than $7M flowed into the Denver metro area from GABF festivities alone. The verdant valley of beer between Boulder and Ft. Collins raked in substantial sums as well, as international beer hounds sought the unique experience of drinking their favorite brews at their sources.

Back in Longmont, Stark’s and the Ortons’ beers made dramatic entrances on the national stage at GABF in 2010, continuing a rich IPAlers tradition of pro-am honors. Though neither won that year, the annual Peak-to-Peak Pro-Am has continued to gain momentum year over year. Entries from out-of-town home brewers have increased dramatically since 2010. Each of the four participating breweries, LHB, Oskar Blues, Crabtree, and Dry Dock, may choose an entry to make in-house and enter into the annual GABF competition with the hope of bringing home another local medal.

If you did not have tickets to GABF this year, remember it sells out early; check the BA website, join the AHA, and mark your calendar for 2013. In the meantime, the only place you can get Starsky and Scotch or the other Peak to Peak winners the rest of the year is the occasional guest tap at LHB, or one of the other pro-am sponsoring breweries, and, well... there is also Stark's house, but there is already a line there most days too.

How Homebrew Saved the Craft of Beer

(a version of this post originally ran as an article in the Longmont Times-Call, Nov 2010)

American beer nearly drowned in vats of corn and rice-forward, light lager. Vaguely-hued, thin brews monopolized the field of “American” style beers for decades after Prohibition. Underground zealots and bathtub homebrew (along with lenient self-distribution laws like Colorado’s) however have reintroduced beer to the People.

Prohibition began a bad cycle for American beer that included a world war, grain shortages, retooling of breweries to produce other food, and gorilla (not “guerrilla”) marketing. Seventy seven years later, badges of Prohibition linger in many states; “blue” laws, prohibiting alcohol sales on certain days, are still common. Colorado’s Beer Code long struggled to define “beer,” using “fermented malt beverage” instead, and limiting it between 0.5 % and 3.2% ABV (alcohol by volume); more than that and it becomes “malt liquor” and regulated under a separate code.

Behind closed doors and in goat sheds, basement chemists, stoked the zymurgic arts that allowed local brewing icons (Pumphouse, Oskar Blues, Asher, and Odell to name a few) to bring us the bounty of multi-hued “American” style ales and lagers we enjoy today.

The domestic market in 1980 was dominated by three brew houses, the last of a legion of 2000 strong existing in 1920. These three weathered three-tier liquor regulations, barley and customer shortages during WWII, re-branding to reach the female market, and then entered into a race toward homogeneity that erased choice. Even small brew houses that survived the beer wars, e.g., D.G. Yuengling & Sons of Pottsville, PA, were mired in the “light lager.” Anthropologically, this was due in large part to practical application of Old World customs to New World social and climatic environs, but liquor regulations did not help the cause.

The American spirit, that unquenchable, rugged idealism, has ever striven for real beer though. Enter David Hummer and Stick Ware (Boulder Beer) in 1984, followed shortly by Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebeson (New Belgium), and Ed Gueff and Gordon Knight (Estes Park), whose torches brought brew kettles to boil across Colorado in the 80‘s and 90‘s and the rebirth of “American” beer.

“American” beer is now recognized by eleven different styles in five classes, according to the Beer Judge Certification Program and American Homebrewers Association. The defining body of beer styles, the BJCP promotes beer literacy and appreciation for real beer; its standards are the hallmark for national homebrew competitions that open doors.

BJCP's “American Ale” class includes a Pale Ale (e.g., Left Hand Stranger), Amber Ale (e.g., Avery Red Point), and Brown Ale (e.g., Left Hand Deep Cover). American India Pale Ale is under the India Pale Ale class: “[a]n American version of the historical (sic) English style, brewed using American ingredients and attitude” (e.g., Great Divide Titan IPA). Standard American Lager is still out there, but with so many quality American styles, who needs that end of the spectrum?

The beers on tomorrow’s tap room wall are born today though national competitions like the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am. A pro-am is a competition hosted by a commercial brewery (professional-“Pro”) where homebrewers (amateur-“AM“) compete for the honor of having a Pro commercially produce their homebrew.

Longmont’s Indian Peaks Alers homebrew club and Left Hand Brewing Co. team up for an annual pro-am. During the summer of 2009, Kari Klein's American brown ale won and was on tap at LHB; in 2010, Wayne Stark’s Starsky and Scotch took top honors and was found both at LHB and local watering holes in Boulder. These local homebrews were then entered in the annual GABF pro-am. In 2008, IPAler Niggemeyer won a regional pro-am in Seattle with his Dog Scottish Ale, and went on to win GABF as the nation's best homebrew. “pro-am competition harkens back to the traditions of craft brewing-- we all started as homebrewers.” notes Eric Wallace, co-founder of Left Hand.

Upon pondering your next pint, look right, look left, and find a homebrewer to hug, as “thanks” for saving “American” beer.