In London, A Walk Down Memory Lane
Maryanne and Paul were fortunate enough to visit Young’s Brewery in Wandsworth, south London, several years before brewing operations came to an end there. Somewhere on Maryanne’s hard drive there’s a photo of Paul, wearing a white smock (mandatory for brewery visitors), pretending to interview one of the Shire horses.
We mention our visit to Young’s because we’re shameless publicity hounds we ran across a blog post by Martyn Cornell, The Zythophile. He’s assembled a slide show from “the second-to-last ever trip” around the brewery in September 2006. Enjoy!
Who is Pliny the Younger?
The latest column by Don Russell, a/k/a “Joe Sixpack,” is about his early-morning run out to the Philly ‘burbs to taste the world’s top-rated beer, Russian River Brewing’s Pliny the Younger. A ten-ounce glass of this 11% ABV triple India pale ale set him back $8, but he proclaimed it to be worth every penny.
You might be wondering who Pliny the Younger was, and why a beer was named after him. Pliny, whose real name was Gaius Minor Plinius Caecilius Secundus, was a Roman writer, lawyer, and military man who died in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
The beer community honors Pliny because he’s said to be the first person to mention hops in his writing. Like many such claims, this one is somewhat debatable. Martyn Cornell, The Zythophile, took a hard look at what Pliny wrote. Regarding Pliny, he handed down a mixed verdict. Although he found t “somewhere between possible and probable” that the lupus salictarius Pliny wrote about was the wild hop plant, he finds no evidence for other parts of the Pliny legend–including the claim that he and other Romans used the plant for medicinal purposes.
A New Book About British Beer Styles
His real name is Martyn Cornell, but most people know him by his nom de blog, The Zythophile. His blog is known for fact-filled, and often pungent, commentary on beer and brewing. Martyn’s writing is so entertaining that you knew it was only a matter of time before a publisher offered him a book deal. And sure enough, The History Press came calling.
The book’s title is Amber, Gold and Black, The History of Britain’s Great Beers, which the author describes as “the first book devoted solely to the development of beer styles in Britain, from bitter to porter, covering every aspect of their history, what they were when they started , how they developed and what they are today.”
Some of the material in Amber, Gold and Black will be familiar to Zythophile fans (are they known as “Zythophilephiles?”). It takes on questions like these: “How did India Pale Ale really come about?”, “Who really developed porter?”, and “What exactly is mild?” Martyn says the answers to all three aren’t what most people think.
Higher Zymurgical Education: The Beer Bottle
Don’t ever say this blog isn’t educational. Today, Ludwig has invited the Zythophile as a guest lecturer. His lecture topic is the history of bottled beer. As usual, the Zythophile–pun intended–explodes a beer myth: this time, it’s the story about Dr. Alexander Nowell, who inadvertently discovered bottle conditioning 440 years ago after leaving behind a bottle of homebrew after a day of fishing. But there are plenty of other characters in the story, including Samuel Pepys, Louis Pasteur, and Henry Barrett.
Henry Barrett? To find out his claim to fame, you’ll have to read the article. Fair warning from Ludwig: it will be on the final exam.
Extreme Beer, Extreme Adventures
With a arctic wave gripping much of the U.S., and cold and snow tying up Britain, the timing couldn’t be better for a story about Alsopp’s Arctic Ale. Its inspiration was news about an intrepid homebrewer who’s literally going to extremes to re-create this classic ale. But more about him in a moment.
Alsopp’s, a brewery that played a key role in the popularity of India pale ale, once turned out a special beer for Arctic explorers. At Her Majesty’s request, Alsopp’s brewed a batch of Arctic Ale for an expedition led by Sir Edward Belcher in 1852-54. In 1875, it brewed another batch for Sir George Nares’s attempt to reach the North Pole.
This was a formidable beer. According to the Zythophile; and it checked in at more than 11 per cent alcohol, and descended from the strong, sweet ales that Burton upon Trent once exported to the Baltic. Not only was this ale powerful, but it helped ward off scurvy, didn’t freeze until the temperature fell to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and could be cellared for decades and still improve with age.
And that leads us to Christopher Bowen, who’s going to brew a batch of this ale. Not in his garage, but on the shoreline of Hudson Bay. Scott and his crew are getting to the Arctic by motorcycle, with a film crew following. They’re hoping to turn this adventure into an hour-long documentary, which we can’t wait to see when it hits the screens.
Point/Counterpoint (Hops Department)
The other day, The Zythophile directed his wrath at beer writers who propagate false information about the history of hops. He’s back, this time trying to set the record straight. Why did it take 9,000 years or so after brewing began for brewers to start using hops? That, he says, is “one of the great unanswered questions in the history of beer.” Nevertheless, he combs through the historical evidence and offers us “A Short History of Hops.” It’s a fact-filled account, with cameo appearances by Hildegard of Bingen, Richard Fuggle, and a “Mr Golding of Malling.” Worth the read.
Hops: A Bittering Agent in More Ways Than One
Ludwig enjoys a rip-roaring rant, and the Zythophile has served up a doozie, laying waste to some often-repeated-but very wrong–beliefs about the history of hops. This sound bite from the column sets the tone:
Unfortunately the internet is the most efficient method of disseminating bollocks ever invented, and what depresses me is that my attempts to stem the tide of inaccuracies are wrecked by [certain beer writers]
The Zythophile proceeds to refute several common misstatements about hops. Having done that, he then points his readers in the direction of his FAQs. On his blog, that stands for “False Ale Quotes.”
After reading the column, Ludwig passed it on to Maryanne and Paul, who awarded it a solid 10 out of 10 on the Rant-o-Meter.