They were dancing in Strasbourg, dancing in the street: Ryed of the Valkyries by Gathering Place Brewing Company

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.

The Corona Diaries Vol 42 (Postlude): Bron-Yr-Aur

(Go the beginning of this entry.)

 

The Corona Diaries Vol 42: To pass an evening with a drink and a couple friends

(Listen to this entry's prelude.)

(late November 2021)

Like a fool I'd been putting off using my vacation time. November had crept up on me and I found myself with several days of paid time off to use before 2022 rolled in so I scheduled a few days off earlier this month and planned a trek up north. The Frau's work situation didn't allow her to take a break from her job on short notice so I was to go it alone.

So be it.

I simply needed to go somewhere else, to get away from my workaday life, and have a change of scenery. Last year I'd hoped to make a trek to the northwestern part of the state but didn't manage to do so. I've been wanting to hike the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area since 2009 when my Frau and I stopped at the interpretive center there atop a hill and watched hummingbirds drink their lunch as a storm went by to the south. It had been on my to-do list for far too long.

When my dear brother died, it really made me aware of how short life is and put the zap on my brain. We had talked about doing some traveling together, including a trek to New Orleans and The National WWII Museum where we'd check out the exhibits and reminisce about the old man. Our father was a big World War II history buff and responsible for me writing a paper when I was in the 3rd grade about the attack on Pearl Harbor and for my brother being able to distinguish between Mk III and Mk IV Panzer tanks at a glance. But those trips never transpired. Plus, I found some unfinished stories he had written amongst his effects. Too many words left unsaid and too many things left undone and then it was too late.

Carpe diem!

I left home on a grey and cloudy Wednesday morning with my first stop being Osseo, about 160 miles straight up I94. It's a rather nondescript town of 1,700 and I suspect that most people who know of it do so because there's a Norske Nook there. The small chain is known for its pies and Norwegian-inflected menu which includes generous amounts of lingonberries and lefse aplenty.

There is a Norske Nook just outside of Madison so I wasn't there for the food. Instead, I was to meet up with a couple of high school classmates that I hadn't seen in long time – decades, in fact. Earlier this year I had gotten in contact with Jason after finding an old email from a former co-worker with his email address in it. Long story involving baseball nerds. The message was buried deep in my inbox for several years and I fortuitously happened upon it while searching for a different missive.

Jason is the world's foremost authority on baseball in Eau Claire, a small city about 20 miles up the road from Osseo. He is the author of Baseball in Eau Claire and Diamonds in Clear Water: Professional Baseball in Eau Claire, 1886-1912. Furthermore, his expertise was tapped for the documentary about Hank Aaron's brief stint playing ball for the Eau Claire Bears in the summer of 1952, Henry Aaron's Summer Up North.

Jason had recently run into another classmate of ours, Nick, and he committed to joining our little gathering. Rather than being an expert on sports, Nick specializes in backs and necks at his chiropractory or whatever you call it in a nearby town.

 

As I settled in at my hotel room, a feeling of unease came over me. Osseo wasn't really my quondam stomping grounds as I did not spend a lot of time nor have any traumatic experiences there so it wasn't because of the town itself. I lived and spent my high school years mainly a little to the west and northwest of Osseo. And I didn't feel particularly nervous about meeting old friends. Indeed, I was really looking forward to it. My mind, however, was knee deep in this familiar, though long-buried, sense of not belonging.

 

I left the area when I was 18 because I knew that small town life in west central Wisconsin was just not for me. This isn't an insult against those who call small towns or that part of the state home, it's simply that I knew that my future did not lie there. I visited the area, though not Osseo, on a fairly regular basis for about 13 years after having moved away so it wasn't like I was returning for the first time since high school. My suspicion is that this was due to the bad old days of high school being so prominent on this visit. My brain must have gotten a few wires crossed and some atavistic teenage feelings seeped into the present to make for an odd emotional palimpsest.

 

As best I could recall, I'd seen neither Jason nor Nick since graduation when George Bush, Sr. was still president. The three of us were to meet up at the Northwoods Brewpub. I arrived first and didn't see anyone that looked like an old classmate so I grabbed a seat at the bar, opened a book, and ordered a beer.  

I'd been to the brewpub when it was located in Eau Claire but not since it had moved to its new digs in Osseo. I just love their Rowdy Rye ale and think it's one of the best beers in the state. Unfortunately, it was not on offer so I went with a Lil' Bandit Brown Ale.

It was quite tasty. Not too sweet and with more of a roasted grain flavor (vs. caramel) than I expected. Good stuff.

After a few minutes, someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up and saw Jason clad in - quelle surprise - a baseball cap. I got up and gave him a big hug. My unease immediately dissipated. He took a seat and we began chatting away. After a short time, someone else approached us. I looked up to see a gentleman with perfect posture. Nick had finally arrived.

Over the course of a few hours, we caught up on what we'd been doing over the past 30-odd years and threw in a healthy dose of reminiscing as well. I explained that I had come up north to do a bit of hiking and just get away from things. Jason remarked at one point that someone in the area had been attacked by a bear.

