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.

Melobraggot? Bragomel?: Marionberry Braggot by Rogue Ales

The final entry in my short run of brackett tastings is a fruited take on the style - Rogue's Marionberry Braggot. A mead made with fruit is called a melomel so perhaps this could be called a melobraggot. A bragomel? They just roll off the tongue, doesn't they? If you use it like a mouthwash, does it become a Gargamel?

I'm here all week. Tip your servers!

Rogue Ales is located in Newport, Oregon and I will cop to not being particularly familiar with the brewery. I have reviewed only one of their beers - Roguebier Rye Ale, which I liked. And that is about it as far as my Roguish knowledge extends. Marionberry Braggot is apparently part of the brewery's Rogue Farms series which I presume means that some percentage of the ingredients in the brew were grown on a Rogue farm. Rogue farms grow grains, hops, fruit, nuts, and also raise animals. I am sincerely hoping that I never see a Rogue free range chicken beer on offer.

The label indicates that several of the braggot's ingredients were grown on a Rogue farm including marionberries. I had to look them up because the name didn't sound at all familiar. Marionberries are a variety of blackberry brought to life in Oregon in 1956 which makes them hyper-local for Rogue.

As with the other bracketts and braggots I've sampled recently, my bottle of Marionberry Braggot has been aging in my cellar since I bought the bottle in 2014. That was a big year for braggots, apparently, as my previous two were also vintage 2014. That trend petered out quickly.

Marionberry Braggot pours a deep brown that has a reddish purple tint. Just like Sprecher's brew, this one was very turbid. I got a small light tan head that lasted for 20 seconds or thereabouts. If I held my glass to the light just right I could see some bubbles going up.

The aroma was very sweet with a lovely honey scent being supported by the marionberries. This certainly had the sweetest aroma of all my braggots.

The same can be said of the taste. Not only was the honey prominent but also fairly sweet. This braggot is 11.42% A.B.V. which makes me wonder exactly how much honey was used to make it that big and with that much sweetness. The berries were not shy about making themselves known either. They added a touch of sweetness and a bit of tart berry goodness. I was happy to taste some carbonation as well because it really helped tone down the sweetness.

This is a big, boozy beverage and I could most certainly taste it. That boozy heat was fairly restrained until the finish. Here the honey faded leaving the marionberry to deal with the alcoholic heat. I'd swear there was also a little bit of spicy hop bitterness in there for good measure. Lacing was completely absent.

Just like Sprecher's Braggot, Marionberry has large booze component to it. I think the marionberries and the marionberry juice helped tone down the alcohol sting here but it had still a very warm, astringent taste, especially at the finish. Beowulf could have made Molotov cocktails with this stuff and dispatched Grendel and his mother with ease.

In addition to having a great honey flavor that of the perfect level of sweetness, I really liked the fruit in this braggot. It made the brew a little more toothsome but also added some tarteness at the same time. However, just as with its Sprecher cousin, the alcohol taste was just too strong for my palate. It was too strong and stood out from the honey and fruit too distinctly. It may very well be my lack of cellaring know-how but, considering that Honey Queen didn't seem to suffer from a similar period of aging in my basement, I am beginning to think that high potency braggots are either fated to be fire water because grain somehow throws a spanner in the works or Rogue and Sprecher need to practice braggot making. Meads/melomels with higher A.B.V.s than 11% don't taste like this nor do (all) beers of double-digit potency.

Surely this means I must conduct more research.

Junk food pairing: Marionberry Braggot pairs well with Hostess fruit pies or their nearest generic equivalent. They will help take the edge off and complement the fine marionberry flavor of the brew.

Heorot Awaits It: Braggot by Sprecher Brewing Company

Three – three braggots!! Ah, ah, ah, ah!

Number three comes courtesy of Sprecher Brewing in Milwaukee.

Sprecher is one of the granddaddies of Wisconsin microbrewing having been around since 1985. Sadly, I've read that they make more soda than beer these days and lately they've been making hay with the hard soda trend. And even more recently they've released a bevy of radlers to jump on the shandy/radler bandwagon that Leinenkugel built.

This is a shame became Sprecher Amber is a fantastic bier and I used to drink it by the gallon (it seemed) back in the 1990s when I spent more time than was healthy at the Paradise Lounge. Black Bavarian is also extremely tasty and I enjoy their seasonals quite a bit too. Yet I feel that the brewery is perceived as something of a one- or two-trick pony. An Amber or Black Bavarian when taking a brief respite from hoppy pale ales but that's it and only occasionally.

