In terms of smell, humans are often denigrated as being much poorer than bears or dogs. Compared to mice, it’s true we have only a third as many working receptor types, but we have way more copies. It’s a fair bargain, because their extra receptors involuntarily control their behavior, while our cognitive brain does these tasks with far more flexibility—and free will. Each creature has its own lifestyle, and its sensory systems are adapted perfectly to it.
The marketing geniuses at the world’s industrial breweries have no clue what kind of beer you like. Even if they did, the best they could do would be to dump it into a pot with a hundred thousand other preferences and brew an accountant-approved approximation of the resulting mélange. Which is exactly what they do. By brewing it yourself, you can have what you want, when you want it. You are the niche market supreme.
Holiday icons seem to settle into the same old routine; beers are not immune. And while I enjoy the wassail-inspired brown brews that return every year, much of the fun of homebrewing lies in surprising people with something new.
A session on eBay led to my acquiring a handwritten recipe from the Howard & Fuller Brewing Company of Brooklyn, NY. One Hundred Years of Brewing(1903) says: “This house manufactures fine ales and porters only and represents the oldest business in those lines on Long Island.” Founded by Junius A. Fuller in 1835, the brewery moved to the corner of Bridge and Plymouth Streets, a neighborhood now called DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), an up-and-coming area near the Brooklyn Bridge. The stationery is preprinted with the date 190_, so the recipe probably stems from that decade, but it could be a bit later. There’s a bit of shorthand in the brewer’s notes, so this may take a bit of guesswork to figure out.
“Red” was an encompassing term used through the middle ages and later to indicate the whole sweep of brown-colored beers, as distinguished from white, (usually wheat) beers, and each group of brewers had its own network of guilds. White beer was the more avant-garde of the two, adopting hops at an early date, while red beer brewers clung to the gruit herb tradition a couple of centuries longer.
People these days long to be a little more in touch with the rhythm of the land and the weather; a lively parade of seasonal beers is a delicious way to do it. And while commercial beers are nice, if you brew it yourself you can have a beer perfectly suited to your taste and mood, season after season. Right now the gales of winter are still blowing, but spring is just around the corner. Time to get brewing.
As homebrewers, we are often called upon to brew something special to celebrate a milestone: a wedding, a graduation, or just surviving another year in the cubicle. And when the audience is entirely beer-maniacal, anything goes. But the real test of a brewer is to please those used to cold, chilly and bland, while upholding your homebrew oath to always brew something interesting. It’s a balancing act that requires the brewer to deconstruct the beer preferences of his or her audience and assemble a subtle, but compelling, recipe.
It is our right as Americans to seize on tidbits of history, jumble them up and invent whatever kind of story is appealing. So let’s get on with that and start thinking about the beery possibilities. Note that the quantities suggested are for five-gallon batches. All of these should be fermented conventionally with lager yeast and given a cold conditioning commensurate with their strength. Don’t forget the diacetyl rest, a couple of days at cellar temperatures to allow any excess diacetyl released by the yeast to be reabsorbed.
Even with all their uncertainty, attempts at recreation can teach us about the beers of the past. And a historic perspective can be inspirational when trying to dream up new and unusual beers to brew. Thinking about history without having to worry about whether it is correct or not can be a great big hogshead of fun. Sometimes you just want to brew, history be damned.
American industrial lagers and light beers already reign in lawnmower-land, and they do serve their purpose. But as homebrewers, we can see obvious room for improvement to suit our own creative instincts and particular tastes. So here’s a few mini-recipes, which I leave to you to flesh out into actual malt, hops, wheat, oats and whatever else you can think of.