The Session #41

By Michael Stein

During the middle ages (as far back as 1295 to be exact) a “Letter of Marque and Reprisal” was essentially a license to wage a private war; to seize as much booty as a captain could get his grubby meat hooks on. The King would allow his captain to seize an enemy’s ship and in return proceeds would be split amongst the crown and the looting privateer. Such was the “Letter of Marque,” it gave the lowly sea-fairing captain imperial permission to loot and load spoils. The word’s etymology helps give its modern-day meaning connotation: in Germanic ‘mark’ is a ‘boundary’ or a ‘boundary marker.’ While the days of Sir Captain Francis Drake looting for Spanish doubloons are long over, boundaries and markers still exist separating home brewing from professional brewing. And while the gaps between home brewing and commercial brewing can be vast they are in many ways the most manageable they have ever been (at least in America).

So why start with the high seas? To shed light on a craft brew inspired by a home brew (the point of The Session #41) of course! One of Maryland’s beloved craft breweries has produced a beer known as the “Letter of Marque.” This beer, brought into production with an annual competition, blurs the lines between home brewing and commercial brewing. As Hugh Sisson, Heavy Seas’ founder, states on his product:

Winners from our annual “Letter of Marque” homebrew competition will work along side our brewmaster to create a yearly special release. Historically, a Letter of Marque was a document that made a Pyrate a legitimate privateer. Our Letter of Marque makes a home brewer a legitimate professional!”

The Letter of Marque series, produced annually by Heavy Seas, is a perfect example of a craft beer inspired by home brewing. While the craft beers produced by Heavy Seas are themselves extraordinary medal-winning libations, their Letter of Marque is both an homage to the crazy creations of home brewers AND a way to lend legitimacy to brewers who never believed their recipes would be bottled and shipped across state lines to a wider audience.

Sometimes a wider audience is not the end goal of a home brewer or a craft brewer. Such is the beauty of brewing locally. Sharing with friends who are within your area code is important—you may be surprised by the amount of home brewers in your area. I certainly was when I attended this month’s DC Homebrewers meeting (http://www.dchomebrewers.com/). If you want to enter your home brew in a competition that will give you grand syndication there are a number of ways to do it. There’s the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am, Heavy Seas’ “Letter of Marque” competition and of course Sam Adam’s LongShot Competition for starters.

As “good” beer drinkers know, craft brewing has always been influenced by home brewing. In most cases, home brewers are ahead of the curve in terms of their choices for both “marginal” and “exceptional” home brew recipes. It was not always like this however. And even today, “good” beer drinkers struggle to make sense of the stranglehold ABIB (Anheuser-Busch InBev) still possesses on the market. I would argue that it is a critical mass which has kept ABIB in business, but American microbrewers and American home brewers have been chipping away to convert the masses. Once the majority of commercial beer drinkers have been baptized by cannon fire (Loose Cannon fire that is!) the zealous lot who appeared rogue “hopheads” will become main-stream. Such is the shift in American cultural memory—such is the shift within the home brewer’s memory. Figures like Bert Grant, founder of Yakima Brewing begin to fade as monoliths like Charlie Papazian continue to trail blaze. Had I not attended an O’Dell Brewing Company tasting recently hosted by Doug O’Dell, the myth of a man who carried around a vial of hop oil to flavor the Bud, Miller or Coors he was drinking would still be as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster. However off-kilter his antics may have appeared, Bert Grant belongs to a long line of “beer activists” for lack of a better descriptor.

The world needs these kinds of people. And the world needs home brewers. In the end, the recipes and formulations home brewers create continue to shape the craft beer community and indeed the world. We should honor the prophetic words of Michael Jackson as he interpreted Yakima Brewing Company’s label “brews of such quality made for very special pubs, which in turn sustained wonderful neighborhoods, creating marvelous cities, contributing to magnificent countries, adding up to a beautiful world.”

The Session #39 Collaborations

This Session brought to you by Mario Rubio and hop press

Queen and David Bowie. Peanut butter and jelly. American ale hit with one or two strains of Belgian yeast. Some things just go better together.

Such is the nature of collaboration. When two or more solid individual items come together to create something even better; this is collaboration at its finest.

While collaboration is in theory always a good thing, I would argue that the prospect of creating something great out of two already great things doubles the risk involved in creation. So, with that in mind, I turn my attention to two collaborative efforts I have recently, profoundly enjoyed.

One of these efforts is created by "professional" brewers, the other by "amateur" homebrewers. The first fantastic collaborative offering was created by brewmasters Adam Avery and Vinnie Cilurzo (Batch #3 brewed in February 2009). Avery is the brewmaster of Avery Brewing and Cilurzo the brewmaster of Russian River Brewing. Both two phenomenal left-coast breweries in their own right. When both brewmasters recognized they had a "Salvation" ale in their lineups, they decided it was time to break bread and not teeth. Typically whenever a brewery has a product name identical to another breweries', legal action is taken. Typically litigation or arbitration is required in these cases which is great news for the attorneys representing the breweries, but tends to turn up bad news for one of the brewers. So in the spirit of collaborative efforts, the dual-brewmaster beer was titled "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale." This name could not be more fitting.

The beer is billed as a "Belgian Strong Dark Ale" which is a bit of a misnomer as the beer isn't particularly dark. It's color is closer to an amber-blonde; more so than the typical brown or coffee colors most associate with a Belgian "Dark Ale." There are great fruity hints, beyond esters, which entice the palate with figs, raisins and dates. The yeast strain provides the classic Belgian taste that has come to bear great resemblance to the legendary Trappist ales. While the malts dominate the flavor profile, there are strong peppery and sweet character notes that give the malt-body a fairly light feel on the tongue. The carbonation is not amazingly high yet still a bit higher than is standard for a Belgian Strong Dark Ale.

The second beer I want to call attention to is another collaborative brew created in an international vein. This recipe incorporated German Malt, American hops, English hops, two and half pounds of Mexican and Colombian brown sugar and a French company’s English-style yeast. Despite the global nature of the ingredients, all parts of the recipe were actually purchased in Arlington and Philadelphia. The brown sugar or "piloncillo" as it is often called had a pound and a half hailing from Mexico and another one pound imported from Columbia. These sugars were purchased at El Chaparral, a supermarcado in Arlington, VA. The German Malt, English and American Hops, Pennsylvania water and SAF Ale 04, Whitbread English Ale Yeast Strain, were all purchased in the Keystone state. We purchased the lion's share of our ingredients from acclaimed Philly-based beer store "Home Sweet Homebrew" located at 2008 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

The pilloncillo (via Mexico and Columbia), added enough octane whilst in the kettle to jack up the alcohol content and provided a 1.080 Original Gravity reading. In addition to the spiked alcohol content, the sugar provided a complexity and a dry finish to the uncarbonated beer when sampled going from the primary fermenter into the secondary.

The brewers, Doug, Joe and the author all anxiously await the final product of a truly collaborative ale. While waiting, we brewers raise a toast to one another with an Avery "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale" knowing that Russian River Brewing was cool letting Avery Brewing get the beer out of their brew house so long as it was doled out to the masses in the best collaborative fashion.