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The Rebirth of the Speakeasy

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If you are tired of paying $4+ for a beer at a bar, you aren’t the only one.  As more and more taxes are heaped upon drinks and transportation costs increasing dramatically, we are likely to see even steeper prices charged at the legitimate bar.  Most folks end up buying beer and drinking it at home or in the backyard, but there is something about the socialization that comes with going to the bar that a lot of folks can’t do without.  The point is having fun, not just drinking oneself into oblivion.  Still, to this day, there is indeed prohibition on many kinds of alcohol, such as absinthe.  So, naturally, the result of all this is the resurgence of the speakeasy.

My first experience with the modern speakeasy was one not unlike other bar experiences, but much enhanced exquisitely by the freedom of such a temporary autonomous zone.  The scene was similar to a house party, except that the home bar was exquisitely decorated in red and black velvet, bleached bones, and a kind of green haze in the air.  Naturally, smoking is allowed at such a speakeasy – another reason for the popularity of this event, as most states or big cities have outlawed smoking in bars.  The green was being reflected off of the bottles of Absinthe lining the walls and the milky green drinks being sipped by those in attendance, dressed in either black lace or leather, almost exclusively it seemed.  I was in the leather crowd.

Event, you say?  Yes, by necessity, the modern speakeasy is an event, not a place.  Or rather, a place that is recreated in a different location each time.  It seems that those “in-the-know” were the only ones there, and that the main way people found out about the speakeasy was word of mouth.  Usually the location is kept secret until the night before the event, and then word spreads quickly.  The speakeasy usually doesn’t even open until after other bars are closed, sometime after 2 AM.   All these are signs of a truly underground party scene.

The modern speakeasy will usually have many varieties of home brewed beverages available.  Among the beers I have seen are a raspberry porter and a pale ale, and even mead was available on tap.  The beverages are usually served chilled, from the spout of a homemade kegerator conversion.  Absinthe is sometimes available, either tidy or traditionally mixed with water and sugar.  I like both versions, and I may go in for the stronger stuff as the night progresses.  The exciting thing about the traditional absinthe is that it is served with a live flame on top of the glass, and you must blow it out before drinking – this is reminiscent of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer brews a similarly combustible drink – the “Flaming Homer”.  Straight absinthe is not recommended for anyone but those who have iron gullets and enjoy EXTREMELY bitter flavors.

I have been pleased with the cleanliness and order of the speakeasies I have visited – there is always a bar back to wash glasses and the drinks are nicely displayed.  There were a number of liquors lining the back of the bar at the first speakeasy I went to, and not only were they green, but also clear, blue, yellow, and golden brown.  I was only to find out later about some of these bottles, when I happened upon this same speakeasy again.

The speakeasy bar was nicely built and accessorized.  Plenty of pint glasses and specialty glasses were available for the absinthe, something like a large brandy snifter.  Towels, napkins, and peanuts were all available as well.  Other home bar speakeasies I have encountered have been much cruder than this set-up, merely with Cornelius kegs a-float in ice, with plastic cups.  More of a large crazy party scene.  One thing you can count on with these home bar speakeasies is that the barkeep will have something special under the table.  At times I have found t to Absinthe, Mugwort Liqueur, or Anise Liquor, so if you find yourself at one, you should ask about any specials available.  It was in this manner that I first tasted a truly fine whisky – a rare treat, but still cheap at $10 a shot.  The sweetness of it put it in a whole other category from what I had ever tasted before, and it had a kind of oily taste, hinting of vanilla, that only brought the term “snake liquor” to mind… and I could see why whisky got its reputation.

If you are eager to attend a home bar speakeasy, I recommend keeping your ears open and exploring different party scenes.  You just might get the tip off that will greatly enhance your night.  Or, barring that, why not build your own home bar?  That way, you can enjoy all the benefits of a speakeasy without the potentially nasty legal implications.  And as always, drink in good health.

Beer, Wine, and Mead in Myth

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The history and folklore surrounding beer, wine, and mead in myth is extensive.  For as long as history has been recorded, all around the world, we can see examples of these beverages being enjoyed and even fought over.  In the Bible, alcoholic drink is mentioned often.  Going further back, mead is mentioned in the ancient hymns of the Rigveda of India, poets of the Middle ages, and plays an important role in the Nordic mythology of the Eddas.  Wine goes very far back, of course, mentioned often by the philosophers of the ancient Greeks.  It could be said that, as far as we know, the arts of fermentation were among the first technologies developed by humans. 