Yet Sprecher introduced two gluten free brews back in 2006 or so and have a line of fresh hop beers; a Belgian quad for an anniversary brew and sundry ales. I just view Sprecher as being a very good brewery with many tasty offerings that has more going for it than Bavarian-style biers but just hasn't been able to find its beer niche in a world of IPAs, sours, and barrel aged brews. Perhaps they are doing better than I realize and just fly under the radar without a trendy beer that causes a brouhaha upon release. If I'm right, then hopefully moving to 12oz bottles and some new labels that shed much of the traditional German imagery will appeal to younger drinkers or simply drinkers who ignore them.

Anyway, onto the braggot!

Back in 2014 Sprecher released their first ever braggot. I picked some up and have finally gotten around to dragging one out of the cellar and busting it open. As with my previous two bracketts/braggots, Sam Adams' Honey Queen and Viking's HoneyMoon, Sprecher's extolls the virtue of aging right on the bottle: "This product can benefit from extended aging when properly stored." I aged mine about two years in my cellar away from light and in at least moderately cool temperatures. You will never hear me brag about my cellaring prowess but I feel that Sprecher's brew was treated well.

It poured a deep yellow that was as cloudy as all get-out. I don't know if this is normal but I'm not afraid of some haze. I did not get any head in my glass and the braggot was so turbid as to be opaque so I couldn't judge the brew's effervescence. At this point I was unsure if I completely ruined the braggot in my basement and was about to go 1 for 3 or if all was well and these were just the meady equivalent of crow's feet and laugh lines.

I felt relief when I got a billow of honeyed sweetness up my nose. Braggot had a very sweet aroma overall with some bread dough in addition to the honey. Considering that the bottle had been in my cellar for almost two years and the brew had been aging in Sprecher's vats for something like 18 months, I was quite surprised to smell what I thought were hops – floral hops – that were accented really nicely by all the syrupy sugars.

It wasn't surprising to find that this hazy honey-colored nectar had a fairly heavy body. While it was not a sticky, viscous liquid like honey itself, it was much more hefty than the other braggots that I'd had. There was a luscious honey flavor yet there wasn't a whole lot of sweetness. Braggot has an A.B.V. of 11% so most of the honey sugar was eaten by the yeast and turned into alcohol but I expected a bigger malt sweetness. There was some but it tasted like the malt added more body than flavor. I also caught a little carbonation as well as a not insignificant burst of peppery hops which added an unexpected bitterness. Then the bitterness melded into a big boozy sting.

While there was a little lingering sweetness at the end, I mostly tasted alcohol heat. I think all the booze in Braggot chased away the lacing because there was none.

Sam Adams' Honey Queen was a balanced and gentle libation in contrast to this highly potent potable. Sprecher has come up with something that I could imagine being consumed in Hrothgar's hall where the king and his fighters drank it to forget about Grendel for an evening. I found Braggot to be harsh and abrasive – the Sam Kinison of beverages. The alcohol cut through the really nice honey flavor easily and left my tongue afire. I am hoping that the rest of my stash of Braggot mellows out with more aging.

Junk food pairing: Get some Chicken in a Biskit crackers and slather on a generous portion of honey butter.

Swarming With Flavor: Honey Queen Braggot by Boston Beer Company

My brackett mini-marathon continues today with a braggot from Sam Adams - Honey Queen. It's part of their Small Batch Collection which comes in bombers. I've really enjoyed a few of the Small Batch brews including a rauch bock and a sahti so of course I've not seen them since those first highly pleasurable dates. I'm not sure if this is because they're no longer being brewed or they just aren't available in Madison or if I am simply looking in all the wrong places.

My previous brackett review was of a c. 2009 brew and I was saddened to taste that it had gone south. My bottle of Honey Queen was of a much more recent vintage – 2014. The bottle explicitly says "Enjoy now or age it to further develop rich and unique flavors" and this, combined with the fact that the bottle had been away from light in my cellar, made me mildly hopeful that I'd have a drinkable beverage upon decanting.

Honey Queen pours a dark yellow. I was surprised to find that it was a touch hazy. I don't know why but such was the case. My pour produced a nice head that left my glass adorned with a brilliant white and very creamy head. It didn't last a particularly long time but long enough- perhaps 20 seconds or so. There were some scattered bubbles inside my glass going up.