Gulp! I'd never seen a bear in those parts when I lived there. Well, hopefully I would not run into one in my travels.

I was amazed at how much I had forgotten over the years. As we chatted, memories came flooding back – of teachers and classmates that escaped my mind as well as sundry events that had lain hidden in the dark and dusty corners of my brain until that night.

For instance, a comment about our typing teacher reminded me of how what was surely tens of thousands of dollars of computers remained in boxes and so we were relegated to learning our keyboarding skills on old electric typewriters which were, as a technology, on the way out and had also been used to teach many of the parents of my classmates. And then something else rattled things up in the grey matter and I remembered a friend and I being chased by a kid in the grade behind us. For reasons I cannot recall, he was angry at us and was intent on expressing his anger with a shotgun. Someone drove us away at high speed and the chase was on. We eventually got enough distance between us that we could be dropped off next to a corn field fairly close to home unseen and we made our escape by running through it into some woods.

Ah, the good ol' days.

It was great to pass the time with such wonderful company. While I wasn't quite sure what 30+ years would do, for my part, I found it quite easy to slip into a loose, laid-back rapport with my former classmates. A few decades didn't seem to have diminished our abilities to enjoy one another's company. Looking back, I find it funny that none of us took any photos. In this day and age of everyone having a camera at their disposal at all times, the thought didn't even cross my mind. Perhaps next time.

The day had been overcast when I arrived in Osseo and it was pouring that night when we left the brewpub. My plan was to walk a stretch of the Buffalo River State Trail the next morning figuring that the rain would depart overnight so that I could get a nice, early stroll in before heading north again. Well, that didn't quite work out as planned.

It was still raining when I awoke and the end of it was not forecasted to be until late in the morning. I saw that the trail had some large puddles bordering on ponds so I decided to forgo that hike and instead take the long way to my next destination hoping that the rain will have at least dwindled to a drizzle by the time I got there. And so, I aimed my car west and took off down Highway 10.

Driving by my old high school, I was reminded of how one of my English teachers, Ron Harper, told me that John Steinbeck had driven this very stretch of highway when he was out searching for America in 1960 on a road trip that he would turn into Travels With Charley. I've never read the book and don't know if this section of Highway 10 was, in fact, part of his route. A cursory internet search leads me to believe that the exact route he took is unknown and that it has been left up to Steinbeckophiles to try and deduce it from clues in the text.

Here's a photo of a map of his purported route at the National Steinbeck Center:

That bit of dotted line with turkeys just to the north may very well be the stretch of Highway 10 that runs by my old high school. Someday I will read Travels With Charley and try to solve this mystery once and for all.

The school itself seems to have doubled in size since my time there. I am told this is because the elementary and/or middle schools were thrown into the mix and not because the area has seen any population growth. Plus, there was a new football stadium. At least the giant cardinal still stood atop the main entrance.

Turning onto Highway 93 in Eleva, I drove by the Family Farms offices/factory where, I assume, the very tasty bacon-wrapped chicken breasts that I buy here in Madison are made. I must admit to being quite surprised at finding something from Eleva at my local grocery store when I first spied them in the freezer.

The drive north on 93 is quite scenic. This part of my route is in the driftless area so it has a wonderful topography full of wooded hills overlooking green valleys. I didn't get any photos but have snagged this one from The State Trunk Tour:

It felt odd driving part of the route that I traveled many times in a school bus. Zipping past various intersections, I could recall the bus turning down those roads to tack the winding country lanes in pursuit of the next student. I contemplated going to look for ruins of Hadleyville but the rain put the kibosh on that venture.

Hadleyville was a town about a mile from my family's home in southwestern Eau Claire County. I am not sure when it was abandoned. When I worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society, I discovered a cache of historical aerial photos and found one showing the outlines of foundations of some Hadleyville buildings. Back in the late 1980s, there was a store at the intersection of county roads HH and F where we'd stop for a soda on our bike rides and I believe that was the last remnant of Hadleyville except for the cemetery. That store is, I am told, long gone.

 

Instead I drove through the towns of Cleghorn and Brackett which are due east of where Hadleyville once stood. They are very small, as in no stoplights small. But that area in southwestern Eau Claire County is just so scenic. I simply love driving through it – over hill and dale.

I caught Highway 53 at Brackett which is a sleepy two lane road until you get to Eau Claire, 10 or so miles to the north. On the south side of town you enter a roundabout and voila! – you are suddenly on a four lane freeway. My destination was about 40 miles farther north – the Chippewa Moraine State Natural Area.

When I arrived, the rain has tapered off to a hard drizzle. I stepped inside the interpretive center hoping that the precipitation would stop for my hike. Plus, all of the rain made me need to use the restroom.

It's a pretty neat place with some taxidermied examples of the wildlife in the area.

Other displays gave a brief history of the Native Americans who called the area home as well as the European settlers who have largely displaced them.

Large maps such as this one explained the topography of the area, what a moraine is, and how Mother Nature lovingly sculpted the region into the gem known as Up North.

Eventually I decided it was time to seize the day and hit the trail, rain be damned. 

Walking out, I noticed a stuffed and mounted beaver in the entryway that I had missed earlier in my haste to find the men's room.

