Beer in Literature - Brewing

Here is another of my periodic posts of passages from books I read that mention beer in interesting ways. The passage below is from 1926's Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner and describes a girl's memory of visiting her father's brewery:

"She always had a taste for botany, she had also inherited a fancy for brewing. One of her earliest pleasures had been to go with Everard (her father) to the brewery and look into the great vats while he, holding her firmly with his left hand, with his right plunged a long stick through the clotted froth which, working and murmuring, gradually gave way until far below through the tumbling, dissolving rent the beer was disclosed."

It is a rare cold, rainy, and windy day in San Diego, which makes the thought of a beer with "clotted froth" giving way and "tumbling, dissolving" to reveal a pint of stout or porter sound pretty good.

Jolly & Joyful

The Hop Concept put out a Holiday IPA called Jolly & Joyful late last year. I heard positive comments about it on the Beer Night In San Diego podcast in mid-December, and then a few days later I saw and bought a four-pack of it in Trader Joe's. I have not seen it anywhere since. After drinking this beer I know why it disappeared fast. It is not a Holiday beer packed with exotic spices or candied fruit, but a West Coast IPA. It is a beer of Christmas past because of its classic IPA hops of Amarillo, Centennial, and Cascade. I found Jolly & Joyful a malty IPA, which is good for a winter beer. It is West Coast bitter, but not to excess, and I appreciated its back of the throat earthiness. Jolly & Joyful does have some mild spiciness, but it comes from the hops not any additives. It has a quiet 7.2% abv. I would have liked another four-pack or two of this beer, but I guess it is something to look forward to next Holiday season.

Positive Notes

Last week saw some scary scenes in this country. To offset this, I found some solace in good news from local beer. Stone Brewing is releasing its Neverending Haze IPA in 16 oz four packs. Now, let's see Stone IPA sold in the same packaging. In addition, Stone announced that its Sublimely Self-Righteous Black IPA is back. This is a double IPA with its 8.7% abv. This is being released in 12 oz bottle six-packs and 22 oz bomber bottles (hurrah!). Sublimely is/was one of the best black IPAs. I have noticed recent chatter on Twitter about black IPAs and I am OK with a mini-renaissance for this style.

Societe Brewing has re-released its Agreeable Folk IPA, which was first released last April. I had speculated that Societe would have brewed a fourth special release IPA. I got the release right but the beer wrong. Societe did release a quarterly specialty beer, but it re-brewed Agreeable Folk and not a new beer. No complaints about that. For those keeping time, this is Societe's fourth quarterly special release IPA in the time of COVID. (I know Societe has brewed and canned other non-core special beers during COVID, like its Bachelor single hop IPAs, but I am referencing the Agreeable Folk, Good for the Public, and World of Wonder line of IPAs.)

Finally, I see that work is underway at California Wild Ale's new Ocean Beach tasting room in the former Two Roots/Helm's Brewing space, and at the new Harland Brewing tasting room in the former Benchmark space in Bay Park. 

Clarification

I re-read my previous post this morning, and in reading it I noticed I wrote about The Bruery in the past tense. The Bruery is still operating and cranking out beers. It even has a separate line, Offshoot Beer Co, which makes a number of canned IPAs that are distributed in a wider range than The Bruery's 750 ml bottles and its 16 oz cans. My Bruery drinking may be in the past tense, but The Bruery is present tense. In looking through the beers on its website, The Bruery's canned Ruekeller Helles sure looks good. According to The Bruery's website, I can find a four-pack of this at BevMo in La Jolla. 

Epic Bruery Post

What did you do during lockdown? Here is an amazing post from Kaedrin Beer Blog that consists of reviews and commentary on forty-three(!) beers from The Bruery. Most of the beers are big Bruery beers with abvs of 10% of more. My stomach ached just reading the post. It must have taken weeks, if not months, to slog through so many monster beers. Respect.

I searched through this blog's old posts looking for The Bruery's beers. I had forgotten how many posts I wrote about The Bruery's and its beers. I was a fan of this upstart brewery that brewed Belgian beers and no IPAs. As The Bruery moved to more and more exotic beers and barrel aged beers and beers above 10%, my interest waned. The Bruery's sale to private equity firm in 2017 did not thrill me either. One thing I liked about The Bruery was that its beers, to me, either hit big or missed big; I can't think of one beer that seemed ho-hum. Reading through the old posts brought back good beer memories: Mischief, Saison de Lente, Loakal Red, Humulus Lager, Trade Winds Tripel, and Saison Tonnellerie to name some of The Bruery beers I liked and wrote about. Good times. 

I still have one of The Bruery's holiday beers from its twelve-year, Twelve Days of Christmas series. I am not ashamed to admit I struggled to get through this series. The beer is Ten Lords a Leaping (I told you I struggled through these beers), and I should do some lockdown beer fridge cleaning and get to drinking this beer.

Beer in Literature - Restorative Porter

I post occasional references to beer I find in books I read. The older I get, the more I like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I don't read it every year, but watch various versions on TV and listen to Neil Gaiman's abridged audio version. This year, I caught this passage from when Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Past:

When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

Who among us has not felt the restorative power of a face plunge into a pot of porter! 

Fiddler and his pot of porter overlooking the Fizziwigs' Christmas Party

Photo from VictorianWeb.org