Microbrewed Adventures (16 page)

Like a springtime tornado, we have whirled our way through parts of the South, tasting southern microbrewed beers made with soul. Make no mistake about it: here live brewers as passionate and as skilled as in any well-known beer city.

The ultimate beer? As always, there never is one ultimate beer. Just when
you have experienced what you believe is the beer you want to be engaged to for the rest of your life, along comes another quintessential brew. And so it goes.

Boscos beer lover

One thing I always appreciate during these tours is the privilege of tasting new and classically brewed beers. This adventure through the South included a unique personal experience. Beers brewed from recipes in my book
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
were judged in three separate “Completely Joyous” competitions in Nashville, Memphis and Little Rock. What a taste delight for me, sampling old favorites brewed from recipes out of my books: Get Rio Light Lager, Rocky Raccoon's Honey Lager, Goat Scrotum Ale, Toad Spit Stout, Sparrow Hawk Porter, Armenian Imperial Stout, Who's in the Garden Grand Cru, Buzdigh Moog Double Brown Ale and, most memorably, the wondrous sparkle and refreshing Wailailale Chablis Ginger Mead. Then there was the nefarious Cock (that's Cock as in “rooster”) Ale. They were all winners in my opinion, but the ribbons went to the Chablis Ginger Mead and the Cock Ale (made with chicken and spices), which is reminiscent of spiced malty holiday ale. Both of these brews won respective first places.

I'll never forget the taste treat of Memphis-brewed Armenian imperial stout with added oak chips—wow! And I'll always recall the ale brewed in
Huntsville with five different breakfast cereals by the ten-year-old daughter of one of our hosts. At the All Seasons Gardening and Homebrew Supply Company in Nashville, I encountered a mead brewed with sour cherries and the Middle Eastern ingredient
mahleb
, ground cherrystones that offer a wondrous cherry aroma. I was astonished because of my familiarity with this spice: my grandmother used this ingredient when making braided Armenian
choereg
(bread).

Tapping into a keg of real ale at Boscos
Tapping into a keg of real ale at Boscos. Courtesy Boscos.

As with any microbrewed adventure, it was always comforting to know that while I was away things were getting better at home. My homebrew had a chance to age and improve for one more week. I was inspired by all those five-gallon batches and the skill of all the master homebrewers and master microbrewers I met along the way. I became inspired to brew within days of returning home. You simply can't keep me down.

Raising the Drinking Age to 40
The Lyons Brewery Depot

S
UNOL LIES
about an hour southwest of San Francisco's Bay Area. When I managed a pilgrimage there in the late 1980s, Sunol was a small town. No, actually, it was a place, near a railroad crossing, where Judy Ashworth owned and ran her original specialty beer bar. It was called the Lyons Brewery Depot. A pioneer beer establishment, it was a mecca for beer enthusiasts in an age when yellow fizzy beer predominated the American landscapes.

Upon my autumnal arrival, I couldn't help but notice the only two other businesses in town: the feed store to the left and another tavern 50 feet down the road, a classic “biker bar” where shots of tequila and ice-cold Bud, Miller and Coors contrasted with what was happening at the Depot.

I did want to make an appearance at the biker bar. Outside, 50 choppers were parked, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Intrigued, I took a brief side trip, entered, talked “hog” and had a cold one, but the other adventure—of spending time at Judy Ashworth's historic Lyons Brewery Depot—was more my style.

Entering the Depot I was greeted excitedly: “Charlie, how about a Stanley Steamer?” Was this yet another new beer from another new California microbrewer? No. With pride and enthusiasm, Judy explained, “I invented it myself. It's terrific. You blend half a draft of Anchor Steam beer with half of St. Stan's Dark Alt beer. The richness of the alt beer hits you first, but oh…,” she was just beginning to get really excited, “how the Steam beer comes through in the aftertaste! It's all Steam in the aftertaste.” Before I could even consider the implications of what she had confided, I was confronted with a short glass of Stanley Steamer.

