Hey Braggot!: Paint It Black by Giant Jones Brewing & Bos Meadery

 

With a pandemic raging, people afflicted with Trumpian madness storming the Capitol in Washington D.C., and a polar vortex set to swoop down upon us, these are the days that not only try men's souls, but also give them a thirst that can only be slaked by something a bit more pantagruelian than the average beer.

Thankfully here in Madison we have Giant Jones Brewing Company. Proprietors Jessica and Erika Jones figured they'd start a brewery. A very niche brewery. It opened in 2018 and offers only the headiest of beers brewed exclusively with organic ingredients. Everything is a barleywine or an imperial or a double or bock strength or a triple or what have you. While they offer a double IPA, they also brew styles that are much less common in these parts including weizenbocks (pale und dark) and a rotating selection of barleywines all the year long.

Just two blocks from Giant Jones is Bos Meadery where Colleen Bos, a "former" medievalist, transmogrifies honey, water, and yeast into mead. The meadery opened in 2012 and has been producing meads made with various varieties of honey, fruit, herbs, and spices ever since. Mead is a cousin of wine and most of Bos' are of similar strength to their vinous relatives.

And now, just like the gustatory congress of chocolate and peanut butter, Giant Jones got their beer into Bos mead. Or did Bos get their mead into Giant Jones' beer? Either way, they now give us Paint It Black braggot.

Braggot is like a cross between mead and beer and does not seem to be made particularly frequently, at least not here in Wisconsin. Paint It Black may be a first for Giant Jones but Bos has offered at least one braggot previously - during Madison Craft Beer Week in 2018 and it was excellent. They produced it in collaboration with St. Francis Brewery (R.I.P.) and it featured a rye stout, if memory serves, given the meady treatment.

Honey is one of those foods that I never thought about much until, quite frankly, I began to drink mead. Unless you grew up on a bee farm, I'd bet honey was just this golden, treacly stuff to you as it was for me. Then I drank mead made with single nectars and discovered that there is more to honey than meets the eye. Go to the Bos Mead Hall and sample the their Wildflower, Buckwheat, and Cranberry Blossom meads and you shall taste what I mean.

Paint It Black merges Giant Jones' winter seasonal, Extra Stout, with Bos' Wildflower Mead. My bottle was filled on 8 December 2020 so it was fairly fresh when I consumed it. As the name indicates, the braggot appears to be black. And, as usual, if you contort yourself just right, you can tell that it is a deep reddish brown. The tan head was soft & pillowy and hung around for an average amount of time. You know, a minute or so. It looked lovely.

In addition to its good looks, the brew smelled wonderful. (My notes say "awesome!") Coffee and bitter chocolate dominate here but the mead's floral-vanilla sweetness was certainly no slouch even if it wasn't as prominent. I was reminded of a box of fancy truffles, such as you'd get from CocoVaa, that use flowers as an ingredient. It smelled lovely.

At first, I tasted dark chocolate and honey sweetness but then came a touch of wildflower (which grew a tad as the braggot warmed) and a moderate bit of carbonation. Coffee and herbal hop bitterness came through on the swallow. A fizzy dryness and some boozy heat rounded my sips out. It tasted…lovely.

Really. I simply adored this stuff. It had all the roasty/coffee/chocolate flavors that are why I love dark beers so much plus some floral ones as well which are, to my taste, woefully underused in beer. At 9.4% A.B.V. it will take your cares away and warm you up but it doesn't taste heavy. Instead, it goes down smooth and easy.

Junk food pairing: Paint It Black is best enjoyed with a bag of dark chocolate covered pretzel thins. The chocolate complements the stout well while the pretzel adds more grain flavors plus salt which further heightens the meady goodness of the braggot.