Stepping outside, I found that the drizzle had lightened and that the cloud cover had kept things relatively warm. I put on my boots and hit the trail.

********

Bonus photo – alphorns! These local players open the annual International Festival here in Madison with these hand carved Swiss instruments.

 

 

(Listen to this entry's postlude.)

The Corona Diaries Vol 42 (Prelude): Time Stand Still

 

(Onto the diary entry.)

Helsinki Is In Your Mind: Finland Finnish Sahti by Karben4 Brewing

Back in January I read that Madison's Karben4 Brewing was reorganizing their line-up going into 2022 by doing its best Ronald Reagan imitation with many beers going the way of the dodo, er, air traffic controller. Our very own beer baron, Chris Drosner, wrote that Karben4 "began its 10th year by bidding adieu to most of its regular beers that don’t carry a gun-toting, unicorn-riding ninja cat on its label… And its seasonal lineup will mostly be replaced by two new rotating-monthly series of beers…" Brewmaster (and owner) Ryan Koga is quoted as saying, "The whole point is going to be turn and burn. We want to keep it exclusive and fresh."

Yikes!

This seems a shame to me. I was at Karben4's opening back in 2012 and have been enjoying their smoked porter, Night Call, since then. And now they've gone and tossed it to the wayside like a used rubber? Well, that's men for you. Always wanting something younger with whorish displays of tropical fruit flavor, no doubt.

I figured this Karben4 V2.0 would be like going to see Lynyrd Skynyrd. They start playing "Gimme Three Steps" and you realize that there's only 1 guy left who was actually in the band when they recorded that song. But when I go to the brewery's webpage, I find more that is familiar to me than some unicorn-riding ninja cat. Indeed, there are a lot of brews that I recognize at the site that aren't collected under the "Retired Beers" section, including my beloved Night Call. What gives?

Perhaps they've had a change of heart. Or maybe their webmaster hasn't updated the page to reflect the changes.

Sadly, I guess it's goodbye Night Call, hello rotating monthly beer series. One series sounds like it's going to be all fruity tasting IPAs and fruity sours so I am taking a hard pass. Instead, I will take the magical zymurgy tour which features beer styles from around the world – the aptly named World Beer Tour series. The initial stop in January was the home of the eminent poet Robert Burns as well as haggis – Scotland. Did Adam Smith drink wee heavies as he rhapsodized about the Invisible Hand? I don't know but Karben4's take on the style is soooo two months ago. Who cares? Turn and burn, baby!

February saw stop numero kaksi – Finland! – and a sahti. The first thing I noticed when I saw a 4-pack of it at the liquor store was that it didn't have a funkadelic name and instead had the unexciting, although apposite, "Finland" on emblazoned on the label. I mean, Karben4's flagship is named after a Traffic song so why can't this one also get the treatment? How about "Jani Barleycornonen Must Die"?

It's probably been 15 years since I've had a sahti from Finland. It was Kataja Out from a brewery called Lammin Sahti Oy. The short bottle with the red label. I don't know if you can find the stuff here in Madison anymore. But I have had a few American interpretations of the style over the years which were all ales made with rye and flavored with juniper berry. (In its homeland, sahti was traditionally filtered with juniper branches for that piney taste.)

My glass had a big, light tan head in it. And this was firm foam. It barely moved when the mug did. And the stuff had staying power. The beer itself was a lovely amber with just a touch of haziness to it that in no way obstructed my view of some bubbles scattered about inside. I could smell banana when the glass wasn't near my nose. Putting it a bit closer, I smelled some toasty grain and a whole lot of fresh juniper. Juniper is often thought of simply smelling like pine. It is, after all, the ingredient that gives gin its evergreen aroma. But there's more to the spice than the pine provided by the compound called – wait for it - pinene. To my nose, juniper also has fruity and floral elements to it and they are present here as well.

The first sip revealed a nice, firm fizz inside a medium bodied brew. There was a definite malty sweetness that was redolent of honey along with a light rye spice. And a big juniper flavor. Again, not just pine, although that's a major component here, but also a citrus-floral kind of taste that melded really well with the sweetness. On the finish, malt sweetness slowly faded allowing what tasted like a faint herbal hoppiness/piney juniper mix to come through but also really boost the dryness.

Exactly how "authentic" this stuff is is surely a matter of debate. If you have any interest at all in this beer style, I highly recommend reading "The great Finnish sahti expedition" by Norwegian beer historian Lars Marius Garshol. Lots of great information about this style and an account of this "farmhouse ale" actually being brewed in a barn using wood burning boiler.

Whether or not any of the homebrewers that Garshol meets would recognize Karben4's take as being representative of their country's best known beer style, this sahti is excellent. I loved every piney-floral-fruity sip. There's just something particularly wonderful about the malt-juniper pas de deux here. This is a fairly big beer at 7.2% and rather sweet too – both things typical of the style – but the sweetness is smooth and the juniper never lets it become cloying. Marvelous!

Junk food pairing: if you can get a hold of some Finnish snacks, get some Taffel Horseradish potato chips. If not, go with Jays Hot Stuff chips.