Judy's 20 beers on draft included an assortment of California microbrews, making the pilgrimage well worth the trip. She took great pride in being the first and now one of the few taverns serving Anchor's Old Foghorn barleywine-style ale on draft. The hop harvest at the back of the tavern had recently been completed. As she preached the virtues of hops to one of her beer patrons, yet another glass of beer appeared: “Foggy Night in the Sierras. You'll love this, Charlie! It's Old Foghorn and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.” I did. The strength and the classic fruitiness of the barley wine served to round out the thirst-quenching hoppy dryness of the pale ale.

Old Foghorn and Guinness Stout were combined next to further cheer
me up with what Judy called “Irish Mist.” The afternoon went on. The sun made motions in the west and as it set, Judy continued to educate me in the fine art of beer blending. There were many more blends, but she saved the best for last.

Judy Ashworth at the Lyons Brewery Depot

“Okay, Charlie…. This is it. The
ultimate of ultimates
.” Her level of excitement was peaking. The new Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale had just come in the day before and already she had a combination for it. A glass appeared before me, seething with a dense creamy head of foam. Judy warned me, “You have to be 40 years old or over to be allowed to drink this one.” I lied and told her I was, and then took one sip. My sensory paraphernalia shifted four dimensions, all in opposite ways. “What do you think? I call it ‘A Foggy Christmas Eve.'” There was no doubt about it. She had combined Old Foghorn and Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale in a way that would probably make each brewmaster cringe at the thought, yet for this palate, the experience was absolutely inspiring.

When I returned home I took a walk in 1980s downtown Boulder and visited one of my local beer bars. As I entered I silently chuckled to myself, wondering what kind of mischief I could get myself into. “I'd like a ‘Goose the Moose,' please,” I announced—an 80–20 blend of Moosehead Lager and Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine Ale.

Or how about a “Red Velvet,” a combination of Lindeman's (cherry) Kriek and Boulder Stout?

For light beer drinkers who are considering the adventure of microbrewed beer and the sensual pleasure of hops, I'd suggest trying an Anchor Liberty Ale or other microbrewed India pale ale with a light beer and mix to suit a developing taste. Call it “Pursuit of Hoppiness.”

The Lyons Brewery Depot in Sunol burnt down soon after my visit. With the support of California microbrewers Judy rebuilt in a nearby town, but the spirit of the place seemed to have faded away after her retirement from the bar business. Judy embodied the passion of microbrewery beer and what it meant to brewers, the beer drinker and those who sell it. In the late 1980s, hers was one of a handful of bars in the entire United States with a passion for microbrewed beer. She helped pioneer the thousands that have followed.

I
LOVE MY HOME
,
my wife, my friends, my garden and homebrew, but to travel and discover new places, new perspectives and new beers is my longest-running and most sustained passion. I recall the first month after I graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering. On a whim, I packed one bag and headed west from New Jersey, where I grew up, and landed in Boulder, Colorado. That was in 1972.

One year later, still restless, I quit my meaningless job, packed my backpack, stuck my thumb out and hitchhiked thousands of miles for 10 weeks, all on $300. Yes, even in those days I had a stash of homebrew awaiting my return.

For the next eight years I lucked into a job teaching children for nine months of the year. The other three months I traveled. The adventure was endless. My first sojourn off the continent of North America took me to Bali and the Fiji Islands for nine weeks, with $500 cash in my pocket. Palm toddy and Fiji homebrew emerged as memorable and unanticipated experiences.

I have not been able to arrest my addiction to adventure, nor do I care to. I have traveled to all 50 United States many times over and have had the privilege of being a guest in more than 60 foreign countries, many a dozen or more times.

Traveling is either in your blood or not. For me it is not only an exercise in patience and observation, but a means of discovering and understanding the true nature of human beings and the dynamics of the world we live in.