It appears that beer may be the most ancient of beer, wine, and mead in myth – at least, as far as we know.  Beer is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and beer has been discovered in archaeological sites to be chemically dated back to the year 5,000 BC.  Samples from pottery jars found in the cradle of civilization, what is today known as Iran, yielded these findings.  It is likely that the creation of beer goes back farther than that, but there is little evidence that has survived.  In my estimation, is has all been drunk.

Many more recent examples of the mythic legacy of beer exist – it is widely held that ancient Egyptians enjoyed beer, partially, perhaps, as a method of purifying water.   One myth surrounding beer is the ancient hymn to Ninkasi, which identifies this Sumerian Goddess as one of fermentation, dated back to around 1900 BC.  For most of recorded history, we can see this myth played out in different religious and cultural venues again and again.  Spiritualism was the explanation for everything back then, and the presence of beer, wine, and mead in myth is telling of mankind’s ubiquitous application of supernatural elements to all processes of life.  But, perhaps, the reverence with which humanity approached fermentation in ancient history is also indicative of a deeper appreciation of the experience of inebriation.  In this day and age, such appreciation is not as common, except, perhaps, among the educated – beer fans and connoisseurs.

It took a long time for brewers to discover the creature that is in actuality the cause of the fermentation process: yeast.  Before yeast was discovered, brewers in the Nordic regions would yell and shout obscenities at the beer, hoping to wake up the spirit contained within and excite it to ferment the beer.  Many monasteries during the middle ages would fervently pray over the beer, anointing it with many blessings from the Lord that He may bless the beer with the so-called “miracle” of fermentation.  This process continued for quite some time, and as the church became more and more of an institution for societal control, it became necessary for brewers to hire a priest to bless each batch of beer.  When these blessings became law, it effectively created a church rendered tax on brewing, which, I speculate, lasted in many regions of Europe until the Renaissance period.

In general, the Old Testament is in favor of drink, while the New Testament stands firmly against it (that’s old world values for you).  Never the less, wine has for many centuries played an important role in the religious rites, including that of the Jewish Bar Mitzvah, and the Catholic Eucharist and its derivatives.  There are many Hebrew words for differing kinds of wine and alcoholic beverage.  According to the Bible, Noah was a vintner, as well as Jesus (although in rapid fashion).  There are many warnings against the imbibing of wine as well, and it seems that the myths of many cultures contain this dichotomy concerning alcohol.  There is great appreciation for it, and many warnings against misuse of the beverage.

In the region now known as Mexico, Pulque, a drink similar to a wine cooler, had prohibitions against who could partake. Known among indigenous peoples as Neutle, the drink made from a mixture of fermented Agave nectar and fresh Agave nectar.  This was sometimes mixed with Peyote or other mind altering, or entheogenic plants.  Neutle was a drink reserved for the shaman and for royalty.  Severe penalties awaited those who were caught drunk who were not allowed the drink.

Mead appears most notably in Norse mythology as the tale of the mead of inspiration.  In the days of this story, Odin and his brethren (the Aesir) had made a treaty with the former rules of the heavens, the giants.  Odin had heard of the mead of inspiration, made from the blood of a god mixed with honey.  As the story goes, this mead was being guarded by either a dwarfen woman or a giantess.  Odin convinced the giantess to let him have but one sip of the mead in exchange for a night of lovemaking.  After the long night had ended, Odin took his drink, but swallowed all of the mead.  He then turned into an eagle and fled to Asgard, where he regurgitated the mead for all the Aesir to benefit from.  But as he fled from the Giantess’s house, her father in hot pursuit, some drops of the mead landed to the earth.  From these drops sprang entheogenic mushrooms, from which the poets of man gained their inspiration.

Wine is most notably apparent in the rites and myth surrounding the Greek god on Wine, Dionysus.  This God was always known as a troublemaker, being the spurned offspring of god and man, and an insufferable partier.  Like Dionysus himself, the followers of this God often were called out as rapscallions for their wine enhanced orgies and wild rites.  Known also as Bacchus to the Romans, the rites of this God were outlawed by the senate at a certain point because it was suspected that they were used as a guise to plan the overthrow of the government.  If they weren’t before, they probably were after.

This article is, of course, to short to go into much detail surrounding the presence of beer, wine, and mead in myth.  There are numerous tales of such drinks throughout the world, including Africa, Asia, Russia, and many  more countries.  The book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner is a good source of information concerning beer, wine, and mead in myth.  May your further researches be fruitful.

Proper Aging of Beer

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Many beers made in this modern age are not suitable for aging.  Some craft and micro-brewed ales can be enjoyed much more fully by aging them a short amount of time, however!  Beers containing a medium to high level of alcohol are the best candidates for ageing.  Proper aging of beer can bring out exceptionally flavorful taste differences than drinking the beer early on.  Beers of the barley wine style can even benefit from aging for as many as ten years!  Subtle differences in the play of the malt and hop character of properly aged beers can be a great treat for the discerning beer fan.

