In England, the country gents brewed legendary October beers on their estates, often aging them a full year before cracking the cask. At around eight to ten percent alcohol, these beloved beers were the precursors to both pale ale and barley wine.
The Germans of the Rhineland wrote poetry about their harvest beer, erntebier:
Oh, wonderful Erntebier,
You fest of freedom and desire.
Because of your beer tap,
Folk wean babies from the breast!
The beer itself was a brown, slightly strong (1050–1059/12–14°P), fairly highly hopped ale at about 40 IBU, with more than a passing similarity to the strong Sticke variant on Düsseldorfer alt, which happens to be from the same region.
To me, there’s no beer so evocative of fall as an Oktoberfest, with its creamy, malty richness. This beer style was created in 1810 for a royal wedding in Munich, and the tradition continues today as the world’s greatest drinking party, the Oktoberfest. The beer itself is a Bavarian interpretation of the Viennese amber lager that was popular at the time, and typical for Bavarian beer, is a little darker and richer than the beer that provided the inspiration. On its own, it’s pretty fine with turkey.
But we want to create something new, so we’ll be picking and choosing from all of these inspirations. Let’s just call it an abbeyfest.
Pilsener malt plus Vienna should make a perfect foundation. Additional caramelly, toasty notes will be added by melanoidin (aka aromatic or dark Munich) malt, and these will play off similar flavors to be found in the roast turkey. Since this will be a somewhat strong beer, we want to thin the body by the addition of a bit of partially refined cane sugar. Barbados, if you can find it (try www.sugarindia.com), has the most amazing rum-like aroma, but turbinado or demerara will work here. We’ll be using enough hops for a nice balance, but will refrain from too much hop character that might overwhelm the subtle flavors of turkey and gravy. A delicate dosing of spice provides a further connection to the meal.
If the plain Jane recipe won’t do it for you, there are always variations to try. This recipe would be a perfect base for a pumpkin beer—just add a couple of big cans of pumpkin during the mash, plus a teaspoon of powdered ginger and a quarter teaspoon each of cinnamon, and nutmeg at the end of the boil. You may decide you want to drink your cranberry relish in the form of beer, and this can be accomplished by adding two to four 12-ounce. cans of frozen concentrated cranberry juice (let it warm up first) to the beer at the end of primary fermentation.
Whatever the variation, do the job right and you’ll have a beer you can really get your fork into. And you might even get grandma to put down her Riesling.