Beer seems to always be one important aspect of my travels these days. But I do not travel for the beer. I travel to encounter people and the environment they inhabit, observe their behavior and consider how and why everything fits together in all of its initially apparent inconsistency. Beer becomes a thread, but it is only a part of the bigger picture of why we do the things we do.

Beer has taken mankind to many places. One way I see America is through the world of beer. It is one way in which I see my friends, my home, myself. Certainly there are other ways in which I interpret my world that are as or even more meaningful, but beer is one of them.

Beer is quite meaningless taken out of the context of our lifestyle. It is void of any interest whatsoever without the culture of people and an appreciation of flavor and diversity. Tasteless, pale, fizzy beer presented for mass consumption, brewed with little passion and with no cultural context, becomes a meaningless drag in and of itself.

The adventure is really about life. Beer adds an element of pleasure accessible to virtually every person who inhabits our world. Beer is not a religion. Impassioned beer enthusiasts and brewers neither convert nor preach—a brewer's passion enables our freedom to choose according to flavor, diversity and pleasure. Microbrewers, craft brewers and homebrewers provide the opportunity to enjoy one's own choices.

My microbrewed adventures have taken me to the far corners of the world. Clearly it is the people who are involved with beer that are most important for me—the culture in which they brew, why they brew, how they dance, what they eat, whom they play with. The beer always becomes that much more special. That is really what makes my adventures so interesting to me.

 

THE FIRST ADVENTURE
I want to share with you is about two individuals I met in 1981. David and Louise Bruce weren't
just
starting a brewpub in London; they were living their lives in a creative, passionate manner. Through their trials, tribulations, humor and extraordinary passion, they transformed the world of beer.

The Brewpub that Started a World Revolution
London—David and Louise Bruce

I
BELIEVE
that David and Louise Bruce, more than any other individuals, were responsible for igniting the worldwide brewpub revolution. In 1979 they opened the Goose and Firkin in London, the first brewery/pub to be opened in all of twentieth-century England. From the years 1880 through 1970, the number of active brewery pub licenses in England dropped from 12,000 to five. David Bruce, who had been involved in production or as a brewer with Courage, Theakston's and Bass Charington, learned the basis of his serendipitously adopted trade as a brewpub owner and brewer.

By 1982, he had opened several other “Firkin” brewpubs in London. The Fox and Firkin, Goose and Firkin, Frog and Firkin and Fleece and Firkin were the first of dozens of Firkin pubs. They were unique in that they were fun, lively pubs, with a sense of humor unparalleled in the British beer business. Ales were brewed on premise and served directly to the customer.

The Bruces' was not an overnight success. The couple had no personal wealth to invest in a new and promising enterprise, and the investors and brewers they approached thought they were absolutely daft. David had been unemployed for eight months before coming up with the idea of renovating a condemned pub and turning it into a brewery pub. Both he and Louise invested barrels of sweat equity and their own time, while skillfully working the British brewing industry's money-for-beer sales system to help finance their enterprise.

David had a passion for business and entrepreneurial projects. He embraced beer as a lively means to connect with enjoyable work and enjoyable people. His entrepreneurial spirit and brewer's skills qualify him as one of England's original microbrewers. David's sense of humor should not go un-mentioned, as evidenced by this anecdote: “One thing we did was a brew called ‘Knee Trembler.' The grist for five [British] barrels at 1.075 (18.2 B) original gravity was 330 pounds of pale malt, 110 pounds of crystal malt, 7 pounds of black malt and 11 pounds of hops. Knee Trembler at the time was the strongest draft beer mashed in the country, and someone said after trying it, ‘My word, if you ever feel the bottom falling out of your life, drink the stuff and the world will fall out of your bottom.' Apart from that, it did cause quite a bit of problem with the police because people actually couldn't quite get to their cars. After it had been on sale a couple of weeks we had to assure the
police that we would only sell it in half pints. Of course, everybody started ordering it in half pints.” It surprises me that David has not yet been knighted for his achievements.