If an ale is of mid-high alcohol content (about 5% to 8%), the taste can usually benefit from aging the beer for up to a year.  This allows for the harshest tones of the ale to mellow out a bit, allowing the subtler tones of both malt and hops to come through.  Most beer is made to be drunk within a certain time period, usually six months.  The tendency of a beer to taste better with proper aging is usually a quality of darker beers.  Make sure that if you are aging a beer that the beer is suited to such a practice, or you may be wasting your time and energy.

One type of beer that is almost always improved with aging is the barley wine style ale.  These ales can reach up to 20% alcohol, although they usually hover around 8% to 14%, keeping them fresh tasting even after prolonged time periods.  This makes them the primest candidates of the beer world for aging.  In many large cities you can find barley wine tastings at the finer alehouses.  Ask around in these establishments if you are interested in finding out a lot more about barely wines. 

If you are a fan of light colored ales, do not be assuaged from ageing beer.  IPAs can sometimes benefit from a short amount of aging, up to six months.  A nice, strong Belgian White can age well for up to a year, but it should be of 6% or more alcohol.

Another sign of a beer that may do well with aging is exceptional hop character.  I would recommend Stone Brewery’s Arrogant Bastard for aging, as well as their double bastard and especially the old guardian.  Stone brewery tends to really emphasize the hopp-y-ness of their ales, and as all us home brewers know, hops keep beer fresh and prevent spoiling.  These are among the reasons that hops have become such a predominant aspect of brewing throughout the ages.

Another aspect of brewing in the modern age that can make it easier to affect the proper aging of beer is the massive advancement in refrigeration technology that has happened in the last hundred years.  Not only is it easy to store even non-pasteurized bottle conditioned ales in the household fridge, but with the invention of the kegerator, it has become a simple matter for anyone to age a keg of beer with no fear of it becoming spoiled.

Whether the kegs are stored in a custom made kegerator, or a home made kegerator conversion, it becomes quite simple to age ales for longer than ever before.  For home brewers, particularly, the kegerator can allow for easier aging.  Also, without a kegerator, it would be very difficult for a home brewer to make a proper lager beer.  The cold temperatures at which these beers must be kept can only be kept with the use refrigeration for prolonged periods of time.

It seems clear that there is no time like the present to practice the proper aging of beer.  So far, I have offered much advice on how the proper aging of beer, but the most difficult task lies ahead, and for which I can give you no tips, tricks, clues, or advice.  Of course, the most difficult part of aging beer is acquiring the patience necessary to wait it out before quaffing your favorite brew!  Good luck and as always, drink it in good health!

Entrepreneurship and Home Brewing

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Home brewing has always been a hobby with numerous possibilities for the financial benefit of the home brewer.  With the skills and knowledge of brew craft that many home brewers have, it is easy to make the jump from a hobbyist into a career brewer.  Some brewers start by opening their own local brewpub.  Others go to one of the many schools offering degrees in Master Brewing, hoping to land a job with a larger company that produces ales of quality.  Some brewers even go underground to sell their concoctions at parties and even speakeasies.  If you are thinking of a career in brew crafting, it is wise to look at many of the entrepreneurial options available to you.  You might just find the perfect new career you have been looking for!

Many home brewers love to brew beer, but have trouble making the jump to using industrial style equipment.  If you are confused by the array of home brewing products out there, just remember: with each jump in technology, you will be able to make more beer, more efficiently, more cost effectively, and more time effectively than ever before.  It is always good to keep your old bottling tools on hand in case you want to make a special gift bottle or limited edition ale.  But for the entrepreneurial home brewer, a move to Cornelius kegs and the larger regulation kegs is an important step.

Cornelius kegs are a great way to get to know how modern beer kegging works, and to experiment with carbonation techniques.  The set-up price is relatively small, and the savings in time that would otherwise be spent bottling is vast.  Another good initial investment is the kegerator, or kegerator conversion kit. A proper knowledge of how your Cornelius keg interacts with a draft beer system will help you greatly when you switch to regulation kegs.  Cornelius kegs are becoming harder and harder to find second-hand, but they are available as brand new or reconditioned units through many home brew equipment suppliers.  

Because of the size of the Cornelius keg (about 6 gallons), it is the perfect choice for the home brewer who wishes to gradually develop their brew shop and range of knowledge.  Most home brewers start out brewing batches in that range, and this will allow home beer production to increase without the need for a larger kettle – but this is the next step!  Once you have started to keg your beer, you will find it so easy to make large amounts, that you will want to increase your kettle size to around nine gallons.  A nine-gallon kettle takes only a little more time to brew than a three or five gallon one.  Many home kitchens are not built to accommodate such massive pots, though, so you will have to plan ahead to ensure success with this increased brew load.

