History in a Bottle

Flights of fancy, little windows into another world, straight from dusty, antiquated brewing logs. Raising a glass reveals a glimpse of a bygone era, reflecting a place in time and how its beer tasted. We are witnessing a new age of experimentation, one in which brewers are taking inspiration from history instead of indulging the whims of the present. Engaging in a form of beer archaeology, brewers are teaming up with beer historians to re-create historic beers once brewed in mash tuns around the globe.

We have witnessed the exploits and adventures of brewers such as Dogfish Head, which scoured for and salvaged microscopic particles embedded in drinking vessel relics from China to Egypt. In collaboration with Dr. Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the brewer worked to identify the earliest ingredients used in the brewing of beer to create Chateau Jiahu. These brewing escapades are more guesswork than science, requiring the drinker to let go of reality a bit, akin to watching a movie with a few fantastical plot jumps.

In contrast, this new type of beer anthropology involves less surmising and more certainty when it comes to re-creating ales of old. Resurrected from decrepit brewing logs, these historic relics remain as placeholders of the past. Interpreted by experienced brewers and beer historians, they serve as more than mere recipes. Whether troubled by a stuck mash or a slightly low gravity reading, these historic records capture brewing history, one batch at a time.

When reviewed 100 or more years later, they are the most accurate path to understanding what beer tasted like to our ancestors. Challenges certainly remain, including developing a better understanding of the similarities and differences between historic and modern malt kilning practices and hop utilization methods. Even still, one bottle at a time, we can take a trip to a different era, one where flavorful beer was not celebrated with festivals but instead accepted as an everyday beverage.

Perhaps the best known of these historical experiments is the “Once Upon a Time” creative collaboration between Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project in Massachusetts and BeerAdvocate magazine’s own resident historian, Ron Pattinson. Conceived as a chance to re-create a single batch from a specific brew day in history, these brewing follies reanimate a single brewing log, resulting in many style-bending moments. As the description for the series’ first release reads:

Once upon a time, on Monday, February 27th, 1832, a brewer stepped into the Black Eagle brewhouse on Brick Lane in London, and brewed a beer that confounds expectations many years later: a Mild Ale at 10 percent alcohol, with more hops than most modern American “India Pale Ales.”

While I have been called a curmudgeon (and worse) in response to some recent BeerAdvocate columns, I have to admit experiencing an elevated level of excitement at trying these brewing antiquities. Whether they be 2.8- or 10-percent ABV Milds or a Porter brewed with brown and pale malts, these beers come to life in a brewing renaissance, revealing illuminating peeks into another world.

The story of beer in the United States has been the subject of much amateur and amateurish historicism, with many beer and brewing myths comprising much of the so-called beer scholarship. To be sure, American brewing records have not been nearly as well preserved as those in the United Kingdom, Netherlands and elsewhere. It is certain that America’s “Big Three” brewers maintain unparalleled brewing archives, but these are rarely open to outsiders and are not likely the stuff of fantastical beer making.

As in the early days of craft brewing, brewers are yet again looking to the past and their European ancestors for brewing inspiration, all the while trying to capture history in a bottle. ■