I was a bit anxious putting the glass to my nose for the first time. However, I was greatly relieved when I smelled slightly sweet honey but, more importantly, a distinct absence of vermouth. There are hops and chamomile in this braggot and they came across as a pleasant mild herbal scent. Beneath this sweet, floral-herbal mélange was some crackery malt. A dramatic improvement over the senescent brackett from a few days earlier.

By no means am I a braggot expert. How much should one taste like mead? How much like beer? I suppose that as long as you have some of each, you're in like Flynn. Honey Queen had a rather big floral and slightly fruity honey flavor up front. However, it was only slightly sweet. Underneath it was a light, biscuity malt flavor. And tacking its way through the two was a mild herbal & floral flavor which was hops and chamomile in concert. The herbs gave a little bitterness.

That great semi-sweet honey flavor lingered at the finish and was then joined by a swelling of herbal flavor along with a modicum of bitterness that made for a pleasantly dry ending. Honey Queen left some nice lacing on my glass with a scattering of spots and a couple large patches.

I was quite relieved to find that my bottle of Honey Queen hadn't gone bad. Indeed it was a real treat. Sam Adams says that it was made with three kinds of honey – Clover, Orange Blossom, and Alfalfa – but the differences amongst these varieties is beyond my ken. (Any honey sommeliers out there?) But I can tell you that they made for a fine floral sweetness on my tongue. Honey Queen has a deceptively light body that feels a bit heavier when the honey sweetness is at its height. There are also three kinds of hops - East Kent Goldings, Strisselspalt, & Aramis – and they, along with the chamomile, add a pleasant, mellow bit of herbal flavor and just enough bitterness to make for a noticeable contrast to the honey.

Honey Queen is 7.5% A.B.V. so it's either a big beer or a small wine depending on your preference. Regardless, it is extremely tasty.

Junk food pairing: I like to pair braggots with foods that emphasize the honey. Try some of your favorite honey mustard pretzels with Honey Queen.

The Honeymoon Is Over: HoneyMoon Brackett by Viking Brewing Company

Has anyone out there ever tried aging brackett, a.k.a. - braggot? I have, and let me tell you, it was an utter failure.

Brackett/braggot is a beverage that is reputed to have originated in medieval times and is either mead made with malt or beer made with honey. Either way you're getting fermentable sugars from a mix of honey and malt. But I suppose you can just add finished mead to finished ale and have brackett too. How much beer should you taste in a brackett? How much mead? Everything I've found to read on the subject leans towards bracket being an art rather than a science. Does it taste like mead and beer simultaneously? If so, then you've got a brackett.

I recently opened a bottle of HoneyMoon, a brackett from the Viking Brewing Company which is now Valkyrie Brewing Company. If you look at the old Viking website, it says that HoneyMoon "Ages well for years". Perhaps two years. My bottle was purchased in 2009, I believe, and I figured that I'd try aging a 10% A.B.V. wine-like brew/brew-like wine. Tempus fugit and here we are seven or so years later.

HoneyMoon poured a lovely light gold – even if the photograph doesn't portray this. It was quite clear. I didn't get much of a head when I poured it into my glass. But there was no small number of bubbles in the elixir. Are fresh bracketts effervescent? Meads comes bubbly and non-bubbly so you'd think brackett could very well be stillish. I think the last time I had a fresh brackett outside of The Great Taste was about 11 years ago when I had some from White Winter Winery so I remain unsure.

The brackett definitely had a mead-like smell – that dry honey scent – but the aroma also had a rather prominent vinous smell too. There really wasn't anything beery here.

Taking my first sip, I didn't have high hopes. The brackett had a light body and I caught a little carbonation as well as some really nice honey taste. However, that vinous quality was here in spades. It tasted a lot like vermouth to me. As my HoneyMoon warmed up, it took on a strong boozy heat - 10% may have been on the low side – and a pronounced astringent flavor.

The finish had what must have been the very last remnants of hop flavor with a faint grassiness just barely perceptible and more of that vermouth flavor. My glass had no lacing.

Well, my little aging experiment was a failure and you can blame it on me. (We're just sugar mice in the rain.) I should have consumed this bottle years ago. Live and learn. This just means that I need more bracketts to make up for my failing.