David Bruce and the beginning of the Firkin Empire
David Bruce and the beginning of the Firkin Empire. Courtesy David Bruce.

It was all well and good in provincial merry old London, but news of their success did not electrify the world until David and Louise attended the 1982 American Homebrewers Association annual conference in Boulder, Colorado, at my invitation. I first met the Bruces in 1981, while attending the
Campaign For Real Ale's (CAMRA) Great British Beer Festival. Upon encountering David I was overcome with joy that there was an individual who had such a wacky sense of humor and inspired beer drinkers in a revolutionary manner. We have since been close friends.

At the 1982 conference, David gave a presentation entitled “The English Brewpub and the Resurgence of the Small, Local Brewery in England and America.” It was attended by homebrewers and America's founding microbrewers. David electrified the audience with the revolutionary idea of brewing your own beer and then selling it to your customers in your own pub. Within one year's time, America's first brewpubs were operational in Hopland, California; Yakima, Washington; and West Vancouver, British Columbia.

David and Louise had ignited not only America, but the world. Brewpubs were opening and offering diverse styles of ales and lagers. Because the microbrewers that were making the beers had once been beer-passionate homebrewers, they enjoyed a wide variety of beer styles. For starters, brewpubs usually offered no fewer than six regular styles of ales, such as porter, stout, pale ale, India pale ale, brown ale and amber ale. These were the first pubs and bars that regularly extended the choice for American beer drinkers beyond the pale selection of brand-name light lagers. The phenomenon has now reached every corner of the beer-drinking world.

Progress has been slow, but in 2005 America can pride itself in offering beer drinkers a stunning choice of beer styles in more than 1,000 brewpubs. And it all began with David and Louise's London Goose and Firkin.

Extraordinary Times with Ordinary Ale
Brakspear's Brewery, Henley-on-Thames

D
AVID AND LOUISE BRUCE
inspired the revival of the world's brewpub tradition. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an organization that has done much to try to save other English brewing traditions, especially that of naturally fermented and traditionally served real ale. There have been a rough few years for the British brewing tradition. Some of the most classic of ales are only shells of their once proud tradition. And worse, pubs that do serve real ale are often not serving it in the best of conditions. I recently encountered two classic examples of a beer served to me in ruins, Fullers ESB and Bass Ale—both were pitifully undrinkable in a downtown London pub, sour and full of diacetyl (an intense butterscotch character). I left full pints on the bar and settled for a Guinness, which I wasn't quite in the mood for at the time but enjoyed nonetheless as my third choice of the moment.

This example of tradition gone awry is common throughout the United Kingdom. Not only should the beer be brewed to standards of excellence, but it also must be kept in proper condition while served and the beer lines cleaned and maintained. My experiences have left me with the impression that Britain is in the midst of major apathy with regards to its real ale traditions, despite the best efforts of CAMRA.

My personal opinion is that CAMRA's zeal for tradition has not taken into enough consideration that real ale consumption continues to decline, and without the ubiquitous consumption from which the tradition was derived, real ale in pubs simply does not get enough attention from consumers and barkeeps. When a cask of real ale does not get consumers' attention, the product eventually goes sour and flat. Beer is money, and rather than appropriately dumping the spoiled beer down the drain, the barkeep often serves the customer rubbish.

Meanwhile, without a compromise of tradition the number of good-quality real ales served will continue to dwindle. Many that are forced through dirty taps will turn off new beer drinkers, just as they have momentarily turned me off.

 

YET I ALWAYS RETURN
to the motherland of traditional ale in search of unforgettable experiences, enjoying relatively low-alcohol yet full-flavored “ordinary bitter” in well-kept pubs. In my recurrent journeys, I am often guided to the best England has to offer. These memorable encounters with
place, time, people and pint after pint of delicious ordinary ale are the best examples of how good life can be.