Failures in Mulling Beer
Last night, I cracked open a bottle of the Kill Devil, one of the beers in the Widmers' Brothers Reserve series. It came out weeks and weeks ago, but such is my life that I only just got around to drinking it. Kill Devil is a high-concept beer that I guess you could place roughly in the abbey tradition. It's dark and brewed with all kinds of sugar--molasses, palm sugar, and toffee, and aged in rum barrels (sugar liquor) for good measure. The result is ... sweet. This is perhaps the sweetest beer I've ever tasted.
About halfway through my glass--and also halfway through the first episode of Grimm, filmed in Portland, I had to check it out--I had an idea. I was reminded of my conversation with Carlo Grootaert of De Struise Brouwers, when he described the origin of Pannepot. Here's what he told me:
Let's just say that modern beers are probably not the best source for warmed beers. Through my heated alchemy, I simultaneously thinned out Kill Devil and brought the heretofore invisible hops out in a medicinal, clashing rush. The alcohol volatilized and created a toxic miasma where the aroma should have been--sharp and stinging like wasabi. Not good.
Incidentally, I asked Carlo if he would recommend mulling De Struise's Pannepot. No, he said, absolutely not. It was only later that I remembered that part.
About halfway through my glass--and also halfway through the first episode of Grimm, filmed in Portland, I had to check it out--I had an idea. I was reminded of my conversation with Carlo Grootaert of De Struise Brouwers, when he described the origin of Pannepot. Here's what he told me:
No doubt you see where this is headed. "So strong and sweet and very alcoholic." I didn't build a fire in order to heat up a poker, but I did heat up the beer, thinking at the time--"this is going to be genius." I imagined sparking a minor fad in mulled Kill Devil. I foresaw our annual holiday party, me presiding over a bubbling cauldron of Kill Devil as the clamoring hordes thrust mugs toward my ladle. And then I tasted it.I heard that in my family, there were homebrewers at the time—100 years ago. The women were the brewers because the men were at sea to catch herrings. The women made beer in the wintertime on the stove. [Carlo comes from the village of De Panne, and from the village they fish in flat-bottomed boats called pannepots] The label is actually my great-granddad’s boat, the B-50.
Photo credit: Drew
Anyway, the women made beer on the stove and they didn’t like cold beer at the time. It was so strong and sweet and very alcoholic so they kept in a little cask in the cellar. If they wanted some beer, they went down with the jug and tapped off some beer—it was flat. But they didn’t like cold beer. So they had to heat it up. So they put the metal poker in the fire and it was glowing red, and when they put it in the thick beer (it didn’t have a name, it was called “thick beer”) with lots of sugars in it and the sugars instantly caramelized. It gave it a roasted, caramelized flavor.
Let's just say that modern beers are probably not the best source for warmed beers. Through my heated alchemy, I simultaneously thinned out Kill Devil and brought the heretofore invisible hops out in a medicinal, clashing rush. The alcohol volatilized and created a toxic miasma where the aroma should have been--sharp and stinging like wasabi. Not good.
Incidentally, I asked Carlo if he would recommend mulling De Struise's Pannepot. No, he said, absolutely not. It was only later that I remembered that part.