Nut Brown Ale: How many contain nuts?

Also author of many books and LONG time Beer Blogger, might even predate BA

 

I don't think a lot of folks know about Ron. His findings don't always jive with the common beliefs many of us have before learning that we were wrong

 

yes and even current web sites have wrong beer style info. Not to mention many beer myths get repeated over and over. Wrong as they are.

 

Read my last post. Then you can see how the term was used, at least in the 1840's and 1850's.

My basic point was: don't claim things without evidence.

I'm glad we had this discussion because it prompted me to go and investigate the term Nut Brown Ale. What I found is intriguing. The term seems to have been used in a ritualistic way, a bit like the phrase "wine dark sea" in Homer. Really quite odd. The term obviously evoked certain feelings, not really directly connected with the beers brewed at the time. More interesting, in many ways, than if it had existed as a standard type of beer.

In another way, I curse you. The quest to discover how, why, where and when "nut-brown ale" was used is going to eat up weeks of my time.

 

I'm starting to slightly modify my views on 19th-century IPA, too. But that's another story.

 

There aren't any nuts in Pullman.

 

ok use some and stop arguing with an expert. You are wrong its happens learn from it and go on.

are you going to blog about it?

 

Sometime. I'm really trying to concentrate on Strong Ale.

 

Sadly, a lot of it written by well known beer writers who really ought to know better.

 

I would like to politely add that lots of things are called "nutty" throughout many folk and colloquial usages in many divergences of the historic spread of the English language. I think of "John Barleycorn" and his nut brown bowl. Usually nutty refers to a specific flavor component, but as Time and language have evolved, it increasingly refers to people. Whether or not there are real nuts in a nut brown ale or beer, no matter which nomenclature first appears in human conveyance, I personally drink them with gusto with a respectful nod to historians and word fools everywhere. Cheers everyone!

 

I for one cannot wait to hear it.

 

While I might mull a brownish ale with some nuts, I'm no expert on any of this!

(And your post did indeed make me laugh-out-loud -- well done!)

 

Ron, please share with us your latest view on 19th Century IPAs when you feel comfortable. Historical research (and interpretation) is an activity that never comes to an end.

Cheers!

 

The Christmas carol and subsequent usages of the descriptor 'nut-brown' you have provided are his evidence.

His (initial) claim was nothing other than that the adjective noun pair 'nut-brown ale' did not "come from" that Middle (nit-picky, but Old English is far more foreign looking than that, even when transcribed into the Latin alphabet) English christmas carol but rather the fact that the phrase appears in the written record, or rather even just that it became imbedded into cultural idiom through songs and poems tells us that it's highly probable people were calling stuff 'nut-brown ale' in their casual, day to day speech first. The same claim would be valid for your Homeric example (ignoring the oral tradition which would complicate this example). It would be incorrect to say that the original Greek phrase which some translate as 'the wine-dark sea' "comes" from Homer. No, it comes from a whole bunch of 'Ancient Greek' folks speaking their language and it is transmitted to us through the manuscript tradition of the Homeric poems.

Indeed TruePerception will never be able to provide you with an audio recording of some centuries-old English folks talking about 'nut-brown ale,' but the written evidence itself is quite strong. It generally holds that a linguistic unit comes about in the spoken language and subsequently is written down (we might point to something like Carroll's Jabberwocky as an exception). This is less true now because of the internet, but even more true for earlier times when a tiny fraction of the populace was even literate, let alone writing down poetry.

 

It still wasn't a type of effing beer before 1890. Try looking at my blog.

 

Haha you just told Ron Pattinson to do some research.

Maybe email Tyson now and tell him he ought to look through a few telescopes? Or Stamets and tell him he needs to go pick some mushrooms? Too funny.

 

The IPA book that I recently read had been research using primary sources in Britain, did not repeat the usual myths, and had tables of data from Ron Pattinson (used with permission). That was by Mitch Steele, and was pretty legitimate. Is there another IPA book out?

 

Jeff, you are indeed correct. Mitch Steele's IPA book is a scholarly book.

Cheers!

Jack

 

And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl and his "brandy" in the glass
And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl proved the strongest man at last
The huntsman he can't hunt the fox nor so loudly blow his horn
And the tinker he can't mend kettle or pots without a little barleycorn

An ancient song and poem that exists in many forms, but I know this is about beer, but not necessarily brown beer or nut beer. Nut brown is a descriptor of many beverages from brandy to whiskey to beer. Listen to the version by Traffic. (John Barleycorn Must Die)

 

No that is the new 1, some were saying it had corrected a few newer myths. Its just I trust Ron more, and when and if he does an IPA book, I figure I will trust him first. Now bear in mind if facts change ie things are discovered that dispute other things, then its one of those deals where there has to be some agreement among beer history researchers.

TBH I love all this stuff but its really just history its nice to know, and I rather have the truth, still at the end of the day no one really gives a hoot. I enjoy reading about it. I still like the fact that inventions some times occur spontaneously in more than one place. Usually because things like making beer evolve over time.

Also history is a funny thing, not ever story gets written down. You know?