You should always have a spoon or stirring paddle that can easily reach the bottom of your kettle.  Kettles with false bottoms and spigots can easily facilitate the exit of the wort from the kettle, which can be a real problem if your kettle is holding in excess of five gallons.  Because of the weight of the wort, you will basically have to not move the kettle until the wort has cooled.  If you are using a wort chiller to affect this change, you should ensure that the water lines can reach the kettle where it is placed.

The most important jump for the entrepreneurial home brewer is the use of the all grain brewing technique.  By using grains, you will save money over using malty extract, and as your batches become bigger and bigger, these savings will increase exponentially.  There are some more start up costs associated with this kind of brewing, but also many shortcuts you can use while perfecting this brewing technique.  Some find it distasteful, but the use of food grade five gallon plastic buckets can replace the need for a false bottom kettle, and a cleaned and sanitized camping cooler can also help with the mashing process, where maintaining temperature is so important.  If you consider yourself a bit of an engineer, and have a lot of room to work with, the three tier brewing system is the best way to maximize the efficiency of your all grain brewing setup.

The career of a brew master is a fun, creative tradition that is enjoyable for both the brewer and the drinker!  Remember that you need not have a degree to be a master brewer, but a scientific knowledge of brewing will only make it easier to repeatedly produce the unique ale that is yours!  Remember that an eye for invention and mechanical improvisation will save you tons of time and money in this effort, and good luck!

Brewing Up a Fine Camping Trip

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When planning a camping trip, most people remember to bring the tent, the sun block, and the sleeping bags.  But many folks forget that special addition that can make the trip all the more enjoyable after a long hike: the home brew!  Most camping trips can benefit from some home brewed refreshment, whether a small hike or a full-blown lake fishing trip!  With the advances in home brew serving technology these days, it can be simple for friends, families, or couples to brew up a fine camping trip!

If you are going to the lake, or on another kind of car or R.V. camping trip, bringing a larger home brew setup is a great way to enhance the trip.  If you have room in your vehicle and a generator, you can bring along your home kegerator, but most people opt for the draft beer cooler for such trips.  A draft beer cooler is basically a plastic cooler that has either a copper or stainless steel cooling coil placed inside (with lots of ice).  The beer from the kegs flows through this cooling system and out of draft spigots mounted on the front of the beer cooler, producing a cool and refreshing draft beer with a very lightweight and easy to set-up apparatus.

Either draft beer coolers or beer cooler conversion kits can be ordered online, making it even easier for you to focus on your brewing for the camping trip.  Considering the cost of keeping a generator on and kegerator plugged our whole camping trip, the draft beer cooler is a much more economical option for your camping trip.  Make sure you have extra supplies of ice for your draft beer cooler.  If the keg beer flowing through your beer lines is warm, it will melt the ice inside quickly, and it will need to be replaced.  It is a good idea to keep the kegs insulated in thick blankets to keep it cool.

For smaller camping trips, such as one to three day hikes, or walk-in camping, a smaller beer cooler with a few bottle conditioned brews can be perfect.  For colder weather hiking, a nutritious stout, porter, or malty scotch ale is recommended.  These ales will keep you warm under the crisp, cold glare of starlight in the mountains, and help you rest.  No cooler is really necessary for these trips, as an icy mountain stream will cool your bottles off rather easily.  For warmer weather trips, coolers are advised, although it may not be necessary if cold-water streams are along your path.  But for warmer weather hikes, a lighter ale is recommended, at darkest an amber.

One fun aspect of the biggest camping days of the year, namely, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Fourth of July, is making the extra preparations necessary to build a bar for your camp out!  If you already have a home bar, you will be able to take some of your sturdier decorations out to the campground.  The main issue will be having plenty of seating available for your patrons, be they friends, family, or fellow campers.  Turning your campsite into a party zone can make you some exceptional friends!  To avoid any unpleasant interactions with authorities, it is advisable to disguise your mobile draft beer system.  You may want to read my articles Entrepreneurship and Home Brewing and Disguising a Mobile Beer Draft System if you are planning on setting up a campsite bar during such major party weekends.

Whether you are brewing up a fine camping trip for a small group, or for a large assembly, the mixture of draft keg beer and the wilderness is a pleasant surprise for all.  The association of home brew and the great outdoors is an apt one; brewing one’s own beer is healthier than accepting the bland corporate beers offered in most of the nation, and is especially refreshing after a constitutional in the great outdoors!