Do you suppose Frigg got pissed off when the Aesir convened to interview prospective Valkyries only to find that Thor had yet again chosen a slate of applicants that were all slim, busty, and blonde? Weren't any Valkyries brunettes? Brunettes with some small love handles and cup sizes smaller than D? If Michael Whelan and company are to be believed, there weren't. And poor Odin. With only one eye, he must have been especially busy with a clutch of comely warrior maidens parading before him. I guess you've gotta make sacrifices when you're the chief wise guy and Allfather.
This winter was rather exiting as far as beer goes as I've been able to sup not one, not two, but three different beers that were brewed with one of my favorite ingredients: rye. There was the annual quaffing of the Roggenbier with Vintage's Tippy Toboggan but also a couple of new brews: a ryewine from Parched Eagle and a rye stout from Revolution in Chicago. In one of those posts I lamented the general paucity of rye beers and how options are even fewer for those like me who eschew IPAs. Not long afterwards I encountered two more beers prepared with the coveted grain.
I was so happy that I almost started dancing. This would have been oddly appropriate since rye is hypothesized to be the cause of the Dancing Plague of 1518 which broke out in Strasbourg, now in modern day France. Records indicate a woman suddenly began dancing in the street in July and was joined by several others, mostly young women. While no one knows exactly what caused this terpsichorean outburst, there are those who blame rye. Well, ergotism.
Ergotism or ergot poisoning happens when you eat too much of a particular fungus that likes to grow on grains, particularly rye, in cool, moist conditions. I haven't found anything that explains why rye is the grain most commonly infected. Regardless, ergotism was a persistent threat in the days of yore. Not only did it cause gangrene but also seizures and mania, hence it being blamed for the Dancing Plague.
A little more than 100 years ago some enterprising chemists put some of the fungus in test tubes and mixed it with something else and sloshed it all around or whatever chemists do and discovered that some of the ergotine alkaloids - the compounds that did nasty things to people - utilize lysergic acid in their daily routines. This discovery led another chemist named Albert Hofman to start tinkering with derivatives of lysergic acid and he discovered another acid - LSD.
Far out, man.
This bring me quite nicely to Ryed of the Valkyries from Milwaukee's Gathering Place Brewing Company, a dunkel brewed with rye. A Roggendunkel, I suppose you could say. I've had a couple of their other brews and found them to be delectable so I was keen on trying a third.
My pour produced a modicum of loose, off-white foam. The beer was a deep amber and clear so I was able to spy a fair number of bubbles inside, including a bunch adhering to the side of my glass. My sniffs revealed mostly chocolate and honey aromas but I also found small doses of grass, plum, and citrus, which I initially read as "uterus", from my notes. Now there's a challenge for a brewer who is looking to deviate from the norm.
Through a firm fizz I tasted dark chocolate, stone fruit, roasty malt, and spicy rye on my initial sips. A bit of that citrus and a herbal hoppiness came through subsequently. After drinking a few ounces, I made the mistake of reading the label which mentioned pear. It was like being told not to think of an elephant and then getting Dumbo stuck in your mind's eye. And so I couldn't get pear out of my brain and began to taste it with every sup. Stoopid power of suggestion!
Chocolate and citrus lingered a bit on the swallow while the hoppy taste became a bit spicy. There was a moderate dryness helped out by some hoppy bitterness.
This was a fine brew. Besides name-checking a certain pomaceous fruit, the label also notes that 3 types of rye were used. No wonder I really enjoyed the rye flavor. I also found the spicy finish to be very tasty. Gathering Place describes this as a "gentle nod to the classic Bavarian Dunkel" and my only gripe would be for it to be a little less gentle and boost those roasty grain flavors that Bavarian brewers conjure so well. Less fruitiness and more bread.
Still, this was wonderful stuff. At 4.8% it isn't exactly a winter warmer and would be great in the summer, but it instead eased me into the comforting folds of hygge on a chilly evening.
Junk food pairing: I am all about the rye so get a bag of Gardetto's Deli-Style Mustard Pretzel snack mix to go with your Ryed of the Valkyries.
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