The Bible of Barley Wine?
'Studying barley wine is like following footprints which disappear and reappea'
April, 1998Barley Wine by Fal Allen and Dick Cantwell (Classic Beer Styles Series No. 11), Brewer's Publications, Boulder, CO, 1998
According to authors Fal Allen and Dick Cantwell, "Studying barley wine is like following footprints which disappear and reappear. forking and veering, stamping for a time in a circle and then dispersing, leaving trails that seem to go cold and then suddenly present a host of destinations." Fortunately for the reader (and brewer), their new book is a relatively easy path to follow through the tangle of history and myth, ingredients, techniques and recipes that surrounds this venerable and now wonderfully resurgent beer style.
These intrepid beer hunters are well suited for their task. Both celebrated Seattle brewers, Allen and Cantwell were once collaborators at the claustrophobic Pike Place Brewing Company, whose tiny four-barrel system was housed in a former homebrew shop beneath the famous Pike Place market. Now Allen presides as head brewer at the renamed and relocated Pike Brewery, a 25 barrel facility moved a block away and considerably expanded. ( built as it is in the middle of a restaurant, the brewery is now still somewhat claustrophobic, but on a larger scale). Cantwell has moved up in the Seattle brewing world, if only in elevation, to become partner and brewer at the Elysian Brewing Co. on Capitol Hill.
Barley wine and old. strong or stock ales have been confusing, even interchangeable terms in the world of beer for years. As the authors point out, "stock ale"has now become an almost meaningless label in the United States, and a similar trend has taken place with the naming of "old ales" in Britain - many of which are neither particularly "strong" (some with a gravity of less than 1.060) nor for that matter, "old". But the regular production of a super-strong ale style ( 1.080 and above) nevertheless became fashionable in England by the end of the nineteenth century, as exemplified by Bass No.1 Ale, first called a barley wine in 1903. The others that followed, Tennent's No.1 Gold Label, Fuller's Golden Pride, Eldridge Pope's Thomas Hardy's Ale, Gale's Prize Old Ale and Young's Old Nick established a kind of big beer tradition. Unfortunately, this has faded considerably in more recent years.
Enter the upstart Americans with Anchor's Old Foghorn in 1975 and Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot shortly thereafter. Inspired by its British heritage, "big beer" has since become, well, big in the United States. In the past decade, scores of American craft breweries and brewpubs have made, and continue to make, barley wines (Allen and Cantwell's appendix mentions 92 U.S. barley wines, and 7 Canadian examples is only a partial list). And special barley wine events have now been established as well; among festivals given notice in the book are Toronado's Barley wine festival in San Francisco each February and the Great Alaskan Winter Brew and Barley Wine Festival held recently in Anchorage, Alaska.
Even more than the Brits, it would seem, Americans love these monster beers. To the authors, this fact makes perfect sense: "These are the beers with swagger," they say,"beers with bragging rights." From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Playboy centerfold, the Big Sky to the Big Apple, America has historically enshrined all objects of the grandest scale.
Yet the authors take pains to point out that bigger does not mean better. "It is certainly possible to overdo a style that beckons to the courageous," they say. Some barley wines are, in fact, the Arnold Schwartzenegger of ingredients, particularly in the hop department, exhibiting more brawn than balance.
Allen and Cantwell provide expert guidance to anyone wanting to brew barley wine, with concise but very helpful notes on malts, hops, adjuncts, and - importantly - aging. Their overview of tips on how to brew a "monster mash" is one of the best I have read anywhere. Also included in the next is a nice sampling of professional barley wine profiles (for those breweries inclined to reveal their secrets) , and a wide range of recipes from homebrewers and pro-brewers alike. This is followed by a short but nicely focused troubleshooting section, glossary of brewing terms, a good bibliography, and index.
No book is perfect, but the errors and omissions in this one are very minor. Little attention is paid to the subject of wood aging or the positive affects of oxidation. Columbus hops are missing from the list of hop varieties (probably because they are proprietary to Hopunion, and the hop chart comes from other suppliers). Sometimes the tome of the writing seems a bit too cute and personal, as in "we think we have now fulfilled our obligation to talk about water." On the other hand, it's refreshing to see some humor in what might be a very dry treatise.
All in all, this volume is definitely among the best in the entire styles series from Brewer's Publications - informative, practical, and fun to read. If you're looking for the Bible of Barley Wine, look no further.
