Drafting a Beer

Every now and then The Missus and I look at each other over a meal or while rambling through cable TV’s Food Network and wonder, Who first thought to do X with this recipe?

Okay, reasonably, I know we’re beneficiaries of tens of thousands of years of trial-and-error. Somebody in a grass or furry loincloth didn’t just suddenly see one of those tan or white or etc. objects appear in a bird’s nest and, out of thin air, conjure up the notion of a three-minute egg, perhaps with sliced white bread alongside and a few strips of bacon. More likely, he or she was thinking along these lines (translation from Primordialese via university-trained Babel Fish):

Jiminy Crickets,  but I. Am. Starving. I think I’ll eat the very next thing I can catch — oh, wait, it’s one of those feathery things with the hard pointy noses and attitudes, think I’ll wait and really, no fooling, the next thing I see… Huh? That wasn’t there before! Wow. It doesn’t have any sharp edges at all! It looks like the sun! or the moon! Maybe I should worship it— No, goddammit, I have never been this freaking hungry in my life and this, this is not a god, it is something from a god and it is meant to satisfy my hunger, so I’m just gonna take a little bite to start and—

Gaaaaa! My mouth! My mouth! My mouth is bleeding and ooooh my gummmmmms…!

Something like that, anyhow.

So, realistically, I know that when we now eat a food that’s been prepared somehow, and it tastes, smells, looks, feels, and even sounds good, it’s because a million victims through history paid the price of earlier recipes which insufficiently met one or more of those sensory standards. (Gee, I wonder why modern cultures with ancient pasts worship their ancestors?) But somewhere along the line, somebody had to make those little match-making decisions, where one element gets paired with another it’s never met before. Someone needs to take a leap of foodie faith.

Which applies to beverages as well as foods.

Other than meatloaf, which I pretty much improvise throughout, I’ve never made up a food or beverage recipe of my own. Except (sorta) once. I mentioned here, a couple weeks ago, the (fictional) ale called Diwrnach Wyddel which plays a significant part in the work-in-progress. While I — no brewmaster — don’t know exactly what went into it, I know how it tastes, all right, and that’s what I want to communicate in my descriptions of it.

Here’s what a (fictional) book cited in my book says about it (“from the International Guide to Beers of the World (London, Dionysos Books; 1990 ed.”):

Not to be outdone by its neighbours in the British Isles, little Wales holds up to the world its own touchstone of great beer satisfaction. The marvellously tongue-twisting Diwrnach Wyddel (alcohol 5.25 percent by volume; gravity 1098) is available today, as it has been for nearly two centuries, only in bottle-fermented form. But what bottles they are! Green and white crockery, capped rather ingeniously with a distinctive cork-and-wire mechanism that is to a typical bottle cap what the Times puzzle is to a typical crossword, these twenty-ounce behemoths deliver to the fortunate connoisseur’s palate a thick, dark, somewhat smoky brew with a delightful slightly bitter tang and a smooth finish, shaded with a hint of flavour that some have likened to hazelnut. The tang originates in the variety of hops which St David’s Brewing cultivates for its own use, cleansing the palate and making this unclassifi­able classic an ideal accompaniment for all manner of food, from a full seven-course gourmet meal on down to the lowly paper sack of potato crisps. As for that finish, a bottle of Diwrnach Wyddel is suited equally for warming you on a dank chilly night or for assist­ing you to doze off peacefully in the sweltering heat of a summer afternoon — but it is not, in any case, an experience to be savoured lightly.

Aficionados of such matters will recall the justly-celebrated advertising campaign with which Diwrnach Wyddel was introduced to a thirsty US population in the early 1960s. But even those who have never watched a minute’s television will not want to miss trying out this exquisitely robust affirma­tion of a little-known Welsh brewing tradi­tion. ****½, ££££. St David’s Brewing Company, Ltd., Llandysol, Dyfed, Wales. (Sole US importers: King and Company, Inc., New York NY.)

Now, throughout the various (ha ha) drafts, I’ve always included some of this ale’s back story; the 18th-century conditions under which it was first brewed provide a sort of stage upon which the more or less present-day plot takes place.

In the current draft, I’ve expanded the back story some. This loosening-up has enabled me to write of the first taste which Diwrnach Wyddel’s brewer himself ever had of it; the passage which follows recounts his experience. Emrys is a Welsh brewmaster-to-be, the protagonist of the back story and creator of the ale in question; Jack is his good English friend, an apprentice glassblower who has made the demijohn (a/k/a carboy) in which Emrys’s ale has been fermenting. Emrys has invited Jack to share in the first tasting.

(Please make allowances for the fact that this excerpt is, like, less than a week old and could use a little fermentation and finishing itself.)

Emrys hoists his goblet. “Now before you take a sip,” he says, “close your eyes and take in a good breath through your nose. The aroma’s part of the pleasure.” He follows his own instructions. A cloud of pure olfactory pleasure has gathered in the mouth of the goblet and runs into his nose. His mouth begins to water. “Jack,” he says, raising his glass again, “to masters of their trades, in apprentices’ garb.” Jack raises his own drink and, as one, they close their eyes again and put the goblets to their lips.

The first few drops spill over the rim of the goblet, drip on Emrys’s tongue. Tiny, dark-tinged explosions of sense begin to go off. Even better than I imagined, thinks Emrys, which surprises him because he has always imagined the best for his new ale. He tilts the glass further, pours a small mouthful, pauses.

Although he has taken in a mere sip, his mouth bursts with unanticipated flavors. He knows what is in the brew, aye, and he alone, but he cannot explain why he tastes suggestions of exotic spices from the Far East — spices he could never afford and would not know how to use if he could: chocolate, cinnamon, clove…

As he’d hinted to Jack those weeks ago in the tavern, the taste was not just taste but a summoning to memory of meadow and forest, of cwm and vale and bower. His unseeing head fills with images of waves lapping the western coastline, of birds soaring upon the winds over Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa — sights which Emrys has heard of but never seen for himself yet knows, knows his mind paints true. For a second he hears the lowing of cattle, and the familiar squeak of a particular poorly-hung gate, the rattle as it swings shut upon its stile. The complex aromas suffusing his breathing passages are like the air of Cymer Bach, and hint there is, too, of the soft approach of a certain fair-haired maiden, her lips spreading in a smile of welcome…

Hiraeth, Emrys knows this is, recognizes it for certain though he has never glimpsed it: the tugging at the head and heart of a Welshman too long gone, and the distant piping of a horn-pipe, and the plucking upon a crwth, of a song Emrys does not know he knows. It fills his head, his chest throbs, happiness and sorrow fill his mouth in equal measure—

“Hullo then, Em,” comes Jack’s voice, breaking the spell, and Emrys opens his eyes. Jack pokes playfully with a forefinger at Emrys’s head. “Somethin’ goin’ all broken inside you, my friend?”

Emrys thinks to himself, Broken? Aye, something broken and it’s true…

When I read back over this, aside from things I’d like to do with the writing, I wish I had a big ol’ goblet of the stuff myself, right here at my elbow. (And in a way, I guess I do.)